This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
In Wikipedia, one of the most common forms of violating the NPOV policy is to selectively cite some information that supports one view whilst suppressing or trivializing other information that opposes it, and describing sources in a way that gives an undue positive or negative impression of their value. In this manner, one can completely misrepresent the range of views on a subject whilst still complying with Wikipedia:Verifiability.
The main ways that editors can accidentally or deliberately misrepresent a subject are:
In summary, credible sources often cover many points of view, and even verified credible sources can be cited in a non-neutral way and used to mislead a reader. So verifiability and proper citation are necessary but not sufficient to ensure NPOV. It is important that information must be not only verifiable and cited, but that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner. This is because neutrality requires much more than simply citing verifiable sources -- it requires using credible sources to accurately represent a broad range of views and to support a balanced overview.
FT2 21:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
OK, I copy it once more with some changes. Next you may modify the below text just as if it's on the main page, that saves space and anyway it's now really a matter of details. A number of little changes that I made (such as sometimes "opinion" where you had "view") is a matter of taste, and I won't insist if you disagree and change it back; just make sure about grammar, some sentences were logically erroneous.
About the Intro sentence: I put "deleting" instead of "suppressed" because that describes together with "trivializing" both kinds of "suppression"; I deleted "and describing sources in a way that gives an undue positive or negative impression of their value" because that made the intro sentence unnecessary long and inconsistent (1 main point), while it is mostly covered by one of the following examples anyway. BTW, I don't know what a "detractor" is, and more readers may have that problem; and I don't understand the function of the square brackets around "[or: biased information selection]".
Also, do you really intend to try to give examples for everything? That's nearly impossble, so why even suggest that?
As you put "Minimizing credible sources that oppose one's own belief, whilst including lower quality sources that make one's own belief look good by comparison" under "variable standards", evidently you understood the original phrasing differently from the way I understood it! The way you phrased it more or less doubled with another example in selective presentation. I now reinserted the strawman tactics that IMO were originally meant, and included the link. As a result, I also rearranged the examples a bit.
Two points that I left, but propose to change:
- I wonder if the phrase "Note that science, religion (or any other system of knowledge), when used to suppress other views rather than to add extra insight into the subject of the article, is also POV suppression", isn't superfluous: anything that is used to suppress POV is POV suppression - right?
- Your last two concluding sentences state more or less the same! I suggest that instead you cut that to one concluding sentence.
Best regards, Harald88 12:01, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
>>>> DRAFT 3 BEGINS <<<<
In Wikipedia, one of the most common forms of violating the NPOV policy is to selectively cite some information that supports one view whilst deleting or trivializing other information that opposes it. In this manner, one can completely misrepresent or conceal the full range of views on a subject whilst still complying with Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Some examples of how editors can accidentally or deliberately misrepresent a subject:
Note that science, religion (or any other system of knowledge), when used to emasculate other views rather than to add extra insight into the subject of the article, is also POV suppression.
In summary, credible sources often cover many points of view, and even recognized credible sources can be cited in a non-neutral way. So verifiability and proper citation 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 its best ability. This is because neutrality requires much more than simply citing verifiable sources or proving a point -- it requires using credible sources to accurately represent a broad range of views and a balanced overview.
>>>> DRAFT 3 ENDS <<<<
OK, it's now one week later -- I guess that it's now up for others to comment on what we came up with here above! Harald88 23:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I've done a draft for discussion, it's at:
User:FT2/SUPPRESS. It took some time because I've also been thinking about NPOV policy as a whole, seeing as other sections of the NPOV policy page have been discussed below, as well. Can you let me know if you think our efforts are getting somewhere good? Or at least good enough to present as a possible policy for discussion by others?
