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The inclusion of "heteronormativity" into the criteria for NPOV itself should be looked at because the term itself is political, as it is associated with Neo-Marxist Critical Theory. Maintaining it undermines any sense of neutrality. Homosexuality is a controversial issue that is entirely governed by subjective variables, and including a pro-homosexual slant as one of the rule violates any notion of neutrality. [User:Pravknight]-- Pravknight 03:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest doing just that, mandating a neutral voice in all articles because Wikipedia is taken as an authority by millions who will read what is written here as "fact." Lack of neutrality makes the NPOV rule meaningless.
I edited the GID article because I found it was full of terms and concepts that I would probably find in a GLAAD press release. Terminology such as transgender people isn't just bad grammar as far as I am concerned, it's political language. If an authority on Gender Identity Disorder uses it in a quote, that's one thing, but a as standalone choice of words it's problematic.
In the newspaper business we prohibit the use of such language unless it is in quotation marks. I think it is inapproriate to permit words that editorialize unless they are in quotations.
Considering that by Jimbo Wales' own admission people who contribute here are slightly "more liberal" [1] than most those whose political and religious values are more conservative might find some of the presentations slanted to the Left. Consequently, the NPOV rule needs to mean neither conservative nor liberal buzzwords belong unless they are in quotes.
Terms such as religious fundamentalist shoud be banned unless they refer to a group that describes themselves as such. We wouldn't use the term secular fundamentalist in an article about about religious criticisms of secularism now would we?
I am a news reporter, and I am forced to keep my peace about my political views every day. I just don't want my beliefs slimed because of word choices anymore than you would.
I think we need to develop a style manual akin to the AP Style guide if one doesn't already exist; one that contains language acceptable to both right and left readership. The NPOV rule needs to mean neutrality.
User:Pravknight-- Pravknight 00:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
When we are dealing with scholars whose works are open to debate, shouldn't we use attributives such as John Doe claims that x is evidence of y. I think giving more credibility to one side over the other undermines Wikipedia's credibility. Simply because Anglophones in Canada, Australia or Great Britain tend to be more socialist/liberal doesn't mean that Wikipedia should follow suit.
My journalistic training has taught me the importance of being just as fair to people whose views I despise in my writing as to those who I agree with. I've staked my journalistic reputation on that. For example, while I wrote for CNSNews.com, I was never once cited by ConWebWatch for anything I wrote, and I developed a close, actually friendly working relationship with Rob Boston of Americans United For the Separation of Church and State. The same was true while I worked for the former Northern Virginia Journal where I had a closer relationship with Congressman Jim Moran, a political polar opposite to myself, than I had with many Republicans.
The entire NPOV rule should be revamped to eschew both ideological slanting and linguistic slanting. The Left-oriented articles on Wikipedia, from my years of lurking on this Web site, almost never seem to get flagged for POV violations when I say many of them should. Otherwise, the NPOV rule should get junked and Wikipedia should openly declare its ideological affiliation.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.145.70.147 ( talk • contribs)
Does the following constitute NPOV language:
"The official approval of satanism and witchcraft by the Army is a direct assault on the Christian faith that generations of American soldiers have fought and died for," Paul Weyrich added. "If the Army wants witches and satanists in its ranks, then it can do it without Christians in those ranks. It's time for the Christians in this country to put a stop to this kind of nonsense. A Christian recruiting strike will compel the Army to think seriously about what it is doing."[3]
According to TheocracyWatch and the Anti-Defamation League both Weyrich and his Free Congress Foundation are both closely associated with Dominionism.[4][5] TheocracyWatch lists both as leading examples of "dominionism in action," citing "a manifesto from Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation," The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement[6], "illuminates the tactics of the dominionist movement."[4] TheocracyWatch, which calls it "Paul Weyrich's Training Manual," and others consider this manifesto a virtual playbook for how the theocratic right in American politics can get and keep power.[7] The Anti-Defamation League identifies Weyrich and the Free Congress Foundation as part of an alliance of more than 50 of the most prominent conservative Christian leaders and organizations which threaten the separation of church and state. [5] Weyrich has rejected allegations that he advocates theocracy saying, "This statement is breathtaking in its bigotry"[8] and dismisses the claim that the Christian right wishes to transform America into a theocracy.[9] Katherine Yurica has written that Weyrich guided Eric Heubeck in writing The Integration of Theory and Practice, the Free Congress Foundation’s strategic plan published in 2001 by the foundation,[10] which she says calls for the use of deception, misinformation and divisiveness to allow conservative evangelical Christian Republicans to gain and keep control of seats of power in the government of the United States."
I am looking for input as to whether this passage amounts to POV pushing because I already looked at the site and found that the supporting articles are poorly cited and biased. Dominionism is never adequately defined, and all I want to know is if revisions need to be made to give it a more neutral tone of voice. For one, Weyrich's a Melkite Catholic and a self-described Christian Democrat. Does the underlying article qualify as a primary source of credibility? [3]-- 146.145.70.200 00:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
This might have been brought up before and if it has, please provide a link so I can read up on it.
NPOV does not apply when talking abouts facts, such as the moon orbits the earth. However, a scientfic theory is not a fact (it is simply supported by facts via reasonable deductions and inductions). And the nature of science dictates that all theories will have some opposition, regardless of how well established. Now in the case of the theory of gravity, does NPOV apply. How does somebody reply to a challange that says that "The moon orbits the earth due to the force of gravity" is a scientific theory and should therefore not contain POV (rewrite the sentance to "Most scientists believe that the moon orbits the earth due to the force of gravity").
I frequent a lot of scientfic topics (especially biology) and this challange is brought up often. It would be great if the resolution to this problem could be posted on the main page to allow for easy referencing.-- Roland Deschain 13:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Just for fun... gravity isn't a force in General Relativity so the sentence is wrong, anyway :-). Though if by "most scientists" you include all scientists, not just gravity theorists, it probably goes back to being true :-) William M. Connolley 17:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Jossi? Bensaccount 02:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
JA: If you don't really care what it says, you could have just said so in the first place. The part about "not a rigid rule" refers to the sentence about double and single quote marks.
Though not a rigid rule, we use the "double quotes" for most quotations — they are easier to read on the screen — and use 'single quotes' for nesting quotations, that is, "quotations 'within' quotations".
JA: The discussion about punctuation marks in and out of quotes reflects what has become the newer standard since about the late 60's, partly on account of computer searching requirements. Jon Awbrey 07:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I have not delt with images much. An image has recently appeared whose summary grants Wikipedia the use of it. However, the summary has a condition attached to it. The condition is stated, "critics of the Church of Scientology are free to use this image". On the face of it, NPOV clearly states that Wikipedia is not a critic of any institution, nor any individual. Quite the opposite, we try in every way to present dry, encyclopedic information from a neutral point of view. For Wikipedia to use an image with the condition attached that Wikipedia can use the image so long as Wikipedia appear (in the grantor's eyes) as a critic, seems to me contrary to Wikipedia's stated purpose. Is there a policy, guideline, or page which addresses this sort of issue? Terryeo 19:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, after ChrisO's change of the copyright problem tag for that image, it is now listed here: Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images#August 11. As I suggested at Image_talk:Superpowerbldg.jpg#Actual discussion about the image: if a Wikipedian would go out to take a picture of the building, and then uploads it to Wikipedia under GFDL that would be the smoothest solution of the issue. -- Francis Schonken 08:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Systematic conflicts of intesest as in autobiographies and paid editing can threaten NPOV. Please see Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest created by User:Eloquence 10 August 2006 in this regard. WAS 4.250 21:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I feel that WP is limmeted by the NPOV policy. If there were more controversial things on WP more people would be drawn here to help the page(s) grow. Ouijalover 22:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC) P.S. Please respond
How do I handle a situation with an editor who tags articles as POV without giving any reasoning for the tag, or anything that they suggest needs to be done or changed in the article to make it NPOV? Is there a burden on the editor placing the tag to explain the reasoning, and what needs to be done to correct it? If the editor doesn't explain after a certain period of time, can the tag be removed ? Sandy 00:08, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi.
What does this "undue weight" stuff have to do with? You say that "tiny minority" views should perhaps "not be represented at all". Wait a minute.. what if people want to find information on these views? Does this means that articles specifically devoted to them are inherently "biased"?! That doesn't feel right to me. 67.138.199.173 20:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the anon. This undue weight theory doesn't work. Who's to decide if a viewpoint is to small to discuss? Grand Slam 7 17:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
This statement seems a little out of place in the lead of the policy. Since WP:V and WP:NOR have no such language, it may mislead the reader into thinking that WP:NPOV overides the other two. When in actualy, WP:NPOV is 'weaker' than WP:V since a point of view from a verifiable source is not the same as a point of view from an unverifiable one.
Maybe it should be moved somewhere else in the policy? -- Barberio 12:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
JA: It's clear as it stands. Don't Mess with the Text, Ass! (Regional humor). Jon Awbrey 14:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
CP/M statement is, I believe an excellent differentiation. That is the foundation of my confidence in Wikipedia. In the Scientology Series where I am active Reliability is dismissed as secondary because WP:RS is only a guideline. Contrawise, WP:V's the threshold of inclusion is verifiability is used as primary. Personal websites are used extensively because they satisfy that element of WP:V and while personal websites are grudgingly admitted to not be completely reliable, the issue doesn't get clearly stated until after WP:V, at WP:RS. Thence the articles are just chocked full of references to personal websites which are verifiable (from within an article) but are rarely verifiable from a reliable source. Terryeo 18:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
From Jimbo — "I consider all three of these to be different aspects of the same thing, ultimately. And at the moment, when I think about any examples of apparent tensions between the three, I think the right answer is to follow all three of them or else just leave it out of Wikipedia."
Others wiser than me have already pointed out how much this doctrine is similar to the Catholic faith (the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (or Spirit)).
I'm still enjoying viewing the angst of the mental and emotional struggle going on here (even joining in from time to time), though I am sure I will never be able to reconcile the three aspects of the same Holiness. Guess I was just born to be a Unitarian.
Sincerely,
GeorgeLouis 18:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
CP/M comm | Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 20:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
As I mentioned in NPOV policy does nothing, the Ayn Rand related articles are a de facto exception to the NPOV rule. Because of the tyranny of the majority there, the articles are always skewed in the favor of Rand's followers and there's nothing that the average Wikipedian can do about it.
But there's another problem with the NPOV rule that this presents: Wikipedia can't handle pseudoscience. We don't have admins who are educated enough in various topics to stop pseudoscientists from taking over, and we don't have any that are willing to learn enough about the subjects to handle them. Thus, if a majority of pseduoscientists take control of an article, nobody can stop them because they can censor the article to remove anything they disagree with and the admins won't know the difference between the legit stuff and the fake stuff.
Rand's article is a shining example of this. Rand is not considered a philosopher by the vast majority of academics, and is rejected by most of them, but the Randists continue to trick the admins into thinking they are right because they can present poorly researched sources and sources from their own organizations. The fact that they never give real academic sources is completely ignored by the admins, who think any source is equal to an academic one. Thus, Wikipedia pushes pseudoscience because, ironically, Wikipedia is uneducated about the very subjects it writes about and doesn't have enough academic education to tell the difference between legit sources and illegit ones. Again, the NPOV rule does nothing. -- LGagnon 04:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
By some reason "anti-Rand" editors are of the opinion that editors that do not agree with their point of view, are all "Rand followers". I would avise LGanon to discuss the topic at Talk:Ayn Rand and pursuse WP:DR to raise his concers. NPOV works ... it may take some time, but it does at the end. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 10:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Since LGagnon bothered to link to the talk topic he started on the Resolving disputes page, I'll repost the (as of now) last comment there, for the edification of passers-by. Note the date. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia can't handle pseudoscience - not true. Wiki struggles with it, but usually succeeds. We had this with global warming and eventually the arbcomm stepped in on the side of the angels. Ditto the Reddi case. Do you have any specific examples in mind? There is a wikiproject on it, though its rather dormant... William M. Connolley 17:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I hope that Wikipedia:Reliable sources might be a solution to the problem. It requires that editors know the topic well and enforce the use of sources that are scholarly. -- JWSchmidt 01:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
"broadly published as the prevelant point of view" <-- I hope that means: "broadly published in reliable sources" Wikipedia has no need to even mention published propaganda and disinformation no matter how widely distributed it is. -- JWSchmidt 18:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Just what do you think you are doing?
