Home • Search • Translate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


non-sequitur argument

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

No, the 1st sentence is NOT a Non sequitur (logic), the second clause is dependent on the first clause but not entirely so. This was addressed above but here we go again. "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view." This is not a non sequitur. That is, an article may well present all relevant points of view in a dispassionate manner and yet still be highly partisan but an article that does not use a "consistently dispassionate tone" will almost always be perceived as highly partisan. For it to be a non sequitur, one would have to claim that the second clause proves the first. That is, an article presents all relevant points of view but is still perceived as highly partisan, therefore the article does not use a consistently dispassionate tone. That is not the case here, the sentence merely says that without a consistently dispassionate tone the article will be perceived as partisan but having a dispassionate tone is not the sole criteria for a neutral characterization. Second sentence: Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized. I think the word "implied" should be replaced with "inferred", words can not imply anything a reader infers based upon their own POV. Third sentence: Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all notable positions. I would strike "proportionate" and replace "notable" with "relevant". Proportionate makes no sense in this context and notable is a loaded word around here. Relevant is much better, I think, as a position may be notable but still irrelevant to the subject of the article. That is, for example, Noam Chomsky's opinions on US foreign policy is notable but completely irrelevant to an article on foreign policy because Chomsky is a professor of linguistics and not a diplomat, poli/sci professor, historian, etc. The Discovery Institute has a notable position on biology but it is not relevant to an article about biology. With the aforementioned change in sentence 3, sentence 4 is fine. Can we put this to rest now? Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 15:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

As for point #1, The other things need not be included in this policy because the other needed things (other legs of the tripod if you will) are the policies on verifiability and original research. Taken together as a whole WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:N are what is needed to make a neutral article. L0b0t ( talk) 17:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

Synthesis of MC, SDY, HA, LW2 concerns

The line of conversation over the current MC-derivative version seems to be compounding into the current discussion, so I'm going to split this off to help MC/SA and LW2 find the current version when they come back online. Bold emphasis represents changes to MC version to capture primary concerns of LW2. I have modified slightly the wording of SDY for the consensus viewpoints, but trying to resolve wording I find I have concerns with.

"A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.

Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. Proper compliance with WP:WEIGHT is not a value judgement. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority views should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of large scientific consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect scientific consensus, as is documented in the official policy."

HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

  • As a follow on, I think that there would be a place for "If the primary source of an opinion contains value judgements, polemic, invective, or incivility, the opinion should be paraphrased neutrally and cited, rather than quoted." HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I would change this sentence "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view." to this "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles might end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view.". The addition of the qualifier "might" will obviate the IP's non sequitur concerns. L0b0t ( talk) 17:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

I'm not sure what Wikipedia:Consensus has to do with scientific consensus (except that they happen to both be consensus-es). :-P

That and NPOV is not exactly the same as SPOV. I think your version conflates the two? There are a number of people who don't quite understand the difference, and who manage to get themselves and wikipedia into trouble at times. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Kim - I second this, completely. I've been coming to realize myself how many people here confuse scientific objectivity with neutral point of view. they've obviously never seen an episode of "House".  :-) Scientific objectivity tries to make correct or useful statements about objects in the physical world; wikipedian neutrality tries to make balanced presentations of viewpoints in the social world. there's no valid logic that connects the two. -- Ludwigs2 18:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • ok, this is looking better to me, though I'd still like to contest a couple of points (summarized here, and included in the discussion above):
    • dispassionate (as I argue above) is actually a worse word than some cognate of 'fair' - there is just no measure of what is or is not dispassionate, and this will simply prompt edit wars of the I'm dispassionate, you're not variety. a word (maybe 'just' or 'equitable'?) that has some reference to group consensus would be far superior. not that I object to the word entirely, but as the sole measure it doesn't cut the mustard.
    • the line about minority views should read something like: "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented, they should neither be presented as equal to majority views, nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority." this ensures that WP:WEIGHT issues are satisfied in both directions - keeping the majority view as prominent without disparaging the minority view unduly.
    • I'd still like the excessive references to WP:WEIGHT brought under control. if I count correctly, there are two direct references and three indirect references to weight in the last paragraph alone. that's just silly, and poor writing to boot. -- Ludwigs2 18:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)


I take issue with the clause "nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority." that sounds like an invitation to trolls and POV pushers of all stripes, opening the floodgates to allow more warring by flat-earthers, creationists, we've never been to the mooners, holocaust deniers, and all the other improvident lack-wits of the world with an ideological axe to grind. Quite frankly, some views are incorrect and invalid and should be treated as such. Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 18:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
"Quite frankly, some views are incorrect and invalid and should be treated as such." Which is, of course, the opposite of NPOV. How do you determine which views are incorrect and invalid? -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The beauty of Wikipedia is that I don't have to. I have our core policies of WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:N to do this for me, I just report what is already written in reliable sources. In my view, the opposite of NPOV would be in giving deference to views that are incorrect and invalid. Neutrality means accurately reflecting realty, not tip-toeing around calling a spade a spade because a reader might get their feeling hurt by reading that their cherished misconception of reality is, in fact, a misconception of reality. L0b0t ( talk) 19:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
OMG! :-O . Please, the beauty of wikipedia is that you get to use your brain for a change! (aka. the pretty text is only there to help you).
NPOV is not about accurately reflecting reality (whatever that is), or even real knowledge (no clue here either), because that is a very hard thing to do, and not all wikipedians are high-falutin' philosophers. What we *can* do is accurately represent what people have been saying and writing about their views on reality. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 00:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC) ps, spades have historically been somewhat controversial? ^^;;
L0b0t - all of these 'bad people' you mentioned would be excluded by the first part of the passage: "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented..." which explicitly invokes WP:WEIGHT. nice straw-man argument, but it doesn't fly. now, can you think of some example(s) where a significant view on a topic (per WP:WEIGHT) should be presented as incorrect or invalid, just by virtue of being a minority view? and no neutrality does not mean 'actually reflecting reality' - that's what reliable sourcing does. neutrality means "representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views" - whoops, sorry, there's that dreadful 'fair' word again - lol.
honestly, L0b0t, it's beginning to sound like you have an axe to grind. is that the case? -- Ludwigs2 19:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's try this on for size then. I'm reducing the horse-beating of WP:Undue and I'm going to try to clean up the "consensus" part, and clear out the possible reading of this as equating the mainstream view as a neutral view (that was never my intent). I agree with both criticisms. Thanks for the feedback.

"A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently nonjudgmental tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.

Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy."

HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The language and sentiment looks good to me. ( reliable should have a period after it). SDY ( talk) 21:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • well, I could quibble (and probably will, but not any more today - lol). but this is definitely shaping up. -- Ludwigs2 23:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Misleading wording

" For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority." Eh? That's misleading at best. The article *does* mention the view that the earth is flat. It doesn't currently have any links directly to the flat earth society, but otoh, iirc that scoiety is historic atm, and thus best kept at flat earth. (So for practical reasons, not due to the reason mentioned here).