FT2 17:27, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that some articles are more debate than facts on what the topic really is. There is so much debate within the article that makes it unnecessarily long. I'm of the mind set that an article should tell what something is, not what it is, what it isn't, what people think about it, criticisms, et al. Certainly, some articles should fully feature criticisms, like event articles, but articles about an idea (escatology, theory, et al) should (in my most humble opinion) simply state what that opinion is. As most of these ideas are really just an opinion, or a point of view, to begin with. When there is an article about one's point of view, shouldn't that article simply show that point of view? The countering points of view should have their own articles (and most do anyway), and they can certainly be linked to each other. Just a thought glocks out —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steven Kippel ( talk • contribs) 14:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Can someone investigate this and let me know if it makes sense? [1] In my interpretation, the top and middle sections of the Talk:race and intelligence page will show the article is fundamentally disputed (the recently added bottom discussions on the talk page seem [intentially?] tangential to me, they certainly aren't fundamental criticisms). The reasons the article is disputed include: apparent utilization of false and misleading dichotomies, use of the potentially loaded word "score" instead of "results", framing the issue in racial terms apparently to inducing racism and IQ based classism in others, and unscientific methodologies. A group of editors seem rather intent on excluding any fundamental criticism from the race and intelligence article. zen master T 02:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Your trouble seems to be a matter of content dispute. I would suggest that you'd have more success sorting this out by listing this article at Requests for comment and generally using the dispute-resolution resources of Wikipedia, than by soliciting help from the few people active here. — Saxifrage | ☎ 23:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
An admin, David Gerard, used his rollback privs to revert the addition of {totallydisputed} and then {npov} to the race and intelligence article after he had previously reverted my attempt at making the intro NPOV. So my question is: shouldn't the criteria for removing the {npov} template be whether an in good faith neutrality dispute exists or not? Isn't that basically the rule of thumb for {npov}? The talk page will show that the article is fundamentally disputed on numerous points. Also, shouldn't an admin be required to explain his rationale for using his rollback privs to censor the existence of controversy? David Gerard has repeatedly and intentionally mischaracterized my edits as "disruptive" when I was only trying to follow NPOV policy. Wasn't NPOV designed to protect the minority or critical view? Before I seek an RFC on David Gerard (or some other action) I thought I'd try to clarify the mechanics of NPOV policy here first. zen master T 03:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I have killed off the redirect for Neutral point of view, which pointed to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. NPOV should really get it's own article, obviously written using our existing site policies. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm having trouble understanding, or finding information clarifying, a NPOV policy. It seems to me that NPOV applies well to general articles, but is unclear on articles which describe as specific point of view.
For example. Cosmology is the study of the origins of the Universe; most people are familiar with the Big Bang theory (or Big Bang cosmology). People are less familiar with Plasma Cosmology, which is considered by relatively few scientists, and considered quite contentious. But I would expect THREE articles:
It seems to me that:
-- Iantresman 13:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
It's important also that each view is presented in its strongest light, rather than minimized. So for example, even if we discuss "flat earth", we present flat earth as best a flat earth person would (subject to appropriate space use), and round earth as best its proponents would (subject to appropriate space use. Then the facts will speak for themselves. FT2 16:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I have a problem with being careful not to endorse it. I don't understand what it means in practice. Just as an exmaple, does it means that every sentence should start with something like "Proponent of view X, says ...". I guess that it doesn't mean that, but what does it mean? -- Lumiere 05:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
As bits and pieces have been added, the policy page as a whole has become rambling and awkward.
Just to put something out there, a very rough proposal:
Fool 19:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Update: I've done a draft for discussion, it's at:
User:FT2/NPOV. It took some time because I've also been thinking about POV suppression too (see above) as well as an arbcom matter that's taken up time. It's the 1st time I've tried to clean up and restructure an entire major policy page. I've done the best I know how, to try and describe NPOV policy and its operation helpfully, I'm hoping others won't flame the attempt too badly, because I do agree with those who said above that WP:NPOV has got a bit out of hand or unfocussed. What do you think of it overall, as one possible approach to cleaning up the NPOV policy page? The rough line I have taken is:
I have tried to keep it clean as a policy statement that explains and directs, for both new users who are learning about wikipedia, as well as making sure it is clear and concise about POV dispute issues, rather than a more loose "discussion" format. I have also made sure there are clear but brief illustrative examples of whats okay and whats not in each section, and brief explanation why.
FT2 18:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
This seems an important principle for WP:NPOV. It explains exactly what we are doing when people argue over what views to present and whether a article under or over representing a viewpoint:
Is something like this in WP:NPOV? Should it be? It seems at one short stroke to explain exactly what wikipedia is trying to achieve on articles where there are hotly debated different points of view, the difference between stating and advocating, and why even views that are not preferred by some get their proponents view included. FT2 16:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I have seen many articles on Wikipedia that stick strictly to the official story as spilled out by government-controlled media, and will not allow popular alternative theories to find their place in the article (the word conspiracy theory is not accurate, unless there is no actual conspiracy involved. When the official story is talking about something totally unbelievable, I think it is poor form to suggest that the alternative, far more believable theory is a conspiracy). So why is this? Most encyclopaedias will list popular conspiracy theories, or alternatives, that do not agree with the official version of events.