Writing an essay, making a userpage, or, maybe, emulating IRC chat?
CP/M comm | Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 22:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
We have an abondance of pov forks such as Turkish Kurdistan or Kurdish celebration of Newroz. We also have plenty of articles which are not remotely neutral Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers Party, etc...
Since I cant get Kurd related articles in anyway remotely neutral (as its either "Kurds are the best thing since sliced bread who are also oppressed like no tommorow" or "Kurds are evil") we might as well make this something official.
-- Cat out 23:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
NO. Give no topic any exemption ever. As soon as there is one topic there will be 10,000 topics with their editors screaming, exemption! exemption !! exemption !!! Don't start this. Terryeo 18:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Did the author of the NPOV really mean to include a statement to the effect that theft is now a value or opinion (reference to stealing under "A Simple Formulation")? I suspect he may wish to revise that particular section. JimScott 21:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Following discussion here, I'm going to propose that we include the following to the lead of each policy. In the case of the NPOV policy, this also includes removing a previous quote on the matter which has been superceeded.
For the sake of clarity, please discuss this on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. -- Barberio 18:18, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I oppse this, though not passionately. Basically, I (1) do not think it adds anything that hasn´t been saids, (2) if our policies are unclear in some way, quoting Jimbo is just an excuse for not figuring out the real weakness and working on it, and (3) with all due respect to Jimbo, I think it sets a bad example to appeal to him as an authority. We already do it - genug. We just don´t need to do any more of it. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I don´t have a problem with it. I just don´t want us to go overboard looking for additional Jimbo quotes, that´s all. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
No, it doesn´t. That is because the paragraph that follows makes it clear that all three policies are inviolable. Just because Jimbo didn´t write it does not make it insignificant. In fact, Jimbo´s whole idea was that lost of people besides him could write a great encyclopedia, including policies to guide it. We don´t need another quote from Jimbo to say what we ourselves have already said. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Technically advanced nations have more media power, which affects points of view of the wikipedia editors. Even quite smart people are getting brainwashed sometimes (especially in political and philisophical matters). First of all, when someone postulates a false statement one thousand times, it doesn't looks false anymore. Second, the biggest bias is omitting of information, not presenting all of information. Even if the information is presented, it wouldn't be giving a media attention. Taking example from the page, they cry about Saddam Hussein, but doesn't give any major attention to other dictators, which aren't confronting USA interests (Pakistani and many more). Or, they talk about serbian atrocities on every street, yet doesn't mention anything about albanian atricities, their nationalism. Thie bias is impossible to fight. because the west, especially USA has too much of political, technological and finansical power. Yet, having power and money doesn't make you NPOV! Think about that, americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by QuestPc ( talk • contribs)
I removed the following link:
Edit summary: rv, seems irrelevant: Wikipedia is run by a non-for-profit organisation. Don't link to a page that has "business" written about five times per paragraph. This is unrelated to Wikipedia's NPOV.
I think there's more than one person needed to form a "consensus" to keep this on the policy page.
Yes we could link to everything that somewhere half-way through is derived from Wikipedia. But WP:NOT a repository of links. Certainly not the core content policy pages, for commercial links. If YelloWiki derived this from the WP:NPOV page, it is their task to mention that on that page (otherwise it'be a copyright infringement). Returning the not fulfilled favour, not knowing whether the YelloWiki NPOV page has any success at all, clutters the WP:NPOV page more than it clarifies. If we need more content on WP:NPOV, I'd rather bring back the FAQ content. Why am I putting so much time in something that IMHO should be clear to anyone, on first sight? -- Francis Schonken 15:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Recently a new user pointed out a section of this guideline page that seems problematic to me. Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Fairness and sympathetic tone presents the completely true principle that the way in which discussion of points of view are organized can imply a stance. However, it then presents a "for instance" that I find problematic:
This seems to be saying "the wrong way to do it is to discuss both supporting and opposing views in the same place; the right way to do it is to have separate sections for supporters and for opponents." I really can't support that; it doesn't make any more sense to me to have inherently POV sections of an article than to have inherently POV article.
I think the real problem is that the "for instance" is written too specifically, and obscures how very many ways there really are to damage the NPOV of an article through organization. I suggest that it be rewritten to illustrate the basic principle, by analogy, pointing out that just as constantly interrupting one's opponent in conversation is not a means to get everyone's voice fairly heard, neither is allowing an opponent's voice to be heard only to follow it up immediately with a counter-claim, et cetera. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree too. The current phrasing that seems to steer for the creation of separate "opinions-of-oponents sections" is IMHO currently the most problematic part of the WP:NPOV policy. It has some other history too. Let me take you through that thread of history in three steps:
So, here we are... I think we should bring the "how to present opinions of oponents" example up-to-date one way or another, so that WP:NPOV is more coherent with how we (should) go about this. I mean, my assessment is that something has changed by now, and that in fact separate "criticism"/"opinions-of-oponents" sections are regarded less as a viable solution than they used to be... -- Francis Schonken 17:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's see if this works:
How should someone go about cleaning up an article that, in my interpretation, subtly yet massively violates Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy? Because it has been difficult for me to convey just how non-neutral, unscientific and errantly suggestive the race and intelligence article's paradigm of presentation is I've decided to come to this discussion page in the hopes of clarification. This task is all the more difficult because it seems to me that many of the "pro" editors of race and intelligence have been infected (brain washed) by its misleading paradigm and dichotomy of presentation and they apparently unconsciously feel the need to defend what they (errantly) interpret to be an absolute conclusion at all costs. Given the seemingly intentionally fabricated unscientific paradigm of presentation it's as if most if not all pro "race and intelligence" and "intelligence research" publications are intentionally misleading and racism inducing propaganda with zero scientific value (see scientific racism). Almost every word choice in the current version of the race and intelligence article is unscientifically and psychologically suggestive and almost every statement fundamentally disputed. Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
For example, at a basic level the phrase "race and intelligence" seems to be a dichotomy that unscientifically confuses description with conclusivity. A test taker's supposed "race" is just one among many bits of information, there are many different yet equal ways of correlating data given multiple data points. The word "race" hasn't even been defined anywhere close to the point of scientific consensus so how can advocates of this research even propose a conclusion based on a fundamentally disputed definition? There also isn't much if any general scientific community support for the concept of an absolute "quotient" and/or definition of "intelligence". Given multiple data points and multiple correlation possibilities a subject should be presented more generically and abstractly and should not be allowed to focus, to the exclusion of all else, on just one data correlation pair. Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
In science generally an investigation begins from the starting point that the cause is unknown and certainly not known conclusively, e.g. a "working hypothesis". First, you have to present and describe what you or someone else is _investigating_ before possible conclusions are even proposed. "Race and intelligence research" does not do that, they've put the cart before the horse by errantly confusing description and cause. The phrase "race and intelligence" fails to note that this disparity is in fact more abstract and generic given multiple data points and possible correlation pairs. Correlating by Wealth and Nutrition is just as valid as correlating by "race" and "intelligence". Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
How should Wikipedia handle the situation where some sources criticize how a subject is being presented in other sources? In that case, I think Wikipedia should present that issue more generically and explicitly indicate where the scientific dispute begins? If other sources criticize certain researchers methods Wikipedia should not present that subject using those researchers' method, right? Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The current version of the race and intelligence article is a minefield of psychologically suggestive and conclusive words and phrases, some examples:
The use of unreliable sources as secondary sources is enforced via edit war. It's been argued that this doesn't warrant a POV tag, as it is not dealt with explicitly on WP:NPOV. What can I do, as admins refuse to deal with the article? Can my stance be inferred from existing rules or should ruling be added? -- tickle me 01:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I hope I don't get attacked for this post. Lately, I ran across Anti-Semitism, the article. It states that the usage of this term for arabs (which is the opinion of arabs) is not generally accepted. And the rest of the article describes the subject as prejudice against jews. I know it's a delicate problem, but if a definition of term differs between two groups of people, shouldn't the two definition be fairly represented? And the article description (or even title) take account of these two definitions and not consider one false and one true and rely on it in the whole article since we're searching for verifiability not truth. I know it's difficult but how could this be solved in a reasonable manner. You're answer is appreciated (and if I didn't make myself clear, plz tell me, my english sucks ;) Thank you. CG 05:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
That is an good question. It strikes at the heart of NPOV. I would say that two definitions of a single word should be presented. Full definitions, discussions of the meanings as understood and used by one group. And then, after the first group's definition is fully discussed, the other group. I would say, dedicated a subsection or a sub-sub section of the article to it. ===word as used by A=== and ===word as used by B=== Terryeo 20:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Greetings, I am developing some guidelines that would be sensible to include in NPOV and I'm not quite sure how to integrate them. These guidelines have to do with images and captions on those images. Here is what I'd like to include. Might there be any suggestions from the regulars who edit on this policy on how best to integrate this potential new section? Thanks. ( → Netscott) 14:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
This says "Currently, the "Policy in a nutshell" says, "All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly and without bias. This also includes maps, reader-facing templates, categories, and portals." The first sentence is fine. The second presents an inclusion list. It would be possible to add "images" to that list, but next week, or next month, or next year someone will have a good reason to add something else to the list. Why not just change that second sentence to, "This applies to all aspects of an article." would people find some part of the word "all" that they don't understand?" I think the nutshell can be improved. Does anyone else think it can be improved? WAS 4.250 04:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
May I ask what is the reason for the lately excercise in hair splitting in policy pages? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Right, that notice. Also, I would argue that the nutshell is not itself policy, but rather a summary of a policy. And right now, it doesn't accurately summarize the policy it is supposed to be describing. -- tjstrf 01:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
In that case, I propose the following 2 modifications to the nutshell:
Neither of these changes will effect the message of the nutshell, but they will make it more accurate as to what NPOV applies to. -- tjstrf 23:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There are several views of the Jay Treaty: in straight diplomatic terms it was, at best, a minimal success for the Americans, in that they did not have actually to accept anything intolerable. More recently, there have been more positive views. A lone editor insists on quoting only the positive views, and including the positive parts of mixed assessments. Septentrionalis 17:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, despite discussion seeming to me to sugest against having this quote in the lead, removing the quote keeps being RV'd. So let's see if there is any consensus on this... (Note, this is not a vote, yada yada yada... This is just to spur a discusion to see if there is any consensus on this quote being in the lead other than inertia.) Please post a reason behind your position. -- Barberio 23:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Note, previous discussion on the subject kept getting side tracked into 'is NPOV the prime policy?' instead of discussing the quote. So this poll is intended to focus discussion on the quote, not as an actual vote in itself. -- Barberio 23:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Again, just to clarify, this is not a vote. This is just trying to focus discussion on the quote, and if it should be in the lead of the article. -- Barberio 23:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
* Move, I'm not against the quote, but placing it in the lead, in this form, might sound like it assumes something. Maybe "according to Jimbo, NPOV is absolute and non-negotiable, (but only according to him)", or "It's Jimbo's own pet policy, in fact", or whatever. It's our common policy. It's the core policy of all Wikimedia, the only one that is present on all Wikimedia projects in all languages (many parts don't have WP:V and/or WP:NOR), and it is gone far beyond just some Jimbo's idea.