To amplify: I often use the fact that Earth does mention Flat Earth as the canonical example of our scrupulous adherence to NPOV!

And now that I re-read our section on undue weight... it's actually saying the opposite. I wonder how much this page still actually describes NPOV.

-- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

How is the above misleading? The sole mention of "flat Earth" in the article Earth is the following sentence "In the ancient past there were varying levels of belief in a flat Earth, with the Mesopotamian culture portraying the world as a flat disk afloat in an ocean.", that's it, no mention whatsoever of any flat Earth beliefs from the past 2500 years. L0b0t ( talk) 19:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
well, that's probably a mistake from a historical perspective (there were a number of debates on this issue during the pre-colonial exploratory period, as well as all sorts of mythical constructs aside from mesopotamia). I'll check in there and see if sources need to be added. thanks. -- Ludwigs2 20:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it's more an editorial thing, we have several articles on flat earth now, so it could be thought to suffice to link to the main article on the matter now. The fun thing is that NPOV sometimes actually leads to more objective reporting on an issue. Careful examination of sources shows that the belief that people believed the earth was flat, is *itself* an incorrect belief. So L0b0t has shot himself in the foot, by promising to defend wikipedia against a myth, afaict ;-P. (that and wikipedia doesn't need defending against such people, wikipedia is not a battlefield. We just need to explain NPOV to them, provided that this page accurately represents it at the moment). -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 20:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
What a cool article, thanks for the link. I'm reading a book right now about Chinese circumnavigation of the globe in the 15th century. No, the history of humanity's understanding of our universe is something that should be written about extensively, including the beautiful myriad of cosmologies humans have invented throughout the ages. were it not for the presence of articles on flat Earth I would be in agreement with Ludwigs2 that the Earth article could use more mention of it. My objection would be to modern adherents of a flat Earth theory demanding that their beliefs be accorded space in an article about the Earth. Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 20:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
you know, L0b0t, I have to say that this is one of the things that pains me most about working on WP. I have absolutely no doubt that you and other editors argue in good faith, from a reasonable and sophisticated perspective, and I know that I do (as best I can). but I feel like I get caught up in arguments that are just carry-overs from arguments that have been had with other (long-gone) people. perfectly understandable, I suppose, and I don't know how it could be otherwise, but still... at any rate, yes, just know that I wouldn't want wikipedia to turn into wonkapedia any more than you would.  :-) -- Ludwigs2 21:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
and kim - there really is a push here to de-neutralize NPOV (probably unintentional, but still...). I've seen this happen in a number of different venues - once things that should be a matter of consensus are reduced to the 'purportedly' objective judgments of individuals, neutrality goes out the window (because neutrality is inherently based in consensus, and doesn't survive outside it). fortunately, common sense negates the problem in most practical cases, but it's still sad to see the ideal get worn down. -- Ludwigs2 20:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Usually it comes down to a question of "what is a fact?" v. "what is an opinion?" When the consensus is that a statement is a fact and others want to treat it as an opinion (or vice versa) we run into problems. In a legal setting, expert opinions are facts. In the realm of politics, facts are opinions. Wikipedia, like most of the human experience, is somewhere between these two extremes. SDY ( talk) 21:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
yeah, that makes sense. I guess my own bias is that I'd prefer that the answer to that question be negotiated rather than asserted. assertions are always going to boil down to a we're right, you're wrong, so be quiet thing that satisfies no one and makes the losers angry. seems to me that if you can say, instead: here are the facts we're working with, but there's some wiggle-room about how we're going to present them then the wiggle-room will get wiggled by all sides, and everyone will at least be happy that they got some say in the matter. -- Ludwigs2 21:58, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I sometimes see a conflict between "organization asserts X" versus "X is fact". That conflict seems to be the source of a lot of the issues Ludwigs is talking about, and that is the perspective I am taking when presenting my ideas for the neutral tone section wording. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's a question for this policy: should we attempt to define the characteristics of a fact as opposed to the characteristics of an opinion? Has it already been done? Philosophically the two are massive minefields. It might be more of a topic for an essay than a policy, but I think this conversation points out that it is not always obvious what is what. SDY ( talk) 22:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) wow, that is a minefield(s) - lol. you'd even have to extend it a bit. there's:
  • sourced objective facts (i.e. statements about the world that have physical evidence
  • sourced 'objective' opinions (i.e. statements experts make about their work which are not 'facts' but are generally accepted as true)
  • sourced 'subjective' opinions (i.e. statements people make which are significant and important, but are disputed by some)
  • unsourced 'subjective' opinions (i.e. pervasive attitudes or beliefs that really shouldn't be in wikipedia but probably influence lots of editors, one way or another...)
but now that you mention it, maybe I should do some essay writing. lord knows I'm halfway there already with the arguments I make, and essays might annoy people less. hmmmm... -- Ludwigs2 23:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I generally don't see a problem of that type. If I have a reliable source that group G asserts statement S, then we can reasonably take as fact that "group G asserts statement S". The issue is that, unless broad consensus agrees, S may not be a fact. The key here is that for neutral tone, as long as we keep the caveat that "mainstream science consensus is S", "Major minority opinion asserts M" etc, we shouldn't have to worry about "fact vs opinion". Arguing too much about "fact" invites arguments and value judgments, and unless consensus is reached, they should stay as cited assertions, not cited facts. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
well, there is a problem, particularly with science, of over-attributing. for instance the claim 'group G asserts statement S' is fine in and of itself, but when group G is scientists, there's a tendency to assume that statement S is true and any other statement is false, even when the statement has nothing to do with science at all. it's the old '4 out of 5 dentists say...' thing: 5 out of 5 dentists want you to brush your teeth, and none of them care which toothpaste you use, but the reference to experts is convincing in and of itself. plus, I've seen editors play it up that way, particularly on fringe theories (where it sometimes seems that the opinion of anyone with any kind of PhD trumps everything else - I call that the Martin Gardner Syndrome :-) ). -- Ludwigs2 23:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
That's exactly why I appeal to consensus. If group G is scientists, but so is group G2, there is a problem. Final judgements have to represent a consensus of the community (but not unanimity). When making the jump from a set of well sourced opinion to a "final judgment", I see the key guidance in WP:CON, for when an idea reflects broad consensus, and WP:civil for how the arguments are presented on the talk page. When going from "mainstream science considers the Piltdown man to be a hoax" to "The Piltdown man is a hoax" would be a product of how the discussion is framed on the talk page, as guided by Civility and Consensus, rather than some attempt at an "objective" formulation of when we can make a transition from opinion to fact. Put another way, in my mind, is that we define a proper process for how to determine whether something is a "fact" or an opinion (which may change more than once over the lifetime of an article), and then invoke WP:PI. And we just sit back and recognize that some stuff is so blatantly obvious and accepted (air is breathed, not eaten) that this process can be ignored. HatlessAtless ( talk) 10:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
yes, I don't think I disagree with you. but I'm suspicious of the 'consensus of the community' statement; it seems oddly fluid. a community often achieves consensus by excluding perfectly valid views that they happen to disagree with (e.g. Christians have consensus that Christ was God incarnate by simply preventing anyone who doesn't believe that from being called a Christian, and scientists have a secular consensus simply by excluding transcendent views as unscientific). nothing wrong with that, but it makes some difficult decisions for editors - do we evaluate a claim from the perspective of this community, or that community, or some broader community that the first two belong in... as long as those really are governed by wp:civility on the talk page, this would work, but what I see happening is one side defending a particular viewpoint (often the scientific one) to the death. -- Ludwigs2 18:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Judging it in the context of what it claims to be seems to be a reasonable way to go about it, and I think that's mostly the way it has happened so far. SDY ( talk) 18:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, ultimately, I see it as coming down to the consensus of the community of wikipedia editors. Given that we have pluralistic and broad statements in our mission, it means that we as a community will make a good faith effort and do our best to make sure that we don't exclude people who shouldn't be excluded, etc. I mean, that's the situation we're in when it comes right down to it, but since we are making an effort to be neutral and not adopt any external ideology, and since we are trying to come to our consensus through civil discourse, etc, I am ok with it, even if we know it isn't perfect. The fact that the wikipedia is imperfect and continuously needs work and improvement is one of, if not the most fundamental part of the project. To answer your question specifically, the only community perspective we are capable of adopting is our own; the perspective of the community of wikipedia editors. And given how diverse, friendly, cooperative and thoughtful most of that community is, I am ok with that, even while recognizing it is imperfect. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
well, Hatless... I salute your idealism while shaking my head ruefully.  :-) the fact is that I have seen numerous examples of editors trying to limit consensus to people who agree with them (you can do a quick survey of this or other pages to see how often people try to exclude editors by calling them POV-pushers, or by cooperating to silence dissent). without some affirmative statement asking for broad consensus, what you're going to get on any contested page is a manufactured consensus designed to push through a point of view as fact over less organized opponents. sad as it is, that's the way politics works on wikipedia. and no, I'm not suggesting you give up your ideals, but ideals need to have some teeth, otherwise there will be plenty of people willing to take advantage (teach your daughters that the world is a beautiful place, but make sure they carry pepper spray, yah?). -- Ludwigs2 17:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Important qualification: Majority views should not be used to create a bias against minority views

