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I've seen this term used on Wikipedia a number of times. It needs to stop as it violates both WP:AGF and, more seriously, WP:NPA. Jinxmchue 22:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
See this thread on VP(P) and comment. Thank you, -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 17:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
What are the appropriate responses to ethnic slurs in Wikipedia policy names, procedures, etc.? Jacob Haller 20:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
At the talk page of the article Israel & the UN, I ask a question about the limit of the NPOV policy when dealing with real life. In brief, Where is the line between a lie and an opinion? Emmanuelm 18:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
As long as you follow this philosophy, nothing on Wikipedia will ever be able to be taken seriously. This is why the vast majority of schools do not allow students to cite Wikipedia as one of their resources, and why many PoV balance issues arise. It is not that objectivity does not exist, it is that the current policies do not allow for objectivity.-- 69.252.221.116 10:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
LOL —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.106.235 ( talk) 10:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
This is a call to all Grand Wikis : please provide us with a list of articles that you judge to be orthodox by all WP policies. Emmanuelm 13:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
This page is getting ridiculously long... What is the archive policy of this page? It seems that at some point it was two months per archive, but that was done 6 months ago. Should we rather consider User:MiszaBot II for this task? A useful setting might be discussions older than a month. G.A.S 09:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Isn't it impossible to have a neutral point of view because a neutral point of view is a point of view. Mono bi 20:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
The section on bias could be confusing in some instances. For example I've been involved with editing
L. Ron Hubbard, mentions of him in
WP:RS like Time magazine or the Los Angeles Times paint an overall image of a mentally disturbed power freak out for money.
Some might argue that RS about Hubbard are biased against both him and the religion he created.
They are:
1. Wrong
2. Right
3. Right about: (A., B., C., etc) Wrong about: ()
Anynobody 03:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I encourage Wikipedians who watch this page to comment about a new proposal at Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories#Appeal to particular attribution. Thanks ScienceApologist 17:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a significant lack in policy statements on what is an appropriate infobox. WP:IB and WP:IBT are entirely practical (how to create an infobox and where to find them). The process at Wikipedia:List of infoboxes/Proposed appears to be entirely for informational purposes, without any actual review required to set an infobox up (not that there necessarily should be). WP:TFD mostly focuses on practical issues as well (is it used? does it have a logical format?), but does mention the requirement that an infobox must "satisfy NPOV." I think we need a lot more clarity on what that means for an infobox, and perhaps adding a brief section to the NPOV page would be appropriate.
Consider an infobox that lists a person or organization under a certain category, and that there is significant controversy over whether that identification is fair and/or accurate. What is the standard? In an article, balance between POVs can be achieved by citing the opinions of various RSs and their reasons for placing or not placing that entity in that category. But an infobox is not capable of such nuance. Is such a listing in an infobox ipso facto a claim of consensus? Or would another rubric be more appropriate? -- BlueMoonlet 06:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
P.S. If this is not the proper venue for this discussion, please feel free to suggest a better one. Thanks. -- BlueMoonlet 06:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
This is indeed a very real problem. I don't think there's any explicit policy or guideline so far, and I've sometimes had the impression designers of infoboxes haven't given the problem much thought in some cases. For some items, such as statistical figures, it's become common to include footnotes in infoboxes, but even that can be problematic (if you have five different estimates for the population size of some ethnic group, which of them are you going to quote?). My experience is that among the most bitter edit-wars, a disproportionately high number are caused by infoboxes. In such cases I always try to persuade the parties to simply leave the information out from the box and treat it in the text only. People can get incredibly fixated on entries in infoboxes. In the eyes of many users, the special visual prominence a piece of information gets by being placed in the box apparently constitutes a special form of endorsement. This percieved hightened degree of importance, and the lack of nuance in sourcing and hedging, are problems that can seriously compound each other. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
The correct adjectival form referring to the "Quran" is "Quranic". The correct proper adjective for "Veda" is "Vedic". The correct form for "Talmud" is "Talmudic". This is the same as all proper adjectives in English, that are always capitalized, eg. "Lithuanian", "Australian", etc. However, a number of editors have now arisen insisting that the accompanying proper adjective for "Bible" should be "biblical" (small b) as a special exception, and only because they say certain style manuals they claim to be authoritative, ought to trump the notion of maintaining a neutral, even-handed appearance, without any other explanation or rationale being required. (Of course there are many other authorites that allow 'Biblical' with a capital B, but these, they claim, are somehow irrelevant.) The issue, including how it pertains to neutrality, is now being discussed at an RFC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible, please comment there. Til Eulenspiegel 17:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
This is a silly and inept example. The "view" of the world as flat is not a "view" at all, but rather a departation from fact. The world is provably spherical and as such there is no "view" to be reasonably had on the subject. Instead, a classical example should be given, one of a subject notable for not having ascertainable truths, forcing it to be comprised of views instead (i.e. the existence of God). 74.12.74.247 12:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
So what do we do when a reliable source discussing a group calls them the most popular band of the 90's?
Tarc 16:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't know anything about the late Sri Chinmoy (died Oct. 11) but was struck by the characterization of him in the lead of his Wikipedia article as being "quirky" and wondered if it was fair. Yes, this is sourced to the AP obit, which referred to him as quirky, so it's a reliable source. But if you do a search in Google News for the past month and add that total to a search on Google News Archives, you'll find that there have been 1,665 articles that mention Chinmoy. If you do a search on "Chinmoy quirky," Google returns a single result -- the obit that's cited in the lead of the article. Is it a violation of undue weight to characterize Chinmoy as "quirky" in the lead of this article? Thanks.
(I ask this not because I'm interested in editing that article but simply to get a better understanding of undue weight, which I feel may be widely violated in Wikipedia.) TimidGuy 15:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks much, Elonka and Anynobody, for your helpful responses. I realize now that there was a flaw in my logic regarding the Chinmoy example. It could well be that every one of those articles characterized him as quirky but only one chose to use that particular word. My methodology would only work for a more precise and unique term. So the example may not illustrate the issue with NPOV that concerns me. Anynobody, have you been able to successfully argue that an article that just mentions a subject in passing isn't necessarily a reliable source for that subject? It seems like you both agree that a Wikipedia article should give weight according to the preponderance of sources.
I saw above there was discussion of an NPOV Noticeboard. Did anything come of that? TimidGuy 11:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I have heard of cases where cited sources get deleted becasue they are edited by someone who works at the place the article is about like Quik Trip or Burger King. I know that editing articles about Companies that you own, Yourself (non UserPage), Your own Band, ETC are believed to be in Violation of NPOV. But Are Editing Articles on where your work or had worked at a violation of Wikipedia Policy (Even if properly cited) and that anything that is believed to be done by that person should be removed from the article now matter how much it belongs? I didn't see anything about editing Articles for Companies you own or where you work at in the FAQ. Sawblade05 ( talk to me | my wiki life) 08:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
After reading
Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikipedia principle. According to Jimmy Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable."[1]
looks like that the fifth pillar of Wikipedia
Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five principles outlined here. Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles, because perfection is a goal and not a requirement. As all previous versions of articles are kept, content won't be irrevocably destroyed by an editor's mistake. So don't worry about messing up.
is not valid anymore. The above sounds like a strong rule.
-- Smerdyakoff 23:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
{{
cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors=
(
help)-- Philip Baird Shearer 12:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I need a neutral party who understands the NPOV policy to look at and comment on the above linked article, and to possibly act as a mediator. The article is contentious... it is also full of half substantiated POV "accusations" and "rebuttals". The article has been tagged for being POV for a long time. I have been calling for a complete re-write of the article for over a year now, attempting to find a POV balance. I am not getting much support for this at the article. I could really use some back up. I am posting a similar request at WP:NOR, since there are issues with that as well... if you know both policies, even better. Thanks in advance Blueboar 01:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
In the Carmax article, this phrase exists: "Although not unique to CarMax, these features are still interesting." While browsing Wikipedia, I often see this type of phrase. Wouldn't this not be a neutral point of view? What may be "interesting" to one may not be interesting to someone else. Please guide me in the right direction and if there is a section specifically on this type of phrase. Thanks! PGT.Endurance 03:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see a section on this page about the responsibilities of one who inserts a "The neutrality of this article is disputed" tag into an article.
One might launch a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) attack on Wikipedia by sprinkling various forms of dispute tags in a multitude of articles -- without giving a reason for adding the tags. A visitor who sees a "dispute" message at the top of the article may not ask _why_ there is a dispute. They might just move on to a source which isn't proclaiming doubt about its own contents.
Or, if not engaging in a FUD attack, an editor might merely be "trolling": Trying to get attention by "forcing" others into action at their "command".
A NPOV-dispute tag was recently added to an article on my watch list.
The editor who added the tag has no history of editing the article in question.
Their tag said "Please see the discussion on the talk page." There was no discussion on the talk page about whatever they were disputing.
Their tag said "Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved." What dispute? By what measure might it be "resolved"? Who decides when it is "resolved"?
It occurs to me that if one has a problem with the neutrality of a statement, their first action might be to fix it or to question it on the article's talk page -- not to drop seeds of doubt on the whole article.
If one does drop a NPOV-dispute tag, it seems that there would be:
If one takes it upon themselves to drop a NPOV-dispute (or other doubt-inspiring) tag in an article, what are their responsibilities before or after doing so? -- Ac44ck 17:16, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Mattisse 01:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I don't know what FUD is, as I have not come upon the term before. Mattisse 02:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I've looked for your post to respond there but can not find it. Sorry! Mattisse 01:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I have two questions:
Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Bless sins ( talk) 18:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that some articles refer to "the ancestral fatherland of the XXX nation" or similar phrases, sometimes in the article title. This tends to suggest ownership by the XXX ethnic group. I can't find any clear policy against this. Fourtildas ( talk) 07:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I would like to change the name of the default shortcut here to WP:YESPOV. The current shortcut goes to a section that explains that the idea of "no pov" is incorrect. As so many editors seem so confused by this concept to begin with, I don't think putting forth WP:NOPOV as a "nickname" helps matters. -- Kendrick7 talk 19:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I am involved in a debate as to whether a criticism-- one published as an op-ed in two generally notable publications ( The Jerusalem Post and The American Spectator)-- deserves mention in a proposed criticism section for a BLP. (see Gayatri Spivak) Other editors have complained that the criticism has not received serious attention in academic circles, and I'm sure they're right. However, I think all criticism in the public sphere is relevant to a person's notability, but I'm not sure where the "tiny minority" threshold for inclusion/non-inclusion is to be drawn. Would double-publication of the criticism as an op-ed alone be enough to bring it out of the tiny minority category? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFace ( talk • contribs) 12:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Should sources acknowledged as extremists be given space on articles, even though they are popular?
For example, on the article Judaism, should The Protocols of the Elders of Zion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Judaism"? The publication is widely acknowledged as extremist and antisemitic.
Another example: on the article Islam, should The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Islam"? The publication and the author are acknowledged as extremist and Islamophobic. Bless sins 20:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Currently, what I would consider to be the Creation Myth article, has the name "Origin Belief"
It's my understanding that one is actually used in conversation and academic channels, while the other is a semantic treatment of the term. A quick google search will reveal which term is more commonly used.
People who hold supernatural beliefs about the origins of the world are offended by the term "myth" which they believe denotes "false". But the dictionary definition of "myth" does not carry this connotation, nor does the term when used academically. To be fair, I think the word does sometimes carry this connotation in colloquial speech.
On the other hand, anyone searching for the article is going to be looking for "Creation Myth" not "Origin Belief". This is because "Origin Belief" is an invented term designed to assuage people's concern over the word "myth".
My first instinct is that it should be reverted to "Creation Myth" as any encyclopedia should be a collection of facts, and not some sort of blueprint for a more PC world. However, upon reading this article, it's unclear to me whether this is the desire of wikipedia or not.
Basically I'm looking for guidance here. I will ultimately defer to the conventions of wikipedia, even if I disagree with them.
66.152.196.34 19:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I am involved in a debate as to whether a criticism-- one published as an op-ed in two generally notable publications ( The Jerusalem Post and The American Spectator)-- deserves mention in a proposed criticism section for a BLP. (see Gayatri Spivak) Other editors have complained that the criticism has not received serious attention in academic circles, and I'm sure they're right. However, I think all criticism in the public sphere is relevant to a person's notability, but I'm not sure where the "tiny minority" threshold for inclusion/non-inclusion is to be drawn. Would double-publication of the criticism as an op-ed alone be enough to bring it out of the tiny minority category? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFace ( talk • contribs) 12:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Should sources acknowledged as extremists be given space on articles, even though they are popular?
For example, on the article Judaism, should The Protocols of the Elders of Zion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Judaism"? The publication is widely acknowledged as extremist and antisemitic.
Another example: on the article Islam, should The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Islam"? The publication and the author are acknowledged as extremist and Islamophobic. Bless sins 20:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Currently, what I would consider to be the Creation Myth article, has the name "Origin Belief"
It's my understanding that one is actually used in conversation and academic channels, while the other is a semantic treatment of the term. A quick google search will reveal which term is more commonly used.
People who hold supernatural beliefs about the origins of the world are offended by the term "myth" which they believe denotes "false". But the dictionary definition of "myth" does not carry this connotation, nor does the term when used academically. To be fair, I think the word does sometimes carry this connotation in colloquial speech.
On the other hand, anyone searching for the article is going to be looking for "Creation Myth" not "Origin Belief". This is because "Origin Belief" is an invented term designed to assuage people's concern over the word "myth".
My first instinct is that it should be reverted to "Creation Myth" as any encyclopedia should be a collection of facts, and not some sort of blueprint for a more PC world. However, upon reading this article, it's unclear to me whether this is the desire of wikipedia or not.
Basically I'm looking for guidance here. I will ultimately defer to the conventions of wikipedia, even if I disagree with them.
66.152.196.34 19:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
why am i getting in trouble when im trying to make my own article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dresendiz ( talk • contribs) 04:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
"Europeans in the Middle Ages "knew" that demons caused diseases" Is there a source for this? :) TrickyApron ( talk) 10:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
How about renaming this page to
Wikipedia:Neutrality (which already links here) and extending it with badly needed aspects on issues of relative coverage other than just the issue of POV pushing, which this policy page traditionally gives far too much attention? I think most non-neutrality in articles is due not to a POV mindset, but to a rather innocuous ignorance on many different aspects of article writing and layout.
Also, I'd welcome something on the imo hugely problematic POV issue of criticism sections. I
dorftrottel I
talk I 05:18,
November 25, 2007
I changed a wording of "...views which are in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all" because I found a talk page comment where someone stated that in an article which was about a minority view that view doesn't need to be presented because it's a minority view, and that sounded absurd. I wasn't sure if I should edit this policy with my main account or this, but because I found that talk page related to an arbitration case which I'm uninvolved but made a statement I felt I should use the same account. I have a legitimate main account and I can tell it to someone who isn't involved with that arbitration. I certainly did not plan to get into policy editing with this account. :-) I'm still hoping that I could keep my main account out of these controversies, even though I wanted to make that brief note on an arbitration case and found this a little bit unclear part on this policy. As I understand this is that if a minority view is so extreme that it doesn't even have an article, then it's not presented anywhere. Calejenden 16:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Because this page is so clear about these things in general maybe that one sentence gets understood right here. There's no problem that views which are so extreme that there's no article about them or people advocating them are presented nowhere. And what I tried to add, the same thing is on the page elsewhere. I found a sentence about another matter which I'll comment, it was written 4 July 2007 as a part of a big change which was discussed on the talk page, but I didn't see discussion of that sentence. "A reliable source supporting that a group holds an opinion must accurately describe how large this group is." Link. Many sources assume that the reader has basic information, and often a size of some group would have to be found from another source. I'm leaving this message here hoping that someone who has been developing the wordings of the policy gets to this later. Calejenden 16:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I surfed on in to the NPOV page to look up a specific detail and randomly noticed the link to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Examples. You can imagine my enormous surprise at finding that this page is essentially unchanged since the day I first posted it back in October 2001. (see the version at Nostalgia).
While I am deeply flattered that something I wrote so long ago is still being referenced, it is fair to say our collective perspective is (ahem) "a tad more sophisticated now". We should either archive it as historical, or subject it to a complete re-write. Manning 13:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
A proposal concerning the creation of a new Admin noticeboard has developed into the suggestion/proposal to create Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposed new Admin noticeboard. A ecis Brievenbus 23:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I'm sure this will be a Wikipedia 101 question, but please review for me? On Talk:Waterboarding, a rather spirited debate is raging for whether it is acceptable to say essentially, "Waterboarding is torture" as a statement. It had gone in quite a few circles, and then I finally asked people to simply list all the sources that say it isn't torture, versus those that say it is.
A large variety of sources and notable opinions that indicate, yes, it's torture, and on the other side, two pundits. One basically saying, "Kick it back to the legislature to decide," which is largely irrelevant, as the United States legislature mentioned in her source of course doesn't decide this globally, and the other pundit simply saying he doesn't think it's torture. My take is that, based on the overwhelming weight of opinion and sourced information, we can only go with what we have at this time: Waterboarding is a form of torture, and we can mention in a subsection or later that some may disagree. As apparently only one sourced person disagrees, I wouldn't mention it in the lead, but down below in the text/discussion of waterboarding and the United States.
Am I analyzing this correctly? Lawrence Cohen 19:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Policy is a wonderful thing. Every CEO will tell you "ït is meant to be interpreted liberallÿ". If Neutral is supposed to be a policy, then all one can do is watch, shuffle and delete paper, and most bureaucrat do, in line with what they see as "policy".