CP/M
comm |
Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 23:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
What's the correct thing to do when the sources on all sides of a topic are all self-published? This is regarding the page Neo-Tech (philosophy). Bi 11:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Are there scenarios in which POV could ever possibly be a valid addition to any article on any scholarly website anywhere? Smith Jones 05:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
It has been pointed out above that "according to" wrongly suggests not more than an opinion; I did not notice any opposition against that criticism. Thus I changed the phrase to "stated:", in harmony with the text elsewhere. Regretfully this was immediately modified to an alternative version that only links to Jimbo; I don't mind but it's a much bigger change. Francis next reverted to the above "according to" text, which is definitely against consensus. What are the arguments against simply stating that Jimbo "stated"? Harald88 20:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I fail to see "improvement" in these suggestions. I neither think that this should be formulated in a more "ex cathedra" way (as you seem to suggest), nor do I think this should be "removed", nor "replaced", nor "formulated more casual", nor "made more prominent lay-out-wise", nor whatever I've come across these last few weeks. As said, I fail to see "improvement" in any of these (contradicting) suggestions/changes. -- Francis Schonken 19:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
As a minor commentary, I note that this edit reverts to long-standing phrasing under which murky statement of policy the pack of editors violate actual WP:NPOV by ripping from Wikipedia the cited expressions of those reputable scholars that the pack does not like. It is not a big deal in the overall scheme of things, but it is the dysfunctional current state of affairs in Wikipedia policy on WP:NPOV. -- Rednblu 23:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
User:Rednblu it is simply demeaning and disrespectful to use the word "pack" in the context you are using it. It is uncivil. NPOV has been a bastion for a long time, it is carefully watched and while changes do happen, they are done by concensus and use our founder's statements as a foundation. Your erudite posting, attempting to be both apologetic and putting "group think" into an easily pointed at package doesnt' appeal and isn't likely to produce cooperation. Besides which, how would you like your thinking to be talked about, not as individual nor creative, but as "pack thinking", or "group thinking" or such ? Its simply uncivil and you've done it twice in 2 postings. Terryeo 02:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with this edit; I do not see any consensus in favor of it. The Weekly World News is widely published, but WP should not represent its point of view. Septentrionalis 17:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate that Septentrionalis disagrees with the edit I made. I'll happily conceed "aims" and place the two statements side by side, here: Terryeo 21:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Terryeo, the problem is that when you say "most broadly published" what you actually mean is "most copies sold". Let's be open here - you've argued that because L. Ron Hubbard sells more copies than his numerous critics, Hubbard should be given priority. Actually, Hubbard is actually the most narrowly published - he's one source from one organisation, as opposed to dozens if not hundreds of journalists, academics and researchers who've written about him. "Broadly published" does not mean "one source who's sold a lot of copies". -- ChrisO 21:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Again, Terryeo, this fails in the case of sensationalism. If you read the policy section on Bias, we are specifically advised to avoid giving excessive weight to information which is extreme, transient, sensationalized, etc. and all of those things will be widely published. You cannot make NPOV self-contradictory like that. As with anything else, judgments must be made case by case. -- tjstrf 21:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with favouring weightings based on the proportional opinions of the expert community surrounding a topic. Although defining expert precisely is indeed dificult, in most matters it is clearcut if somebody understands (scientifically, based upon the facts) the topic in hand to enough depth to be able to make a reasoned opinion. Most importantly, I do not believe it is wikipedia's place to give a platform to the loudest shouters. We are supposed to give a platform to the facts, and whilst the shouters deserve a mention, being loud certainly does not make one automatically more right. LinaMishima 00:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
"Due weight" is all about a careful judicious judgement by people with both good judgement and relevant knowledge; in other words "weightings based on the proportional opinions of the expert community surrounding a topic". WAS 4.250 03:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Wanted to add language to the effect that care should be taken that parenthetical statements, in a brief clause following a subject, are particularly susceptible to insinuating non-NPOV perspectives because the structure permits only one POV. Parenthetical statemsnts should be strictly factual and parnethetical statements which appear to present an opinion should ordinarily be removed. (Example Tom, who is generally regarded as the less successful of the Tom, Dick and Harry brothers, was...) -- Shirahadasha 03:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Continuing from the previous work I found a good example of murkiness in the WP:NPOV page inciting rather than calming squabbles in the Middle East sections of Wikipedia. And I tracked the root causes of the policy flaws back through the "Undue weight" and "POV forks" sections and back into the very beginning "Explanation of NPOV" of the WP:NPOV page. Of course, these are only my opinions and findings. And more important is what you think.
I begin this morning with a simple example of the mistaken impression that the WP:NPOV page text gives to Wikipedians. One Wikipedian who shall remain nameless actually wrote the following.
And in tracking back through the "Undue weight" and "POV forks" sections and back into the very beginning "Explanation of NPOV" in the WP:NPOV page I could see how, if you read the text one particular mistaken way, you could come to the mistaken impression that "NPOV was only determinable by consensus"! So how do we fix the text of the WP:NPOV page? -- Rednblu 05:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Apparently, the text in the WP:NPOV page is written wrong. So how do we fix it? -- Rednblu 05:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
From all of the above, thank you, I think I see something. The first problem with the WP:NPOV text is that there is no definition of what "NPOV" is. Any good encyclopedia page should begin with the clearest definition we can think of. The first sentence of the "Explanation of NPOV" section is even wrong. Is NPOV a "means of dealing with conflicting views"? No it is not. NPOV is not any variety of means for developing consensus, arbitrating, mediating, negotiating, . . . , or any of the other means of dealing with conflicting views. NPOV is a way to write and construct an encyclopedia page.
So from all of your ideas above, I see a possibility. How about the following as a beginning of the "Explanation of NPOV" section. I use shorthand here. Feel free to fill-out or change as you think might make clearer to the readers and wide-public how to write NPOV pages in Wikipedia.
Which way shall we go now? What are your ideas next? -- Rednblu 18:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
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Thank you, my friends. So far we have the following as a clearer possibility for the first sentence of the "Explanation of NPOV" section.
Does that capture the essence of what you said? -- Rednblu 20:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
As I was informed on the WP:NOR talk page, the essence of WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:RS are the same - only add information that you can show to be true. So what is WP:NPOV's adjoiner to this? …and don't add true information in such a manner as to completely discount other true information, perhaps. This may well be an interesting ponderance, even if it's not directly related. Returning to the topic at hand, "The Neutral in neutral point of view refers to wikipedia's neutral position, outside of any debate surrounding a topic. Only verifiable information sould presented, and wikipedia must not distort the issue by portraying any opinion as having any more weight than those knowledgable in such matters give it". Does this really help? Probably not (but it's a nifty phrasing, in my opinon :P). But it should help to remind people that it is not wikipedia's place to state anything, we meerly report on the issues. The wording as suggested by rednblu is in and of it's self very much a point of view, expressing only opinions of individuals for everything. This more than anything makes it a bad option and poor copywrite. I am still baffled by the ongoing nature of this discussion, given that most people seem comfortable with the concept of undue weight. Sadly it is true to say that any attempt to quantify the weight of people involved is far, far outside of the scope of wikipedia, and majoritively common sense can perform an almost accurate comparison of weights. LinaMishima 01:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
There is a section in the NPOV policy which says something like "majority views should be given majority repersentantion, signigirant minority views should given adequate representation....." On this basis of this sort of nonsense with ragerad to scientific matters, many cranks and supporters of various thelogical/pseudoscentific views have argued that, e.g., astrology may well be the majority view in the world and therefore should be terated respectfully, etc, . Now, this is the fallacy of argumentam ad populam obviously. Science does not work by the looking to the consensus of all the vast majorityof non-scientifically trained human beings. Science works by forumating various hypthoses and then subhectin them to rigious testing to either provide statistcal confrimation or eventual falsification. If the theory is falsified, it may be eother revised or abandoned in afvor of another, more well-cofrimed and unfalsified theory, etc... I'm being a bit simplictic, but I don't have time to goi into a full explanation of philosophy of science. In any case,the ultimate point is that science does not deal in "views" or "opinions" (doxa) at all. It deals in episteme, striving comnstantly to come closer and closer to revealing the facts and fundemantal truthts of the universe. When there is a dispute within the cisntific community, then the majority view should be repersented in a predominant matnerrm the minority view, etc... When there is a dispute between a scientific fact (e.g. evolution of species) and unfalsiable pseduoscintific beleiefs (e,g, Intellgient design), then the FACT must be asserted. The movement of religious fanatics who reject the facts should be mentioned as a political and histrocal curiosity only. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority)
This is taken from the article on the other side explaianing NPOV. I change it to this:
the flat earth error, which is demonstrably false
This was revereted by someone who commented: NPOV is not about true-false. Indeed!!! You've nailed it. It seems clear from this example that NPOV EXCLUDES the very notions of true and false. This is the heart of the failure of Wikipedia and projects like it. The NPOV favors a particualr point of view with regard to epistemology: epistemological skepticism or relativism (they come to the same thing in the end). The earth is NOT flat. There is no scientific theory that the earth is flat. The earth is spherical. Obviously. LOL! What nonsense. NPOV is fundemntally logically impossible becasue not holding a point of view is to hold a second-order poijt of view with respect to points of view: anmely, that they are all equally valid!!-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Uhm, from what I gather, Lacatosias is attempting to claim that Wikipedia should assert the scientific POV rather than the neutral POV... which is, as specifically addressed on the policy page, a long rejected concept. So this is basically a moot point.
As I've stated before, truth is not a relavent issue to NPOV. If we lived in the time of Gallileo, the sun would orbit the earth. Or rather, NPOV would dictate that the sun be covered as orbiting the earth. -- tjstrf 18:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I haven't followed this philosophical discussion, but in the peer-reviewed academic world it is not a POV issue. Nobody today is calculating the trajectories of celestial (artificial or not) objects by Earth-centered theories. So Earth-centered theories are dead=debunked=toast=wrong - until someone publishes a paper showing that Earth-centered theories are better at predicting the observed trajectories.
Separates this argument out from previous comment. Can anyone answer:
The NPOV favors a particualr point of view with regard to epistemology: epistemological skepticism or relativism (they come to the same thing in the end). The earth is NOT flat. There is no scientific theory that the earth is flat. The earth is spherical. Obviously. LOL! What nonsense. NPOV is fundemntally logically impossible becasue not holding a point of view is to hold a second-order poijt of view with respect to points of view: anmely, that they are all equally valid!! -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 14:56, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#The neutral point of view: "the neutral point of view is a point of view" – no idea what Lacatosias/FF is trying to learn us that we didn't know already. -- Francis Schonken 16:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
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Continuing from the work above, I looked for an example where the unclear text of the WP:NPOV page supported a [ . . . ] of editors ripping NPOV from a page and replacing it by biased POV. I quote here the arguments of the editors who shall remain nameless.
And judging from how editors refer to the WP:NPOV page on Japan, Korea, and China, I must say that the explicit text of the WP:NPOV page so inaccurately explains NPOV that teams of editors gang up to revert the insertion of cited published statements of scientists as de facto POV pushing. One gentleman on Japan took the inspiration from the WP:NPOV text that he lacked a [ . . . ] of editors to support him so he created his own pack of sockpuppets to assist his cause.
I have many ideas about how to fix the text of WP:NPOV--as I am sure you do also. But I would suggest that, at this stage of fixing the text of WP:NPOV to actually promote editing "to represent all significant views fairly and without bias," we might get a clearer picture of what the problem is. The definitions of the WP:NPOV page fail to distinguish operationally between what is POV and what is NPOV. Witness the discussions of POV and NPOV on this page, none of which could cite to clear definitions in the WP:NPOV page that distinguish between POV and NPOV. -- Rednblu 23:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I am thinking about slapping a citation notice on the sentence "Dinosaurs were vertebrate animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 160 million years, first appearing approximately 230 million years ago." (from Dinosaur). Outrageous. A clear violation of NPOV, which says that all claims must be made in a way acceptable to everyone. By contrast, the article Adam says " Adam ("Earth" or "man" ...) was the first man created by Elohim according to the Abrahamic religious tradition.". Why shouldn't the dinosaur article and ALL the articles like that have 'according to the Western scientific tradition' or something like that?-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
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Continuing from the work done above, I learned that the WP:NPOV page lacks a clear definition of "bias"--as well as lacks clear definitions for POV and NPOV as noted before. I looked for some real data in a specific Wikipedia squabble where both sides thought the other had made a clear violation of NPOV and where both sides had correctly applied what is actually written in the text of the WP:NPOV page. I extract here what the editors said in applying the explicit contradictory wording of the WP:NPOV page.
Beta above has read the wrong statement in the WP:NPOV page "When bias towards one particular point of view can be detected, the article needs to be fixed" literally--that is, that she is supposed to remove "misconceptions" from the statements of the scholars she quotes. In contrast, Alpha above has applied the NPOV mandate to "represent all significant views fairly and without bias" correctly--that is, that she is supposed to present what the published writer actually said, neither adding to nor deleting from the POV that the scholar actually conveyed in the writing.
Now, there are many different ways of clearly defining any technical matter. For example, there is not just one way of making clear the distinctions in Newton's laws of motion. So likewise the clear distinctions in Terryeo's Laws of NPOV stated above are not the only clear formulation of "NPOV is the mandate to represent all significant views fairly and without bias." But Terryeo's Laws of NPOV make a much clearer and better-written explanation of NPOV than does the murky and self-contradictory text of the current WP:NPOV page.
From above, Terryeo's Laws are the following.