For example, when I first started editing the Peter Falconio disappearance article, I saw something which was titled "Conspiracy theories" and suggested that the notion that Joanne Lees killed her boyfriend was a conspiracy! How is that a conspiracy? It could very easily be true, and was widely believed to be true until 2 years ago as the most popular explanation for what had happened in the case (until they found Bradley John Murdoch). On top of that, that article had listed that the judge had ordered the jury to dismiss the conspiracy theories and pay them no attention. They were not conspiracy theories. They were defence theories as to what may have alternatively happened. They *HAVE* to be considered by the jury when making their decision.
This is a case in point in a trial in progress where the neutral point of view policy was not adhered to by sticking to the official story. The official story, of course, was that Bradley John Murdoch killed Peter Falconio as a random attack because he wanted to rape Joanne Lees, who he didn't know. That he had sat waiting in ambush by the side of the road for 2 hours, on a stretch of the road where on average 5 cars go past per day, in perhaps the most remote area of the country, and then hoped for a car to come, and to stop, and then hope that there was a woman on board to rape her. And that he did this for a laugh, then allowed her to escape, yet in 5 hours of searching for her, failing to fire a shot, had no footprints in the area, and did not use his car to run her over, and she survived - yet in the same 5 hours was somehow unable to get her ties off, which she could have taken off when by herself in about 5 minutes.
Now, in that case, the official story is absolute nonsense. Since the trial began, the official story has been ridiculed in 98% of newspapers and reports that have been following the trial. And yet, it was pushed as the official story, and any alternative was suggested on Wikipedia as a conspiracy theory, with suggestions that we should ignore it as nonsense!
In completed trials, there are many examples where the official story is nonsense. The backpacker murders was a case where 32 people went missing yet only 8 bodies were found, each with a different MO, as if they were each killed by different people - with no similarity between any two of them. Police were looking for 8 killers. Yet we ended up nicely wrapping it all up saying that Ivan Milat did it and that he was a serial killer and he only killed 8 people and the other 24 had nothing to do with him. What absolute nonsense! To fail to put in to an article like that about the facts of the different MOs, the other suspects, and the alternative (far more believable) theories doesn't conform to the neutral point of view, in my opinion.
This kind of thing seems to be prolific in wikipedia, yet in most published encyclopaedias, things like this would not exist. Most published encyclopaedias would include all alternative theories, at least all notable alternative theories. If a theory is only pushed by 1 person, they might not include it. But if it is pushed by 98% of the population, I dare say that they would.
Why is Wikipedia failing to conform to NPOV with these kinds of cases? Zordrac 05:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Can we propagate the term "alternative theories" rather than "conspiracy theories" in wikipedia as a neutral term for such situations?
I think that "alternate theories" is a much more neutral sounding term. "Conspiracy theories" implies that its a fanciful lie that is not believable but rational people. So unless there is an actual conspiracy, then I think that something like "alternative theories" should be used. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 02:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
How can an article like "Criticism of christianity" have a neutral point of view?
The article is suppose to be about arguements put forth by critics attacking the teaching of christianity. Surely such arguements must bias against christianity? Surely such arguement are the point of view of the critic(s).
For example: An arguement that says the teachings of Christianity are anti-homosexual in nature. Is this a neutral point of view? Ohanian 05:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
There are plenty of non-neutral examples like that in the current version of the actual article, some of which editors have attempted to obscure with weasel terms.