E.g. This talk is is respnse to the deletion of an article, signed by Wikipedia's founder, for copyright violation by Hut 8.5. See deletion log 1 19:25, 8 December 2007 Hut 8.5 (Talk | contribs) deleted "Open Education Declaration" (copyvio of http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/front-page/read-the-declaration)
Yes, I know Wikipedia is soon going to be migrating to a Creative Commons license, but until that happens the text can't be included in Wikipedia. Even if that wasn't the case, the text would have been deleted through some other mechanism since it wasn't any kind of encyclopedia article and Wikipedia is not the place for any kind of campaigning, as I'm sure Jimmy Wales will know. Hut 8.5 21:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Hut,
Let me get this right. Even if, in the meantime, I get the guys at [4] to put a link to the GNU Free Documentation License, the founder of Wikipedia doesn't have the right to put a document (article) he has signed, whose core aim it is to further the Foundation's aims, on the site he set up?--Simonfj (talk) 21:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
If they license the text under the GFDL then it will not be deleted straight away as a copyright violation. However, Wikipedia is a neutral encyclopedia, and including text campaigning for anything is a violation of WP:SOAP, and this would likely result in the page being deleted in an articles for deletion discussion. Note that Wikipedia's policy of neutrality was strongly championed by Jimmy Wales, and I seriously doubt he is going to break it. There are other websites the Wikimedia Foundation can use to express support for the petition other than Wikipedia. Hut 8.5 21:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Now one can't blame Hut 8.5 for doing a good gatekeeping job. But let's consider if we want to let our founder break his own policy; or is this the kind of outcome he meant to encourage by the NPOV policy?-- Simonfj ( talk) 22:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Publishing the declaration is engaging in the debate, specifically forbidden by WP:NPOV. However, there is nothing at all preventing one from creating an article describing the debate, which is exactly what WP is intended for. 74s181 ( talk) 03:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
A question has come up in
Talk:Persian Gulf regarding the controversial usage of the alternative (and controversial) name the 'Arabian Gulf' in the Lead. A great many there feel that the addition of the controversial alternative name is an
undue weight violation. I am not as sure of this, as the naming controversy of the alternate name usage appears within the article, there is an actual
dispute about the name, there are cited references to the usage of the name (both historically and contemporarily) and that a sizable percentage of people in the area refer to it as such. the debate seems to be a perennial issue of debate, and it would be nice to specifically address this so as to resolve the usage question.
I've suggested that the matter be rfC'd or even ArbCom'd but the first led nowhere and the second seems like more of a nuclear option, as an AN/I on one of the more uncivil users has served to leaven out the incivility that was brewing there. ArbCom is usually to resolve issues of user condict, not content disputes. the only reason why i still think it might eventually be valid/needed is that it does seem like a policy interpretation dispute.
The matter is insoluble to both sides. My own observations of the discussion are that, while it might seem unfair to characterize it as such, this is another cultural-type dispute, similar to the ArbCom Persian Naming Dispute thing from this past summer. Some inpute would be extremely helpful. -
Arcayne
(cast a spell) 15:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
if there ever was a biased article, that one was it. We should work on that. The accepted truth isn't the only one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.161.138.241 ( talk) 21:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
If wikipedia is going to allow religious fundamentalists such as yourself who support ID/creationism to edit science, we might as well let hard-core atheists edit Christianity.
Why don't you give a nod to other theories of intelligent design, such as how mankind was designed by the Greek gods? And what about Norse, Chinese, Egyptian, etc creation and intelligent design ideas?
If not, then that is a testament to your hypocrisy. Intranetusa ( talk) 03:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed in a relatively new guideline the phrase "Wikipedia self-identifies primarily with mainstream opinion".
I cannot interpret this as anything else but an attempt to undermine (or re-negotiate) our NPOV policy, according to which Wikipedia must not be biased towards any party. "Mainstream" (or majority) opinion is fairly given most space; it is not permitted to let Wikipedia be transformed into a propaganda outlet of majority opinion.
Evidently, Wikipedia must be actively protected from being hijacked by the opinion of any party. What shall we do about it?
Harald88 ( talk) 12:15, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
This issue is a highly significant bottleneck to the quality of Wikipedia. I suggest the NPOV policy has a serious flaw since it can't cope with the implications mentioned here. Please give your opinion here: One view will never be nuetral: introduce MPOV to replace NPOV Rokus01 ( talk) 18:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Given a number of alternate names which are not widely accepted and are in dispute, would it give the alternate names "undue weight" if they were mentioned in the lead? This is the issue we're trying to sort out over at the Persian Gulf mediation case, and input from the wider community would be welcome. CloudNine ( talk) 18:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
The NPOV policy was never meant to cope with the limits of interpretation. To start with, what could be neutral to any point of view?
A well known strategy of experienced POV pushers is to push out all views they oppose to from an article, on the pretext that those other views are not significant enough. These so-called "insignificant" views easily include published scholarly points of view. Somehow this wrong-doers are free to present those other views as contradicting some kind of "mainstream" popular view, by law of nature identified as "neutral". However, the neutrality of such a "neutral" point of view is irreconcilable to the personal point of view of those that seek to give WP:UNDUE attention to their own opinion, maybe even at the cost of criticism and the results of other investigations.
All of this is possible for those that intent to abuse NPOV policy at the limits of its applicability. Sure, theoretically some kind of "neutrality" could (and should) be achieved by verifiability and objectivity: however, authority and general acceptance will rarely contribute to such a neutrality, not even being a scholarly point of view, and certainly never as a rule of thumb. How "neutral" was the once generally accepted autocratic dogma of the earth being flat? So, if "neutrality" of any point of view is disputable by definition, why not better stop the abuse of NPOV by hard to dethrone cabals and drop NPOV policy altogether. To make an article truely neutral and encyclopedical, Wikipedia should rather adhere to a policy of Multiple Points Of View (MPOV) instead. Rokus01 ( talk) 18:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
In defense of MPOV I argue that POV pushers would have a hard time to push out significant scholarly points of views by abusing MPOV policy. Yes, to replace the misnomer of one of the three very pillars of WP policy by a better equivalent could be cumbersome. Still, anything that would contribute to balance, quality and above all, peace, would be worth some consideration - no matter how symbolic. Rokus01 ( talk) 18:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
By the way, please explain why you deem an official emphasis to multiple views contentious? Won't it be rather the contrary, that people will have to waist less time in WP:OR to advertise their personal point of view as the one and only that would be the "most neutral and significant"? Rokus01 ( talk) 18:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I guess WP:WEIGHT focus on authority and acceptance, not on neutrality. NPOV could never make one point of view appear more "neutral" for having more authority or acceptance. Most content disputes are indeed about the coverage of multiple points of view. This does not have anything to do with moving policy goalposts, rather with abusing policy in favor of - typically - some kind of single point of view that is hardly to be called neutral at all. Rokus01 ( talk) 00:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I propose that Wikipeida policy on WEIGHT should include a note along the following lines
Policy recommendation made by --
Strider12 (
talk) 21:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
-- Strider12 ( talk) 21:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
If anybody has expertise in this area, please see Rfc on NPOV and comment as indicated. Pernicious Swarm ( talk) 05:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
There is an ongoing difference of opinion as to how to interpret this on the article Waterboarding. Most editors are in favour of stating in the lead: Waterboarding is a form of torture. As I understand it the views on this are:
Regarding the above I am interested to hear how to interpret this. Do we, as in Intelligent Design, start with the consensus among experts (it is torture) and continue to explain in the article body what a notable minority thinks? Does opposing a similar stance as with ID violate WP:FRINGE/ WP:WEIGHT? Respectfully Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 16:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
This is a big issue in the article Jewish Lobby where for a couple years a few editors have constantly blocked any attempt by numerous editors to point out the simple fact that in the real world Jewish Lobby is NOT always - or even mostly - used in an antisemitic way. A simple google search of the term will show that it is more frequently used - including especially by Jewish groups - as a synonym for Israel Lobby or to describe lobbying by Jews for things like more police protection of synagogues or anti-discrimination laws.
The recalcitrant editors claim since there are no "reliable source" treatise on this common use of the phrase (as there are on the antisemitic use), therefore it is WP:OR to mention them at all! Opinion pieces that it is NOT antisemitic to use the phrase Jewish Lobby have been dismissed by these editors on dubious wiki-lawyering grounds. (Or do I just have to become a better wikilawyer to defend them?) And of course the easily provable fact that the phrase IS used repeatedly and incessently by Jews and non-Jews in non-antisemitic ways is just dismissed as WP:OR. I am sure on wikipedia there are lots of other phrases where some partisan group prefers one interpretation of a phrase and nixes any mention of a competing interpretation, using WP:OR.
My question is: is this something that has to go to dispute resolution? Or is this a problem in the definition of WP:OR? Or does it need to be said that there are situations like this one where WP:NPOV trumps WP:OR?? Carol Moore 05:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC) CarolMooreDC talk
…1:49P.M.E.S.T. D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass i'm an easy going guy i type set stuff perhaps in a unique way, my spelling for sure is'nt all that great though a setting on a talk page can somehow be related,now when it comes to an original idem i am mostly in controll lets say it could be judged as a 99% activity all's well, i try and for the corporation well thats the start i understand and then the reference of thought is another reason why i'm glad for the opportunity to subject some thought,though what about my issue of a topic concerning me wich is based on other topics for instence i'll go to a talk page an relate a reference and or message,and then after a bit perhaps weaks maybe a longer time depending on the quality,then start a page under user talk D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass signing it David George DeLancey going back to my own reference or start of topic with an opinion, from someone else thats ok, though also a deletion of some sort concerning me to the advantage of my page concerning some degree of a relate elsewhere a reason in my mind is still pending. How can a true exsistance be if then when a exsistance of matter is not further capable of a conduct,you know for a nation network concerning of a matter in Case it sure is a lapsing venture,just because someone has a Thought does'nt mean their just posting their thoughts. I supose it can be very posible to start a juction of one's own determinations to end up with a true explanation of something or matter would be the way to go my thought are now in some sort by the wikipedia venture an endless degree of matter sometimes pertaining to nothing so i am aware of through someone else , i agree with this and will judge myself accordingly without the thoughts i pertain though i will still be a log in as D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass and improve on the Quality of Knowledge note as a free attempt with society to do so i am granted now to end this.2:12 p.m.e.s.t. David George DeLancey ( talk) 19:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
…The Title to my last Post here by D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass is MAKING AN ISSUE David George DeLancey ( talk) 19:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I just removed the last use of "objectivity" in the article. Now, I would like to see a paragraph it this article discussing the difference between objectivity and "neutrality". I do not mind the link to this article in the disambiguation page for "objectivity", but a clarification is long overdue.
To get everyone started, here is an example. When discussing Elvis Presley's death, an objective editor would note that his death was objectified with a rather unsurprising autopsy report and would qualify all subsequent reports of posthumous sightings as "undocumented". A neutral editor, however, would argue that the coroner's opinion weighs as much as the opinion of each subsequent Elvis sighter and, arithmetically, would devote more space to them. (Parenthetically, posthumous sightings are not even mentioned in the Elvis Presley article, a clear case of non-neutrality). Emmanuelm ( talk) 15:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
The editor must decide what is fact and what is opinion. NPOV is not a way around it, depite what many new editors seem to think. Bensaccount ( talk) 23:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Nobody can be forced to like the NPOV policy, which is totally unrelated to the idea of an 'objective' POV. In fact, attempts by editors to enforce an 'objective' point of view or to "decide what is fact and what is opinion" are explicitly contrary to the letter and spirit of the policy. No matter how frustrating this reality may be to some editors, it is the reality. Perhaps editing Wikipedia is not the best hobby for everyone to pursue. Dlabtot ( talk) 19:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I sense there are fundamental problems regarding the usage of the word pseudoscience on wikipedia. This is starting to become a systemic problem on wikipedia since the concept of pseudoscience is used in a policy.
It feels this policy was written for articles on mainstream subjects where a minority objects to the established sciences. This policy then is then usually desired. However in articles where a fringe subject is described this rule is often applied, and then in my opinion in a way that lessens the integrity of the article. This defaults for most editors, because of their education or cultural background, established science. However fringe subjects are outside established science. Consequently, the scientific body on the subject is thus often limited. Often actual science is published in less reputable journals because of its fringe status. Additionally it represent the minority view, so it will be given less weight. These factors introduces a systemic bias into the article text.
I suggest that an accusation of pseudoscience should present a verifiable falsification of the fringe claim. If the methods are regarded to be lacing then this should be described. This way one can let the science do the work, and at the same time avoid using words that lack a place in philosophy of science.
Totally I find the idea of the whole of science giving a subjective conclusion on the basis of the opinion of some notable scientists isn't enough to warrant it to be written exclusively on basis of hard sciences.
The definition debates on what is pseudoscience or not has been detrimental on the quality of articles. I hope my criticism of this policy is understood, since it is indeed a tricky issue. -- Benjaminbruheim ( talk) 18:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I ran into an interesting issue while looking over Anti-Americanism and the "Anti-Americanism in Australia" subsection. It's pretty mediocre so I went to work trying to to draft a "balanced" overview, and I began reference hunting.
But the references providing "evidence of anti-americanism" vastly outnumber the references indicating that it really isn't a major issue. I have endless media reports of protests at visiting US diplomats, numerous major media editorials which criticise individual American decisions and even the Deputy Prime Minister making a sweeping statement in 2005 that "there is a very strong anti-American feeling in Australia" (no I'm not kidding - read it here). I even have a top 20 song by Midnight Oil called "US Forces" which opens with the lyric US Forces give the nod, it's a setback for your country. (Which I confess to singing along with as a teenager).
So the majority of references I can find make it appear that anti-Americanism is utterly rabid here and that we are one step away from gunning down American tourists in the streets,. But as someone living here, I can assure you this simply isn't true. Unfortunately the references that say "although we make snide remarks about Americans every now and then, we basically don't mind them" just don't seem to be out there. It's almost like our media and academia are implying "we all know this, so no-one really needs to says it".
Now my comment here isn't about addressing this specific situation as such, and I'm not asking for anyone to find the references that prove me wrong (although I'll gladly accept them). But I'm curious as to whether there are other "squeaky wheel" type situations where the very act of referencing seems to create POV distortions, and how the community has dealt with them. Manning 10:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi. When making editing decisions about how to present points of view, the Undue Weight aspect of neutrality is crucial. Basically, Undue Weight suggests that tiny-minority (fringe) views may be excluded from an article (even if the fringe view gets its own article) whereas Significant Minority views should be represented, albeit without undue weight.
Therefore, it's important for editors to pay attention to, and learn how to distinguish Significant Minority views. I often find myself explaining Significant Minority policy during Talk disputes. However, while there is WP:FRINGE, there is no shortcut -- not to mention a policy page -- about Significant Minority views. Proposal Would folks agree to add something like WP:SIGMINORITY as a shortcut to the WP:UNDUE section? Thanks. HG | Talk 10:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
It was a bit wishy-washy, so I worked on it a little bit. The way it was written, it suggested that editing with bias is OK. [6] ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 19:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate...
...a neutral reader to fairly and equally assess...
We should, both individually and collectively, make an effort to present these conflicting views fairly, without advocating any one of them...
The point was to clarify that users should attempt to exercise good judgment and attempt to make edits based "on observable phenomena without bias."
☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 19:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
One of your sentences I had removed:"basing one's judgment" is exactly NOT "what editors should do", READERS should be able to base their judgement on neutral descriptions - editors shouldn't impose their judgment by what they write (bolding added)
As for your first quote, here's the bolding I'd apply:One common understanding of objectivity is that it involves basing one's judgment on observable phenomena without bias. In accordance with neutral point of view and verifiability, that's precisely what editors should do. (bolding added)
I'm quite sure that's a part you missed thus far (replacing "all relevant sides of a debate" by "observable phenomena"), and which makes the difference w.r.t. objectivity: objectivity assumes one side of a debate (the "objective" side), and writes from that side. That's something a reporter who writes an article in a newspaper can strive for, but it is unworkable for an encyclopedia where every article is co-authored by anyone who cares to get involved. Then "objective" is useless, because the "objective" approach can be different depending on background of the author, and can nor should be imposed on other authors of the Wikipedia encyclopedia nor on the reading public. Instead, Wikipedia chose and still chooses to let different biases co-exist on the same page, while biases can't be excluded altogether (beware of the person who tells you s/he is totally unbiased - doesn't exist). In this way articles as a whole approach "lack of bias", while biases should balance each other. This is what the policy means by the "neutral point of view", which is a "point of view" (see 2nd paragraph of WP:NPOV#The neutral point of view), but which is not a synonym of "objectivity". -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate [...]
FWIW, I fully support Francis Schonken's revert. We certainly don't want to advise folks to edit based on what they decide is the "Objective POV" Dlabtot ( talk) 23:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Here we go again, confusing objectivity & neutrality. I will repeat myself : objectivity is feasible but incompatible with the NPOV policy because objectivity implies judging the credibility of an idea and, hence, expressing a point of view. Emmanuelm ( talk) 12:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Francis Schonken, to rephrase my question: Your assertion that "Objectivity does not exist." Do you believe that is a reliable, objection assertion or is it your subjective opinion, and therefore unreliable? If you don't consciously believe you're being objective, but rather, you're knowingly thinking in your head, "ROFLMAO! I'm so biased!!! Let me see how much of my subjective views and opinions I can publish in this place!!" then while it's theoretically possible your opinion might be correct, you are hurting Wikipedia and violating policy.
Bensaccount put it very harshly, but he's right. Such an attitude does not belong on Wikipedia or elsewhere, for that matter. See Eel wriggling, Sophistry, and Nihilism. If you don't believe it's possible to "objectively evaluate" sources, it's hard to follow how you could adhere to WP:NPOV. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 08:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Wjhonson, it's not the existence of views that I'm objecting to. Scientists and journalists have views as well, but what makes them good scientists and journalists is the ability to move beyond their views and analyze the facts objectively. Editors are worthless if they can't let go of their views or avoid using Wikipedia to push their own biases. This idea is already reflected in existing policy, as shown above, so avoiding the word "objective" and the nonsense here here seems silly. It's not true. It seems like it's just up there to make Francis Schonken feel good. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 21:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
An open question: What is a "neutral reader," in fact? ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 21:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
and Here is what I want it to sayblah blah blaq
it would be helpful for those of us who like to address changes at an atomic level. In that form we can see, right here, the possible effect of the change, instead of needing to review stale edit fights. Thanks Wjhonson ( talk) 22:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)blah blah blaggerblaq
Wjhonson, I posted a diff above. I want it to be worded strongly. As it stands now, it supports Factual relativism, which is in violation of WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:FRINGE. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 00:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Here is the same diff I posted above. [7] ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 14:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The idea that only the observable is real is an important idea in human thought. Wikipedia includes this idea. But it also includes other ideas. Human beings have tried to make sense of their lives in multiple ways. Including a multiplicity of ideas and perspectives is considered part of what makes Wikipedia valuable. Maybe Factual relativism is a bad idea. But maybe not. It's not our job to make those types of judgments. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 17:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Shirahadasha, in general Wikipedia should not make judgments, but as Bensaccount noted above, if somebody does not believe in facts or the capability to attempt to be objective, then it is impossible for them to follow Wikipedia policy and collaborate. It would be impossible for such a person to follow either WP:V and WP:NPOV. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 18:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Another way of wording it: NPOV is teleological not ontological. Users should consciously attempt to be without bias and try to objectively verify and determine the reliability of sources, through critical thinking. This says nothing of the ontological claim of whether "objectivity" actually exists.