What the NPOV in "represent all significant views fairly and without bias" proscribes is bias against the POV of what any scholar has actually published. So how do we fix the text of the WP:NPOV page to clearly define bias, POV, and NPOV so that they can actually implement the mandate to "represent all significant views fairly and without bias"? Whose idea is first? -- Rednblu 16:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
-- 146.145.70.200 22:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
The main article on some countries is declared to be about the "modern state". This turns out to mean it is about the conquest and colonization of the country by people from elsewhere who are now dominant. Anything about those inconvenient vanquished aboriginals is then off-topic and can be relegated to a subsidiary article. For comparison, Mexico is not split into separate articles on racial lines. Fourtildas 03:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Have you considered that the subjects of that article, the USA and its geographic region, are huge? (Look at 1 E12 m².) America's size is close to that of the entirety of Europe. The sheer infeasibility of covering every single tribe, or even the major ones, in a single article would preclude it on a stylistic basis alone. Fully covering the American Indian tribes in the history of the USA section makes as little sense as covering every ancient european civilization in Europe, and is just as absurd.
You'd have a very valid concern if the United States had featured a major organized civilization prior to the colonization, as Mexico did, or if the article was located at America and only covered the USA. But the American Indian cultures were amazingly heterogeneous, and there isn't much that can be broadly stated about them. I would recommend expanding the coverage of the American Indians in the history of the article, but not by too much. Mentioning the Iroquois and the Hawaiian civilizations, for instance, could be well justified.
The article at which your concern would most validly be addressed would be History of the United States, which definitely needs a longer pre-colonial section. Also, this page really is not the place for individual content disputes. -- tjstrf 06:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I've reworded that section slightly. Hopefully it will quell discussion about the neutral point of view being no point of view at all, and some of the other confusions that have been recently talked about. Terryeo 11:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Presently the policy states:
(Emphisis as in policy) I am suggesting that the introduction of the qualifier "not asserted" adds complexity to this first sentence which is both unnecessary and undesireable as a first paragraph sentence. I am suggesting that the idea of not asserting a point of view as valid, but instead, presenting that a point of view exists is a very important element. It is too important an element to first bring it in on the tag end of another point of POV. Instead of bringing it into the policy as the tag end of the first element of the policy, I am suggesting it needs more development in its own paragraph. The first important element of NPOV, "present conflicting views independently of each other, not in a confusing mixture and jumble with each other" should not have this second and also important, "not asserted" element on its tag end. I propose we treat the "not asserted" element later and simply the first element to:
Francis Shoken, I have met your two objections, please discuss before reverting. -- tjstrf 06:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
If NPOV can work, I say it needs an explicit clause dealing with word choices because they can denote value judgments. I say the WP:WTA should be integrated or merged into NPOV. While POVs can't be avoided in discussing controversial issues, language that makes it seem Wikipedia advocates position X or position y undermines the entire rule. Also, opinions should be attributed in such a fashion that they are not treated as facts. Something such as the following shouldn't be give too much authority, such as if a group has a defined opinion, political agenda. I think anything included in an article, not based upon verifiable evidence, and relying upon innuendo or uncited assertions should be flagged as NPOV violations. Such citations undermines Wikipedia's credibility. -- 146.145.70.200 22:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
-- Pravknight 22:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the removal of the nutshell since I think it is a useful tool. It is clear and gives a quick overview of the policy, especially for someone trying to get a quick feel for WP policies. Yes, it may mostly repeat the lead paragraph but that is logical as the lead should be a summary. The shell is eye catching and shows the casual reader the essence of the policy at a glance, to be followed (hopefully) by a deeper read at a later time. Crum375 03:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
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From the above work, I learn that 1) there are three crucially different varieties of bias and that 2) the WP:NPOV page is defective in failing to define any of them. The three varieties of bias are "crucially different" because the policy mandate to "represent all significant views fairly and without bias" requires that each variety of bias be treated differently. The three varieties of crucially different bias are Bias1 of the 1) editors, Bias2 of the 2) page text in presenting published views, and Bias3 of each 3) reliable source that is cited.
At this stage, we are looking for a self-consistent logical design. At a later stage, we would look for the exact words to express the self-consistent logical design. What is the next step for fixing the self-contradictory and illogical text of the current WP:NPOV page? Any ideas? -- Rednblu 12:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Could editors stop for a while to continuously make changes to this policy before reaching consensus about these? It is be coming really tedious.
≈ jossi ≈
t •
@ 15:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Long before I came to wikipedia, I had thought that reporters in the public press should have to include, in their byline or at the end of the article, a brief statement of biases that they may hold with regard to the subject matter of the article. For example, a news report on Abortion might include a short statement by the reporter(s) briefly declaring their position on the matter. I realize that this is unworkable in many respects. But I add this as a pre-amble to my next statements so that they will not be interpreted as a reaction to a recent problem.
Having read the NPOV policy many times, I find it has one significant defect that I believe may injure wikipedia both in terms of neutrality and in terms of edit wars. The defect is reliance upon POV sources. Here is a typical scenario: Someone reads a POV book that takes a strong position on one side of an issue. They then come to wikipedia and edit many related articles with extensive quotes from this source. The source, highly biased, is presented as though it is neutral and fully factual on the matter. Furthermore, the amount of this biased text that is added is substantial, perhaps going on for several paragraphs or sections. Sometimes the area of concern is obscure enough or slow enough moving that it can be a long time before an adequate third party response (No Original Research in wikipedia) is available. This makes wikipedia a sort of validator of POV, giving it a credibility that is not appropriate.
There is currently no process or system for fixing this problem. If you can cite a third party source, the quality or POV of that source is essentially irrelevant. Even blogs, opinion editorials and propaganda may be quoted (Objectively) and presented as an important fact in an article-- because it is published. Indeed, all that is required is verifiability that someone (anyone -even idiots) said or wrote something publically. A page can be filled with such things, all from one side. This is a problem.
I suggest the following:
(I would not, however, think that it is inappropriate to substantially use otherwise "biased" sources that are from the person or institution or article subject. For example, I would expect to use the "Democratic Party Platform" as a source for the article "Democratic Party" and would not consider this to be generally a part of the rule that unbiased sources should be used as much as possible. -- Blue Tie 15:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
assembles edit cabals to support that POV, the NPOV rule is absolutely meaningless. In the world of journalism, we handle POVs by decreeing how sentences get constructed, such that POV advocacy gets neutralized.
. Avoiding POVs are unavoidable unless you happen to be Mr. Spock, but we are all human. The goal should be for Wikipedia to speak with one voice, and not advocate any discernable perspective, right or left.
I notice that most of my edits today were reverted. I'm not too bothered: this is your project, and you have all worked hard on it (I read this discussion page a lot). I have to tell you, though, that the page reads very badly in places. This is to be expected from a page constructed by a group, but my edits were aimed to improve it in accordance with the manual of style, hopefully without altering its content (with one exception, which I made clear on the edit summary and which I isolated in one edit, where I feel you have a mistake).
A word about reverting. I think reverting should be reserved for mistakes, vandalism, or whatever, and not used for good-faith edits that contain a variety of separate changes. This applies particularly to style editing because if you revert the whole of such an edit when you dislike parts of it, you may incidentally lose some valuable improvements that resulted from close reading. In my opinion, it is better to alter back any particular changes you disagree with rather than reverting wholescale: as you can imagine, these types of edits take a long time and much consulting of the style manual. qp10qp 17:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I notice today that the rest of my edits were reverted; one of the comments in the edit summary says that I should have gained consent for them here first. But I don't lack in trying to discuss things here, I would say. If it is meant that I should gain consent for individual style edits (I don't consider them "so-called style edits" since they're based on the manual of style), then I'm surprised, because I assumed the Talk page was for discussing less trivial proposed changes. I won't go through all the changes here; but just as examples, here are a few changes that were reverted:
Three instances of "we're" changed to "we are", plus a "there's" to "there is", a "we'd" to "we could", and an "it's" to "it is". (MOS: avoid the use of contractions — such as don't, can't, won't, would've, they'd, and so on — unless they occur in a quotation.)
"the neutral point of view policy" to my "the neutral-point-of-view policy".
"that page contains also comments" to my "that page also contains comments".
"a good way to help build a neutral point of view", or Bluetie's later edit "to establish a neutral point of view" has been reverted to "a good way to help building a neutral point of view".
This last one was turning into a good example of progressive editing. First I changed it to "build", and when Bluetie looked at it, which he might not have done otherwise, he changed it to "establish" because he thought that was a better word. By "progressive editing" I mean editing that inches towards a better document; that consists, for me, in looking at individual changes made, judging whether the editor had a point, and then either reverting that particular change or providing a better solution.
To give an example: my recasting of the following may not have been ideal, but it should have alerted editors to the poverty of expression of:
"So we're committed to the goal of representing human knowledge in that sense. Something like this is surely a well-established sense of the word "knowledge"; in this sense, what is "known" changes constantly with the passage of time..."
The same principle could have been applied to some of my other attempts to tidy up passages or make them more precise: if you didn't like my version, you could have at least considered whether it identified a weakness in expression.
I'm not raising this matter here again to say how important my changes were (quite the contrary, which is why I didn't present them here in advance), but to show that they were not all of the same type. I would ask reverters of such multiple edits to consider a slower and more piecemeal response—to become editors again, for a moment—or at least, in keeping with reverting policy, to explain reversions on the discussion page.
Meanwhile, there is an elephant in the room here: in my opinion this page is badly written in larger ways than the ones I nibbled at and so is therefore unlikely to be read by many people.
I'm not sure anyone will respond to the above; but I have done this the right way by talking again on this page rather than trying to sneak my edits back in. qp10qp 15:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
On a lighter note, isn't the following a bit woolly, speculative and POV?
"Totalitarian governments and dogmatic institutions everywhere might find reason to oppose Wikipedia, if we succeed in adhering to our non-bias policy." qp10qp 21:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
A good encyclopedia is an uncensored encyclopedia. Pointing out that this may aggravate certain individuals and organization is just giving people fair warning. Telling people "If you live in a totalitarian state, you may wish to think twice about editing articles about issues in which supporting the NPOV would be against the wishes of your government, because it may annoy them." is only fair and honest. See Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China for an example of what I mean. -- tjstrf 02:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
More generally: my experience of trying to improve the policy's readability yesterday made me feel that the text is somewhat locked in. I tried to be cautious and respectful of content. But in fact, after several hours with it, I came to the conclusion that the policy contains a surprising amount of repetition. For example, parts like the following (there are others) say what was already said ("But again" is a clue):
Does it matter? Well, I think a policy, even more than an article, should say what it has to say in as few words as possible. qp10qp 12:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
The neutrality of all contributions to Wikipedia shall be guaranteed by the wording in such a manner that they neither advocate any set position, ideology or POV in conformity with WP:WTA and WP:WEASEL.
All adjectives or adverbs passing value judgements or framing discussions are only appropriate within direct quotations and transition paragraphs may not advocate any ideological position.
Edits aimed at eliminating biased language, advocating a POV shall be exempt from the WP:3RR rule.
POVs, including predominating perspectives, shall be covered under this article.-- 68.45.161.241 04:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Rednblu, I think your appreciation of how policies are built, the way you explained it at user talk:Jimbo Wales#Expendable cogs, to be missing the point. I recommend a reading of m:Power structure. -- Francis Schonken 08:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, adjectives that have a political connotation to them or show favor. It's not dry. Adjectives with political or potentially perjorative language ought to have proper attribution.
I'm dead serious about my propsal. Journalists have to live by these rules, so should those who claim to want a neutrally voiced "encyclopedia". The NPOV rule as interpreted by many is vague.
ex:"J. Jonah Jameson is an extremist thug who has ties to a mafia group that wants to kill Spiderman." The words "extremist thug" convey a POV, and secondly who claims that J. Jonah Jameson is such.
I wouldn't want to ban something trivial like, "New York is a big city" It would, however, apply to something like,"New York is mean city."
I'm after adjectives and adverbs that convey a disputable opinion.
I only proposed this rule because I felt it could help Wikipedia sound more like an encyclopedia and less like a soapbox.
I thought this was a collaborative process where suggestions on improvement could be offered by others in a give and take fashion, not an all or nothing battle over turf. -- 68.45.161.241 17:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
An accommdationist would dispute the strict separationist's view of the concept and vice versa. Simply stating, "According to so and so, x threatens the separation of church and state." I think the second example gives too much factual creedance to the opponent's view without letting the reader know that so and so has a political/cultural bias. The other person may believe in the idea of separation of church and state, but just not the speaker's interpretation.