This should, in some way, be part of the policy. Too many articles, especially around the and discrimination areas, use UNDUE in a way to present a negative bias. Now, I'm not an expert regarding UNDUE, but I don't think that's what the spirit of it is. WP:NPOVFAQ#Giving "equal validity" and WP:PSCI don't seem to support that view either - they seem to say "It's fine to characterise a minority viewpoint as such in the viewpoint's article, and when viewpoints are compared, we should focus on the scientific majority viewpoint", but it doesn't say "it is fine to use a person's support of a minority viewpoint to present a bias against them" - NPOV as a whole prohibits that. We don't present a visible negative bias for Time Cube or David Icke, so we shouldn't for the slightly more plausible fringe theories. Sceptre ( talk) 10:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you intend the term "bias" to be interpreted here? Could you give a concrete example of this bias? -- Jenny 10:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
For example ("omg bullying!"), Jonathan Wells (intelligent design advocate). Weasel words, guilt by association, et cetera. A version from yesterday is worse, and was only fixed by the grace of Moreschi. Sceptre ( talk) 11:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
By the way, I'm okay for saying "Wells is an ID advocate whose actions are controversial", but I'm not for "Wells is an ID advocate. ID is controversial". The former would be fact while the latter compromises neutrality by guilt-by-association and straying off-topic. Sceptre ( talk) 11:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I see that issue as falling into WP:Civil, WP:Weasel, and WP:NPA. We already have understood policies against making judgment calls like that, and WP:BLP is particularly strict on this topic. "It's fine to characterise a minority viewpoint as such in the viewpoint's article, and when viewpoints are compared, we should focus on the scientific majority viewpoint", but it doesn't say "it is fine to use a person's support of a minority viewpoint to present a bias against them" First, as we've already discussed above, scientific majority and consensus viewpoints may not necessarily be the same. (I think they are far more often than they are not, but for the situations where it is important, it is very important). Second, if you look at the last iteration of the neutral tone proposal, it has a prohibition against wording implying value judgements, as well as requiring an nonjudgemental tone. In general, I would tend to think that this would keep concerns like you've expressed to ones that can be resolved with edits or talk page discussion. I don't think additional wording would be necessary as part of this policy, but by all means, propose some wording. HatlessAtless ( talk) 12:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
actually, I think the extra terminology is useful. all a statement like "Majority views should not be used to create a bias against minority views" (or my original "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented, they should neither be presented as equal to majority views, nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority") would do would be to keep editors from implying that a viewpoint is wrong just because they are a minor position. editors would still be able to point out that it's a minority position, and still be able to point out that it is rejected by the mainstream opinion, but editors would not be able to twist that mainstream rejection into some assertion of ontological failure. -- Ludwigs2 17:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, I couldn't agree more. I will incorportate that clause (or at least that sentiment) in my next draft of a synthesis "neutrality of tone". HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
What happens, though, when a minority viewpoint is wrong, or entirely implausible, or beneath serious notice in the view of experts in the field? Wikipedia needs to reflect that. AIDS denialism, for instance, is not merely a "minority view thought to be unsupported by the majority of the mainstream conventional scientific community" - it is wrong, fundamentally so, and if Wikipedia can't make that clear, then we may as well pack it in as far as ever becoming a serious, respectable reference work. Sceptre's concerns are valid, but they involve WP:COATRACKing and WP:BLP, not WP:NPOV. Of course a biographical article should not serve as a vehicle to denouce a set of views, but we don't need to change WP:NPOV to address that. I don't see Ludwig2's distinction between "rejected" and "invalid"; views that are rejected by the relevant academic community are, academically speaking, considered invalid. I don't see a lot of room to split those hairs without further bloating what should be a very straightforward issue. Does Brittanica worry that rejection by the scientific community should not make an idea appear "invalid"? Does any other serious, respected reference work? MastCell  Talk 17:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
You beat me to the punch MC, since that just occurred to me. I think, however, that we can resolve the situation with a scope of article issue. AIDS Denialism is sufficiently notable for its own article, but it is a tiny minority with respect to views on AIDS. Therefore, they wouldn't deserve mention on the aids article, but we would still fairly present criticism (extensive as it is) on the article for AIDS denialism. HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:59, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
To borrow some unfortunately wikilawyeresque language: "Innocent until proven guilty", modified to "plausible until proven false." In the same vein, we should expect evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt". If there is no reasonable doubt among reliable sources, then that, in my mind, is the neutral point of view. The Durban Declaration is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a breaking point between minority views and fringe views, and views that are truly fringe should not be treated as plausible. Active attacks and incivility are obviously a problem, especially for WP:BLP, but treating things without editorial judgment and treating them as plausible are two very different questions. SDY ( talk) 18:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think we may have reached a point where we'll have to leave it ambiguous and fight it out on individual talk pages. I think that labeling a group 'fringe' on its own article and not mentioning it in the main article about which the group has its views would be sufficient balance for now. Between that and WP:RELY and WP:V I think we've got enough guidance to go by, and leaving the "fairness of tone" section open for interpretation will let us try to get it right article by article. Specifically, if a fringe group is denied mention in the respective topic article (for lack of RSS's defending its views), is labeled fringe on its own article, its assertions and notability derived from some source other than scientific validity, and the mainstream opinions running counter to the fringe group's ideas are defended by RSSs (while no RSSs can be mustered in defense of the fringe group's views), I think I am ok with not declaring a theory bunk or no. It will be plainly clear to the reader either way. HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:21, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Simplicity