Referring to the relation between objectivity and NPOV as a strictly "empirical question, not a philosophical one" is absurd. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 17:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I have reverted the addition of the simple redirect called WP:PROMINENCE which adds nothing to the page as it's simply a redirect. This addition wasn't discussed and no attempt to find consensus is recorded on this page. I'm not sure what the intent was, so please clarify. Thanks. Wjhonson ( talk) 09:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
(OD) The main issue to me is yes be bold. However. When you're bold on little-viewed pages it can be seen as a great contribution to the project. When you're bold on core pages, you're likely to be reverted and asked to seek consensus on Talk first. Which is what I did. This is especially the case if the bold edit is then being used to bolster one-side in a long contentious content-war. Wjhonson ( talk) 01:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Please consider that newer editors who might be interested in following this discussion may have no idea where that better place is. eg. me. Anthon01 ( talk) 02:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a long-standing argument on creationism and intelligent design pages, over how creationist views should be presented. Obviously, the scientific community doesn't support creationism, considers it a purely religious viewpoint, outside the realm of scientific inquiry, etc. I agree that their views should be present in the articles, prominently. However, within the US and the Muslim world, evolution by natural selection enjoys almost no support outside of academia (around 10% in the US according to a Gallup Poll). So should popular views be cited? And what about the views of religious leaders, who overwhemingly support creationism and theistic evolution? It seems to me that the current state of these articles gives undue weight to the views of the scientific community, only because they don't mention any other viewpoint. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 16:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
On my editing break, I've created a shortcut that you might find useful. WP:PSCI. I got tired of looking for it. I think this will achieve consensus without any serious opposition. Anthon01 ( talk) 02:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Is there a policy that describes how to handle a situation where most of the normal sources are suspected to be biased? Imagine, for a moment, that you are working on the Soviet Union Wikipedia, and you are inside the Soviet Union, and all your fellow editors are inside the Soviet Union, and most available information is published by the government. Suppose you are writing an article on Stalin and want to list how many people he killed. But "official" estimates say he didn't kill anybody. "Official" estimates say he made the entire country happy (although you yourself know several depressed people, officially they are classified as "extremely happy"). How would NPOV be achieved in such a situation?
To put it another way, if the emperor has no clothes, but all the kings officials, and even diplomats visiting from other kingdoms, insist he's quite well dressed, and if about half the people have seen the king walking around without clothes, what does NPOV demand from the "best-dressed list"? Is the king on the list or not? Is he on the list with a footnote? Is he put on a separate list? How about the list of people who don't wear clothes; does the king get put on that list even though he is officially well-dressed? Readin ( talk) 15:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to agree, that there is a lacune in our policies. See below for more. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 07:59, 9 February 2008 (UTC) i.e. ( #Selection bias leading to NPOV violation?)
We badly need some clarification on the policy about cartoons and drawings of living or dead people. Should they be considered factual? If so, under what circumstances? If someone draws a picture of a person and the majority of the opinion is that the drawing does not resemble the person in question, should that drawing be still included in the article about the person, just to uphold the POV of a single person (i.e. the painter)? Should we consider imaginary paintings as "fact" or a "POV"? Regarding the painter it may be a fact (that he/she painted the image) but regarding the subject of the painting, how can this be considered as factual? And yes, these questions are emerging because of the issue with the images on Muhammad.
There is this FAQ page about this subject - I am not sure whether this page is a part of Wikipedia Policy, or some sort of ruling based on the policy - the FAQ page says - As there are no accurate images, it is best to use images that are historically significant and/or typical examples of popular depictions. Well, what are the criteria to decide "Historical Significance"? The criterion of "popular depiction" certainly doesn't hold as any depiction of the subject is extremely unpopular. Given Muhammad himself strictly prohibited painting of living things (including himself), is it appropriate to include imaginary paintings of him on his biography simply because "Longstanding tradition on Wikipedia favors any images even representing part of a tradition over none at all"? What is more important, respecting a person's wish that he never be painted, or respecting Wikipedia's tradition that all articles have images? Arman ( Talk) 10:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
In several articles, I have in the past tried to add facts, which I deemed important to include in order to balance the article, making sure it is NPOV. Such edits were almost always reverted, however, because in the final stage of discussion, they "did not fit into the narrative" of the article.
But:
This explanation itself however, is often subject to debate, for which no independent reliable sources can be found: most reliable sources, if they would say anything about it at all, would have already committed themselves to idea "A". But what if idea "A" could be false?
Such would never get detected, because facts X, Y, and Z were explained away or simply disregarded, whether this "explanation" in turn is valid or not.
The problem I see is that not only Wikipedia is using reliable sources, the reliable sources themselves in turn are also using reliable sources! It is a whole grid of reliable sources who keep repeating what the others say. And all of them use this method: "Disregard facts which do not fit the narrative. They will certainly have some alternative explanation." That is what Narrative based fact selection really amounts to. In my eyes, this mechanism NFSM) looks very much as Selection bias , a common logical shortcoming, which in the end leads to Circular reasoning, another one. (For further reading, if interested, you may also like this text: talk2000.nl)
Therefore, if we insist on using NFSM in our articles, we must have some logical reason for doing so: we either need to be absolutely sure that our narrative is a true account (and would need a very heavy RS which enjoys consensus for this extraordinary claim); or... the NFSM we follow must be known flawless. (— Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk))
So now I am asking you all to help and show a RS or an authority on logic which indicates that NFSM would be the right way to go about, and that using NFSM would lead to truthful encyclopedic articles? (If we have none, should we not abandon NFSM?) — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 08:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm struggling to figure out how NPOV applies to books of pseudohistory or I guess even flawed history books. The example I am working with is Where Troy Once Stood. I started looking at this a few days ago. It had external links to bronze age finds with no clear relationship with the book, it had a sentence in the first paragraph which linked to a personal Amazon page which listed the book as a great book, it had the Odyssey evidence still there, etc. I started by adding a section on linguistics which quotes the author and pointed out that the languages he was discussing didn't exist at the time, and that was left in. I added short sections on archaeology quoting Michael Wood about artefacts found in the Eastern Med, and a short section on geology quoting recent research that shows the geology around Hissarlik (where Schliemann thought he found Troy) matches Homer's description, something that contradicts Wilkens. That was removed on the basis "Attempts to disprove the book's thesis don't belong in the article either--we should stick to what secondary sources say about this book, which is almost nothing." But the arguments about the Odyssey were left in. I then put an external link in to the scientific article about the geology, and that was removed also. (As, to be fair, were the links to Bronze Age finds). But what is left now could almost be a publicity release from the publishers. Not quite, but almost. And that doesn't seem neutral to me. One of the problems is one discussed before, this is so way out few scholars have spent any time looking at it. Thus there are virtually no critical reviews or articles. I've spent quite a bit of book time looking at the archaeology, I know a professor of linguistics who has looked at his linguistics, I know someone who has visited some of the sites in person. But all of this is unpublished original research, verboten on Wikipedia. So is there any way out of this situation where the Wikipedia article is not giving a balanced view of the arguments even if it is describing the book accurately? Thanks. -- Dougweller ( talk) 10:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I found this in Robert Nozick's Philosophical Explanations:
Maybe it could be added somewhere in WP:NPOV? — BRIAN 0918 • 2007-11-26 13:57Z
AN INDIVIDUAL IS FREE NOT TO BELIEVE.... BUT THEY ARE NOT FREE TO ABUSE OR OFFEND... STOP OFFENDING MUSLIMS... STOP OFFENDING PROPHET MUHAMMAD... REMOVE PICTURES OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD IMMEDIATELY ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.232.46.210 ( talk) 11:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
First I quote two paragraphs from the guideline 19:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC):
When reading these excerpts, they seem at first glance perfectly reasonable to me. Suppose that on a given subject X there exist 2 views, A and B, where A is widely accepted, whereas B is held by a small (but significant) minority; then it would not be fair/balanced to devote 50% of the article to B: that would not be a neutral viewpoint for Wikipedia to take.
But some aspects of this guideline could be mis-interpreted and lead to "censor"ship. When a group of editors feels very strongly about supporting view A, they may want to reduce the attention which is given to group B to 1% or less. Because "undue weight" not only applies to views, but also to facts and statements, they might incline to remove all facts which support view B or seem an anomaly to view A. Now we would have an interesting situation: the article X will be telling the narrative A, supported by all the A-facts, and omitting all the B-facts which might have lead a reader to conclude that A is not necessarily the truth, and that B might be a view worth further attention. Because B and especially all the facts which support it now get marginalized in the article X, it will look to the reader as if A is perfectly supported by the facts, and therefore a certainty — where it is just a (majority) view.
And remember that it is not just Wikipedia which is following this approach; most of the
Reliable sources which we base ourselves on are using a similar mechanism: quoting eachother as authority. Now a mechanism emerges, in which the dominant narrative chosen for the article is now steering the future selection of facts, thereby omitting facts which would balance the article and make clear to the reader that one cannot simply decide whether it is view A or view B which is the most correct.
I have not thought of a solution yet, but I assume the ultimate goal of our guidelines is to have articles which can be relied upon to be fair, balanced, and as close to truth as humanly achievable; not a random fantasy based on selective quoting of reliable sources, copying their narrative and excluding the rest of the evidence from public view.
We cannot vote what is true; we have to let the facts decide; and when we cannot agree on which view follows from the facts, a majority should not be erasing the facts which a minority contributes to article X. But, on the other hand, a minority should not be allowed to swamp any article with half-truths and insinuations, thus compromising the neutrality the other way around.
Resuming: a view should be given treatment in proportion to its promenence, but does this mean that facts supporting or weakening that view should be mentioned in proportion to the promenence of the view which these facts are supporting? Wouldn't that distort the whole encyclopic process and lead to
circular reasoning? Help! —
Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪
(speech has the power to bind infinity) 19:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that NPOV does not make it clear enough that Wikipedia:facts precede opinions. Bensaccount ( talk) 20:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
When Xiutwel studied physics, in Holland in 1988-1994, Quarks were becoming accepted as a theory, but they were not yet accepted as "the truth". (Basically, a proton was previously considered an elementary particle, and henceforth considered as something which itself consisted of 3 elementary particles.) So we have the old paradigm A (proton is the smallest part), and paradigm B (quark is the smallest part). The theory dates back to the 1960s by the way.
Had wikipedia existed in 1960, it would have listed the proton as an elementary particle. In the years to follow, had we then followed the Narrative based fact selection Mechanism|#NFSM, it would have been "illegal" to include the results of experiments which contradict the narrative "A", even if these experiments were peer-reviewed and published in reliable sources. For no other reason than that the results would conflict with a narrative which was widely accepted in Reliable sources, and that the narrative B was highly speculative, and not supported by reliable sources or notable research institutes en masse.
I would say, leaving out facts as described cannot be the intention of our guidelines. If we were online back in 1960, I wish we would have included any RS-published experimental result, even when it would be at odds with our article's narrative.
We should include all available information, even when it is inconvenient for the coherence of our article, shouldn't we?
Our guidelines do not permit to draw our own conclusions, when reliable sources are not doing so ( no original research); we can only report what reliable sources are doing with the information, which might be: report it first and then forget about it. If that is what the RS are doing, then that is all we can (and should) write. But our information would then be the best and most reliable around.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, dedicated to the best info available, neutral and balanced. And complete. — Sockrates dual 18:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I feel as if the inclusion of "images" in the Undue weight section is a little tacked-on. While I agree with its inclusion, it is haphazard to present this concept without elaboration which matches the context of "images"- my concern is that the section notes that it applies, but it doesn't really explain how specific cases should be treated.
Images are quite different from text, and I believe they should get some sort of treatment here which allows the editor to follow policy directly instead of simply going over the rest of the text and assuming that "since [inapplicable note] can't really apply to images, I can overlook this, and since this concept is generally applicable, I should stick with this". This can lead to quite a bit of overstepping in several directions, because there is still a question of "how applicable" the majority of the policy text really is to the inclusion of certain images.-- C.Logan ( talk) 09:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This needs clearing up: the FAQ suggests views should be worded sympathically on both sides of the debate; the article says it should not show sympathy. I can imagine this both be true, but it is not very clear. Any native speakers for suggesting improvements? I think wikipedia should treat all nontiny views with respect (and sympathy as such), but endorse none (no sympathy as such) — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 19:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering what the second sentence means by "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content ..." SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I've undone the alteration of the section caption. I feel that:
is more clear. NPOV has two meanings: it is a qualifier for an article, and it is a viewpoint which is not an opinion but a perspective. The word "the" has extra meaning and extra clarity for me, and that should imo overrule naming conventions. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 20:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I posted a question above late in the discussion but I fear that it may have gotten lost, buried above the many discussions which follow it. If anyone uninvolved in the immediate dispute has both the time and the inclination, I would appreciate reading some of your input. Thanks so much. -- Levine2112 discuss 04:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
What happens when when you have a topic that conflicts with mainstream science, but where mainstream science's contribution is so small that it's actually the minority view?
For example, where you have a something fanciful that many people believe is true which is highly notable because it has substantial media coverage and popular culture coverage, but which has never been scientifically investigated because scientists just shrug their shoulders and say "nah, that's not possible". Making the unscientific popular view the majority view and the scientific opinion the hard to WP:V minority view?
How does undue weight apply. Do you approach the topic from the mainstream perspective even though there is no real mainstream perspective to speak of, or do you approach it from the majority perspective even though it is unscientific because it is the perspective from which weight applies?
More specifically, what happens when the topic is only notable because of the unscientific majority belief? - perfectblue ( talk) 21:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
This talk page is for discussing the policy itsself, not its interpretation in a specific case. Such a case may be an example of where the policy needs improving or discussing, but this Homeopathy debate has run off-topic, and has now become distracting to this page history, so I move the discussion to a subpage. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 08:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I see many cases being discussed here. I admit that the discussion was diverted from the topic, but I am committed to returning and remaining on topic. I would like to try to collapse the unecessary sections and leave this this discussion here. Anthon01 ( talk) 13:06, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
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The policy states Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. My question is what does this really mean in particular the appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint? What does appropriate reference mean? Is it a link to the majority POV or an exhaustive treatise. Anthon01 ( talk) 14:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Off-Topic
You might think the policies of Wikipedia are being viewed as too important. And that is the entire point. You are on Wikipedia but you do not want to follow Wikipedia policies. And so...-- Filll ( talk) 18:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I only came here because you asked me. But ok, fair enough, you do not believe what I have said. I am only going on what I have read and been instructed by senior editors and admins here for the last year and a half and 25000+ edits (29.8 times as many mainspace edits as Anthon01). But ok...-- Filll ( talk) 23:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Fill is by and large correct here. Homeopathy is an extreme minority position. In that context, WP:UNDUE necessitate that's we give little weight to its claims. This has nothing to do with whether or not homeopathy is correct. JoshuaZ ( talk) 23:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
If you want to claim that homeopathy is not the minority position, then provide reliable sources so that we can verify it. I have given plenty of evidence for months now that it is an extreme minority position. Others have as well. All I hear is unsubstantiated assertions which count for nothing. Put up, or...-- Filll ( talk) 02:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
As I have said repeatedly, if homeopathy is not a minority in the US, why are homeopathic products in the US not clearly labeled as homeopathic and promoted as such? I suggest that it is probably because homeopathy is so little known at best, and at worst homeopathy is a horrendous embarassment in the US, so that it is viewed as very negative for the success of a product to label it clearly as homeopathic or promote it as homeopathic in the US. If it were mainstream, do you think this would happen? If it were mainstream, I would be able to find more than 4 part-time practioners in this metropolitan area of about 10 million people where I live. How many thousands or tens of thousands of allopaths live and work in this area do you think? If we compare by research dollars or income or any other measure you can think of, it is minor...very minor... a teeny tiny FRINGE activity in this area, and I live in the capital of the country.-- Filll ( talk) 04:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe you are a bit geographically challenged when it comes to our nation's capital, but that is neither here nor there. There is one homeopathic pharamacy in the area, about 25 miles or more from me. What I mean is, Zicam was not clearly labelled as homeopathic. Oscilloccocinum is not clearly labelled as homeopathic. Head-on is not clearly labelled as homeopathic. All three are widely available. All three are heavily advertised at least in some venues. And all three are NOT advertised as homeopathic in the media, or clearly labelled as such on their packaging. Why is that, if homeopathy is a major medical treatment in the United States that most people are familiar with and most people use and are proud to use and if the word "homeopathic" is so well known and respected that it is valuable for marketing purposes?-- Filll ( talk) 06:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Fill's last argument is just semantics. Whether people know it or not, a large amount of us are using homeopathic remedies. After all how many Americans know what NSAIDS are? And how many Americans take Ibuprofen (a common NSAID)? Hey, isn't Wikipedia for people outside of America too? Like, say, the 20% of India's population who use homeopathy - isn't Wikipedia for them too? (Let's see, 20% of 1.12 billion... that's like 224,000,000 people using homeopathy in India alone. Yeah, homeopathy is so not significant! ;-) -- Levine2112 discuss 06:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Homeopathy & NPOV breakUnfortunately it is too dangerous for me to continue this because of the viscious threats. So I have some advice for you then. Why do you not just rewrite the NPOV document and see what happens, since you are positive you are correct and no one is allowed to discuss anything with you or answer any questions or disagree with you? Just do it. No one can talk to you because of the threats. -- Filll ( talk) 06:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
You win. What part of "you win" do you not understand? In the current circumstances it is not permitted to discuss or disagree.-- Filll ( talk) 07:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes on this topic it takes repeating things dozens if not hundreds of times before someone gets it. Ok so now you get it, go ahead and act since you won.-- Filll ( talk) 07:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I guess you do not understand that you have won and are therefore correct in all respects and are free to change NPOV policy as you would like and any articles as you see fit.-- Filll ( talk) 08:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
So go ahead and propose new wording for the policy, since you are so certain you are correct. Obviously there is some confusion about what the policy means and you believe you understand it better than anyone else. And this page is about discussing the wording of the policy. So clarify the policy for everyone.-- Filll ( talk) 13:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC) NPOV check on topics like thisThe way I understand NPOV to work depends on our sources, for example take a minority topic like Scientology:
Understanding that these are not the only sources for this topic, does the table illustrate the general concept of NPOV? Anynobody 07:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
{{|Off-Topic|
I find that statement highly offensive and a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. I thought this was the encyclopedia anyone could edit. I am not welcome to post here? What did I say that constitutes an argument? Please provide diffs and a pointer to the relevant policy page in WP policy that describes how I am not welcome to post here. If I do not get an appropriate response, I will report you and you will have to deal with the administrative bureaucracy, which you are on extremely thin ice with anyway. So your choice...By the way, I invite you to provide a document describing exactly what you think WP:NPOV is or should be. The ball is in your court. We are waiting for your input. -- Filll ( talk) 01:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC) Right, so you produce a proposal for how you want to change NPOV.- Filll ( talk) 03:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
No offense, but you have been arguing against the accepted interpretation of NPOV as long as I have interacted with you. So clearly it is written poorly and not well explained. Please feel free to write it so we can all understand it properly and you are no longer at odds or offended by the interpretation of others of the NPOV policy. Of course you do not have to, but it would make things far easier, you must admit.-- Filll ( talk) 03:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Please provide diffs documenting that I have been involved with "repeated vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying". You do not know that making spurious accusations like you are doing is a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:TE. Thank you.-- Filll ( talk) 03:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Again this conversation is devolving into an argument. I intent to complete this discussion sooner or later. Filll you are going off-topic with and Whig you are following him. Consider disengaging. Anthon01 ( talk) 03:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC) I find it highly offensive that you would suggest I lied. Clearly from those diffs there is no discrepancy or inconsistency. However, some people suffer from a reading comprehension problem; maybe that is the issue here.-- Filll ( talk) 04:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Back to basicsThe policy states Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view.