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. |
The inclusion of "heteronormativity" into the criteria for NPOV itself should be looked at because the term itself is political, as it is associated with Neo-Marxist Critical Theory. Maintaining it undermines any sense of neutrality. Homosexuality is a controversial issue that is entirely governed by subjective variables, and including a pro-homosexual slant as one of the rule violates any notion of neutrality. [User:Pravknight]-- Pravknight 03:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest doing just that, mandating a neutral voice in all articles because Wikipedia is taken as an authority by millions who will read what is written here as "fact." Lack of neutrality makes the NPOV rule meaningless.
I edited the GID article because I found it was full of terms and concepts that I would probably find in a GLAAD press release. Terminology such as transgender people isn't just bad grammar as far as I am concerned, it's political language. If an authority on Gender Identity Disorder uses it in a quote, that's one thing, but a as standalone choice of words it's problematic.
In the newspaper business we prohibit the use of such language unless it is in quotation marks. I think it is inapproriate to permit words that editorialize unless they are in quotations.
Considering that by Jimbo Wales' own admission people who contribute here are slightly "more liberal" [1] than most those whose political and religious values are more conservative might find some of the presentations slanted to the Left. Consequently, the NPOV rule needs to mean neither conservative nor liberal buzzwords belong unless they are in quotes.
Terms such as religious fundamentalist shoud be banned unless they refer to a group that describes themselves as such. We wouldn't use the term secular fundamentalist in an article about about religious criticisms of secularism now would we?
I am a news reporter, and I am forced to keep my peace about my political views every day. I just don't want my beliefs slimed because of word choices anymore than you would.
I think we need to develop a style manual akin to the AP Style guide if one doesn't already exist; one that contains language acceptable to both right and left readership. The NPOV rule needs to mean neutrality.
User:Pravknight-- Pravknight 00:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
When we are dealing with scholars whose works are open to debate, shouldn't we use attributives such as John Doe claims that x is evidence of y. I think giving more credibility to one side over the other undermines Wikipedia's credibility. Simply because Anglophones in Canada, Australia or Great Britain tend to be more socialist/liberal doesn't mean that Wikipedia should follow suit.
My journalistic training has taught me the importance of being just as fair to people whose views I despise in my writing as to those who I agree with. I've staked my journalistic reputation on that. For example, while I wrote for CNSNews.com, I was never once cited by ConWebWatch for anything I wrote, and I developed a close, actually friendly working relationship with Rob Boston of Americans United For the Separation of Church and State. The same was true while I worked for the former Northern Virginia Journal where I had a closer relationship with Congressman Jim Moran, a political polar opposite to myself, than I had with many Republicans.
The entire NPOV rule should be revamped to eschew both ideological slanting and linguistic slanting. The Left-oriented articles on Wikipedia, from my years of lurking on this Web site, almost never seem to get flagged for POV violations when I say many of them should. Otherwise, the NPOV rule should get junked and Wikipedia should openly declare its ideological affiliation.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.145.70.147 ( talk • contribs)
Does the following constitute NPOV language:
"The official approval of satanism and witchcraft by the Army is a direct assault on the Christian faith that generations of American soldiers have fought and died for," Paul Weyrich added. "If the Army wants witches and satanists in its ranks, then it can do it without Christians in those ranks. It's time for the Christians in this country to put a stop to this kind of nonsense. A Christian recruiting strike will compel the Army to think seriously about what it is doing."[3]
According to TheocracyWatch and the Anti-Defamation League both Weyrich and his Free Congress Foundation are both closely associated with Dominionism.[4][5] TheocracyWatch lists both as leading examples of "dominionism in action," citing "a manifesto from Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation," The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement[6], "illuminates the tactics of the dominionist movement."[4] TheocracyWatch, which calls it "Paul Weyrich's Training Manual," and others consider this manifesto a virtual playbook for how the theocratic right in American politics can get and keep power.[7] The Anti-Defamation League identifies Weyrich and the Free Congress Foundation as part of an alliance of more than 50 of the most prominent conservative Christian leaders and organizations which threaten the separation of church and state. [5] Weyrich has rejected allegations that he advocates theocracy saying, "This statement is breathtaking in its bigotry"[8] and dismisses the claim that the Christian right wishes to transform America into a theocracy.[9] Katherine Yurica has written that Weyrich guided Eric Heubeck in writing The Integration of Theory and Practice, the Free Congress Foundation’s strategic plan published in 2001 by the foundation,[10] which she says calls for the use of deception, misinformation and divisiveness to allow conservative evangelical Christian Republicans to gain and keep control of seats of power in the government of the United States."
I am looking for input as to whether this passage amounts to POV pushing because I already looked at the site and found that the supporting articles are poorly cited and biased. Dominionism is never adequately defined, and all I want to know is if revisions need to be made to give it a more neutral tone of voice. For one, Weyrich's a Melkite Catholic and a self-described Christian Democrat. Does the underlying article qualify as a primary source of credibility? [3]-- 146.145.70.200 00:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
This might have been brought up before and if it has, please provide a link so I can read up on it.
NPOV does not apply when talking abouts facts, such as the moon orbits the earth. However, a scientfic theory is not a fact (it is simply supported by facts via reasonable deductions and inductions). And the nature of science dictates that all theories will have some opposition, regardless of how well established. Now in the case of the theory of gravity, does NPOV apply. How does somebody reply to a challange that says that "The moon orbits the earth due to the force of gravity" is a scientific theory and should therefore not contain POV (rewrite the sentance to "Most scientists believe that the moon orbits the earth due to the force of gravity").
I frequent a lot of scientfic topics (especially biology) and this challange is brought up often. It would be great if the resolution to this problem could be posted on the main page to allow for easy referencing.-- Roland Deschain 13:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Just for fun... gravity isn't a force in General Relativity so the sentence is wrong, anyway :-). Though if by "most scientists" you include all scientists, not just gravity theorists, it probably goes back to being true :-) William M. Connolley 17:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Jossi? Bensaccount 02:33, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
JA: If you don't really care what it says, you could have just said so in the first place. The part about "not a rigid rule" refers to the sentence about double and single quote marks.
Though not a rigid rule, we use the "double quotes" for most quotations — they are easier to read on the screen — and use 'single quotes' for nesting quotations, that is, "quotations 'within' quotations".
JA: The discussion about punctuation marks in and out of quotes reflects what has become the newer standard since about the late 60's, partly on account of computer searching requirements. Jon Awbrey 07:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I have not delt with images much. An image has recently appeared whose summary grants Wikipedia the use of it. However, the summary has a condition attached to it. The condition is stated, "critics of the Church of Scientology are free to use this image". On the face of it, NPOV clearly states that Wikipedia is not a critic of any institution, nor any individual. Quite the opposite, we try in every way to present dry, encyclopedic information from a neutral point of view. For Wikipedia to use an image with the condition attached that Wikipedia can use the image so long as Wikipedia appear (in the grantor's eyes) as a critic, seems to me contrary to Wikipedia's stated purpose. Is there a policy, guideline, or page which addresses this sort of issue? Terryeo 19:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, after ChrisO's change of the copyright problem tag for that image, it is now listed here: Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images#August 11. As I suggested at Image_talk:Superpowerbldg.jpg#Actual discussion about the image: if a Wikipedian would go out to take a picture of the building, and then uploads it to Wikipedia under GFDL that would be the smoothest solution of the issue. -- Francis Schonken 08:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Systematic conflicts of intesest as in autobiographies and paid editing can threaten NPOV. Please see Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest created by User:Eloquence 10 August 2006 in this regard. WAS 4.250 21:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I feel that WP is limmeted by the NPOV policy. If there were more controversial things on WP more people would be drawn here to help the page(s) grow. Ouijalover 22:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC) P.S. Please respond
How do I handle a situation with an editor who tags articles as POV without giving any reasoning for the tag, or anything that they suggest needs to be done or changed in the article to make it NPOV? Is there a burden on the editor placing the tag to explain the reasoning, and what needs to be done to correct it? If the editor doesn't explain after a certain period of time, can the tag be removed ? Sandy 00:08, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi.
What does this "undue weight" stuff have to do with? You say that "tiny minority" views should perhaps "not be represented at all". Wait a minute.. what if people want to find information on these views? Does this means that articles specifically devoted to them are inherently "biased"?! That doesn't feel right to me. 67.138.199.173 20:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the anon. This undue weight theory doesn't work. Who's to decide if a viewpoint is to small to discuss? Grand Slam 7 17:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
This statement seems a little out of place in the lead of the policy. Since WP:V and WP:NOR have no such language, it may mislead the reader into thinking that WP:NPOV overides the other two. When in actualy, WP:NPOV is 'weaker' than WP:V since a point of view from a verifiable source is not the same as a point of view from an unverifiable one.
Maybe it should be moved somewhere else in the policy? -- Barberio 12:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
JA: It's clear as it stands. Don't Mess with the Text, Ass! (Regional humor). Jon Awbrey 14:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
CP/M statement is, I believe an excellent differentiation. That is the foundation of my confidence in Wikipedia. In the Scientology Series where I am active Reliability is dismissed as secondary because WP:RS is only a guideline. Contrawise, WP:V's the threshold of inclusion is verifiability is used as primary. Personal websites are used extensively because they satisfy that element of WP:V and while personal websites are grudgingly admitted to not be completely reliable, the issue doesn't get clearly stated until after WP:V, at WP:RS. Thence the articles are just chocked full of references to personal websites which are verifiable (from within an article) but are rarely verifiable from a reliable source. Terryeo 18:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
From Jimbo — "I consider all three of these to be different aspects of the same thing, ultimately. And at the moment, when I think about any examples of apparent tensions between the three, I think the right answer is to follow all three of them or else just leave it out of Wikipedia."
Others wiser than me have already pointed out how much this doctrine is similar to the Catholic faith (the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (or Spirit)).
I'm still enjoying viewing the angst of the mental and emotional struggle going on here (even joining in from time to time), though I am sure I will never be able to reconcile the three aspects of the same Holiness. Guess I was just born to be a Unitarian.
Sincerely,
GeorgeLouis 18:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
CP/M comm | Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 20:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
As I mentioned in NPOV policy does nothing, the Ayn Rand related articles are a de facto exception to the NPOV rule. Because of the tyranny of the majority there, the articles are always skewed in the favor of Rand's followers and there's nothing that the average Wikipedian can do about it.
But there's another problem with the NPOV rule that this presents: Wikipedia can't handle pseudoscience. We don't have admins who are educated enough in various topics to stop pseudoscientists from taking over, and we don't have any that are willing to learn enough about the subjects to handle them. Thus, if a majority of pseduoscientists take control of an article, nobody can stop them because they can censor the article to remove anything they disagree with and the admins won't know the difference between the legit stuff and the fake stuff.
Rand's article is a shining example of this. Rand is not considered a philosopher by the vast majority of academics, and is rejected by most of them, but the Randists continue to trick the admins into thinking they are right because they can present poorly researched sources and sources from their own organizations. The fact that they never give real academic sources is completely ignored by the admins, who think any source is equal to an academic one. Thus, Wikipedia pushes pseudoscience because, ironically, Wikipedia is uneducated about the very subjects it writes about and doesn't have enough academic education to tell the difference between legit sources and illegit ones. Again, the NPOV rule does nothing. -- LGagnon 04:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
By some reason "anti-Rand" editors are of the opinion that editors that do not agree with their point of view, are all "Rand followers". I would avise LGanon to discuss the topic at Talk:Ayn Rand and pursuse WP:DR to raise his concers. NPOV works ... it may take some time, but it does at the end. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 10:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Since LGagnon bothered to link to the talk topic he started on the Resolving disputes page, I'll repost the (as of now) last comment there, for the edification of passers-by. Note the date. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia can't handle pseudoscience - not true. Wiki struggles with it, but usually succeeds. We had this with global warming and eventually the arbcomm stepped in on the side of the angels. Ditto the Reddi case. Do you have any specific examples in mind? There is a wikiproject on it, though its rather dormant... William M. Connolley 17:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
I hope that Wikipedia:Reliable sources might be a solution to the problem. It requires that editors know the topic well and enforce the use of sources that are scholarly. -- JWSchmidt 01:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
"broadly published as the prevelant point of view" <-- I hope that means: "broadly published in reliable sources" Wikipedia has no need to even mention published propaganda and disinformation no matter how widely distributed it is. -- JWSchmidt 18:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Just what do you think you are doing?