And, as per Wikipedia:Content forking, the fundamental problem with Criticism of Christianity (and Criticism of Islam, Criticism of Mormonism, Criticisms of communism, and Criticism of Hinduism) may be that its overall scope is non-neutral, since it implies that all of the discussion of the subject is negative. However, the answer is not to turn the article into a back-and-forth pro and con list. Pro and con lists are based upon the erroneous notion that neutrality equates to exact balance, and are fragmentary, simplistic, false representations, and original research magnets. The answer is to refactor the scope of the article to be either about all discussion of the subject, not just the negative, or to be about specific fields of discussion of the subject, including all discussion within the field. See how Criticism of Objectivism is not separate from Objectivist philosophy. Uncle G 13:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The article title is itself perhaps not neutral. Try considering a rename to something like "Non-christians views of Christianity" or "Critical views of Christianity" and making it more general. Who says what, and how do involved parties such as Christians, critical scholars, skeptics, historians, see those same issues. Thats how you make it neutral.
FT2 14:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
It has been suggested in a pending Arbcom case that we should discuss the issue of "nested criticisms" in relation to the NPOV policy. A nested criticism is when a critic of a critic is added to an article's criticisms section. For example, if the criticisms section of an article about Congressman Smith read "The American Values Coalition says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful" it would be an inappropriate nested criticism to add "The American Values Coalition, which political commentator Robert Jones calls a "cabal of scoundrels," says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful." This sort of thing often becomes a slippery slope in articles where it happens, and pretty soon you get critics of critics of critics ala: "The American Values Coalition, which the political commentator Robert Jones, who is accused of supporting fascism, calls a "cabal of scoundrels," says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful." This sort of criticism stacking is clearly detrimental to article content and distracts away from the article's main focus. While it might be appropriate to add "political commentator Robert Jones'" critique of the "American Values Coalition" in an article about them, or charges made by Jones' critics in an article about him, it would be inappropriate and POV to stack these criticisms every single time one of them is used as a source in another article. Clear exceptions to this type of thing may be when the subject of the original criticism responded to his critics. For example you could say "The American Values Coalition says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful. Congressman Smith responded to the charge by stating "the American Values Coalition supports extremist positions, and this is one of them."" But throwing in nested criticisms from off-topic sources is inappropriate and I propose NPOV be changed to clarify this. Rangerdude 22:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. If you want to include a group that is funded by defense contractors, that belongs on that group's article and the appropriate way to make it accessible from the Smith article is by wikiliking to that group. Otherwise you're way off topic from the original article. Rangerdude 06:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
In Wikipedia, one of the most common forms of violating the NPOV policy is to selectively cite some information that supports one view whilst suppressing or trivializing other information that opposes it, and describing sources in a way that gives an undue positive or negative impression of their value. In this manner, one can completely misrepresent the range of views on a subject whilst still complying with Wikipedia:Verifiability.
The main ways that editors can accidentally or deliberately misrepresent a subject are:
In summary, credible sources often cover many points of view, and even verified credible sources can be cited in a non-neutral way and used to mislead a reader. So verifiability and proper citation are necessary but not sufficient to ensure NPOV. It is important that information must be not only verifiable and cited, but that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner. This is because neutrality requires much more than simply citing verifiable sources -- it requires using credible sources to accurately represent a broad range of views and to support a balanced overview.
FT2 21:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
OK, I copy it once more with some changes. Next you may modify the below text just as if it's on the main page, that saves space and anyway it's now really a matter of details. A number of little changes that I made (such as sometimes "opinion" where you had "view") is a matter of taste, and I won't insist if you disagree and change it back; just make sure about grammar, some sentences were logically erroneous.
About the Intro sentence: I put "deleting" instead of "suppressed" because that describes together with "trivializing" both kinds of "suppression"; I deleted "and describing sources in a way that gives an undue positive or negative impression of their value" because that made the intro sentence unnecessary long and inconsistent (1 main point), while it is mostly covered by one of the following examples anyway. BTW, I don't know what a "detractor" is, and more readers may have that problem; and I don't understand the function of the square brackets around "[or: biased information selection]".
Also, do you really intend to try to give examples for everything? That's nearly impossble, so why even suggest that?
As you put "Minimizing credible sources that oppose one's own belief, whilst including lower quality sources that make one's own belief look good by comparison" under "variable standards", evidently you understood the original phrasing differently from the way I understood it! The way you phrased it more or less doubled with another example in selective presentation. I now reinserted the strawman tactics that IMO were originally meant, and included the link. As a result, I also rearranged the examples a bit.
Two points that I left, but propose to change:
- I wonder if the phrase "Note that science, religion (or any other system of knowledge), when used to suppress other views rather than to add extra insight into the subject of the article, is also POV suppression", isn't superfluous: anything that is used to suppress POV is POV suppression - right?