Maybe simpler is better. All of this abstract talk about tone is making my head hurt. Why not just say:

Wikipedia strives to accurately and proportionately reflect the current state of human knowledge and opinion on a topic. Wikipedia's coverage of a topic should reflect its treatment by independent, reliable sources. An effort should be made to accurately and dispassionately convey the tone and substance of the topic's coverage in such sources.

Thoughts? This emphasizes the primacy of reliable sources rather than editorial emotion, it avoids "fairness" and "validity" meta-arguments, and it's flexible enough to deal with minority vs. fringe topics without being overly prescriptive. Or I think so, anyway. MastCell  Talk 18:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It does sound good, a lot better than the abusable UNDUE. I'm still worried about bias from straying off-topic, though, but I do agree, that's not strictly NPOV - it's WEASEL, COAT, and BLP. Sceptre ( talk) 19:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I have a lot of trouble with that for three reasons, two of which are good ones. First, the word (and sentiment) of dispassion has been strenuously objected to by several editors, per the discussion above. Second, I don't believe that that wording will be useful in sorting out POV edit wars, since it is amenable to a a "favorable source" treatment, which would not solve much. Finally (and included entirely for humor) its not the same as the version I spent all weekend negotiating! HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Also, "convey the tone and substance" is problematic with NPOV. If an RSS's tone is polemic, that tone has no place in wikipedia. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Finally, I am thinking this might make an awesome seed for an essay related to NPOV, but I am worried that it also fails to give critical guidance. Specifically, it does not address how we as a community of editors would decide what sources we should include or which ones we shouldn't, given that organization, presentation, and selection of quotes and RSS citations can make an article a heavily biased opinion piece as easily as a neutral and encyclopedic article. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Those decisions are generally made on article talk pages - there's no suitably general guidance we can give on which sources to choose applicable to all articles, and even if we could it would be more appropriate for WP:V and WP:RS (see WP:MEDRS for an effort to codify "good" sourcing in one small subject area). I don't see a problem with "convey the tone", but I think we disagree fundamentally: I think that if reliable sources consistently disparage a subject, then we need to convey that here. There is nothing in policy or practice which says that if an otherwise reliable source is "polemical" about a subject that it becomes unworthy of inclusion here. Truly reliable sources tend not to be polemic; Nature, Science, the New York Times, and the World Health Organization rarely take a polemic tone, and when they do, it's notable enough to be reflected here. MastCell  Talk 20:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Product of the weekend's discussion

Since we're discussing possible wording for the "neutrality of tone" section, here is what appears to have come out of the discussion from this weekend.

  • A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently nonjudgmental tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy.

I think this does pretty much everything we need it to do. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Overall this looks pretty good. One major objection: "The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article" has to go. This is a blanket invitation to wikilawyering; anything negative or contextual could be called a "value judgement". A good article absolutely contains value judgements about the topic, though they are the value judgements made by reliable sources. Perhaps you could amend this to say: "The article must not reflect an editor's value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article." This makes clear that it's editorial judgement you want to avoid.

I dislike the word "nonjudgemental" in the first sentence for the same reasons; a good, NPOV article may be judgemental, if the weight of reliable sources treat its topic judgementally. So long as we don't substitute our judgements for those of reliable sources, we're good. MastCell  Talk 20:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds as if it is contradicting itself. This is what I hear, translating the proposed paragraph:
  • 1. Neutral tone means tone without bias or judgment.
  • 2. The sum of individually neutral parts may be biased.
  • 3. Neutral tone means tone without bias and proportionate representation.
  • 4. Follow other policies such as V and RELY.
  • 5. No judgments of the article's topic.
  • 6. Present views according to WP:UNDUE.
  • 7. Present uncontroversial value judgments.
Points five and seven don't agree with each other. Points one and three could be condensed. Point two could be read as disagreeing with point six. The ultimate question for NPOV, in my mind, is "how do we keep the article unbiased when the policy on weight requires us to present an inherently biased article?" My perception of reconciling these two views has always been: "Make Wikipedia's bias consistent with the bias of reliable sources." My bias is that the section on tone should say "let reliable sources kill the horse, editors may only take pictures." SDY ( talk) 20:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think taking into account MC's comments fixes your objection with #5 and #7, if reliable sources are heavily biased one way, articles can reflect that. I don't read #2 the way you do, I read #2 as "Presentation of neutral parts may impart a bias into the whole", which does not mean the same thing; put another way, "the facts never speak for themselves", and so I don't believe it conflicts with point 6. HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

That's exactly the feedback I needed. First, the easy one: nonjudgemental was an attempt to improve on "dispassionate". I'll replace it with "impartial" to try to avoid your concern without changing the spirit of the wording. At first glance, I had a negative reaction to your thinking that we do treat topics judgementally, but on a second reading, I like your wording anyway. It enforces attribution, and is in the spirit of:

Let the facts speak for themselves

  • Karada offered the following advice in the context of the Saddam Hussein article:
  • You won't even need to say he was evil. That is why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man"—we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.

Since it means that we can cite and attribute value judgements without forcing the article to adopt the value judgements as its own, while not preventing us from pointing out the obvious if we have broad consensus in RSS's about a topic.

  • A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently impartial tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not reflect an editor's value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Please note that we do not have to have passed judgments on all articles. When there is a clear weight of reliable sources as to a disposition, (ie, the horse is dead), then of course we can say that. However, there are plenty of situations (the really interesting ones, at least from the neutrality perspective) where the horse may or may not be dead. Take Intelligent Design, for example (which I disagree with, so my bias is clear). From a scientific perspective, ID is a fringe view, and is roundly judged as such by mainstream science, and has almost no representation in the most reputable journals. However, the ID community is very large, very active, and there is plenty of RSS documentation in prestigious places in the public view that lies outside of the scientific forum. It is these kinds of conflicts where I see erring on the side of "nonjudgemental" as being the most useful. Since Wikipedia has not been defined as taking the scientific viewpoint on such issues, we exacerbate risk exacerbating edit wars if we are too favorable to pronouncing "weight of evidence". Reliable sources may kill the horse, but we should only publish pictures with the headline "the horse is dead" if there is a broad consensus that the horse is actually dead. Luna lovegood notwithstanding. HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's a nightmare, but there are parts of it where there is a clear consensus. To summarize very briefly, there is a bit of a debate whether the overall controversy means all points covered in the article are controversial because the topic is controversial. Back on topic, borrowing some language from WP:BLP:

"The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves. The writing style should be neutral and factual, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. ..."