Writing an essay, making a userpage, or, maybe, emulating IRC chat?
CP/M comm | Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 22:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
We have an abondance of pov forks such as Turkish Kurdistan or Kurdish celebration of Newroz. We also have plenty of articles which are not remotely neutral Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers Party, etc...
Since I cant get Kurd related articles in anyway remotely neutral (as its either "Kurds are the best thing since sliced bread who are also oppressed like no tommorow" or "Kurds are evil") we might as well make this something official.
-- Cat out 23:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
NO. Give no topic any exemption ever. As soon as there is one topic there will be 10,000 topics with their editors screaming, exemption! exemption !! exemption !!! Don't start this. Terryeo 18:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Did the author of the NPOV really mean to include a statement to the effect that theft is now a value or opinion (reference to stealing under "A Simple Formulation")? I suspect he may wish to revise that particular section. JimScott 21:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Following discussion here, I'm going to propose that we include the following to the lead of each policy. In the case of the NPOV policy, this also includes removing a previous quote on the matter which has been superceeded.
For the sake of clarity, please discuss this on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. -- Barberio 18:18, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I oppse this, though not passionately. Basically, I (1) do not think it adds anything that hasn´t been saids, (2) if our policies are unclear in some way, quoting Jimbo is just an excuse for not figuring out the real weakness and working on it, and (3) with all due respect to Jimbo, I think it sets a bad example to appeal to him as an authority. We already do it - genug. We just don´t need to do any more of it. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I don´t have a problem with it. I just don´t want us to go overboard looking for additional Jimbo quotes, that´s all. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
No, it doesn´t. That is because the paragraph that follows makes it clear that all three policies are inviolable. Just because Jimbo didn´t write it does not make it insignificant. In fact, Jimbo´s whole idea was that lost of people besides him could write a great encyclopedia, including policies to guide it. We don´t need another quote from Jimbo to say what we ourselves have already said. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Technically advanced nations have more media power, which affects points of view of the wikipedia editors. Even quite smart people are getting brainwashed sometimes (especially in political and philisophical matters). First of all, when someone postulates a false statement one thousand times, it doesn't looks false anymore. Second, the biggest bias is omitting of information, not presenting all of information. Even if the information is presented, it wouldn't be giving a media attention. Taking example from the page, they cry about Saddam Hussein, but doesn't give any major attention to other dictators, which aren't confronting USA interests (Pakistani and many more). Or, they talk about serbian atrocities on every street, yet doesn't mention anything about albanian atricities, their nationalism. Thie bias is impossible to fight. because the west, especially USA has too much of political, technological and finansical power. Yet, having power and money doesn't make you NPOV! Think about that, americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by QuestPc ( talk • contribs)
I removed the following link:
Edit summary: rv, seems irrelevant: Wikipedia is run by a non-for-profit organisation. Don't link to a page that has "business" written about five times per paragraph. This is unrelated to Wikipedia's NPOV.
I think there's more than one person needed to form a "consensus" to keep this on the policy page.
Yes we could link to everything that somewhere half-way through is derived from Wikipedia. But WP:NOT a repository of links. Certainly not the core content policy pages, for commercial links. If YelloWiki derived this from the WP:NPOV page, it is their task to mention that on that page (otherwise it'be a copyright infringement). Returning the not fulfilled favour, not knowing whether the YelloWiki NPOV page has any success at all, clutters the WP:NPOV page more than it clarifies. If we need more content on WP:NPOV, I'd rather bring back the FAQ content. Why am I putting so much time in something that IMHO should be clear to anyone, on first sight? -- Francis Schonken 15:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Recently a new user pointed out a section of this guideline page that seems problematic to me. Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Fairness and sympathetic tone presents the completely true principle that the way in which discussion of points of view are organized can imply a stance. However, it then presents a "for instance" that I find problematic:
This seems to be saying "the wrong way to do it is to discuss both supporting and opposing views in the same place; the right way to do it is to have separate sections for supporters and for opponents." I really can't support that; it doesn't make any more sense to me to have inherently POV sections of an article than to have inherently POV article.
I think the real problem is that the "for instance" is written too specifically, and obscures how very many ways there really are to damage the NPOV of an article through organization. I suggest that it be rewritten to illustrate the basic principle, by analogy, pointing out that just as constantly interrupting one's opponent in conversation is not a means to get everyone's voice fairly heard, neither is allowing an opponent's voice to be heard only to follow it up immediately with a counter-claim, et cetera. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree too. The current phrasing that seems to steer for the creation of separate "opinions-of-oponents sections" is IMHO currently the most problematic part of the WP:NPOV policy. It has some other history too. Let me take you through that thread of history in three steps:
So, here we are... I think we should bring the "how to present opinions of oponents" example up-to-date one way or another, so that WP:NPOV is more coherent with how we (should) go about this. I mean, my assessment is that something has changed by now, and that in fact separate "criticism"/"opinions-of-oponents" sections are regarded less as a viable solution than they used to be... -- Francis Schonken 17:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's see if this works:
How should someone go about cleaning up an article that, in my interpretation, subtly yet massively violates Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy? Because it has been difficult for me to convey just how non-neutral, unscientific and errantly suggestive the race and intelligence article's paradigm of presentation is I've decided to come to this discussion page in the hopes of clarification. This task is all the more difficult because it seems to me that many of the "pro" editors of race and intelligence have been infected (brain washed) by its misleading paradigm and dichotomy of presentation and they apparently unconsciously feel the need to defend what they (errantly) interpret to be an absolute conclusion at all costs. Given the seemingly intentionally fabricated unscientific paradigm of presentation it's as if most if not all pro "race and intelligence" and "intelligence research" publications are intentionally misleading and racism inducing propaganda with zero scientific value (see scientific racism). Almost every word choice in the current version of the race and intelligence article is unscientifically and psychologically suggestive and almost every statement fundamentally disputed. Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
For example, at a basic level the phrase "race and intelligence" seems to be a dichotomy that unscientifically confuses description with conclusivity. A test taker's supposed "race" is just one among many bits of information, there are many different yet equal ways of correlating data given multiple data points. The word "race" hasn't even been defined anywhere close to the point of scientific consensus so how can advocates of this research even propose a conclusion based on a fundamentally disputed definition? There also isn't much if any general scientific community support for the concept of an absolute "quotient" and/or definition of "intelligence". Given multiple data points and multiple correlation possibilities a subject should be presented more generically and abstractly and should not be allowed to focus, to the exclusion of all else, on just one data correlation pair. Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
In science generally an investigation begins from the starting point that the cause is unknown and certainly not known conclusively, e.g. a "working hypothesis". First, you have to present and describe what you or someone else is _investigating_ before possible conclusions are even proposed. "Race and intelligence research" does not do that, they've put the cart before the horse by errantly confusing description and cause. The phrase "race and intelligence" fails to note that this disparity is in fact more abstract and generic given multiple data points and possible correlation pairs. Correlating by Wealth and Nutrition is just as valid as correlating by "race" and "intelligence". Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
How should Wikipedia handle the situation where some sources criticize how a subject is being presented in other sources? In that case, I think Wikipedia should present that issue more generically and explicitly indicate where the scientific dispute begins? If other sources criticize certain researchers methods Wikipedia should not present that subject using those researchers' method, right? Please Think Perpendicularly 23:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The current version of the race and intelligence article is a minefield of psychologically suggestive and conclusive words and phrases, some examples:
The use of unreliable sources as secondary sources is enforced via edit war. It's been argued that this doesn't warrant a POV tag, as it is not dealt with explicitly on WP:NPOV. What can I do, as admins refuse to deal with the article? Can my stance be inferred from existing rules or should ruling be added? -- tickle me 01:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I hope I don't get attacked for this post. Lately, I ran across Anti-Semitism, the article. It states that the usage of this term for arabs (which is the opinion of arabs) is not generally accepted. And the rest of the article describes the subject as prejudice against jews. I know it's a delicate problem, but if a definition of term differs between two groups of people, shouldn't the two definition be fairly represented? And the article description (or even title) take account of these two definitions and not consider one false and one true and rely on it in the whole article since we're searching for verifiability not truth. I know it's difficult but how could this be solved in a reasonable manner. You're answer is appreciated (and if I didn't make myself clear, plz tell me, my english sucks ;) Thank you. CG 05:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
That is an good question. It strikes at the heart of NPOV. I would say that two definitions of a single word should be presented. Full definitions, discussions of the meanings as understood and used by one group. And then, after the first group's definition is fully discussed, the other group. I would say, dedicated a subsection or a sub-sub section of the article to it. ===word as used by A=== and ===word as used by B=== Terryeo 20:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Greetings, I am developing some guidelines that would be sensible to include in NPOV and I'm not quite sure how to integrate them. These guidelines have to do with images and captions on those images. Here is what I'd like to include. Might there be any suggestions from the regulars who edit on this policy on how best to integrate this potential new section? Thanks. ( → Netscott) 14:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
This says "Currently, the "Policy in a nutshell" says, "All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly and without bias. This also includes maps, reader-facing templates, categories, and portals." The first sentence is fine. The second presents an inclusion list. It would be possible to add "images" to that list, but next week, or next month, or next year someone will have a good reason to add something else to the list. Why not just change that second sentence to, "This applies to all aspects of an article." would people find some part of the word "all" that they don't understand?" I think the nutshell can be improved. Does anyone else think it can be improved? WAS 4.250 04:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
May I ask what is the reason for the lately excercise in hair splitting in policy pages? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Right, that notice. Also, I would argue that the nutshell is not itself policy, but rather a summary of a policy. And right now, it doesn't accurately summarize the policy it is supposed to be describing. -- tjstrf 01:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
In that case, I propose the following 2 modifications to the nutshell:
Neither of these changes will effect the message of the nutshell, but they will make it more accurate as to what NPOV applies to. -- tjstrf 23:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There are several views of the Jay Treaty: in straight diplomatic terms it was, at best, a minimal success for the Americans, in that they did not have actually to accept anything intolerable. More recently, there have been more positive views. A lone editor insists on quoting only the positive views, and including the positive parts of mixed assessments. Septentrionalis 17:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, despite discussion seeming to me to sugest against having this quote in the lead, removing the quote keeps being RV'd. So let's see if there is any consensus on this... (Note, this is not a vote, yada yada yada... This is just to spur a discusion to see if there is any consensus on this quote being in the lead other than inertia.) Please post a reason behind your position. -- Barberio 23:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Note, previous discussion on the subject kept getting side tracked into 'is NPOV the prime policy?' instead of discussing the quote. So this poll is intended to focus discussion on the quote, not as an actual vote in itself. -- Barberio 23:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Again, just to clarify, this is not a vote. This is just trying to focus discussion on the quote, and if it should be in the lead of the article. -- Barberio 23:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
* Move, I'm not against the quote, but placing it in the lead, in this form, might sound like it assumes something. Maybe "according to Jimbo, NPOV is absolute and non-negotiable, (but only according to him)", or "It's Jimbo's own pet policy, in fact", or whatever. It's our common policy. It's the core policy of all Wikimedia, the only one that is present on all Wikimedia projects in all languages (many parts don't have WP:V and/or WP:NOR), and it is gone far beyond just some Jimbo's idea.