- Your last two concluding sentences state more or less the same! I suggest that instead you cut that to one concluding sentence.
Best regards, Harald88 12:01, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
>>>> DRAFT 3 BEGINS <<<<
In Wikipedia, one of the most common forms of violating the NPOV policy is to selectively cite some information that supports one view whilst deleting or trivializing other information that opposes it. In this manner, one can completely misrepresent or conceal the full range of views on a subject whilst still complying with Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Some examples of how editors can accidentally or deliberately misrepresent a subject:
Note that science, religion (or any other system of knowledge), when used to emasculate other views rather than to add extra insight into the subject of the article, is also POV suppression.
In summary, credible sources often cover many points of view, and even recognized credible sources can be cited in a non-neutral way. So verifiability and proper citation 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 its best ability. This is because neutrality requires much more than simply citing verifiable sources or proving a point -- it requires using credible sources to accurately represent a broad range of views and a balanced overview.
>>>> DRAFT 3 ENDS <<<<
OK, it's now one week later -- I guess that it's now up for others to comment on what we came up with here above! Harald88 23:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
I've done a draft for discussion, it's at:
User:FT2/SUPPRESS. It took some time because I've also been thinking about NPOV policy as a whole, seeing as other sections of the NPOV policy page have been discussed below, as well. Can you let me know if you think our efforts are getting somewhere good? Or at least good enough to present as a possible policy for discussion by others?
FT2 17:27, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that some articles are more debate than facts on what the topic really is. There is so much debate within the article that makes it unnecessarily long. I'm of the mind set that an article should tell what something is, not what it is, what it isn't, what people think about it, criticisms, et al. Certainly, some articles should fully feature criticisms, like event articles, but articles about an idea (escatology, theory, et al) should (in my most humble opinion) simply state what that opinion is. As most of these ideas are really just an opinion, or a point of view, to begin with. When there is an article about one's point of view, shouldn't that article simply show that point of view? The countering points of view should have their own articles (and most do anyway), and they can certainly be linked to each other. Just a thought glocks out —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steven Kippel ( talk • contribs) 14:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Can someone investigate this and let me know if it makes sense? [1] In my interpretation, the top and middle sections of the Talk:race and intelligence page will show the article is fundamentally disputed (the recently added bottom discussions on the talk page seem [intentially?] tangential to me, they certainly aren't fundamental criticisms). The reasons the article is disputed include: apparent utilization of false and misleading dichotomies, use of the potentially loaded word "score" instead of "results", framing the issue in racial terms apparently to inducing racism and IQ based classism in others, and unscientific methodologies. A group of editors seem rather intent on excluding any fundamental criticism from the race and intelligence article. zen master T 02:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Your trouble seems to be a matter of content dispute. I would suggest that you'd have more success sorting this out by listing this article at Requests for comment and generally using the dispute-resolution resources of Wikipedia, than by soliciting help from the few people active here. — Saxifrage | ☎ 23:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
An admin, David Gerard, used his rollback privs to revert the addition of {totallydisputed} and then {npov} to the race and intelligence article after he had previously reverted my attempt at making the intro NPOV. So my question is: shouldn't the criteria for removing the {npov} template be whether an in good faith neutrality dispute exists or not? Isn't that basically the rule of thumb for {npov}? The talk page will show that the article is fundamentally disputed on numerous points. Also, shouldn't an admin be required to explain his rationale for using his rollback privs to censor the existence of controversy? David Gerard has repeatedly and intentionally mischaracterized my edits as "disruptive" when I was only trying to follow NPOV policy. Wasn't NPOV designed to protect the minority or critical view? Before I seek an RFC on David Gerard (or some other action) I thought I'd try to clarify the mechanics of NPOV policy here first. zen master T 03:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I have killed off the redirect for Neutral point of view, which pointed to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. NPOV should really get it's own article, obviously written using our existing site policies. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm having trouble understanding, or finding information clarifying, a NPOV policy. It seems to me that NPOV applies well to general articles, but is unclear on articles which describe as specific point of view.