The Apollo moon landings and Apollo moon landing hoax accusations give a good example of Wikipedia:Summary style applied to a scientific article where the minority viewpoint is shown in a section, complete with the mainstream response to the minority viewpoint. The minority viewpoint is then dealt with in an article of its own, which takes care to comply with NPOV by making appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and avoiding presenting majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. In accordance with UNDUE significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source are shown in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint, and so the various minority claims are each accompanied by an explanation of the majority explanation. That's the appropriate standard for homeopathy, and if it in turn is split into sub-articles dealing with more detail, the main homeopathy article has to include summaries showing majority and minority viewpoints and the detailed article has also to show the various viewpoints appropriately. .. dave souza, talk 12:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
But somehow homeopathic remedies only represent 0.3% of the market for pharmaceuticals worldwide. Sounds pretty fringey to me. Especially when homeopathic practitioners in the US represent someplace between 0.03% and 0.1% of the physicians in the US. Pretty tiny. Even in India the number of homeopaths is only 15% of the number of regular physicians, and smaller than the number Ayurvedic Medicine practioners; a distant 3rd or 4th behind regular medicine and ayurvedic medicine. So even where it is super prevalent, in India, homeopathy is not that popular and is a tiny minority form of treatment. And worldwide, forget it. They barely exist.-- Filll ( talk) 05:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC) In other words, more than 99.97% of US physicians are not homeopathic physicians (counting those who are licensed). So yes, it is a FRINGE form of treatment.-- Filll ( talk) 05:35, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I am not allowed to give data? I have sources for all that. Do a litle research yourself since this is an encyclopedia, not someplace where you can just declare things to be true and we have to accept them. There are only about 300 or so licensed homeopaths in the US, and about 1000 if you count unlicensed. I find the numbers credible (which come from a paper by Dana Ullman) because in my metropolitan area of 10 million people there are only 4 parttime homeopaths (well maybe 3 and 1 fulltime, but I am not sure). The worldwide market for homeopathic pharmaceuticals is only 0.3% the size of the worldwide market for all pharmaceuticals. There are 6.5 billion people in the world market and this is not just an encyclopedia for India, which only has a paltry 1.2 billion people you know. -- Filll ( talk) 14:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Minority topics receive coverage in articles on themselves. The mainstream criticism is given appropriate reference. However, while it is given enough space to be clear on what it is saying, it does not need more than that. It's more a matter of being clear about things than proportion. In a situation like Homeopathy, you will have most of the material be about the history and practice, ideas behind it etc. There will be very notable objections. But they will not overwhelm the article. If the only objection to Homeopathy were that it doesn't have any chemical theory behind it, you wouldn't really need more than a few sentences. If objections are more detailed, you will need more. There is absolutely nothing in WEIGHT that says you have to give the mainstream a certain number of the words in articles about fringe subjects. Nor that an objection which is highly notable but easy (and takes little room) to explain should be given as much space as a fringe idea which is hard (and takes space) to explain. Think good writing, people. Think common sense. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Off-Topic
And I am supposed to promise that Raul654, JzG and Science Apologist will leave Wikipedia if Arbcomm will not take the case, or decides in your favor. Yes, sounds like a really serious offer.-- Filll ( talk) 01:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah whatever. I gave my offer already. I am still waiting. But since I have already read a good chunk of your primer etc, I do not think you want anyone to really look closely into what your claims are, since they were dismissed as rubbish before.-- Filll ( talk) 02:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC) I'm not sure why the Show button seems not to be working, hopefully someone can fix this if I don't figure it out first. I'd really encourage discussions of people making side bets about policy arguments be taken to user talk. — Whig ( talk) 03:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Good idea to archive it. But the point there was -however childish it was to play Filll's game of dare- that SPOV is a discredited way of writing articles. We have NPOV, instead. We have WEIGHT, exactly as written: Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. In terms of the homeopathy article, it is not "An Evaluation of the merits of Homeopathy". This is what certain people don't seem to understand, and they think that describing the history, events, people and beliefs relevant to a subject is always pro the subject. It is not, it is just description the way a good encyclopaedia does it. But because they don't understand description they want evaluation and nothing but evaluation-- including original research. But WP is here to describe, not debunk. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 04:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
What if describing it accurately looks like debunking? It is very hard to claim that this is a well accepted mainstream therapy with no controversy associated with it and no people who dispute its claims.-- Filll ( talk) 15:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC) The reason that the criticism is more extensive with more references is because people challenge it. If you put a statement like that in there without much documentation and without details, it would never survive. What proponents of FRINGE theories do not quite realize, is that when they challenge things, they get bolstered if there are WP:RS available. This has happened to the creationism articles over and over so that now it looks like we are pounding the tar out of creationism on purpose. This is not true; however, after a few years of challenges, more and more references and details are added. And pretty soon, it looks like someone just tried to slam the FRINGE position. Nope. It gets that way honestly, through FRINGE proponents who challenge every single statement. I have seen it for example in irreducible complexity which had some statements about intelligent design. Now we did not want to document the fact that intelligent design is regarded as nonsense, pseudoscience and creationism in the irreducible complexity article, since it was already done in the intelligent design article. But intelligent design proponents attacked and attacked and challenged and edit warred. And slowly but surely irreducible complexity is getting more and more detail that is negative to intelligent design. We did not want to do it; we were forced to do it. The same is going on on Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. And people complain, but the more they complain, the more of this "negative" detail gets introduced. It is that simple.-- Filll ( talk) 17:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I think a better fork would be to spin off all the material about laws in different parts of the world and prevalence in different parts of the world. It is boring, and the main article does not have to go into such detail.-- Filll ( talk) 17:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
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I've done the bold thing and created Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, which was the last core/major policy whose implications seem to get fought over all the time and lead to no small number of edit wars. Lawrence § t/ e 16:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello. I would like to add a sentence to the Deadly nightshade (aka Belladonna) article which in effect states: Deadly nightshade is used in homeopathic remedies. I have found sources which verify this statement - Discovering Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century By Dana Ullman, The Oxford Book of Health Foods By John Griffith Vaughan & Patricia Ann Judd, and Family Homeopath by Robin Hayfield - all of which have been found to pass WP:RS according to this conversations at WP:RSN. It was further suggested there that we quote and attribute the source which is being used such that the sentence would read in effect: According to The Oxford Book of Health Foods, Deadly nightshade "is included... in homeopathic preparations for acne, boils, and sunburns".
Now, the question of undue weight has been brought up as an objection to inclusion of such a sentence. The objection is based on the thought that homeopathy is a fringe science and thus it represents a minority viewpoint. (I'm not sure that it matters, but homeopathy - though perhaps maintaining a minority view in the world of science - is widely used throughout the world and Deadly nightshade is a very popular ingredient for remedies, and in the context I wish to include this sentence, there are no scientific claims being made about homeopathy nor are any theories being presented.) Anyhow, my thought is that by only giving a one-sentence mention in the article, we would not be giving this information any undue weight, but rather providing information about the topic which is actually quite interesting.
My question: Does the inclusion of one sentence such as - According to The Oxford Book of Health Foods, Deadly nightshade "is included... in homeopathic preparations for acne, boils, and sunburns". - in the article Deadly nightshade violate WP:UNDUE?
Thanks for your time. -- Levine2112 discuss 20:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to take the focus away from Levine2112's question, but would like to point out that this is part of a much larger issue currently being played out at several similar articles about plant species, including (but not limited to) Thuja occidentalis (see also the recent discussions on the project page, especially here, here, and here). Between the systematic deletion of any mention of a plant species being used in homeopathy (however well documented or neutrally worded) and the persistent disparaging of any references that is cited (these sources not supporting homeopathy but simply documenting the fact that the plant is so used), I have much the same concerns that he does. MrDarwin ( talk) 22:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like responders here to be aware that we've extensively discussed this topic already at reliable sources noticeboard and all sides already agree that all or some of the works above cited are "experts in their field of study" and so that portion of the issue shouldn't be reargued here. We're here more specifically to address on-point, our sub-section on undue weight and how it might apply to this case. Thanks! Wjhonson ( talk) 22:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I will now offer an explanation for how undue weight should be applied in articles pertaining to these kinds of situations. For the purposes of this explanation, it is necessary to define a few terms:
Undue weight states as an opening sentence: "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." This is the sense in which the connected idea needs to be evaluated. Effectively, it is the prominence of the connected idea with reference to the subject that needs to be established in order to justify the inclusion or exclusion of an idea per the undue weight clause. I will note that this is different from the prominence of the connected idea with referece to the category. While a minority or fringe opinion may be prominent relative to a category (e.g. astrology is prominent relative to astronomy) the same minority or fringe opinion is not necessarily prominent to all subjects in that category (e.g. there is no reference to astrology on the radio astronomy article).
The only way to determine the prominence of a connected idea with respect to the subject is to find reliable sources that assert the prominence of the idea with respect to the subject. What makes a reliable source? A reliable source in this instance is any mainstream independent source that is about the subject in question. Note that sources which are about the connected idea or dependent on the connected idea are not reliable for establishing the prominence of the connected idea to the subject. For example, a homeopathic desk reference on plants is not a reliable source for establishing the prominence of the connected idea of the homeopathic use of deadly nightshade to the subject of deadly nightshade. However, a mainstream field guide to plants that mentions that deadly nightshade is famous for its application in homeopathy would be a mainstream independent source that could be used to establish the prominence of the connected idea to the subject. In the case of deadly nightshade, there have been two separate problems plaguing the sources offered for inclusion by those hoping to establish the prominence of the connected idea to the subject. In some instances, the sources referenced were not about the subject of the article but rather were about the connected idea. In this case, the connected idea is clearly a fringe subject (inasmuch as homeopathy is pseudoscience) so such sources are subject to extra scrutiny. So a book on homeopathy that mentions deadly nightshade only shows that deadly nightshade may deserve mention in some article devoted to homeopathy. According to fringe guidelines, sources that are strictly about fringe material cannot really be used to establish the prominence of fringe material with respect to a mainstream subject. I have summarized this idea succinctly as the principle of one-way linking. Alternatively, some of the sources offered by those asserting the prominence of the connected idea to the subject were purportedly about the subject of the article (or at least the category of the article) but were not independent of the connected idea. So, for example, a book on the homeopathic uses of plants does not establish the prominence of the homeopathic use of plants outside of the purview of those interested in homeopathy. In order to establish prominence fairly and neutrally, it is necessary to find a source that is independent of homeopathy which asserts the prominence of homeopathy to deadly nightshade. If no independent mainstream sources can be located which assert the prominence of the connected idea to the subject, then the connected idea does not deserve mention in the article.
There is precedent for the application of this principle where the connected idea was found to be prominent through the use of mainstream independent sources on the subject. A particularly relevant example for this discussion where proper sourcing was done to establish the prominence of a connected idea to the subject of an article was what happened in the domesticated sheep article. In this example, User:VanTucky was able to point to a mainstream, independent source that mentioned that certain sheep producers had employed homeopathy in the health maitenance of their flocks. This effectively established the prominence of the connected idea of homeopathic remedies for sheep ailments to the subject of domesticated sheep. There is now an appropriately weighted sentence in the article which discusses the implications of this connected idea to the subject.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 08:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
The plant is used to make a homeopathic "remedy," but nothing from the plant ends up in it. Electronics are used to make paper, but nothing from the electronics ends up in the paper. It is reasonable to mention electronics in an article on paper making, but it isn't reasonable to mention paper making in an article on electronics. Likewise, it is reasonable to mention the plant in an article on homeopathic remedies, but it is undue weight to mention homeopathy in the article about the plant. MilesAgain ( talk) 22:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I have found so far, the discussion to be very productive at eliciting the issues surrounding where we do and don't include minority viewpoints. It would be instructive for editors to present an answer to the question: When we include minority viewpoints, do we only do so, from the viewpoint of the majority? That is, do we allow minority viewpoints to be expressed in their own language? Thanks. Wjhonson ( talk) 20:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
(Outdent) Reverse the tables and ask the same question Stephen. You're couching the language. We should be discussing whether or not we present the minority viewpoint, from their own internal sources. That is: what is a viewpoint? Is it the view others have of you? Or the view you have of yourself? Does the majority always speak for the minority? That's really the issue we should be discussing. Wjhonson ( talk) 08:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I want to point out that WP:SIGNIF is currently simply a redirect to WP:N, but as the above discussion (and other discussions that have occurred from time to time) makes clear, determining significance of points of views is different from the notably of subjects. I would encourage making WP:SIGNIF a stand-alone guidance and putting an articulation of what is involved in determining which viewpoints are signficant there. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 01:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The fact that a viewpoint may be notable, and get its own article, doesn't necessarily make it a significant viewpoint in an article on another subject. Notability and significance are completely different concepts. Notability occurs in isolation; significance is measured with respect to a field of other viewpoints. Lots of actors, philosophers, scientists, and religious figures have their own articles, but a lot fewer have their viewpoints included in the Acting, Philosophy, Science, or Religion articles. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 06:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand how a statement about people's beliefs or behavior could be regarded as non-fringe only if the belief or behavior itself is considered scientifically justified. If the use of belladonna for folk or homeopathic remedies is a significant human use of the plant, and this can be reliably documented, judgements about the reasonableness of the beliefs or behavior involved would not seem to matter. Since human beliefs and behvior are often characterized as unreasonable, omitting statements about them based on opinions of their accuracy/value, rather than on objective considerations such as observed frequency of occurrance, would seem to pose WP:NPOV difficulties . Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 19:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
There is a lot of talk above. More editors favor inclusion than not. Those that are against inclusion maintain that the NPOV policy should be interpreted such that a source must be presented which shows not that Deadly Nightshade is notable to Homeopathy but rather that Homeopathy is notable to Deadly Nightshade. I have asked for passages from NPOV which justify this rationale and still have not see an answer. Meanwhile, many references have been provided all confirming that Deadly Nightshade is in fact used in the preparation of a homeopathic remedy. This usage has been notable enough to be researched in a few dozen studies published in notable scientific journals, and written about in both homeopathic and non-homeopathic books; most relevant to this discussion is its mention in the Oxford Book of Health Food and its description in Medline. Using these sources, we can easily devise a sentence which in effect would read: Deadly nightshade is included in homeopathic preparations for acne, boils, and sunburns despite the absence of scientific support for its use. It's neutrally worded from the sources and totally verified. The question which we would like answered here remains: Does the inclusion of this text at Deadly nightshade in anyway violate WP:NPOV? If so, how? Please be specific. If not, can we please include this text and move onto something better? Please! :-) -- Levine2112 discuss 03:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Since you ask for more input, the criterion for inclusion of any mention of this minority subject which lacks mainstream scientific support is, in WP:NPOV terms, its significance to the topic of the article. The implications of WP:SOAP for advocacy of ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view, such as esoteric claims about medicine, are clarified in WP:FRINGE. The need for notability is set out in WP:FRINGE#Identifying fringe theories, "In order to be notable, a fringe theory should be referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. Even debunking or disparaging references are adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents. .. Theories should receive attention in Wikipedia in proportion to the level of detail in the sources from which the article is written." From WP:FRINGE#Unwarranted promotion of fringe theories, "Conjectures that have not received critical review from the scientific community or that have been rejected should be excluded from articles about scientific subjects." So, the significance to the subject has to be verified by third party reliable sources independent of the proponents of homeopathy. Where that's established, both the homeopathic claim and the mainstream view of such treatment have to be shown to avoid undue weight, and the formulation shown above appears to be on the right lines. . . dave souza, talk 22:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I've seen this term used on Wikipedia a number of times. It needs to stop as it violates both WP:AGF and, more seriously, WP:NPA. Jinxmchue 22:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
See this thread on VP(P) and comment. Thank you, -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 17:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
What are the appropriate responses to ethnic slurs in Wikipedia policy names, procedures, etc.? Jacob Haller 20:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
At the talk page of the article Israel & the UN, I ask a question about the limit of the NPOV policy when dealing with real life. In brief, Where is the line between a lie and an opinion? Emmanuelm 18:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
As long as you follow this philosophy, nothing on Wikipedia will ever be able to be taken seriously. This is why the vast majority of schools do not allow students to cite Wikipedia as one of their resources, and why many PoV balance issues arise. It is not that objectivity does not exist, it is that the current policies do not allow for objectivity.-- 69.252.221.116 10:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
LOL —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.106.235 ( talk) 10:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
This is a call to all Grand Wikis : please provide us with a list of articles that you judge to be orthodox by all WP policies. Emmanuelm 13:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
This page is getting ridiculously long... What is the archive policy of this page? It seems that at some point it was two months per archive, but that was done 6 months ago. Should we rather consider User:MiszaBot II for this task? A useful setting might be discussions older than a month. G.A.S 09:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Isn't it impossible to have a neutral point of view because a neutral point of view is a point of view. Mono bi 20:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
The section on bias could be confusing in some instances. For example I've been involved with editing
L. Ron Hubbard, mentions of him in
WP:RS like Time magazine or the Los Angeles Times paint an overall image of a mentally disturbed power freak out for money.