"... If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out."

The second section is from WP:WELLKNOWN, which should apply to all controversial topics where problems of neutrality of tone are a concern. There is extreme value in having these two policies be consistent in their treatment of a topic. I think the current BLP language covers the topic quite succinctly and is well worded. SDY ( talk) 21:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) hmmm...
  1. I think "reflect an editor's value judgments" should be replaced by "reflect editors' value judgments" - this isn't necessarily about the mistaken judgement of a single editor.
  2. the line "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all" is just a repetition of WP:UNDUE, and should be removed and/or replaced by a reference to UNDUE.
  3. there is nothing here that distinguishes between (proper) criticism in sources and (improper) criticism from editors. I'd suggest rewriting the last paragraph along these lines:

    Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the consensus against them as documented in consensus policy - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the conflict.

    -- Ludwigs2 21:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
SDY - I think those quotes you gave have value here. -- Ludwigs2 21:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I reworded the version, It seems to be fairly close IMO, the biggest change is linking to a different policy, and writing about facts, "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." I am wondering if it may be possible to conclude the topic if people edit this box on the talk page as if it were the main page until consensus is reached, no reversions, only improvement to the wording.
  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently neutral and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable.Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the documented consensus against them - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the matter.
Ward20 ( talk) 21:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Include Ludwigs' improvements. Ward20 ( talk) 21:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

SDY I agree with all of your statements. I think that the last version of the neutral tone section I posted is consistent with that policy. We could concievably strengthen the ties to WP:WELLKNOWN by including "statements must be verifiable, reliable, and properly attributed to the source". While I beleieve that simply citing the source should be sufficient; for controversial statements attribution in the body as opposed to hiding it in a citation tag would be beneficial. (in the case of the WELLKNOWN example, this would mean stating the messy divorce as "according to the New York Times, John doe had a messy affair with Jane Doe [1]" as opposed to "John doe had a messy affair with Jane Doe [2]". HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't like the recursive definition (using "neutral tone" in a definition of neutral tone), and I put ASF specifically linked. Otherwise, bullseye Ward.
  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently impartial and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwigs, I think Ward20 nailed it. Granted I'd have liked to preserve my wording, but I can't argue with most of his changes. He caught #1 with editorial. I beleive #2 is a quote from Jimbo, and I see it having value here as well. Prohibiting editorial criticism nails #3. HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
HatlessAtlas, I like the version you have above as much as any. Can we just edit one version now to see if it can get consensus? Ward20 ( talk) 22:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Ward, I've been beating that horse since before the weekend. Since we've got Ludwigs on board (with the exception of his minor quibbles, like everyone else's) and SDY, I think we're really close. I agree, let's wee if we can get consensus. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it looks good too. Sceptre ( talk) 22:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Do we have consensus to put the last version above in the article, and then gently improve it from discussion on the talk page? And if someone starts reverting instead of trying to improve the section, we wack them with a trout? Ward20 ( talk) 22:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think so, yes. Sceptre ( talk) 22:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Pretty darn close. Two minor quibbles:

  • Consider using "report" instead of "present".
  • "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as being equally accepted. Minority schools of thought for instance should not be represented as having the same acceptance as the majority view, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all." These two sentences are kind of redundant and could probably be condensed, maybe to "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as being equally accepted." Less to read, more or less the same message. SDY ( talk) 22:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think 'present' is the best word under the circumstances; 'report' has subtleties that make it slightly more amenable to quoting polemic in my view, which might be problematic.. I have made the other change. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Consensus Achieved?

Based on the last four statements, I think we appear to be in agreement for the new wording of the "Neutrality of tone" section, as follows:

  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently impartial and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Endorse change, This does what we need it to do, and is hugely improved over the existing version. I think, though, that page protect should be left up for another week to let the discussion die down. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Agree This works. I have some minor formatting and style quibbles, but they're truly minor. SDY ( talk) 23:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree. I think I like Ward's version (above) slightly better, but not to the extent that it's worth making a fuss over. I've gone ahead and edited in one minor stylistic changes - I moved the start of the WP:ASF link to distinguish it from the WP:RELY link - and I'll list out two others for consideration, but otherwise I'm good with this:
    1. "equally accepted. Representations" should be "equally accepted: representations" the latter phrase is an exemplification of the former, so the colon works better
    2. the 'of' in "especially of historical theories" should probably be 'concerning' or 'regarding' (i.e. "especially concerning historical theories...") -- Ludwigs2 01:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Ludwigs, I didn't intend the "representations" to be an exemplification of weight, I intended it to stand on its own, but I don't have a particular problem with your quibble, it just links two meanings I did not intend to have links. The underlying sentiment and what we're trying to achieve is essentially the same. HatlessAtless ( talk) 02:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
        • agreed, this is very minor. I'd only meant that as a stylistic improvement. -- Ludwigs2 02:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree There is no "partisan commentary." There will be editors who will complain about a completely neutral article, and they will use these statements to defend their complaints. I wish someone would explain to me why we even have to do this? I also will await comments from MastCell, ScienceApologist, and numerous other editors before I would be convinced there is any type of consensus. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 01:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
why am I not surprised...? lol -- Ludwigs2 02:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Your personal attacks are not going unnoticed. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
OrangeMarlin, I'll explain exactly why we need to do this. There are three critical reasons. 1) Only a small fraction of the articles on Wikipedia are amenable to science and mathematical rationale. Things such as religious beliefs cannot be discussed in terms of scientific facts; they must be discussed in terms of the assertions and articles of faith, in which case tone is of paramount importance. 2) What facts actually are requires care and a sharp eye to separate fact from opinion from assertion. When linking multiple facts or contrasting contradictory facts, again, tone is important. As anyone who has ever written a scientific paper knows, 3) Wikipedia adopts a neutral POV, even towards science. This means that, in context, the "scientific consensus" can be a minority view, or be contested significantly enough to merit discussion. In all cases, unless there is to be an eternal edit-feud between which set of "facts" gets premium placement in each article, and how they are interconnected and so on, we must have this policy. HatlessAtless ( talk) 02:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
HA (not hah), let me first say how much I appreciate your good faith and civil response, as opposed to other individuals in this discussion. Let me reply to you point by point: 1) Well, I'm not sure it's that small, but your point is valid for non-scientific articles which are subject to more subjective study. I don't think an article should start "XXX is not supported by science, and all the twits who believe in XXX should be subject to further education at a respected institution of study". But, there is a level of tone that needs to point out the anti-science nature of certain fringe theories--and that should border on derision. But even in the non-science areas, how do you treat Holocaust denial? There's no science there (unless I'm mistaken), it's a historical fact, and those people who support it don't deserve a balanced "tone", whatever that is. The problem here is that tone is so open to subjectiveness we'll have a rule that will be referenced as WP:NPOV#Tone#number of conditions#words acceptable. Impossible to manage. 2) Science does work in facts, so I have no clue how to respond. But back to Holocaust denialism, history can be fact-based, especially more recently. I think we can calculate the number of votes in an election, or who was King of England in 1463. Science is based on theory, validation, repeatability etc, so there are no facts. But again, how are you to judge tone? I think this point alone makes my case. Finally, 3) I would contend that you're misinterpreting NPOV. In science, statements are verified by reliable sources. And if there are 1 million sources support Evolution by natural selection etc., and 10 support Intelligent design, and none of those 10 are reliable, then the science = NPOV. In fact, science has no POV or I would say SPOV = NPOV. Since "tone" is so subjective, and could cause infinitely worse edit-warring than we have now, I stand firmly opposed to any change in this statement. IN fact, I would delete it, but it's there, so I'm all right with it. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, let me reply to your comments point by point:
  • Extreme fringe views like Aids denialism are actually quite easy to handle within the context of this guideline. Since the group is obviously fringe, withing WP:UNDUE they do not deserve any mention at all in any serious treatment article of AIDS. In the article itself, the opening paragraph should assert that the group is a fringe theory, and in the article section on claims or criticisms, the weight of scientific citations that refute their claims (assuming that their claims are part of their notability) that there won't be any need to be derisive. IMO derision only serves to piss people off (and in many cases can be taken as a personal attack). It may just be my nature, but I don't piss people off if I can avoid it, its bad in life, and its bad for wikipedia.
  • The only facts in science are the observations of experimenters and the proofs of mathematicians. "I think we can calculate the number of votes in an election" This is where we get into needing a sharp eye 'fact' versus 'opinion'. There is the fact, which is the number of votes cast in the election (call it fact V). Then there are another set of facts, which represent the different estimates of the number of votes cast, based on their assumptions and methods of estimation, including simple counts and such (call them estimates E1, E2, etc). Since for major elections with millions of participants, with the inevitable irregularities, we likely do not know V, we are stuck trying to figure out which estimate EX most closely approximates V (or in the case of the 2000 US presidential election, which estimate EX which is favorable to us in florida can we sell to the supreme court) "or who was King of England in 1463." If this was a time when the kingship was disputed or in flux, different lines of legal reasoning may yield different results. There could be a de-jure king, a de-facto king, an ex-post-facto king, a quid-pro-hoc king, etc. (forgive my latin, but I hope you get my point as well as my joke).
(just an afterthought) I don't want to imply that all facts are as ambiguous as the ones I brought up. If a scientist observes that nitric acid dissolved copper, and reports those findings, and lots more scientists do it, we can be reasonably sure that nitric acid will dissolve copper (done it myself before). This can also be true of history; we can be reasonably sure who the second president of the US was, it is a well established historical fact, with no controversy at all (that I know of). In those cases, we can simply state the fact, and back it up. My point was to be careful with some facts, because asserting that X was the king of England at some point in history may be not true; the fact being asserted is that X was the 'legal' king of England at that point, since someone may have been ruling as king in his stead, including using the title. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I can't believe it. I used 1463 as an example of a fact of who was King of England, and of course, I chose a date right in the middle of the War of the Roses, when Henry VI and Edward IV were battling for the crown. Of course, unless one is a solid Lancastrian or Yorkist, it's hard to create a tone of any when discussing who was King of England. I'll have to get back to your other points. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • In your example of Intelligent design; the significance of the cultural phenomenon is irrelevant to its lack of scientific credibility. In an article on the scientific claims of ID, I agree that the scientific weight of evidence would overwhelm the scientific weight for ID. However, there are enough reliable secondary sources, prominent adherents, and ardent followers that it is essentially impossible to justify it as fringe. It is too large, vocal, (and in my hometown, aggravating, but that is a separate discussion) to dismiss. In an article discussing the ID for its notability as a cultural phenomenon, the scientific failures of the movement's claims would only merit one section, and since the scientific viewpoint and mainstream scientific acceptance is only peripherally related to the movement, it would not be possible to relate the mainstream scientific viewpoint to all aspects of the cultural phenomenon. To answer your question about how one judges tone? Basically, its an attempt to write in such a way as to piss off as few people as possible, and to try to make it so as few people as possible feel that their deeply held beliefs are being insulted, while at the same time stating the obvious and keeping all important, relevant and encyclopedic info in the articles.
HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I'll add two points:
  1. the claim that SPOV = NPOV is itself a POV that has no basis in scientific reality. Science is objective, not neutral, and so science can only inform debates, it can't answer them. there is, in fact, a common opinion in the scientific community that explicitly precludes science from entering into public debates (you might remember the old 'scientists build the bombs, but politicians decide where to use them' arguments). scientific objectivity tells us that we can spread butter on toast (because of the particular properties of butter and toast); neutrality says that some people like to do that, and some people don't. are you suggesting that we say the people who don't like to spread butter on toast are wrong, because science tells us that we can?
  2. where you say "there is a level of tone that needs to point out the anti-science nature of certain fringe theories--and that should border on derision..." why? isn't pointing out that fringe theories have no scientific grounding sufficient to show that they have no scientific grounding? you personally may feel derision towards these theories, but I don't (I just dismiss them) - so why should your particular point of view have a presence in an article on the topic? -- Ludwigs2 18:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I actually agree with you. Science has no POV, because it is based upon hypothesis, experimentation, repeatability, falsifiability and a bunch of other things. POV is an opinion. However, your rest of stuff is just so much original research. Never heard of most of that stuff, and it's simply incorrect. Science is at the center of social debates everywhere, including evolution, abortion, stem cell research, global warming, and so many other issues I'd hurt my typing fingers typing it. As for fringe theories, it's one simple issue--as long as Wikipedia is the #1 source on the internet for medical and science, then anyone reading an article ought to know that Homeopathy does not work and it might hurt you, because there are some homeopaths who think a dilution of the Berlin Wall will cure you of cancer. That's why fringe theories should be eliminated or treated with the derision that they so richly deserve. And it's not because I have a POV, it's because there are millions of articles that say evolution is scientifically accurate. And Intelligent design has none, and is really just an attempt by individuals to force religious teaching in US schools. There is no positive tone that I could see for ID. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 07:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. Science reflects the point of view that the important things in human life can be learned about via hyporthesis, experimentation, repeatability, faslsifiability, etc. This is definitely a point of view because it tends to magnify the significance of aspects of experience that are ameliorable to this kind of treatment and diminish the significance of aspects of experience which are not. Science tends to de-emphasize individual experience, emotion, intuition, and other sources of knowing that other points of view say are appropriate ways to direct the course of an individual life. Each one of our lives, and the universe as a whole, is utterly non-repeatable -- it will never be in the same state twice. In order to do science, one always has to take a point of view which ignores these individual and non-repetitive aspects and assume they are unimportant to the problem one is looking at. In human affairs, creating approximately repeatable states requires performing operations (random assignment and the like) that impose articifical conditions different from what people experience in a natural state, and this affects outcomes. (As the Hawethorne effect indicates and the Subject object problem attempts to discuss, being in an experiment results in different outcomes from not being in an experiment.) It also requires treating individual differences as unimportant so one can abstract two objectively different people into repetitions of the "same" underlying thing. Claiming that these types of perspectives are not a point of view ignores a great deal of contemporary philosophy, particularly when the view is simply asserted as self-evident with no sensitivity or even awareness of the numerous contrary arguments. Saying it's so doesn't make it so. Willing it to be so doesn't make it so. Such assertion represents a religious act, an attempt to impose ones faith on others rather than engage in reasoned discourse with them. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 17:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Self-evidently wrong. Science reflects the view that empirical explanations based on emirically testable evidence are useful, whether or not other untestable explanations might be true. Religion is inherently a matter of faith rather than testability, and while there is plenty of room for the perspective that religious views are important and true, they are not science and are not amenable to scientific examination. Of course there is a philosophical position that the most important, or only, things are those that can be scientifically tested, but that's not the only view of science and many religions or philosophical positions find no disagreement with the findings of purely empirical science. . . dave souza, talk 17:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, most of the debates you've just cited are not scientific debates (Only global warming is). The evolution debate (at least in its current incarnation of teaching ID in schools) is an argument over the right of parents to control what their kids learn, and whether or not they have a right to learn a non-scientific alternative. The debate over abortion is one over the morality of abortion, not its scientific value as a medical procedure. The debate over stem cell research is essentially an extension of the abortion debate. There is no question related to the scientific validity of stem cell research, or to its possible benefits; but instead questions of morality. Global warming as a phenomenon is not fully understood, and there is some pretty significant debate about the causes, consequences, and solutions to global warming within the scientific community. I mean, the observed fact, that there is a global trend towards higher temperatures is not really in doubt, but the relationship between cfc's, CO2, and CH4 is still an active area of research. In every single case you've mentioned, the scientific research and information is secondary to the policy debate. The question in most of these public arguments is "should", which is not a question science is equipped to answer. Granted that I agree with the policy positions most scientists advocate, but they're not advocating those policies as scientific theories, they're advocating them as people and are trying to use science as insight into how to achieve the results they want. HatlessAtless ( talk) 14:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
This is getting hard to reply. Maybe someone should keep the "votes" in a separate section from this discussion. But in reply to HA, they are all scientific debates. Evolution is science--ID and Creationism are religious ideas that should be taught at home or church. I'm not going to get into the debate that "it is an argument over the rights of parents to control what their kids learn", because that isn't relevant to me. Abortion is not a moral argument, it is fundamentally a science one. Life either exists or does not exist at conception. Scientifically, it does not. Religiously, there seems to be a debate. Science is fundamental to each of these issues. Your attempt at moving the discussion to a religious/moral grounds is precisely why NPOV exists. The science behind Evolution is pristine. The science behind Global Warming is fairly pristine. They are supportable. Right of parents to control children, or denying global warming belong in denialist articles. I now see why there is a push to weaken the NPOV on Wikipedia. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) OM: "that isn't relevant to me" is exactly why we're disagreeing. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia devoted only to explaining the scientific status of various theories, it is an encyclopedia that deals with everything, including public policy debates. Again going back to our discussion of ID vs Evolution in schools; I have do disagree 180 with you on this one. Whether the science were right or wrong about evolution (and for the record, I agree with you both that the science on evolution is overwhelming and consistent, though I hesitate to use the word pristine, and I agree with you that science should be taught in school and and ID at church.) would not change the public policy debate in the slightest. The question revolves around a loaded one: "Does the freedom of religion, the right to privacy, and the right of a parent to be the primary educator of their children mean that parents have the right to control the curriculum of a public school?" There is lots of reliable sourcing behind and discussing the controversy itself, and in entire regions of the US, the coverage in reliable sources of the controversy is actually slanted against mainstream science. (And the fact that I live in one depresses me). Advocates of ID in public schools are a significant and notable minority. The "pristine" science behind evolution is silent on the topic of whether evolution should be taught in public schools along side, or instead of ID. Its not something that can be researched. Science can prove all day that evolution is a valid theory, but it cannot answer any questions that begin with the word "should" understood in the moral, rather than the probabilistic sense. You have made your own Bias clear, and I have to admit that I am a little unsettled that you take the stance that you do towards controversies over policy where it relates to science, since it seems that you challenge the underlying nature of NPOV, but I am still convinced that you edit in good faith, so please don't misunderstand my reservations. HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Just as a follow on, this just occurred to me. OM, do you equate the policy positions held by the significant majority of scientifically trained people to be the non-POV of science? I notice that while "science" is silent on whether ID has a place in schools, the majority of scientists (I'm not sure how big the majority it, but I believe it is pretty massive one) believe ID should not be taught in schools. The same is true for most of the opinions you've presented. Science may not have a POV but there is an SPOV = Scientists' Point Of View. Could this be a fair understanding of where you're coming from? HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, only the data itself is really objective, and whether that data is worth using is an opinion (obvious poor quality data sets are a hallmark of junk science). Science isn't devoid of opinions, its main claim to credibility is that it actually discards opinions that don't work. SPOV is a biased and human opinion, but it happens to be the POV of the relevant experts in many debates. The problem with so many pseudoscience debates is not that the SPOV is " truth" but that the Psci supporters refuse to accept that their explanation just doesn't provide consistent or predictable results. SDY ( talk) 15:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Once again, there is no Scientific POV. There is an Anti-Science POV, but that's not relevant here. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, does that imply that the people (scientists) are free from POV as well as science itself? Are you combining the two? HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Science lacks a POV. Scientists are just the tool that builds good science. Unless a scientist is paid to produce a result (and I consider them shills or something to that effect), they write the conclusion from the results of analysis (experimentation). Sure, sometimes, scientists get all emotional over a discovery, but that's the human being, not the science itself. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) A monkey can collect data, it takes expertise to make sense of it. That "sense" is an interpretation, which is at its most basic point an opinion. Whatever. At any rate, I think this conversation is getting a little off topic. I think it's relevant to NPOV and it should probably just get its own thread. SDY ( talk) 23:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah heavens... and I'm trying so hard here to be nice. OM - when you say things like "Abortion is not a moral argument, it is fundamentally a science one. Life either exists or does not exist at conception" you're neglecting the fact that 'the existence of life at conception' is only a single question in the bigger moral issue. for instance, we know that adults are alive, but we consider it perfectly acceptable to kill them in certain contexts (self-defense, warfare, public executions of criminals, etc...). science only enters into the abortion issue to answer specific factual questions that get raised; science has no capacity whatsoever to answer the moral issue.
SDY, you're probably right that this needs a separate thread, but frankly I'm amazed we have to discuss it at all. it's making my head spin. -- Ludwigs2 00:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
  • meh I was going to hold back, as I don't think writing a prescription for neutral tone would be easy, and I don't want to condem all approaches, but I don't care for this itteration too much either. Too munch jargon and not neccessarily applicable phrases. "Competing schools of thought?" Do most articles have more than one, if any, schools of thought? "Factual tone?" Like, if it has a tone, is that a fact? What do facts sound like? And the "partisan commentary" phrase, while longstanding, sort of assumes, well, "partisanship." And the second paragraph is more about the policies it links to than about NPOV in terms of tone. I think an effective section on tone could be possible, but it would probably take an audiologist to work out the niceties. If I were to rewrite this I would probably leave it at a single sentence, something like: "Presenting material in a neutral tone is important," as the more you get into it or try to explain it the more it all unravels. Amerique dialectics 02:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) Actually, Amerique, writing a prescription for neutral tone is not difficult at all, nor is that the problem we've been having in this discussion. this whole issue is polarized between (a) editors who think that tone can by itself bias an article unfairly, and (b) editors who deny that possibility, or just don't care if it's true (with, of course, a number of good souls between trying to balance things). I frankly don't know what to do with editors who aren't concerned with whether an article sounds fair and impartial (even though "sounds" is a nebulous, difficult-to-assess word) because we all know that most people who read Wikipedia are going to pay at least as much attention to the way it sounds as to what it actually says. now I can understand the Machiavellian side here - there are a number of editors (I imagine) who've gotten good milage from making topics they like/dislike sound good/bad by playing with the wording, and may be worried that a revamp of this policy will start to undo their carefully defended schemes (who knows, yah?). but aside from that I can't see the problem. this version is better than what's there now; at worst, it won't change anything at all, and at best, it will make wikipedia a better encyclopedia. where's the downside? -- Ludwigs2 03:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe it's perfect, but I do think it's better than the current version. SDY ( talk) 03:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I went looking at some online style guides discussing the matter of tone. I would say, any discussion of tone on Wikipedia, for NPOV policy, should be able to come up with something along the lines any of these: [1], [2], [3], [4], rather than seem to be derived, and tortuously so, from attempts to mediate between sides of an on-site conflict. As written, this proposal (like the prior version, but even more so this time) preemptively assumes that tone is going to be the site of a partisan battleground. If the proposal was actually about tone, and not about "how not to use WP as a battleground," I would say it was a definite improvement, but given the climate here I don't see the ongoing problem, the lack of a simple and universally applicable policy that is actually about achieving impartial tone across all articles, being easily addressed. So for the record, I don't support this iteration of the policy. Amerique dialectics 16:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I think this is good enough for disco. Wikipedia is living/breathing and I imagine that any kinks will be worked out in time. I support this version. -- Levine2112 discuss 04:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Very strong oppose unless this version preserves the "views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all." part that the actual version has (no need to have the exact same wording). This part is very important to prevent all sort of very minor fringe stuff to start crawling into the articles. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 04:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • The "equal space" text links to WP:WEIGHT which clearly says how we handle extreme minority opinions. -- Levine2112 discuss 05:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Enric, from WP:Weight