For example. Cosmology is the study of the origins of the Universe; most people are familiar with the Big Bang theory (or Big Bang cosmology). People are less familiar with Plasma Cosmology, which is considered by relatively few scientists, and considered quite contentious. But I would expect THREE articles:
It seems to me that:
-- Iantresman 13:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
It's important also that each view is presented in its strongest light, rather than minimized. So for example, even if we discuss "flat earth", we present flat earth as best a flat earth person would (subject to appropriate space use), and round earth as best its proponents would (subject to appropriate space use. Then the facts will speak for themselves. FT2 16:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I have a problem with being careful not to endorse it. I don't understand what it means in practice. Just as an exmaple, does it means that every sentence should start with something like "Proponent of view X, says ...". I guess that it doesn't mean that, but what does it mean? -- Lumiere 05:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
As bits and pieces have been added, the policy page as a whole has become rambling and awkward.
Just to put something out there, a very rough proposal:
Fool 19:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Update: I've done a draft for discussion, it's at:
User:FT2/NPOV. It took some time because I've also been thinking about POV suppression too (see above) as well as an arbcom matter that's taken up time. It's the 1st time I've tried to clean up and restructure an entire major policy page. I've done the best I know how, to try and describe NPOV policy and its operation helpfully, I'm hoping others won't flame the attempt too badly, because I do agree with those who said above that WP:NPOV has got a bit out of hand or unfocussed. What do you think of it overall, as one possible approach to cleaning up the NPOV policy page? The rough line I have taken is:
I have tried to keep it clean as a policy statement that explains and directs, for both new users who are learning about wikipedia, as well as making sure it is clear and concise about POV dispute issues, rather than a more loose "discussion" format. I have also made sure there are clear but brief illustrative examples of whats okay and whats not in each section, and brief explanation why.
FT2 18:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
This seems an important principle for WP:NPOV. It explains exactly what we are doing when people argue over what views to present and whether a article under or over representing a viewpoint:
Is something like this in WP:NPOV? Should it be? It seems at one short stroke to explain exactly what wikipedia is trying to achieve on articles where there are hotly debated different points of view, the difference between stating and advocating, and why even views that are not preferred by some get their proponents view included. FT2 16:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I have seen many articles on Wikipedia that stick strictly to the official story as spilled out by government-controlled media, and will not allow popular alternative theories to find their place in the article (the word conspiracy theory is not accurate, unless there is no actual conspiracy involved. When the official story is talking about something totally unbelievable, I think it is poor form to suggest that the alternative, far more believable theory is a conspiracy). So why is this? Most encyclopaedias will list popular conspiracy theories, or alternatives, that do not agree with the official version of events.
For example, when I first started editing the Peter Falconio disappearance article, I saw something which was titled "Conspiracy theories" and suggested that the notion that Joanne Lees killed her boyfriend was a conspiracy! How is that a conspiracy? It could very easily be true, and was widely believed to be true until 2 years ago as the most popular explanation for what had happened in the case (until they found Bradley John Murdoch). On top of that, that article had listed that the judge had ordered the jury to dismiss the conspiracy theories and pay them no attention. They were not conspiracy theories. They were defence theories as to what may have alternatively happened. They *HAVE* to be considered by the jury when making their decision.
This is a case in point in a trial in progress where the neutral point of view policy was not adhered to by sticking to the official story. The official story, of course, was that Bradley John Murdoch killed Peter Falconio as a random attack because he wanted to rape Joanne Lees, who he didn't know. That he had sat waiting in ambush by the side of the road for 2 hours, on a stretch of the road where on average 5 cars go past per day, in perhaps the most remote area of the country, and then hoped for a car to come, and to stop, and then hope that there was a woman on board to rape her. And that he did this for a laugh, then allowed her to escape, yet in 5 hours of searching for her, failing to fire a shot, had no footprints in the area, and did not use his car to run her over, and she survived - yet in the same 5 hours was somehow unable to get her ties off, which she could have taken off when by herself in about 5 minutes.
Now, in that case, the official story is absolute nonsense. Since the trial began, the official story has been ridiculed in 98% of newspapers and reports that have been following the trial. And yet, it was pushed as the official story, and any alternative was suggested on Wikipedia as a conspiracy theory, with suggestions that we should ignore it as nonsense!