Some might argue that RS about Hubbard are biased against both him and the religion he created.
They are:
1. Wrong
2. Right
3. Right about: (A., B., C., etc) Wrong about: ()
Anynobody 03:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I encourage Wikipedians who watch this page to comment about a new proposal at Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories#Appeal to particular attribution. Thanks ScienceApologist 17:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be a significant lack in policy statements on what is an appropriate infobox. WP:IB and WP:IBT are entirely practical (how to create an infobox and where to find them). The process at Wikipedia:List of infoboxes/Proposed appears to be entirely for informational purposes, without any actual review required to set an infobox up (not that there necessarily should be). WP:TFD mostly focuses on practical issues as well (is it used? does it have a logical format?), but does mention the requirement that an infobox must "satisfy NPOV." I think we need a lot more clarity on what that means for an infobox, and perhaps adding a brief section to the NPOV page would be appropriate.
Consider an infobox that lists a person or organization under a certain category, and that there is significant controversy over whether that identification is fair and/or accurate. What is the standard? In an article, balance between POVs can be achieved by citing the opinions of various RSs and their reasons for placing or not placing that entity in that category. But an infobox is not capable of such nuance. Is such a listing in an infobox ipso facto a claim of consensus? Or would another rubric be more appropriate? -- BlueMoonlet 06:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
P.S. If this is not the proper venue for this discussion, please feel free to suggest a better one. Thanks. -- BlueMoonlet 06:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
This is indeed a very real problem. I don't think there's any explicit policy or guideline so far, and I've sometimes had the impression designers of infoboxes haven't given the problem much thought in some cases. For some items, such as statistical figures, it's become common to include footnotes in infoboxes, but even that can be problematic (if you have five different estimates for the population size of some ethnic group, which of them are you going to quote?). My experience is that among the most bitter edit-wars, a disproportionately high number are caused by infoboxes. In such cases I always try to persuade the parties to simply leave the information out from the box and treat it in the text only. People can get incredibly fixated on entries in infoboxes. In the eyes of many users, the special visual prominence a piece of information gets by being placed in the box apparently constitutes a special form of endorsement. This percieved hightened degree of importance, and the lack of nuance in sourcing and hedging, are problems that can seriously compound each other. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
The correct adjectival form referring to the "Quran" is "Quranic". The correct proper adjective for "Veda" is "Vedic". The correct form for "Talmud" is "Talmudic". This is the same as all proper adjectives in English, that are always capitalized, eg. "Lithuanian", "Australian", etc. However, a number of editors have now arisen insisting that the accompanying proper adjective for "Bible" should be "biblical" (small b) as a special exception, and only because they say certain style manuals they claim to be authoritative, ought to trump the notion of maintaining a neutral, even-handed appearance, without any other explanation or rationale being required. (Of course there are many other authorites that allow 'Biblical' with a capital B, but these, they claim, are somehow irrelevant.) The issue, including how it pertains to neutrality, is now being discussed at an RFC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible, please comment there. Til Eulenspiegel 17:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
This is a silly and inept example. The "view" of the world as flat is not a "view" at all, but rather a departation from fact. The world is provably spherical and as such there is no "view" to be reasonably had on the subject. Instead, a classical example should be given, one of a subject notable for not having ascertainable truths, forcing it to be comprised of views instead (i.e. the existence of God). 74.12.74.247 12:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
So what do we do when a reliable source discussing a group calls them the most popular band of the 90's?
Tarc 16:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't know anything about the late Sri Chinmoy (died Oct. 11) but was struck by the characterization of him in the lead of his Wikipedia article as being "quirky" and wondered if it was fair. Yes, this is sourced to the AP obit, which referred to him as quirky, so it's a reliable source. But if you do a search in Google News for the past month and add that total to a search on Google News Archives, you'll find that there have been 1,665 articles that mention Chinmoy. If you do a search on "Chinmoy quirky," Google returns a single result -- the obit that's cited in the lead of the article. Is it a violation of undue weight to characterize Chinmoy as "quirky" in the lead of this article? Thanks.
(I ask this not because I'm interested in editing that article but simply to get a better understanding of undue weight, which I feel may be widely violated in Wikipedia.) TimidGuy 15:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks much, Elonka and Anynobody, for your helpful responses. I realize now that there was a flaw in my logic regarding the Chinmoy example. It could well be that every one of those articles characterized him as quirky but only one chose to use that particular word. My methodology would only work for a more precise and unique term. So the example may not illustrate the issue with NPOV that concerns me. Anynobody, have you been able to successfully argue that an article that just mentions a subject in passing isn't necessarily a reliable source for that subject? It seems like you both agree that a Wikipedia article should give weight according to the preponderance of sources.
I saw above there was discussion of an NPOV Noticeboard. Did anything come of that? TimidGuy 11:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I have heard of cases where cited sources get deleted becasue they are edited by someone who works at the place the article is about like Quik Trip or Burger King. I know that editing articles about Companies that you own, Yourself (non UserPage), Your own Band, ETC are believed to be in Violation of NPOV. But Are Editing Articles on where your work or had worked at a violation of Wikipedia Policy (Even if properly cited) and that anything that is believed to be done by that person should be removed from the article now matter how much it belongs? I didn't see anything about editing Articles for Companies you own or where you work at in the FAQ. Sawblade05 ( talk to me | my wiki life) 08:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
After reading
Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikipedia principle. According to Jimmy Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable."[1]
looks like that the fifth pillar of Wikipedia
Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five principles outlined here. Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles, because perfection is a goal and not a requirement. As all previous versions of articles are kept, content won't be irrevocably destroyed by an editor's mistake. So don't worry about messing up.
is not valid anymore. The above sounds like a strong rule.
-- Smerdyakoff 23:46, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
{{
cite news}}
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(
help)-- Philip Baird Shearer 12:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I need a neutral party who understands the NPOV policy to look at and comment on the above linked article, and to possibly act as a mediator. The article is contentious... it is also full of half substantiated POV "accusations" and "rebuttals". The article has been tagged for being POV for a long time. I have been calling for a complete re-write of the article for over a year now, attempting to find a POV balance. I am not getting much support for this at the article. I could really use some back up. I am posting a similar request at WP:NOR, since there are issues with that as well... if you know both policies, even better. Thanks in advance Blueboar 01:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
In the Carmax article, this phrase exists: "Although not unique to CarMax, these features are still interesting." While browsing Wikipedia, I often see this type of phrase. Wouldn't this not be a neutral point of view? What may be "interesting" to one may not be interesting to someone else. Please guide me in the right direction and if there is a section specifically on this type of phrase. Thanks! PGT.Endurance 03:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see a section on this page about the responsibilities of one who inserts a "The neutrality of this article is disputed" tag into an article.
One might launch a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) attack on Wikipedia by sprinkling various forms of dispute tags in a multitude of articles -- without giving a reason for adding the tags. A visitor who sees a "dispute" message at the top of the article may not ask _why_ there is a dispute. They might just move on to a source which isn't proclaiming doubt about its own contents.
Or, if not engaging in a FUD attack, an editor might merely be "trolling": Trying to get attention by "forcing" others into action at their "command".
A NPOV-dispute tag was recently added to an article on my watch list.
The editor who added the tag has no history of editing the article in question.
Their tag said "Please see the discussion on the talk page." There was no discussion on the talk page about whatever they were disputing.
Their tag said "Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved." What dispute? By what measure might it be "resolved"? Who decides when it is "resolved"?
It occurs to me that if one has a problem with the neutrality of a statement, their first action might be to fix it or to question it on the article's talk page -- not to drop seeds of doubt on the whole article.
If one does drop a NPOV-dispute tag, it seems that there would be:
If one takes it upon themselves to drop a NPOV-dispute (or other doubt-inspiring) tag in an article, what are their responsibilities before or after doing so? -- Ac44ck 17:16, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Mattisse 01:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I don't know what FUD is, as I have not come upon the term before. Mattisse 02:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I've looked for your post to respond there but can not find it. Sorry! Mattisse 01:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I have two questions:
Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Bless sins ( talk) 18:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that some articles refer to "the ancestral fatherland of the XXX nation" or similar phrases, sometimes in the article title. This tends to suggest ownership by the XXX ethnic group. I can't find any clear policy against this. Fourtildas ( talk) 07:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I would like to change the name of the default shortcut here to WP:YESPOV. The current shortcut goes to a section that explains that the idea of "no pov" is incorrect. As so many editors seem so confused by this concept to begin with, I don't think putting forth WP:NOPOV as a "nickname" helps matters. -- Kendrick7 talk 19:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I am involved in a debate as to whether a criticism-- one published as an op-ed in two generally notable publications ( The Jerusalem Post and The American Spectator)-- deserves mention in a proposed criticism section for a BLP. (see Gayatri Spivak) Other editors have complained that the criticism has not received serious attention in academic circles, and I'm sure they're right. However, I think all criticism in the public sphere is relevant to a person's notability, but I'm not sure where the "tiny minority" threshold for inclusion/non-inclusion is to be drawn. Would double-publication of the criticism as an op-ed alone be enough to bring it out of the tiny minority category? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFace ( talk • contribs) 12:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Should sources acknowledged as extremists be given space on articles, even though they are popular?
For example, on the article Judaism, should The Protocols of the Elders of Zion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Judaism"? The publication is widely acknowledged as extremist and antisemitic.
Another example: on the article Islam, should The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Islam"? The publication and the author are acknowledged as extremist and Islamophobic. Bless sins 20:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Currently, what I would consider to be the Creation Myth article, has the name "Origin Belief"
It's my understanding that one is actually used in conversation and academic channels, while the other is a semantic treatment of the term. A quick google search will reveal which term is more commonly used.
People who hold supernatural beliefs about the origins of the world are offended by the term "myth" which they believe denotes "false". But the dictionary definition of "myth" does not carry this connotation, nor does the term when used academically. To be fair, I think the word does sometimes carry this connotation in colloquial speech.
On the other hand, anyone searching for the article is going to be looking for "Creation Myth" not "Origin Belief". This is because "Origin Belief" is an invented term designed to assuage people's concern over the word "myth".
My first instinct is that it should be reverted to "Creation Myth" as any encyclopedia should be a collection of facts, and not some sort of blueprint for a more PC world. However, upon reading this article, it's unclear to me whether this is the desire of wikipedia or not.
Basically I'm looking for guidance here. I will ultimately defer to the conventions of wikipedia, even if I disagree with them.
66.152.196.34 19:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I am involved in a debate as to whether a criticism-- one published as an op-ed in two generally notable publications ( The Jerusalem Post and The American Spectator)-- deserves mention in a proposed criticism section for a BLP. (see Gayatri Spivak) Other editors have complained that the criticism has not received serious attention in academic circles, and I'm sure they're right. However, I think all criticism in the public sphere is relevant to a person's notability, but I'm not sure where the "tiny minority" threshold for inclusion/non-inclusion is to be drawn. Would double-publication of the criticism as an op-ed alone be enough to bring it out of the tiny minority category? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFace ( talk • contribs) 12:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Should sources acknowledged as extremists be given space on articles, even though they are popular?
For example, on the article Judaism, should The Protocols of the Elders of Zion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Judaism"? The publication is widely acknowledged as extremist and antisemitic.
Another example: on the article Islam, should The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion be given some space, possibly under the header "Criticism of Islam"? The publication and the author are acknowledged as extremist and Islamophobic. Bless sins 20:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Currently, what I would consider to be the Creation Myth article, has the name "Origin Belief"
It's my understanding that one is actually used in conversation and academic channels, while the other is a semantic treatment of the term. A quick google search will reveal which term is more commonly used.
People who hold supernatural beliefs about the origins of the world are offended by the term "myth" which they believe denotes "false". But the dictionary definition of "myth" does not carry this connotation, nor does the term when used academically. To be fair, I think the word does sometimes carry this connotation in colloquial speech.
On the other hand, anyone searching for the article is going to be looking for "Creation Myth" not "Origin Belief". This is because "Origin Belief" is an invented term designed to assuage people's concern over the word "myth".
My first instinct is that it should be reverted to "Creation Myth" as any encyclopedia should be a collection of facts, and not some sort of blueprint for a more PC world. However, upon reading this article, it's unclear to me whether this is the desire of wikipedia or not.
Basically I'm looking for guidance here. I will ultimately defer to the conventions of wikipedia, even if I disagree with them.
66.152.196.34 19:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
why am i getting in trouble when im trying to make my own article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dresendiz ( talk • contribs) 04:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
"Europeans in the Middle Ages "knew" that demons caused diseases" Is there a source for this? :) TrickyApron ( talk) 10:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
How about renaming this page to
Wikipedia:Neutrality (which already links here) and extending it with badly needed aspects on issues of relative coverage other than just the issue of POV pushing, which this policy page traditionally gives far too much attention? I think most non-neutrality in articles is due not to a POV mindset, but to a rather innocuous ignorance on many different aspects of article writing and layout.
Also, I'd welcome something on the imo hugely problematic POV issue of criticism sections. I
dorftrottel I
talk I 05:18,
November 25, 2007
I changed a wording of "...views which are in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all" because I found a talk page comment where someone stated that in an article which was about a minority view that view doesn't need to be presented because it's a minority view, and that sounded absurd. I wasn't sure if I should edit this policy with my main account or this, but because I found that talk page related to an arbitration case which I'm uninvolved but made a statement I felt I should use the same account. I have a legitimate main account and I can tell it to someone who isn't involved with that arbitration. I certainly did not plan to get into policy editing with this account. :-) I'm still hoping that I could keep my main account out of these controversies, even though I wanted to make that brief note on an arbitration case and found this a little bit unclear part on this policy. As I understand this is that if a minority view is so extreme that it doesn't even have an article, then it's not presented anywhere. Calejenden 16:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Because this page is so clear about these things in general maybe that one sentence gets understood right here. There's no problem that views which are so extreme that there's no article about them or people advocating them are presented nowhere. And what I tried to add, the same thing is on the page elsewhere. I found a sentence about another matter which I'll comment, it was written 4 July 2007 as a part of a big change which was discussed on the talk page, but I didn't see discussion of that sentence. "A reliable source supporting that a group holds an opinion must accurately describe how large this group is." Link. Many sources assume that the reader has basic information, and often a size of some group would have to be found from another source. I'm leaving this message here hoping that someone who has been developing the wordings of the policy gets to this later. Calejenden 16:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I surfed on in to the NPOV page to look up a specific detail and randomly noticed the link to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Examples. You can imagine my enormous surprise at finding that this page is essentially unchanged since the day I first posted it back in October 2001. (see the version at Nostalgia).
While I am deeply flattered that something I wrote so long ago is still being referenced, it is fair to say our collective perspective is (ahem) "a tad more sophisticated now". We should either archive it as historical, or subject it to a complete re-write. Manning 13:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
A proposal concerning the creation of a new Admin noticeboard has developed into the suggestion/proposal to create Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposed new Admin noticeboard. A ecis Brievenbus 23:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I'm sure this will be a Wikipedia 101 question, but please review for me? On Talk:Waterboarding, a rather spirited debate is raging for whether it is acceptable to say essentially, "Waterboarding is torture" as a statement. It had gone in quite a few circles, and then I finally asked people to simply list all the sources that say it isn't torture, versus those that say it is.
A large variety of sources and notable opinions that indicate, yes, it's torture, and on the other side, two pundits. One basically saying, "Kick it back to the legislature to decide," which is largely irrelevant, as the United States legislature mentioned in her source of course doesn't decide this globally, and the other pundit simply saying he doesn't think it's torture. My take is that, based on the overwhelming weight of opinion and sourced information, we can only go with what we have at this time: Waterboarding is a form of torture, and we can mention in a subsection or later that some may disagree. As apparently only one sourced person disagrees, I wouldn't mention it in the lead, but down below in the text/discussion of waterboarding and the United States.
Am I analyzing this correctly? Lawrence Cohen 19:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Policy is a wonderful thing. Every CEO will tell you "ït is meant to be interpreted liberallÿ". If Neutral is supposed to be a policy, then all one can do is watch, shuffle and delete paper, and most bureaucrat do, in line with what they see as "policy".