CP/M
comm |
Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 23:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
What's the correct thing to do when the sources on all sides of a topic are all self-published? This is regarding the page Neo-Tech (philosophy). Bi 11:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Are there scenarios in which POV could ever possibly be a valid addition to any article on any scholarly website anywhere? Smith Jones 05:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
It has been pointed out above that "according to" wrongly suggests not more than an opinion; I did not notice any opposition against that criticism. Thus I changed the phrase to "stated:", in harmony with the text elsewhere. Regretfully this was immediately modified to an alternative version that only links to Jimbo; I don't mind but it's a much bigger change. Francis next reverted to the above "according to" text, which is definitely against consensus. What are the arguments against simply stating that Jimbo "stated"? Harald88 20:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I fail to see "improvement" in these suggestions. I neither think that this should be formulated in a more "ex cathedra" way (as you seem to suggest), nor do I think this should be "removed", nor "replaced", nor "formulated more casual", nor "made more prominent lay-out-wise", nor whatever I've come across these last few weeks. As said, I fail to see "improvement" in any of these (contradicting) suggestions/changes. -- Francis Schonken 19:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
As a minor commentary, I note that this edit reverts to long-standing phrasing under which murky statement of policy the pack of editors violate actual WP:NPOV by ripping from Wikipedia the cited expressions of those reputable scholars that the pack does not like. It is not a big deal in the overall scheme of things, but it is the dysfunctional current state of affairs in Wikipedia policy on WP:NPOV. -- Rednblu 23:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
User:Rednblu it is simply demeaning and disrespectful to use the word "pack" in the context you are using it. It is uncivil. NPOV has been a bastion for a long time, it is carefully watched and while changes do happen, they are done by concensus and use our founder's statements as a foundation. Your erudite posting, attempting to be both apologetic and putting "group think" into an easily pointed at package doesnt' appeal and isn't likely to produce cooperation. Besides which, how would you like your thinking to be talked about, not as individual nor creative, but as "pack thinking", or "group thinking" or such ? Its simply uncivil and you've done it twice in 2 postings. Terryeo 02:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with this edit; I do not see any consensus in favor of it. The Weekly World News is widely published, but WP should not represent its point of view. Septentrionalis 17:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate that Septentrionalis disagrees with the edit I made. I'll happily conceed "aims" and place the two statements side by side, here: Terryeo 21:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Terryeo, the problem is that when you say "most broadly published" what you actually mean is "most copies sold". Let's be open here - you've argued that because L. Ron Hubbard sells more copies than his numerous critics, Hubbard should be given priority. Actually, Hubbard is actually the most narrowly published - he's one source from one organisation, as opposed to dozens if not hundreds of journalists, academics and researchers who've written about him. "Broadly published" does not mean "one source who's sold a lot of copies". -- ChrisO 21:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Again, Terryeo, this fails in the case of sensationalism. If you read the policy section on Bias, we are specifically advised to avoid giving excessive weight to information which is extreme, transient, sensationalized, etc. and all of those things will be widely published. You cannot make NPOV self-contradictory like that. As with anything else, judgments must be made case by case. -- tjstrf 21:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with favouring weightings based on the proportional opinions of the expert community surrounding a topic. Although defining expert precisely is indeed dificult, in most matters it is clearcut if somebody understands (scientifically, based upon the facts) the topic in hand to enough depth to be able to make a reasoned opinion. Most importantly, I do not believe it is wikipedia's place to give a platform to the loudest shouters. We are supposed to give a platform to the facts, and whilst the shouters deserve a mention, being loud certainly does not make one automatically more right. LinaMishima 00:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
"Due weight" is all about a careful judicious judgement by people with both good judgement and relevant knowledge; in other words "weightings based on the proportional opinions of the expert community surrounding a topic". WAS 4.250 03:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Wanted to add language to the effect that care should be taken that parenthetical statements, in a brief clause following a subject, are particularly susceptible to insinuating non-NPOV perspectives because the structure permits only one POV. Parenthetical statemsnts should be strictly factual and parnethetical statements which appear to present an opinion should ordinarily be removed. (Example Tom, who is generally regarded as the less successful of the Tom, Dick and Harry brothers, was...) -- Shirahadasha 03:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Continuing from the previous work I found a good example of murkiness in the WP:NPOV page inciting rather than calming squabbles in the Middle East sections of Wikipedia. And I tracked the root causes of the policy flaws back through the "Undue weight" and "POV forks" sections and back into the very beginning "Explanation of NPOV" of the WP:NPOV page. Of course, these are only my opinions and findings. And more important is what you think.
I begin this morning with a simple example of the mistaken impression that the WP:NPOV page text gives to Wikipedians. One Wikipedian who shall remain nameless actually wrote the following.
And in tracking back through the "Undue weight" and "POV forks" sections and back into the very beginning "Explanation of NPOV" in the WP:NPOV page I could see how, if you read the text one particular mistaken way, you could come to the mistaken impression that "NPOV was only determinable by consensus"! So how do we fix the text of the WP:NPOV page? -- Rednblu 05:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Apparently, the text in the WP:NPOV page is written wrong. So how do we fix it? -- Rednblu 05:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
From all of the above, thank you, I think I see something. The first problem with the WP:NPOV text is that there is no definition of what "NPOV" is. Any good encyclopedia page should begin with the clearest definition we can think of. The first sentence of the "Explanation of NPOV" section is even wrong. Is NPOV a "means of dealing with conflicting views"? No it is not. NPOV is not any variety of means for developing consensus, arbitrating, mediating, negotiating, . . . , or any of the other means of dealing with conflicting views. NPOV is a way to write and construct an encyclopedia page.
So from all of your ideas above, I see a possibility. How about the following as a beginning of the "Explanation of NPOV" section. I use shorthand here. Feel free to fill-out or change as you think might make clearer to the readers and wide-public how to write NPOV pages in Wikipedia.
Which way shall we go now? What are your ideas next? -- Rednblu 18:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
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Thank you, my friends. So far we have the following as a clearer possibility for the first sentence of the "Explanation of NPOV" section.
Does that capture the essence of what you said? -- Rednblu 20:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
As I was informed on the WP:NOR talk page, the essence of WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:RS are the same - only add information that you can show to be true. So what is WP:NPOV's adjoiner to this? …and don't add true information in such a manner as to completely discount other true information, perhaps. This may well be an interesting ponderance, even if it's not directly related. Returning to the topic at hand, "The Neutral in neutral point of view refers to wikipedia's neutral position, outside of any debate surrounding a topic. Only verifiable information sould presented, and wikipedia must not distort the issue by portraying any opinion as having any more weight than those knowledgable in such matters give it". Does this really help? Probably not (but it's a nifty phrasing, in my opinon :P). But it should help to remind people that it is not wikipedia's place to state anything, we meerly report on the issues. The wording as suggested by rednblu is in and of it's self very much a point of view, expressing only opinions of individuals for everything. This more than anything makes it a bad option and poor copywrite. I am still baffled by the ongoing nature of this discussion, given that most people seem comfortable with the concept of undue weight. Sadly it is true to say that any attempt to quantify the weight of people involved is far, far outside of the scope of wikipedia, and majoritively common sense can perform an almost accurate comparison of weights. LinaMishima 01:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
There is a section in the NPOV policy which says something like "majority views should be given majority repersentantion, signigirant minority views should given adequate representation....." On this basis of this sort of nonsense with ragerad to scientific matters, many cranks and supporters of various thelogical/pseudoscentific views have argued that, e.g., astrology may well be the majority view in the world and therefore should be terated respectfully, etc, . Now, this is the fallacy of argumentam ad populam obviously. Science does not work by the looking to the consensus of all the vast majorityof non-scientifically trained human beings. Science works by forumating various hypthoses and then subhectin them to rigious testing to either provide statistcal confrimation or eventual falsification. If the theory is falsified, it may be eother revised or abandoned in afvor of another, more well-cofrimed and unfalsified theory, etc... I'm being a bit simplictic, but I don't have time to goi into a full explanation of philosophy of science. In any case,the ultimate point is that science does not deal in "views" or "opinions" (doxa) at all. It deals in episteme, striving comnstantly to come closer and closer to revealing the facts and fundemantal truthts of the universe. When there is a dispute within the cisntific community, then the majority view should be repersented in a predominant matnerrm the minority view, etc... When there is a dispute between a scientific fact (e.g. evolution of species) and unfalsiable pseduoscintific beleiefs (e,g, Intellgient design), then the FACT must be asserted. The movement of religious fanatics who reject the facts should be mentioned as a political and histrocal curiosity only. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority)
This is taken from the article on the other side explaianing NPOV. I change it to this:
the flat earth error, which is demonstrably false
This was revereted by someone who commented: NPOV is not about true-false. Indeed!!! You've nailed it. It seems clear from this example that NPOV EXCLUDES the very notions of true and false. This is the heart of the failure of Wikipedia and projects like it. The NPOV favors a particualr point of view with regard to epistemology: epistemological skepticism or relativism (they come to the same thing in the end). The earth is NOT flat. There is no scientific theory that the earth is flat. The earth is spherical. Obviously. LOL! What nonsense. NPOV is fundemntally logically impossible becasue not holding a point of view is to hold a second-order poijt of view with respect to points of view: anmely, that they are all equally valid!!-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Uhm, from what I gather, Lacatosias is attempting to claim that Wikipedia should assert the scientific POV rather than the neutral POV... which is, as specifically addressed on the policy page, a long rejected concept. So this is basically a moot point.
As I've stated before, truth is not a relavent issue to NPOV. If we lived in the time of Gallileo, the sun would orbit the earth. Or rather, NPOV would dictate that the sun be covered as orbiting the earth. -- tjstrf 18:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I haven't followed this philosophical discussion, but in the peer-reviewed academic world it is not a POV issue. Nobody today is calculating the trajectories of celestial (artificial or not) objects by Earth-centered theories. So Earth-centered theories are dead=debunked=toast=wrong - until someone publishes a paper showing that Earth-centered theories are better at predicting the observed trajectories.
Separates this argument out from previous comment. Can anyone answer:
The NPOV favors a particualr point of view with regard to epistemology: epistemological skepticism or relativism (they come to the same thing in the end). The earth is NOT flat. There is no scientific theory that the earth is flat. The earth is spherical. Obviously. LOL! What nonsense. NPOV is fundemntally logically impossible becasue not holding a point of view is to hold a second-order poijt of view with respect to points of view: anmely, that they are all equally valid!! -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 14:56, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#The neutral point of view: "the neutral point of view is a point of view" – no idea what Lacatosias/FF is trying to learn us that we didn't know already. -- Francis Schonken 16:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
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Continuing from the work above, I looked for an example where the unclear text of the WP:NPOV page supported a [ . . . ] of editors ripping NPOV from a page and replacing it by biased POV. I quote here the arguments of the editors who shall remain nameless.
And judging from how editors refer to the WP:NPOV page on Japan, Korea, and China, I must say that the explicit text of the WP:NPOV page so inaccurately explains NPOV that teams of editors gang up to revert the insertion of cited published statements of scientists as de facto POV pushing. One gentleman on Japan took the inspiration from the WP:NPOV text that he lacked a [ . . . ] of editors to support him so he created his own pack of sockpuppets to assist his cause.
I have many ideas about how to fix the text of WP:NPOV--as I am sure you do also. But I would suggest that, at this stage of fixing the text of WP:NPOV to actually promote editing "to represent all significant views fairly and without bias," we might get a clearer picture of what the problem is. The definitions of the WP:NPOV page fail to distinguish operationally between what is POV and what is NPOV. Witness the discussions of POV and NPOV on this page, none of which could cite to clear definitions in the WP:NPOV page that distinguish between POV and NPOV. -- Rednblu 23:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I am thinking about slapping a citation notice on the sentence "Dinosaurs were vertebrate animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 160 million years, first appearing approximately 230 million years ago." (from Dinosaur). Outrageous. A clear violation of NPOV, which says that all claims must be made in a way acceptable to everyone. By contrast, the article Adam says " Adam ("Earth" or "man" ...) was the first man created by Elohim according to the Abrahamic religious tradition.". Why shouldn't the dinosaur article and ALL the articles like that have 'according to the Western scientific tradition' or something like that?-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
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Continuing from the work done above, I learned that the WP:NPOV page lacks a clear definition of "bias"--as well as lacks clear definitions for POV and NPOV as noted before. I looked for some real data in a specific Wikipedia squabble where both sides thought the other had made a clear violation of NPOV and where both sides had correctly applied what is actually written in the text of the WP:NPOV page. I extract here what the editors said in applying the explicit contradictory wording of the WP:NPOV page.
Beta above has read the wrong statement in the WP:NPOV page "When bias towards one particular point of view can be detected, the article needs to be fixed" literally--that is, that she is supposed to remove "misconceptions" from the statements of the scholars she quotes. In contrast, Alpha above has applied the NPOV mandate to "represent all significant views fairly and without bias" correctly--that is, that she is supposed to present what the published writer actually said, neither adding to nor deleting from the POV that the scholar actually conveyed in the writing.
Now, there are many different ways of clearly defining any technical matter. For example, there is not just one way of making clear the distinctions in Newton's laws of motion. So likewise the clear distinctions in Terryeo's Laws of NPOV stated above are not the only clear formulation of "NPOV is the mandate to represent all significant views fairly and without bias." But Terryeo's Laws of NPOV make a much clearer and better-written explanation of NPOV than does the murky and self-contradictory text of the current WP:NPOV page.
From above, Terryeo's Laws are the following.