In completed trials, there are many examples where the official story is nonsense. The backpacker murders was a case where 32 people went missing yet only 8 bodies were found, each with a different MO, as if they were each killed by different people - with no similarity between any two of them. Police were looking for 8 killers. Yet we ended up nicely wrapping it all up saying that Ivan Milat did it and that he was a serial killer and he only killed 8 people and the other 24 had nothing to do with him. What absolute nonsense! To fail to put in to an article like that about the facts of the different MOs, the other suspects, and the alternative (far more believable) theories doesn't conform to the neutral point of view, in my opinion.
This kind of thing seems to be prolific in wikipedia, yet in most published encyclopaedias, things like this would not exist. Most published encyclopaedias would include all alternative theories, at least all notable alternative theories. If a theory is only pushed by 1 person, they might not include it. But if it is pushed by 98% of the population, I dare say that they would.
Why is Wikipedia failing to conform to NPOV with these kinds of cases? Zordrac 05:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Can we propagate the term "alternative theories" rather than "conspiracy theories" in wikipedia as a neutral term for such situations?
I think that "alternate theories" is a much more neutral sounding term. "Conspiracy theories" implies that its a fanciful lie that is not believable but rational people. So unless there is an actual conspiracy, then I think that something like "alternative theories" should be used. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 02:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
How can an article like "Criticism of christianity" have a neutral point of view?
The article is suppose to be about arguements put forth by critics attacking the teaching of christianity. Surely such arguements must bias against christianity? Surely such arguement are the point of view of the critic(s).
For example: An arguement that says the teachings of Christianity are anti-homosexual in nature. Is this a neutral point of view? Ohanian 05:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
There are plenty of non-neutral examples like that in the current version of the actual article, some of which editors have attempted to obscure with weasel terms.
And, as per Wikipedia:Content forking, the fundamental problem with Criticism of Christianity (and Criticism of Islam, Criticism of Mormonism, Criticisms of communism, and Criticism of Hinduism) may be that its overall scope is non-neutral, since it implies that all of the discussion of the subject is negative. However, the answer is not to turn the article into a back-and-forth pro and con list. Pro and con lists are based upon the erroneous notion that neutrality equates to exact balance, and are fragmentary, simplistic, false representations, and original research magnets. The answer is to refactor the scope of the article to be either about all discussion of the subject, not just the negative, or to be about specific fields of discussion of the subject, including all discussion within the field. See how Criticism of Objectivism is not separate from Objectivist philosophy. Uncle G 13:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The article title is itself perhaps not neutral. Try considering a rename to something like "Non-christians views of Christianity" or "Critical views of Christianity" and making it more general. Who says what, and how do involved parties such as Christians, critical scholars, skeptics, historians, see those same issues. Thats how you make it neutral.
FT2 14:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
It has been suggested in a pending Arbcom case that we should discuss the issue of "nested criticisms" in relation to the NPOV policy. A nested criticism is when a critic of a critic is added to an article's criticisms section. For example, if the criticisms section of an article about Congressman Smith read "The American Values Coalition says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful" it would be an inappropriate nested criticism to add "The American Values Coalition, which political commentator Robert Jones calls a "cabal of scoundrels," says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful." This sort of thing often becomes a slippery slope in articles where it happens, and pretty soon you get critics of critics of critics ala: "The American Values Coalition, which the political commentator Robert Jones, who is accused of supporting fascism, calls a "cabal of scoundrels," says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful." This sort of criticism stacking is clearly detrimental to article content and distracts away from the article's main focus. While it might be appropriate to add "political commentator Robert Jones'" critique of the "American Values Coalition" in an article about them, or charges made by Jones' critics in an article about him, it would be inappropriate and POV to stack these criticisms every single time one of them is used as a source in another article. Clear exceptions to this type of thing may be when the subject of the original criticism responded to his critics. For example you could say "The American Values Coalition says Congressman Smith's bill to increase funding for zoos is wasteful. Congressman Smith responded to the charge by stating "the American Values Coalition supports extremist positions, and this is one of them."" But throwing in nested criticisms from off-topic sources is inappropriate and I propose NPOV be changed to clarify this. Rangerdude 22:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. If you want to include a group that is funded by defense contractors, that belongs on that group's article and the appropriate way to make it accessible from the Smith article is by wikiliking to that group. Otherwise you're way off topic from the original article. Rangerdude 06:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)