E.g. This talk is is respnse to the deletion of an article, signed by Wikipedia's founder, for copyright violation by Hut 8.5. See deletion log 1 19:25, 8 December 2007 Hut 8.5 (Talk | contribs) deleted "Open Education Declaration" (copyvio of http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/front-page/read-the-declaration)
Yes, I know Wikipedia is soon going to be migrating to a Creative Commons license, but until that happens the text can't be included in Wikipedia. Even if that wasn't the case, the text would have been deleted through some other mechanism since it wasn't any kind of encyclopedia article and Wikipedia is not the place for any kind of campaigning, as I'm sure Jimmy Wales will know. Hut 8.5 21:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Hut,
Let me get this right. Even if, in the meantime, I get the guys at [4] to put a link to the GNU Free Documentation License, the founder of Wikipedia doesn't have the right to put a document (article) he has signed, whose core aim it is to further the Foundation's aims, on the site he set up?--Simonfj (talk) 21:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
If they license the text under the GFDL then it will not be deleted straight away as a copyright violation. However, Wikipedia is a neutral encyclopedia, and including text campaigning for anything is a violation of WP:SOAP, and this would likely result in the page being deleted in an articles for deletion discussion. Note that Wikipedia's policy of neutrality was strongly championed by Jimmy Wales, and I seriously doubt he is going to break it. There are other websites the Wikimedia Foundation can use to express support for the petition other than Wikipedia. Hut 8.5 21:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Now one can't blame Hut 8.5 for doing a good gatekeeping job. But let's consider if we want to let our founder break his own policy; or is this the kind of outcome he meant to encourage by the NPOV policy?-- Simonfj ( talk) 22:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Publishing the declaration is engaging in the debate, specifically forbidden by WP:NPOV. However, there is nothing at all preventing one from creating an article describing the debate, which is exactly what WP is intended for. 74s181 ( talk) 03:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
A question has come up in
Talk:Persian Gulf regarding the controversial usage of the alternative (and controversial) name the 'Arabian Gulf' in the Lead. A great many there feel that the addition of the controversial alternative name is an
undue weight violation. I am not as sure of this, as the naming controversy of the alternate name usage appears within the article, there is an actual
dispute about the name, there are cited references to the usage of the name (both historically and contemporarily) and that a sizable percentage of people in the area refer to it as such. the debate seems to be a perennial issue of debate, and it would be nice to specifically address this so as to resolve the usage question.
I've suggested that the matter be rfC'd or even ArbCom'd but the first led nowhere and the second seems like more of a nuclear option, as an AN/I on one of the more uncivil users has served to leaven out the incivility that was brewing there. ArbCom is usually to resolve issues of user condict, not content disputes. the only reason why i still think it might eventually be valid/needed is that it does seem like a policy interpretation dispute.
The matter is insoluble to both sides. My own observations of the discussion are that, while it might seem unfair to characterize it as such, this is another cultural-type dispute, similar to the ArbCom Persian Naming Dispute thing from this past summer. Some inpute would be extremely helpful. -
Arcayne
(cast a spell) 15:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
if there ever was a biased article, that one was it. We should work on that. The accepted truth isn't the only one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.161.138.241 ( talk) 21:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
If wikipedia is going to allow religious fundamentalists such as yourself who support ID/creationism to edit science, we might as well let hard-core atheists edit Christianity.
Why don't you give a nod to other theories of intelligent design, such as how mankind was designed by the Greek gods? And what about Norse, Chinese, Egyptian, etc creation and intelligent design ideas?
If not, then that is a testament to your hypocrisy. Intranetusa ( talk) 03:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed in a relatively new guideline the phrase "Wikipedia self-identifies primarily with mainstream opinion".
I cannot interpret this as anything else but an attempt to undermine (or re-negotiate) our NPOV policy, according to which Wikipedia must not be biased towards any party. "Mainstream" (or majority) opinion is fairly given most space; it is not permitted to let Wikipedia be transformed into a propaganda outlet of majority opinion.
Evidently, Wikipedia must be actively protected from being hijacked by the opinion of any party. What shall we do about it?
Harald88 ( talk) 12:15, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
This issue is a highly significant bottleneck to the quality of Wikipedia. I suggest the NPOV policy has a serious flaw since it can't cope with the implications mentioned here. Please give your opinion here: One view will never be nuetral: introduce MPOV to replace NPOV Rokus01 ( talk) 18:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Given a number of alternate names which are not widely accepted and are in dispute, would it give the alternate names "undue weight" if they were mentioned in the lead? This is the issue we're trying to sort out over at the Persian Gulf mediation case, and input from the wider community would be welcome. CloudNine ( talk) 18:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
The NPOV policy was never meant to cope with the limits of interpretation. To start with, what could be neutral to any point of view?
A well known strategy of experienced POV pushers is to push out all views they oppose to from an article, on the pretext that those other views are not significant enough. These so-called "insignificant" views easily include published scholarly points of view. Somehow this wrong-doers are free to present those other views as contradicting some kind of "mainstream" popular view, by law of nature identified as "neutral". However, the neutrality of such a "neutral" point of view is irreconcilable to the personal point of view of those that seek to give WP:UNDUE attention to their own opinion, maybe even at the cost of criticism and the results of other investigations.
All of this is possible for those that intent to abuse NPOV policy at the limits of its applicability. Sure, theoretically some kind of "neutrality" could (and should) be achieved by verifiability and objectivity: however, authority and general acceptance will rarely contribute to such a neutrality, not even being a scholarly point of view, and certainly never as a rule of thumb. How "neutral" was the once generally accepted autocratic dogma of the earth being flat? So, if "neutrality" of any point of view is disputable by definition, why not better stop the abuse of NPOV by hard to dethrone cabals and drop NPOV policy altogether. To make an article truely neutral and encyclopedical, Wikipedia should rather adhere to a policy of Multiple Points Of View (MPOV) instead. Rokus01 ( talk) 18:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
In defense of MPOV I argue that POV pushers would have a hard time to push out significant scholarly points of views by abusing MPOV policy. Yes, to replace the misnomer of one of the three very pillars of WP policy by a better equivalent could be cumbersome. Still, anything that would contribute to balance, quality and above all, peace, would be worth some consideration - no matter how symbolic. Rokus01 ( talk) 18:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
By the way, please explain why you deem an official emphasis to multiple views contentious? Won't it be rather the contrary, that people will have to waist less time in WP:OR to advertise their personal point of view as the one and only that would be the "most neutral and significant"? Rokus01 ( talk) 18:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I guess WP:WEIGHT focus on authority and acceptance, not on neutrality. NPOV could never make one point of view appear more "neutral" for having more authority or acceptance. Most content disputes are indeed about the coverage of multiple points of view. This does not have anything to do with moving policy goalposts, rather with abusing policy in favor of - typically - some kind of single point of view that is hardly to be called neutral at all. Rokus01 ( talk) 00:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I propose that Wikipeida policy on WEIGHT should include a note along the following lines
Policy recommendation made by --
Strider12 (
talk) 21:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
-- Strider12 ( talk) 21:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
If anybody has expertise in this area, please see Rfc on NPOV and comment as indicated. Pernicious Swarm ( talk) 05:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
There is an ongoing difference of opinion as to how to interpret this on the article Waterboarding. Most editors are in favour of stating in the lead: Waterboarding is a form of torture. As I understand it the views on this are:
Regarding the above I am interested to hear how to interpret this. Do we, as in Intelligent Design, start with the consensus among experts (it is torture) and continue to explain in the article body what a notable minority thinks? Does opposing a similar stance as with ID violate WP:FRINGE/ WP:WEIGHT? Respectfully Nomen Nescio Gnothi seauton 16:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
This is a big issue in the article Jewish Lobby where for a couple years a few editors have constantly blocked any attempt by numerous editors to point out the simple fact that in the real world Jewish Lobby is NOT always - or even mostly - used in an antisemitic way. A simple google search of the term will show that it is more frequently used - including especially by Jewish groups - as a synonym for Israel Lobby or to describe lobbying by Jews for things like more police protection of synagogues or anti-discrimination laws.
The recalcitrant editors claim since there are no "reliable source" treatise on this common use of the phrase (as there are on the antisemitic use), therefore it is WP:OR to mention them at all! Opinion pieces that it is NOT antisemitic to use the phrase Jewish Lobby have been dismissed by these editors on dubious wiki-lawyering grounds. (Or do I just have to become a better wikilawyer to defend them?) And of course the easily provable fact that the phrase IS used repeatedly and incessently by Jews and non-Jews in non-antisemitic ways is just dismissed as WP:OR. I am sure on wikipedia there are lots of other phrases where some partisan group prefers one interpretation of a phrase and nixes any mention of a competing interpretation, using WP:OR.
My question is: is this something that has to go to dispute resolution? Or is this a problem in the definition of WP:OR? Or does it need to be said that there are situations like this one where WP:NPOV trumps WP:OR?? Carol Moore 05:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC) CarolMooreDC talk
…1:49P.M.E.S.T. D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass i'm an easy going guy i type set stuff perhaps in a unique way, my spelling for sure is'nt all that great though a setting on a talk page can somehow be related,now when it comes to an original idem i am mostly in controll lets say it could be judged as a 99% activity all's well, i try and for the corporation well thats the start i understand and then the reference of thought is another reason why i'm glad for the opportunity to subject some thought,though what about my issue of a topic concerning me wich is based on other topics for instence i'll go to a talk page an relate a reference and or message,and then after a bit perhaps weaks maybe a longer time depending on the quality,then start a page under user talk D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass signing it David George DeLancey going back to my own reference or start of topic with an opinion, from someone else thats ok, though also a deletion of some sort concerning me to the advantage of my page concerning some degree of a relate elsewhere a reason in my mind is still pending. How can a true exsistance be if then when a exsistance of matter is not further capable of a conduct,you know for a nation network concerning of a matter in Case it sure is a lapsing venture,just because someone has a Thought does'nt mean their just posting their thoughts. I supose it can be very posible to start a juction of one's own determinations to end up with a true explanation of something or matter would be the way to go my thought are now in some sort by the wikipedia venture an endless degree of matter sometimes pertaining to nothing so i am aware of through someone else , i agree with this and will judge myself accordingly without the thoughts i pertain though i will still be a log in as D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass and improve on the Quality of Knowledge note as a free attempt with society to do so i am granted now to end this.2:12 p.m.e.s.t. David George DeLancey ( talk) 19:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
…The Title to my last Post here by D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass is MAKING AN ISSUE David George DeLancey ( talk) 19:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I just removed the last use of "objectivity" in the article. Now, I would like to see a paragraph it this article discussing the difference between objectivity and "neutrality". I do not mind the link to this article in the disambiguation page for "objectivity", but a clarification is long overdue.
To get everyone started, here is an example. When discussing Elvis Presley's death, an objective editor would note that his death was objectified with a rather unsurprising autopsy report and would qualify all subsequent reports of posthumous sightings as "undocumented". A neutral editor, however, would argue that the coroner's opinion weighs as much as the opinion of each subsequent Elvis sighter and, arithmetically, would devote more space to them. (Parenthetically, posthumous sightings are not even mentioned in the Elvis Presley article, a clear case of non-neutrality). Emmanuelm ( talk) 15:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
The editor must decide what is fact and what is opinion. NPOV is not a way around it, depite what many new editors seem to think. Bensaccount ( talk) 23:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Nobody can be forced to like the NPOV policy, which is totally unrelated to the idea of an 'objective' POV. In fact, attempts by editors to enforce an 'objective' point of view or to "decide what is fact and what is opinion" are explicitly contrary to the letter and spirit of the policy. No matter how frustrating this reality may be to some editors, it is the reality. Perhaps editing Wikipedia is not the best hobby for everyone to pursue. Dlabtot ( talk) 19:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I sense there are fundamental problems regarding the usage of the word pseudoscience on wikipedia. This is starting to become a systemic problem on wikipedia since the concept of pseudoscience is used in a policy.
It feels this policy was written for articles on mainstream subjects where a minority objects to the established sciences. This policy then is then usually desired. However in articles where a fringe subject is described this rule is often applied, and then in my opinion in a way that lessens the integrity of the article. This defaults for most editors, because of their education or cultural background, established science. However fringe subjects are outside established science. Consequently, the scientific body on the subject is thus often limited. Often actual science is published in less reputable journals because of its fringe status. Additionally it represent the minority view, so it will be given less weight. These factors introduces a systemic bias into the article text.
I suggest that an accusation of pseudoscience should present a verifiable falsification of the fringe claim. If the methods are regarded to be lacing then this should be described. This way one can let the science do the work, and at the same time avoid using words that lack a place in philosophy of science.
Totally I find the idea of the whole of science giving a subjective conclusion on the basis of the opinion of some notable scientists isn't enough to warrant it to be written exclusively on basis of hard sciences.
The definition debates on what is pseudoscience or not has been detrimental on the quality of articles. I hope my criticism of this policy is understood, since it is indeed a tricky issue. -- Benjaminbruheim ( talk) 18:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I ran into an interesting issue while looking over Anti-Americanism and the "Anti-Americanism in Australia" subsection. It's pretty mediocre so I went to work trying to to draft a "balanced" overview, and I began reference hunting.
But the references providing "evidence of anti-americanism" vastly outnumber the references indicating that it really isn't a major issue. I have endless media reports of protests at visiting US diplomats, numerous major media editorials which criticise individual American decisions and even the Deputy Prime Minister making a sweeping statement in 2005 that "there is a very strong anti-American feeling in Australia" (no I'm not kidding - read it here). I even have a top 20 song by Midnight Oil called "US Forces" which opens with the lyric US Forces give the nod, it's a setback for your country. (Which I confess to singing along with as a teenager).
So the majority of references I can find make it appear that anti-Americanism is utterly rabid here and that we are one step away from gunning down American tourists in the streets,. But as someone living here, I can assure you this simply isn't true. Unfortunately the references that say "although we make snide remarks about Americans every now and then, we basically don't mind them" just don't seem to be out there. It's almost like our media and academia are implying "we all know this, so no-one really needs to says it".
Now my comment here isn't about addressing this specific situation as such, and I'm not asking for anyone to find the references that prove me wrong (although I'll gladly accept them). But I'm curious as to whether there are other "squeaky wheel" type situations where the very act of referencing seems to create POV distortions, and how the community has dealt with them. Manning 10:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi. When making editing decisions about how to present points of view, the Undue Weight aspect of neutrality is crucial. Basically, Undue Weight suggests that tiny-minority (fringe) views may be excluded from an article (even if the fringe view gets its own article) whereas Significant Minority views should be represented, albeit without undue weight.
Therefore, it's important for editors to pay attention to, and learn how to distinguish Significant Minority views. I often find myself explaining Significant Minority policy during Talk disputes. However, while there is WP:FRINGE, there is no shortcut -- not to mention a policy page -- about Significant Minority views. Proposal Would folks agree to add something like WP:SIGMINORITY as a shortcut to the WP:UNDUE section? Thanks. HG | Talk 10:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
It was a bit wishy-washy, so I worked on it a little bit. The way it was written, it suggested that editing with bias is OK. [6] ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 19:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate...
...a neutral reader to fairly and equally assess...
We should, both individually and collectively, make an effort to present these conflicting views fairly, without advocating any one of them...
The point was to clarify that users should attempt to exercise good judgment and attempt to make edits based "on observable phenomena without bias."
☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 19:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
One of your sentences I had removed:"basing one's judgment" is exactly NOT "what editors should do", READERS should be able to base their judgement on neutral descriptions - editors shouldn't impose their judgment by what they write (bolding added)
As for your first quote, here's the bolding I'd apply:One common understanding of objectivity is that it involves basing one's judgment on observable phenomena without bias. In accordance with neutral point of view and verifiability, that's precisely what editors should do. (bolding added)
I'm quite sure that's a part you missed thus far (replacing "all relevant sides of a debate" by "observable phenomena"), and which makes the difference w.r.t. objectivity: objectivity assumes one side of a debate (the "objective" side), and writes from that side. That's something a reporter who writes an article in a newspaper can strive for, but it is unworkable for an encyclopedia where every article is co-authored by anyone who cares to get involved. Then "objective" is useless, because the "objective" approach can be different depending on background of the author, and can nor should be imposed on other authors of the Wikipedia encyclopedia nor on the reading public. Instead, Wikipedia chose and still chooses to let different biases co-exist on the same page, while biases can't be excluded altogether (beware of the person who tells you s/he is totally unbiased - doesn't exist). In this way articles as a whole approach "lack of bias", while biases should balance each other. This is what the policy means by the "neutral point of view", which is a "point of view" (see 2nd paragraph of WP:NPOV#The neutral point of view), but which is not a synonym of "objectivity". -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 21:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate [...]
FWIW, I fully support Francis Schonken's revert. We certainly don't want to advise folks to edit based on what they decide is the "Objective POV" Dlabtot ( talk) 23:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Here we go again, confusing objectivity & neutrality. I will repeat myself : objectivity is feasible but incompatible with the NPOV policy because objectivity implies judging the credibility of an idea and, hence, expressing a point of view. Emmanuelm ( talk) 12:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Francis Schonken, to rephrase my question: Your assertion that "Objectivity does not exist." Do you believe that is a reliable, objection assertion or is it your subjective opinion, and therefore unreliable? If you don't consciously believe you're being objective, but rather, you're knowingly thinking in your head, "ROFLMAO! I'm so biased!!! Let me see how much of my subjective views and opinions I can publish in this place!!" then while it's theoretically possible your opinion might be correct, you are hurting Wikipedia and violating policy.
Bensaccount put it very harshly, but he's right. Such an attitude does not belong on Wikipedia or elsewhere, for that matter. See Eel wriggling, Sophistry, and Nihilism. If you don't believe it's possible to "objectively evaluate" sources, it's hard to follow how you could adhere to WP:NPOV. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 08:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Wjhonson, it's not the existence of views that I'm objecting to. Scientists and journalists have views as well, but what makes them good scientists and journalists is the ability to move beyond their views and analyze the facts objectively. Editors are worthless if they can't let go of their views or avoid using Wikipedia to push their own biases. This idea is already reflected in existing policy, as shown above, so avoiding the word "objective" and the nonsense here here seems silly. It's not true. It seems like it's just up there to make Francis Schonken feel good. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 21:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
An open question: What is a "neutral reader," in fact? ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 21:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
and Here is what I want it to sayblah blah blaq
it would be helpful for those of us who like to address changes at an atomic level. In that form we can see, right here, the possible effect of the change, instead of needing to review stale edit fights. Thanks Wjhonson ( talk) 22:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)blah blah blaggerblaq
Wjhonson, I posted a diff above. I want it to be worded strongly. As it stands now, it supports Factual relativism, which is in violation of WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:FRINGE. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 00:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Here is the same diff I posted above. [7] ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 14:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The idea that only the observable is real is an important idea in human thought. Wikipedia includes this idea. But it also includes other ideas. Human beings have tried to make sense of their lives in multiple ways. Including a multiplicity of ideas and perspectives is considered part of what makes Wikipedia valuable. Maybe Factual relativism is a bad idea. But maybe not. It's not our job to make those types of judgments. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 17:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Shirahadasha, in general Wikipedia should not make judgments, but as Bensaccount noted above, if somebody does not believe in facts or the capability to attempt to be objective, then it is impossible for them to follow Wikipedia policy and collaborate. It would be impossible for such a person to follow either WP:V and WP:NPOV. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 18:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Another way of wording it: NPOV is teleological not ontological. Users should consciously attempt to be without bias and try to objectively verify and determine the reliability of sources, through critical thinking. This says nothing of the ontological claim of whether "objectivity" actually exists.