What the NPOV in "represent all significant views fairly and without bias" proscribes is bias against the POV of what any scholar has actually published. So how do we fix the text of the WP:NPOV page to clearly define bias, POV, and NPOV so that they can actually implement the mandate to "represent all significant views fairly and without bias"? Whose idea is first? -- Rednblu 16:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
-- 146.145.70.200 22:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
The main article on some countries is declared to be about the "modern state". This turns out to mean it is about the conquest and colonization of the country by people from elsewhere who are now dominant. Anything about those inconvenient vanquished aboriginals is then off-topic and can be relegated to a subsidiary article. For comparison, Mexico is not split into separate articles on racial lines. Fourtildas 03:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Have you considered that the subjects of that article, the USA and its geographic region, are huge? (Look at 1 E12 m².) America's size is close to that of the entirety of Europe. The sheer infeasibility of covering every single tribe, or even the major ones, in a single article would preclude it on a stylistic basis alone. Fully covering the American Indian tribes in the history of the USA section makes as little sense as covering every ancient european civilization in Europe, and is just as absurd.
You'd have a very valid concern if the United States had featured a major organized civilization prior to the colonization, as Mexico did, or if the article was located at America and only covered the USA. But the American Indian cultures were amazingly heterogeneous, and there isn't much that can be broadly stated about them. I would recommend expanding the coverage of the American Indians in the history of the article, but not by too much. Mentioning the Iroquois and the Hawaiian civilizations, for instance, could be well justified.
The article at which your concern would most validly be addressed would be History of the United States, which definitely needs a longer pre-colonial section. Also, this page really is not the place for individual content disputes. -- tjstrf 06:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I've reworded that section slightly. Hopefully it will quell discussion about the neutral point of view being no point of view at all, and some of the other confusions that have been recently talked about. Terryeo 11:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Presently the policy states:
(Emphisis as in policy) I am suggesting that the introduction of the qualifier "not asserted" adds complexity to this first sentence which is both unnecessary and undesireable as a first paragraph sentence. I am suggesting that the idea of not asserting a point of view as valid, but instead, presenting that a point of view exists is a very important element. It is too important an element to first bring it in on the tag end of another point of POV. Instead of bringing it into the policy as the tag end of the first element of the policy, I am suggesting it needs more development in its own paragraph. The first important element of NPOV, "present conflicting views independently of each other, not in a confusing mixture and jumble with each other" should not have this second and also important, "not asserted" element on its tag end. I propose we treat the "not asserted" element later and simply the first element to:
Francis Shoken, I have met your two objections, please discuss before reverting. -- tjstrf 06:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
If NPOV can work, I say it needs an explicit clause dealing with word choices because they can denote value judgments. I say the WP:WTA should be integrated or merged into NPOV. While POVs can't be avoided in discussing controversial issues, language that makes it seem Wikipedia advocates position X or position y undermines the entire rule. Also, opinions should be attributed in such a fashion that they are not treated as facts. Something such as the following shouldn't be give too much authority, such as if a group has a defined opinion, political agenda. I think anything included in an article, not based upon verifiable evidence, and relying upon innuendo or uncited assertions should be flagged as NPOV violations. Such citations undermines Wikipedia's credibility. -- 146.145.70.200 22:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
-- Pravknight 22:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the removal of the nutshell since I think it is a useful tool. It is clear and gives a quick overview of the policy, especially for someone trying to get a quick feel for WP policies. Yes, it may mostly repeat the lead paragraph but that is logical as the lead should be a summary. The shell is eye catching and shows the casual reader the essence of the policy at a glance, to be followed (hopefully) by a deeper read at a later time. Crum375 03:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
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From the above work, I learn that 1) there are three crucially different varieties of bias and that 2) the WP:NPOV page is defective in failing to define any of them. The three varieties of bias are "crucially different" because the policy mandate to "represent all significant views fairly and without bias" requires that each variety of bias be treated differently. The three varieties of crucially different bias are Bias1 of the 1) editors, Bias2 of the 2) page text in presenting published views, and Bias3 of each 3) reliable source that is cited.
At this stage, we are looking for a self-consistent logical design. At a later stage, we would look for the exact words to express the self-consistent logical design. What is the next step for fixing the self-contradictory and illogical text of the current WP:NPOV page? Any ideas? -- Rednblu 12:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Could editors stop for a while to continuously make changes to this policy before reaching consensus about these? It is be coming really tedious.
≈ jossi ≈
t •
@ 15:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Long before I came to wikipedia, I had thought that reporters in the public press should have to include, in their byline or at the end of the article, a brief statement of biases that they may hold with regard to the subject matter of the article. For example, a news report on Abortion might include a short statement by the reporter(s) briefly declaring their position on the matter. I realize that this is unworkable in many respects. But I add this as a pre-amble to my next statements so that they will not be interpreted as a reaction to a recent problem.
Having read the NPOV policy many times, I find it has one significant defect that I believe may injure wikipedia both in terms of neutrality and in terms of edit wars. The defect is reliance upon POV sources. Here is a typical scenario: Someone reads a POV book that takes a strong position on one side of an issue. They then come to wikipedia and edit many related articles with extensive quotes from this source. The source, highly biased, is presented as though it is neutral and fully factual on the matter. Furthermore, the amount of this biased text that is added is substantial, perhaps going on for several paragraphs or sections. Sometimes the area of concern is obscure enough or slow enough moving that it can be a long time before an adequate third party response (No Original Research in wikipedia) is available. This makes wikipedia a sort of validator of POV, giving it a credibility that is not appropriate.
There is currently no process or system for fixing this problem. If you can cite a third party source, the quality or POV of that source is essentially irrelevant. Even blogs, opinion editorials and propaganda may be quoted (Objectively) and presented as an important fact in an article-- because it is published. Indeed, all that is required is verifiability that someone (anyone -even idiots) said or wrote something publically. A page can be filled with such things, all from one side. This is a problem.
I suggest the following:
(I would not, however, think that it is inappropriate to substantially use otherwise "biased" sources that are from the person or institution or article subject. For example, I would expect to use the "Democratic Party Platform" as a source for the article "Democratic Party" and would not consider this to be generally a part of the rule that unbiased sources should be used as much as possible. -- Blue Tie 15:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
assembles edit cabals to support that POV, the NPOV rule is absolutely meaningless. In the world of journalism, we handle POVs by decreeing how sentences get constructed, such that POV advocacy gets neutralized.
. Avoiding POVs are unavoidable unless you happen to be Mr. Spock, but we are all human. The goal should be for Wikipedia to speak with one voice, and not advocate any discernable perspective, right or left.
I notice that most of my edits today were reverted. I'm not too bothered: this is your project, and you have all worked hard on it (I read this discussion page a lot). I have to tell you, though, that the page reads very badly in places. This is to be expected from a page constructed by a group, but my edits were aimed to improve it in accordance with the manual of style, hopefully without altering its content (with one exception, which I made clear on the edit summary and which I isolated in one edit, where I feel you have a mistake).
A word about reverting. I think reverting should be reserved for mistakes, vandalism, or whatever, and not used for good-faith edits that contain a variety of separate changes. This applies particularly to style editing because if you revert the whole of such an edit when you dislike parts of it, you may incidentally lose some valuable improvements that resulted from close reading. In my opinion, it is better to alter back any particular changes you disagree with rather than reverting wholescale: as you can imagine, these types of edits take a long time and much consulting of the style manual. qp10qp 17:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I notice today that the rest of my edits were reverted; one of the comments in the edit summary says that I should have gained consent for them here first. But I don't lack in trying to discuss things here, I would say. If it is meant that I should gain consent for individual style edits (I don't consider them "so-called style edits" since they're based on the manual of style), then I'm surprised, because I assumed the Talk page was for discussing less trivial proposed changes. I won't go through all the changes here; but just as examples, here are a few changes that were reverted:
Three instances of "we're" changed to "we are", plus a "there's" to "there is", a "we'd" to "we could", and an "it's" to "it is". (MOS: avoid the use of contractions — such as don't, can't, won't, would've, they'd, and so on — unless they occur in a quotation.)
"the neutral point of view policy" to my "the neutral-point-of-view policy".
"that page contains also comments" to my "that page also contains comments".
"a good way to help build a neutral point of view", or Bluetie's later edit "to establish a neutral point of view" has been reverted to "a good way to help building a neutral point of view".
This last one was turning into a good example of progressive editing. First I changed it to "build", and when Bluetie looked at it, which he might not have done otherwise, he changed it to "establish" because he thought that was a better word. By "progressive editing" I mean editing that inches towards a better document; that consists, for me, in looking at individual changes made, judging whether the editor had a point, and then either reverting that particular change or providing a better solution.
To give an example: my recasting of the following may not have been ideal, but it should have alerted editors to the poverty of expression of:
"So we're committed to the goal of representing human knowledge in that sense. Something like this is surely a well-established sense of the word "knowledge"; in this sense, what is "known" changes constantly with the passage of time..."
The same principle could have been applied to some of my other attempts to tidy up passages or make them more precise: if you didn't like my version, you could have at least considered whether it identified a weakness in expression.
I'm not raising this matter here again to say how important my changes were (quite the contrary, which is why I didn't present them here in advance), but to show that they were not all of the same type. I would ask reverters of such multiple edits to consider a slower and more piecemeal response—to become editors again, for a moment—or at least, in keeping with reverting policy, to explain reversions on the discussion page.
Meanwhile, there is an elephant in the room here: in my opinion this page is badly written in larger ways than the ones I nibbled at and so is therefore unlikely to be read by many people.
I'm not sure anyone will respond to the above; but I have done this the right way by talking again on this page rather than trying to sneak my edits back in. qp10qp 15:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
On a lighter note, isn't the following a bit woolly, speculative and POV?
"Totalitarian governments and dogmatic institutions everywhere might find reason to oppose Wikipedia, if we succeed in adhering to our non-bias policy." qp10qp 21:17, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
A good encyclopedia is an uncensored encyclopedia. Pointing out that this may aggravate certain individuals and organization is just giving people fair warning. Telling people "If you live in a totalitarian state, you may wish to think twice about editing articles about issues in which supporting the NPOV would be against the wishes of your government, because it may annoy them." is only fair and honest. See Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China for an example of what I mean. -- tjstrf 02:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
More generally: my experience of trying to improve the policy's readability yesterday made me feel that the text is somewhat locked in. I tried to be cautious and respectful of content. But in fact, after several hours with it, I came to the conclusion that the policy contains a surprising amount of repetition. For example, parts like the following (there are others) say what was already said ("But again" is a clue):
Does it matter? Well, I think a policy, even more than an article, should say what it has to say in as few words as possible. qp10qp 12:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
The neutrality of all contributions to Wikipedia shall be guaranteed by the wording in such a manner that they neither advocate any set position, ideology or POV in conformity with WP:WTA and WP:WEASEL.
All adjectives or adverbs passing value judgements or framing discussions are only appropriate within direct quotations and transition paragraphs may not advocate any ideological position.
Edits aimed at eliminating biased language, advocating a POV shall be exempt from the WP:3RR rule.
POVs, including predominating perspectives, shall be covered under this article.-- 68.45.161.241 04:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Rednblu, I think your appreciation of how policies are built, the way you explained it at user talk:Jimbo Wales#Expendable cogs, to be missing the point. I recommend a reading of m:Power structure. -- Francis Schonken 08:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, adjectives that have a political connotation to them or show favor. It's not dry. Adjectives with political or potentially perjorative language ought to have proper attribution.
I'm dead serious about my propsal. Journalists have to live by these rules, so should those who claim to want a neutrally voiced "encyclopedia". The NPOV rule as interpreted by many is vague.
ex:"J. Jonah Jameson is an extremist thug who has ties to a mafia group that wants to kill Spiderman." The words "extremist thug" convey a POV, and secondly who claims that J. Jonah Jameson is such.
I wouldn't want to ban something trivial like, "New York is a big city" It would, however, apply to something like,"New York is mean city."
I'm after adjectives and adverbs that convey a disputable opinion.
I only proposed this rule because I felt it could help Wikipedia sound more like an encyclopedia and less like a soapbox.
I thought this was a collaborative process where suggestions on improvement could be offered by others in a give and take fashion, not an all or nothing battle over turf. -- 68.45.161.241 17:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
An accommdationist would dispute the strict separationist's view of the concept and vice versa. Simply stating, "According to so and so, x threatens the separation of church and state." I think the second example gives too much factual creedance to the opponent's view without letting the reader know that so and so has a political/cultural bias. The other person may believe in the idea of separation of church and state, but just not the speaker's interpretation.