Referring to the relation between objectivity and NPOV as a strictly "empirical question, not a philosophical one" is absurd. ☯ Zenwhat ( talk) 17:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I have reverted the addition of the simple redirect called WP:PROMINENCE which adds nothing to the page as it's simply a redirect. This addition wasn't discussed and no attempt to find consensus is recorded on this page. I'm not sure what the intent was, so please clarify. Thanks. Wjhonson ( talk) 09:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
(OD) The main issue to me is yes be bold. However. When you're bold on little-viewed pages it can be seen as a great contribution to the project. When you're bold on core pages, you're likely to be reverted and asked to seek consensus on Talk first. Which is what I did. This is especially the case if the bold edit is then being used to bolster one-side in a long contentious content-war. Wjhonson ( talk) 01:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Please consider that newer editors who might be interested in following this discussion may have no idea where that better place is. eg. me. Anthon01 ( talk) 02:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a long-standing argument on creationism and intelligent design pages, over how creationist views should be presented. Obviously, the scientific community doesn't support creationism, considers it a purely religious viewpoint, outside the realm of scientific inquiry, etc. I agree that their views should be present in the articles, prominently. However, within the US and the Muslim world, evolution by natural selection enjoys almost no support outside of academia (around 10% in the US according to a Gallup Poll). So should popular views be cited? And what about the views of religious leaders, who overwhemingly support creationism and theistic evolution? It seems to me that the current state of these articles gives undue weight to the views of the scientific community, only because they don't mention any other viewpoint. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 16:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
On my editing break, I've created a shortcut that you might find useful. WP:PSCI. I got tired of looking for it. I think this will achieve consensus without any serious opposition. Anthon01 ( talk) 02:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Is there a policy that describes how to handle a situation where most of the normal sources are suspected to be biased? Imagine, for a moment, that you are working on the Soviet Union Wikipedia, and you are inside the Soviet Union, and all your fellow editors are inside the Soviet Union, and most available information is published by the government. Suppose you are writing an article on Stalin and want to list how many people he killed. But "official" estimates say he didn't kill anybody. "Official" estimates say he made the entire country happy (although you yourself know several depressed people, officially they are classified as "extremely happy"). How would NPOV be achieved in such a situation?
To put it another way, if the emperor has no clothes, but all the kings officials, and even diplomats visiting from other kingdoms, insist he's quite well dressed, and if about half the people have seen the king walking around without clothes, what does NPOV demand from the "best-dressed list"? Is the king on the list or not? Is he on the list with a footnote? Is he put on a separate list? How about the list of people who don't wear clothes; does the king get put on that list even though he is officially well-dressed? Readin ( talk) 15:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to agree, that there is a lacune in our policies. See below for more. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 07:59, 9 February 2008 (UTC) i.e. ( #Selection bias leading to NPOV violation?)
We badly need some clarification on the policy about cartoons and drawings of living or dead people. Should they be considered factual? If so, under what circumstances? If someone draws a picture of a person and the majority of the opinion is that the drawing does not resemble the person in question, should that drawing be still included in the article about the person, just to uphold the POV of a single person (i.e. the painter)? Should we consider imaginary paintings as "fact" or a "POV"? Regarding the painter it may be a fact (that he/she painted the image) but regarding the subject of the painting, how can this be considered as factual? And yes, these questions are emerging because of the issue with the images on Muhammad.
There is this FAQ page about this subject - I am not sure whether this page is a part of Wikipedia Policy, or some sort of ruling based on the policy - the FAQ page says - As there are no accurate images, it is best to use images that are historically significant and/or typical examples of popular depictions. Well, what are the criteria to decide "Historical Significance"? The criterion of "popular depiction" certainly doesn't hold as any depiction of the subject is extremely unpopular. Given Muhammad himself strictly prohibited painting of living things (including himself), is it appropriate to include imaginary paintings of him on his biography simply because "Longstanding tradition on Wikipedia favors any images even representing part of a tradition over none at all"? What is more important, respecting a person's wish that he never be painted, or respecting Wikipedia's tradition that all articles have images? Arman ( Talk) 10:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
In several articles, I have in the past tried to add facts, which I deemed important to include in order to balance the article, making sure it is NPOV. Such edits were almost always reverted, however, because in the final stage of discussion, they "did not fit into the narrative" of the article.
But:
This explanation itself however, is often subject to debate, for which no independent reliable sources can be found: most reliable sources, if they would say anything about it at all, would have already committed themselves to idea "A". But what if idea "A" could be false?
Such would never get detected, because facts X, Y, and Z were explained away or simply disregarded, whether this "explanation" in turn is valid or not.
The problem I see is that not only Wikipedia is using reliable sources, the reliable sources themselves in turn are also using reliable sources! It is a whole grid of reliable sources who keep repeating what the others say. And all of them use this method: "Disregard facts which do not fit the narrative. They will certainly have some alternative explanation." That is what Narrative based fact selection really amounts to. In my eyes, this mechanism NFSM) looks very much as Selection bias , a common logical shortcoming, which in the end leads to Circular reasoning, another one. (For further reading, if interested, you may also like this text: talk2000.nl)
Therefore, if we insist on using NFSM in our articles, we must have some logical reason for doing so: we either need to be absolutely sure that our narrative is a true account (and would need a very heavy RS which enjoys consensus for this extraordinary claim); or... the NFSM we follow must be known flawless. (— Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk))
So now I am asking you all to help and show a RS or an authority on logic which indicates that NFSM would be the right way to go about, and that using NFSM would lead to truthful encyclopedic articles? (If we have none, should we not abandon NFSM?) — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 08:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm struggling to figure out how NPOV applies to books of pseudohistory or I guess even flawed history books. The example I am working with is Where Troy Once Stood. I started looking at this a few days ago. It had external links to bronze age finds with no clear relationship with the book, it had a sentence in the first paragraph which linked to a personal Amazon page which listed the book as a great book, it had the Odyssey evidence still there, etc. I started by adding a section on linguistics which quotes the author and pointed out that the languages he was discussing didn't exist at the time, and that was left in. I added short sections on archaeology quoting Michael Wood about artefacts found in the Eastern Med, and a short section on geology quoting recent research that shows the geology around Hissarlik (where Schliemann thought he found Troy) matches Homer's description, something that contradicts Wilkens. That was removed on the basis "Attempts to disprove the book's thesis don't belong in the article either--we should stick to what secondary sources say about this book, which is almost nothing." But the arguments about the Odyssey were left in. I then put an external link in to the scientific article about the geology, and that was removed also. (As, to be fair, were the links to Bronze Age finds). But what is left now could almost be a publicity release from the publishers. Not quite, but almost. And that doesn't seem neutral to me. One of the problems is one discussed before, this is so way out few scholars have spent any time looking at it. Thus there are virtually no critical reviews or articles. I've spent quite a bit of book time looking at the archaeology, I know a professor of linguistics who has looked at his linguistics, I know someone who has visited some of the sites in person. But all of this is unpublished original research, verboten on Wikipedia. So is there any way out of this situation where the Wikipedia article is not giving a balanced view of the arguments even if it is describing the book accurately? Thanks. -- Dougweller ( talk) 10:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I found this in Robert Nozick's Philosophical Explanations:
Maybe it could be added somewhere in WP:NPOV? — BRIAN 0918 • 2007-11-26 13:57Z
AN INDIVIDUAL IS FREE NOT TO BELIEVE.... BUT THEY ARE NOT FREE TO ABUSE OR OFFEND... STOP OFFENDING MUSLIMS... STOP OFFENDING PROPHET MUHAMMAD... REMOVE PICTURES OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD IMMEDIATELY ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.232.46.210 ( talk) 11:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
First I quote two paragraphs from the guideline 19:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC):
When reading these excerpts, they seem at first glance perfectly reasonable to me. Suppose that on a given subject X there exist 2 views, A and B, where A is widely accepted, whereas B is held by a small (but significant) minority; then it would not be fair/balanced to devote 50% of the article to B: that would not be a neutral viewpoint for Wikipedia to take.
But some aspects of this guideline could be mis-interpreted and lead to "censor"ship. When a group of editors feels very strongly about supporting view A, they may want to reduce the attention which is given to group B to 1% or less. Because "undue weight" not only applies to views, but also to facts and statements, they might incline to remove all facts which support view B or seem an anomaly to view A. Now we would have an interesting situation: the article X will be telling the narrative A, supported by all the A-facts, and omitting all the B-facts which might have lead a reader to conclude that A is not necessarily the truth, and that B might be a view worth further attention. Because B and especially all the facts which support it now get marginalized in the article X, it will look to the reader as if A is perfectly supported by the facts, and therefore a certainty — where it is just a (majority) view.
And remember that it is not just Wikipedia which is following this approach; most of the
Reliable sources which we base ourselves on are using a similar mechanism: quoting eachother as authority. Now a mechanism emerges, in which the dominant narrative chosen for the article is now steering the future selection of facts, thereby omitting facts which would balance the article and make clear to the reader that one cannot simply decide whether it is view A or view B which is the most correct.
I have not thought of a solution yet, but I assume the ultimate goal of our guidelines is to have articles which can be relied upon to be fair, balanced, and as close to truth as humanly achievable; not a random fantasy based on selective quoting of reliable sources, copying their narrative and excluding the rest of the evidence from public view.
We cannot vote what is true; we have to let the facts decide; and when we cannot agree on which view follows from the facts, a majority should not be erasing the facts which a minority contributes to article X. But, on the other hand, a minority should not be allowed to swamp any article with half-truths and insinuations, thus compromising the neutrality the other way around.
Resuming: a view should be given treatment in proportion to its promenence, but does this mean that facts supporting or weakening that view should be mentioned in proportion to the promenence of the view which these facts are supporting? Wouldn't that distort the whole encyclopic process and lead to
circular reasoning? Help! —
Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪
(speech has the power to bind infinity) 19:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that NPOV does not make it clear enough that Wikipedia:facts precede opinions. Bensaccount ( talk) 20:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
When Xiutwel studied physics, in Holland in 1988-1994, Quarks were becoming accepted as a theory, but they were not yet accepted as "the truth". (Basically, a proton was previously considered an elementary particle, and henceforth considered as something which itself consisted of 3 elementary particles.) So we have the old paradigm A (proton is the smallest part), and paradigm B (quark is the smallest part). The theory dates back to the 1960s by the way.
Had wikipedia existed in 1960, it would have listed the proton as an elementary particle. In the years to follow, had we then followed the Narrative based fact selection Mechanism|#NFSM, it would have been "illegal" to include the results of experiments which contradict the narrative "A", even if these experiments were peer-reviewed and published in reliable sources. For no other reason than that the results would conflict with a narrative which was widely accepted in Reliable sources, and that the narrative B was highly speculative, and not supported by reliable sources or notable research institutes en masse.
I would say, leaving out facts as described cannot be the intention of our guidelines. If we were online back in 1960, I wish we would have included any RS-published experimental result, even when it would be at odds with our article's narrative.
We should include all available information, even when it is inconvenient for the coherence of our article, shouldn't we?
Our guidelines do not permit to draw our own conclusions, when reliable sources are not doing so ( no original research); we can only report what reliable sources are doing with the information, which might be: report it first and then forget about it. If that is what the RS are doing, then that is all we can (and should) write. But our information would then be the best and most reliable around.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, dedicated to the best info available, neutral and balanced. And complete. — Sockrates dual 18:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I feel as if the inclusion of "images" in the Undue weight section is a little tacked-on. While I agree with its inclusion, it is haphazard to present this concept without elaboration which matches the context of "images"- my concern is that the section notes that it applies, but it doesn't really explain how specific cases should be treated.
Images are quite different from text, and I believe they should get some sort of treatment here which allows the editor to follow policy directly instead of simply going over the rest of the text and assuming that "since [inapplicable note] can't really apply to images, I can overlook this, and since this concept is generally applicable, I should stick with this". This can lead to quite a bit of overstepping in several directions, because there is still a question of "how applicable" the majority of the policy text really is to the inclusion of certain images.-- C.Logan ( talk) 09:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This needs clearing up: the FAQ suggests views should be worded sympathically on both sides of the debate; the article says it should not show sympathy. I can imagine this both be true, but it is not very clear. Any native speakers for suggesting improvements? I think wikipedia should treat all nontiny views with respect (and sympathy as such), but endorse none (no sympathy as such) — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 19:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering what the second sentence means by "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content ..." SlimVirgin (talk) (contribs) 01:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I've undone the alteration of the section caption. I feel that:
is more clear. NPOV has two meanings: it is a qualifier for an article, and it is a viewpoint which is not an opinion but a perspective. The word "the" has extra meaning and extra clarity for me, and that should imo overrule naming conventions. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 20:47, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I posted a question above late in the discussion but I fear that it may have gotten lost, buried above the many discussions which follow it. If anyone uninvolved in the immediate dispute has both the time and the inclination, I would appreciate reading some of your input. Thanks so much. -- Levine2112 discuss 04:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
What happens when when you have a topic that conflicts with mainstream science, but where mainstream science's contribution is so small that it's actually the minority view?
For example, where you have a something fanciful that many people believe is true which is highly notable because it has substantial media coverage and popular culture coverage, but which has never been scientifically investigated because scientists just shrug their shoulders and say "nah, that's not possible". Making the unscientific popular view the majority view and the scientific opinion the hard to WP:V minority view?
How does undue weight apply. Do you approach the topic from the mainstream perspective even though there is no real mainstream perspective to speak of, or do you approach it from the majority perspective even though it is unscientific because it is the perspective from which weight applies?
More specifically, what happens when the topic is only notable because of the unscientific majority belief? - perfectblue ( talk) 21:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
This talk page is for discussing the policy itsself, not its interpretation in a specific case. Such a case may be an example of where the policy needs improving or discussing, but this Homeopathy debate has run off-topic, and has now become distracting to this page history, so I move the discussion to a subpage. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 08:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I see many cases being discussed here. I admit that the discussion was diverted from the topic, but I am committed to returning and remaining on topic. I would like to try to collapse the unecessary sections and leave this this discussion here. Anthon01 ( talk) 13:06, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
collapsible | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The policy states Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. My question is what does this really mean in particular the appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint? What does appropriate reference mean? Is it a link to the majority POV or an exhaustive treatise. Anthon01 ( talk) 14:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Off-Topic
You might think the policies of Wikipedia are being viewed as too important. And that is the entire point. You are on Wikipedia but you do not want to follow Wikipedia policies. And so...-- Filll ( talk) 18:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I only came here because you asked me. But ok, fair enough, you do not believe what I have said. I am only going on what I have read and been instructed by senior editors and admins here for the last year and a half and 25000+ edits (29.8 times as many mainspace edits as Anthon01). But ok...-- Filll ( talk) 23:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Fill is by and large correct here. Homeopathy is an extreme minority position. In that context, WP:UNDUE necessitate that's we give little weight to its claims. This has nothing to do with whether or not homeopathy is correct. JoshuaZ ( talk) 23:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
If you want to claim that homeopathy is not the minority position, then provide reliable sources so that we can verify it. I have given plenty of evidence for months now that it is an extreme minority position. Others have as well. All I hear is unsubstantiated assertions which count for nothing. Put up, or...-- Filll ( talk) 02:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
As I have said repeatedly, if homeopathy is not a minority in the US, why are homeopathic products in the US not clearly labeled as homeopathic and promoted as such? I suggest that it is probably because homeopathy is so little known at best, and at worst homeopathy is a horrendous embarassment in the US, so that it is viewed as very negative for the success of a product to label it clearly as homeopathic or promote it as homeopathic in the US. If it were mainstream, do you think this would happen? If it were mainstream, I would be able to find more than 4 part-time practioners in this metropolitan area of about 10 million people where I live. How many thousands or tens of thousands of allopaths live and work in this area do you think? If we compare by research dollars or income or any other measure you can think of, it is minor...very minor... a teeny tiny FRINGE activity in this area, and I live in the capital of the country.-- Filll ( talk) 04:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe you are a bit geographically challenged when it comes to our nation's capital, but that is neither here nor there. There is one homeopathic pharamacy in the area, about 25 miles or more from me. What I mean is, Zicam was not clearly labelled as homeopathic. Oscilloccocinum is not clearly labelled as homeopathic. Head-on is not clearly labelled as homeopathic. All three are widely available. All three are heavily advertised at least in some venues. And all three are NOT advertised as homeopathic in the media, or clearly labelled as such on their packaging. Why is that, if homeopathy is a major medical treatment in the United States that most people are familiar with and most people use and are proud to use and if the word "homeopathic" is so well known and respected that it is valuable for marketing purposes?-- Filll ( talk) 06:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Fill's last argument is just semantics. Whether people know it or not, a large amount of us are using homeopathic remedies. After all how many Americans know what NSAIDS are? And how many Americans take Ibuprofen (a common NSAID)? Hey, isn't Wikipedia for people outside of America too? Like, say, the 20% of India's population who use homeopathy - isn't Wikipedia for them too? (Let's see, 20% of 1.12 billion... that's like 224,000,000 people using homeopathy in India alone. Yeah, homeopathy is so not significant! ;-) -- Levine2112 discuss 06:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Homeopathy & NPOV breakUnfortunately it is too dangerous for me to continue this because of the viscious threats. So I have some advice for you then. Why do you not just rewrite the NPOV document and see what happens, since you are positive you are correct and no one is allowed to discuss anything with you or answer any questions or disagree with you? Just do it. No one can talk to you because of the threats. -- Filll ( talk) 06:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
You win. What part of "you win" do you not understand? In the current circumstances it is not permitted to discuss or disagree.-- Filll ( talk) 07:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes on this topic it takes repeating things dozens if not hundreds of times before someone gets it. Ok so now you get it, go ahead and act since you won.-- Filll ( talk) 07:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I guess you do not understand that you have won and are therefore correct in all respects and are free to change NPOV policy as you would like and any articles as you see fit.-- Filll ( talk) 08:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
So go ahead and propose new wording for the policy, since you are so certain you are correct. Obviously there is some confusion about what the policy means and you believe you understand it better than anyone else. And this page is about discussing the wording of the policy. So clarify the policy for everyone.-- Filll ( talk) 13:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC) NPOV check on topics like thisThe way I understand NPOV to work depends on our sources, for example take a minority topic like Scientology:
Understanding that these are not the only sources for this topic, does the table illustrate the general concept of NPOV? Anynobody 07:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
{{|Off-Topic|
I find that statement highly offensive and a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. I thought this was the encyclopedia anyone could edit. I am not welcome to post here? What did I say that constitutes an argument? Please provide diffs and a pointer to the relevant policy page in WP policy that describes how I am not welcome to post here. If I do not get an appropriate response, I will report you and you will have to deal with the administrative bureaucracy, which you are on extremely thin ice with anyway. So your choice...By the way, I invite you to provide a document describing exactly what you think WP:NPOV is or should be. The ball is in your court. We are waiting for your input. -- Filll ( talk) 01:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC) Right, so you produce a proposal for how you want to change NPOV.- Filll ( talk) 03:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
No offense, but you have been arguing against the accepted interpretation of NPOV as long as I have interacted with you. So clearly it is written poorly and not well explained. Please feel free to write it so we can all understand it properly and you are no longer at odds or offended by the interpretation of others of the NPOV policy. Of course you do not have to, but it would make things far easier, you must admit.-- Filll ( talk) 03:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Please provide diffs documenting that I have been involved with "repeated vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying". You do not know that making spurious accusations like you are doing is a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:TE. Thank you.-- Filll ( talk) 03:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Again this conversation is devolving into an argument. I intent to complete this discussion sooner or later. Filll you are going off-topic with and Whig you are following him. Consider disengaging. Anthon01 ( talk) 03:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC) I find it highly offensive that you would suggest I lied. Clearly from those diffs there is no discrepancy or inconsistency. However, some people suffer from a reading comprehension problem; maybe that is the issue here.-- Filll ( talk) 04:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Back to basicsThe policy states Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view.
The Apollo moon landings and Apollo moon landing hoax accusations give a good example of Wikipedia:Summary style applied to a scientific article where the minority viewpoint is shown in a section, complete with the mainstream response to the minority viewpoint. The minority viewpoint is then dealt with in an article of its own, which takes care to comply with NPOV by making appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and avoiding presenting majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. In accordance with UNDUE significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source are shown in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint, and so the various minority claims are each accompanied by an explanation of the majority explanation. That's the appropriate standard for homeopathy, and if it in turn is split into sub-articles dealing with more detail, the main homeopathy article has to include summaries showing majority and minority viewpoints and the detailed article has also to show the various viewpoints appropriately. .. dave souza, talk 12:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
But somehow homeopathic remedies only represent 0.3% of the market for pharmaceuticals worldwide. Sounds pretty fringey to me. Especially when homeopathic practitioners in the US represent someplace between 0.03% and 0.1% of the physicians in the US. Pretty tiny. Even in India the number of homeopaths is only 15% of the number of regular physicians, and smaller than the number Ayurvedic Medicine practioners; a distant 3rd or 4th behind regular medicine and ayurvedic medicine. So even where it is super prevalent, in India, homeopathy is not that popular and is a tiny minority form of treatment. And worldwide, forget it. They barely exist.-- Filll ( talk) 05:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC) In other words, more than 99.97% of US physicians are not homeopathic physicians (counting those who are licensed). So yes, it is a FRINGE form of treatment.-- Filll ( talk) 05:35, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I am not allowed to give data? I have sources for all that. Do a litle research yourself since this is an encyclopedia, not someplace where you can just declare things to be true and we have to accept them. There are only about 300 or so licensed homeopaths in the US, and about 1000 if you count unlicensed. I find the numbers credible (which come from a paper by Dana Ullman) because in my metropolitan area of 10 million people there are only 4 parttime homeopaths (well maybe 3 and 1 fulltime, but I am not sure). The worldwide market for homeopathic pharmaceuticals is only 0.3% the size of the worldwide market for all pharmaceuticals. There are 6.5 billion people in the world market and this is not just an encyclopedia for India, which only has a paltry 1.2 billion people you know. -- Filll ( talk) 14:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Minority topics receive coverage in articles on themselves. The mainstream criticism is given appropriate reference. However, while it is given enough space to be clear on what it is saying, it does not need more than that. It's more a matter of being clear about things than proportion. In a situation like Homeopathy, you will have most of the material be about the history and practice, ideas behind it etc. There will be very notable objections. But they will not overwhelm the article. If the only objection to Homeopathy were that it doesn't have any chemical theory behind it, you wouldn't really need more than a few sentences. If objections are more detailed, you will need more. There is absolutely nothing in WEIGHT that says you have to give the mainstream a certain number of the words in articles about fringe subjects. Nor that an objection which is highly notable but easy (and takes little room) to explain should be given as much space as a fringe idea which is hard (and takes space) to explain. Think good writing, people. Think common sense. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Off-Topic
And I am supposed to promise that Raul654, JzG and Science Apologist will leave Wikipedia if Arbcomm will not take the case, or decides in your favor. Yes, sounds like a really serious offer.-- Filll ( talk) 01:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah whatever. I gave my offer already. I am still waiting. But since I have already read a good chunk of your primer etc, I do not think you want anyone to really look closely into what your claims are, since they were dismissed as rubbish before.-- Filll ( talk) 02:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC) I'm not sure why the Show button seems not to be working, hopefully someone can fix this if I don't figure it out first. I'd really encourage discussions of people making side bets about policy arguments be taken to user talk. — Whig ( talk) 03:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Good idea to archive it. But the point there was -however childish it was to play Filll's game of dare- that SPOV is a discredited way of writing articles. We have NPOV, instead. We have WEIGHT, exactly as written: Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. In terms of the homeopathy article, it is not "An Evaluation of the merits of Homeopathy". This is what certain people don't seem to understand, and they think that describing the history, events, people and beliefs relevant to a subject is always pro the subject. It is not, it is just description the way a good encyclopaedia does it. But because they don't understand description they want evaluation and nothing but evaluation-- including original research. But WP is here to describe, not debunk. —— Martinphi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 04:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
What if describing it accurately looks like debunking? It is very hard to claim that this is a well accepted mainstream therapy with no controversy associated with it and no people who dispute its claims.-- Filll ( talk) 15:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC) The reason that the criticism is more extensive with more references is because people challenge it. If you put a statement like that in there without much documentation and without details, it would never survive. What proponents of FRINGE theories do not quite realize, is that when they challenge things, they get bolstered if there are WP:RS available. This has happened to the creationism articles over and over so that now it looks like we are pounding the tar out of creationism on purpose. This is not true; however, after a few years of challenges, more and more references and details are added. And pretty soon, it looks like someone just tried to slam the FRINGE position. Nope. It gets that way honestly, through FRINGE proponents who challenge every single statement. I have seen it for example in irreducible complexity which had some statements about intelligent design. Now we did not want to document the fact that intelligent design is regarded as nonsense, pseudoscience and creationism in the irreducible complexity article, since it was already done in the intelligent design article. But intelligent design proponents attacked and attacked and challenged and edit warred. And slowly but surely irreducible complexity is getting more and more detail that is negative to intelligent design. We did not want to do it; we were forced to do it. The same is going on on Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. And people complain, but the more they complain, the more of this "negative" detail gets introduced. It is that simple.-- Filll ( talk) 17:17, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I think a better fork would be to spin off all the material about laws in different parts of the world and prevalence in different parts of the world. It is boring, and the main article does not have to go into such detail.-- Filll ( talk) 17:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
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I've done the bold thing and created Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, which was the last core/major policy whose implications seem to get fought over all the time and lead to no small number of edit wars. Lawrence § t/ e 16:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello. I would like to add a sentence to the Deadly nightshade (aka Belladonna) article which in effect states: Deadly nightshade is used in homeopathic remedies. I have found sources which verify this statement - Discovering Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century By Dana Ullman, The Oxford Book of Health Foods By John Griffith Vaughan & Patricia Ann Judd, and Family Homeopath by Robin Hayfield - all of which have been found to pass WP:RS according to this conversations at WP:RSN. It was further suggested there that we quote and attribute the source which is being used such that the sentence would read in effect: According to The Oxford Book of Health Foods, Deadly nightshade "is included... in homeopathic preparations for acne, boils, and sunburns".
Now, the question of undue weight has been brought up as an objection to inclusion of such a sentence. The objection is based on the thought that homeopathy is a fringe science and thus it represents a minority viewpoint. (I'm not sure that it matters, but homeopathy - though perhaps maintaining a minority view in the world of science - is widely used throughout the world and Deadly nightshade is a very popular ingredient for remedies, and in the context I wish to include this sentence, there are no scientific claims being made about homeopathy nor are any theories being presented.) Anyhow, my thought is that by only giving a one-sentence mention in the article, we would not be giving this information any undue weight, but rather providing information about the topic which is actually quite interesting.
My question: Does the inclusion of one sentence such as - According to The Oxford Book of Health Foods, Deadly nightshade "is included... in homeopathic preparations for acne, boils, and sunburns". - in the article Deadly nightshade violate WP:UNDUE?
Thanks for your time. -- Levine2112 discuss 20:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to take the focus away from Levine2112's question, but would like to point out that this is part of a much larger issue currently being played out at several similar articles about plant species, including (but not limited to) Thuja occidentalis (see also the recent discussions on the project page, especially here, here, and here). Between the systematic deletion of any mention of a plant species being used in homeopathy (however well documented or neutrally worded) and the persistent disparaging of any references that is cited (these sources not supporting homeopathy but simply documenting the fact that the plant is so used), I have much the same concerns that he does. MrDarwin ( talk) 22:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like responders here to be aware that we've extensively discussed this topic already at reliable sources noticeboard and all sides already agree that all or some of the works above cited are "experts in their field of study" and so that portion of the issue shouldn't be reargued here. We're here more specifically to address on-point, our sub-section on undue weight and how it might apply to this case. Thanks! Wjhonson ( talk) 22:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I will now offer an explanation for how undue weight should be applied in articles pertaining to these kinds of situations. For the purposes of this explanation, it is necessary to define a few terms:
Undue weight states as an opening sentence: "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." This is the sense in which the connected idea needs to be evaluated. Effectively, it is the prominence of the connected idea with reference to the subject that needs to be established in order to justify the inclusion or exclusion of an idea per the undue weight clause. I will note that this is different from the prominence of the connected idea with referece to the category. While a minority or fringe opinion may be prominent relative to a category (e.g. astrology is prominent relative to astronomy) the same minority or fringe opinion is not necessarily prominent to all subjects in that category (e.g. there is no reference to astrology on the radio astronomy article).
The only way to determine the prominence of a connected idea with respect to the subject is to find reliable sources that assert the prominence of the idea with respect to the subject. What makes a reliable source? A reliable source in this instance is any mainstream independent source that is about the subject in question. Note that sources which are about the connected idea or dependent on the connected idea are not reliable for establishing the prominence of the connected idea to the subject. For example, a homeopathic desk reference on plants is not a reliable source for establishing the prominence of the connected idea of the homeopathic use of deadly nightshade to the subject of deadly nightshade. However, a mainstream field guide to plants that mentions that deadly nightshade is famous for its application in homeopathy would be a mainstream independent source that could be used to establish the prominence of the connected idea to the subject. In the case of deadly nightshade, there have been two separate problems plaguing the sources offered for inclusion by those hoping to establish the prominence of the connected idea to the subject. In some instances, the sources referenced were not about the subject of the article but rather were about the connected idea. In this case, the connected idea is clearly a fringe subject (inasmuch as homeopathy is pseudoscience) so such sources are subject to extra scrutiny. So a book on homeopathy that mentions deadly nightshade only shows that deadly nightshade may deserve mention in some article devoted to homeopathy. According to fringe guidelines, sources that are strictly about fringe material cannot really be used to establish the prominence of fringe material with respect to a mainstream subject. I have summarized this idea succinctly as the principle of one-way linking. Alternatively, some of the sources offered by those asserting the prominence of the connected idea to the subject were purportedly about the subject of the article (or at least the category of the article) but were not independent of the connected idea. So, for example, a book on the homeopathic uses of plants does not establish the prominence of the homeopathic use of plants outside of the purview of those interested in homeopathy. In order to establish prominence fairly and neutrally, it is necessary to find a source that is independent of homeopathy which asserts the prominence of homeopathy to deadly nightshade. If no independent mainstream sources can be located which assert the prominence of the connected idea to the subject, then the connected idea does not deserve mention in the article.
There is precedent for the application of this principle where the connected idea was found to be prominent through the use of mainstream independent sources on the subject. A particularly relevant example for this discussion where proper sourcing was done to establish the prominence of a connected idea to the subject of an article was what happened in the domesticated sheep article. In this example, User:VanTucky was able to point to a mainstream, independent source that mentioned that certain sheep producers had employed homeopathy in the health maitenance of their flocks. This effectively established the prominence of the connected idea of homeopathic remedies for sheep ailments to the subject of domesticated sheep. There is now an appropriately weighted sentence in the article which discusses the implications of this connected idea to the subject.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 08:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
The plant is used to make a homeopathic "remedy," but nothing from the plant ends up in it. Electronics are used to make paper, but nothing from the electronics ends up in the paper. It is reasonable to mention electronics in an article on paper making, but it isn't reasonable to mention paper making in an article on electronics. Likewise, it is reasonable to mention the plant in an article on homeopathic remedies, but it is undue weight to mention homeopathy in the article about the plant. MilesAgain ( talk) 22:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I have found so far, the discussion to be very productive at eliciting the issues surrounding where we do and don't include minority viewpoints. It would be instructive for editors to present an answer to the question: When we include minority viewpoints, do we only do so, from the viewpoint of the majority? That is, do we allow minority viewpoints to be expressed in their own language? Thanks. Wjhonson ( talk) 20:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
(Outdent) Reverse the tables and ask the same question Stephen. You're couching the language. We should be discussing whether or not we present the minority viewpoint, from their own internal sources. That is: what is a viewpoint? Is it the view others have of you? Or the view you have of yourself? Does the majority always speak for the minority? That's really the issue we should be discussing. Wjhonson ( talk) 08:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I want to point out that WP:SIGNIF is currently simply a redirect to WP:N, but as the above discussion (and other discussions that have occurred from time to time) makes clear, determining significance of points of views is different from the notably of subjects. I would encourage making WP:SIGNIF a stand-alone guidance and putting an articulation of what is involved in determining which viewpoints are signficant there. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 01:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The fact that a viewpoint may be notable, and get its own article, doesn't necessarily make it a significant viewpoint in an article on another subject. Notability and significance are completely different concepts. Notability occurs in isolation; significance is measured with respect to a field of other viewpoints. Lots of actors, philosophers, scientists, and religious figures have their own articles, but a lot fewer have their viewpoints included in the Acting, Philosophy, Science, or Religion articles. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 06:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand how a statement about people's beliefs or behavior could be regarded as non-fringe only if the belief or behavior itself is considered scientifically justified. If the use of belladonna for folk or homeopathic remedies is a significant human use of the plant, and this can be reliably documented, judgements about the reasonableness of the beliefs or behavior involved would not seem to matter. Since human beliefs and behvior are often characterized as unreasonable, omitting statements about them based on opinions of their accuracy/value, rather than on objective considerations such as observed frequency of occurrance, would seem to pose WP:NPOV difficulties . Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 19:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
There is a lot of talk above. More editors favor inclusion than not. Those that are against inclusion maintain that the NPOV policy should be interpreted such that a source must be presented which shows not that Deadly Nightshade is notable to Homeopathy but rather that Homeopathy is notable to Deadly Nightshade. I have asked for passages from NPOV which justify this rationale and still have not see an answer. Meanwhile, many references have been provided all confirming that Deadly Nightshade is in fact used in the preparation of a homeopathic remedy. This usage has been notable enough to be researched in a few dozen studies published in notable scientific journals, and written about in both homeopathic and non-homeopathic books; most relevant to this discussion is its mention in the Oxford Book of Health Food and its description in Medline. Using these sources, we can easily devise a sentence which in effect would read: Deadly nightshade is included in homeopathic preparations for acne, boils, and sunburns despite the absence of scientific support for its use. It's neutrally worded from the sources and totally verified. The question which we would like answered here remains: Does the inclusion of this text at Deadly nightshade in anyway violate WP:NPOV? If so, how? Please be specific. If not, can we please include this text and move onto something better? Please! :-) -- Levine2112 discuss 03:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Since you ask for more input, the criterion for inclusion of any mention of this minority subject which lacks mainstream scientific support is, in WP:NPOV terms, its significance to the topic of the article. The implications of WP:SOAP for advocacy of ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view, such as esoteric claims about medicine, are clarified in WP:FRINGE. The need for notability is set out in WP:FRINGE#Identifying fringe theories, "In order to be notable, a fringe theory should be referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory. Even debunking or disparaging references are adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents. .. Theories should receive attention in Wikipedia in proportion to the level of detail in the sources from which the article is written." From WP:FRINGE#Unwarranted promotion of fringe theories, "Conjectures that have not received critical review from the scientific community or that have been rejected should be excluded from articles about scientific subjects." So, the significance to the subject has to be verified by third party reliable sources independent of the proponents of homeopathy. Where that's established, both the homeopathic claim and the mainstream view of such treatment have to be shown to avoid undue weight, and the formulation shown above appears to be on the right lines. . . dave souza, talk 22:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)