    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. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority.

In general, fringe groups are defined by having a huge paucity of RSS's backing up their claims, so they will be easy to exclude under a number of policies. Specific to your rationale to opposition, by linking to WP:weight, we are in fact including the statement that we will not include fringe views. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (I see that this point was discussed yesterday, apologies for not noticing and complaining then) We know how people will cite WP:TONE and won't read the linked pages. I don't agree with the sentence being redundant because the "not including extreme minority POVs" is a very used and powerful argument that, for convenience reasons, should be made explicit here to avoid loopholes and wikilawyering from POV pushers ("oh, WP:WEIGHT says that, but WP:TONE doesn't" and similar misreadings). Basically, not including that sentence is very incovenient for real-world usage.
As an apart, it's amazing how some people will distort all sort of RS to claim that they support their fringe view, so the amount of RS sources by itself can be misleading. You need to nail down the POV and identify it as too minor for inclusion and then cite that "very extremely minor POV don't make it into articles".... and then you discover that you have citing a policy that doesn't include that wording, but which does say that all views should be treated, altough in accordance to the amount of RS, and then you get start getting the wikilawyering with the amount of sources, RS or not RS, the differences with WP:WEIGHT, etc..... really incovenient, and a loss of time. Please, add the sentence for the poor guys that have to argue this point frequently. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 05:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support, Everything is there in the right place I believe. It could be polished some as SDY and Ludwigs said. I do kind of like some pharasing in Ludwigs last version toward the middle to the end that appeared to be based on info that SDY posted.
Enric, but this version of WP tone points right to it, "Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions."
OM, derision is about the same as ridicule, Magellan's, Galileo's, Pasteur's ideas were all ridiculed in their time, it was wrong then and it is wrong now to ridicule ideas that are different. Even today science has not yet progressed to the point of being infallible. People who support Holocaust denial deserve an article with a consistently impartial and factual tone so they will read it, then hopefully change their mind. If they see an article that literally describes their present beliefs as asinine and retarded (see the tone?) they will probably never take it seriously.
Ward20 ( talk) 05:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Ugh, I'm not sure if that is strong enough to compensate removing that sentence. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 06:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Ward 20, I'm not sure about Magellan or Pasteur, but Galileo was treated harshly by the church, who was opposed to scientific inquiry, because it would undermine the order set up by the church (and a few hundred other reasons, which aren't germane to this discussion). Your argument is an old canard that is used by Fringe Theorists the world over. It's a different world, and scientific inquiry is different than a religious one. A more contemporary example would be with work of Luis Alvarez who postulated that bolide impact caused the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event. When he proposed such, it was based on scientific evidence, mostly iridium layers over the world. At first he was dismissed, but because of the science behind his hypothesis, his theory stuck for about 25 years. However, recent evidence indicates that it might be something else. Science works by evolution of thought. Fringe theories do not, they are stated as facts that are not falsifiable, etc. And those fringe theories deserve derision. And an encyclopedia shouldn't change minds, let the folks at Conservapedia do that. Holocaust denial should be treated with indignity and derision that it so richly deserve. We'll stop short of laughing at them in the article. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
To expand on what OM said: we don't in advance which fringe ideas will end up being correct. No doubt some of them will. And no doubt the vast majority will not. Great scientists have been criticized and ridiculed, but so have flat earth proponents, hollow earthers, phrenologists and many more. Just because a tiny minority will succeed is in no way a reason that Wikipedia should approach them all uncritically. When the scientific consensus changes then Wikipedia should change to reflect that. There is no need to give ideas extra weight and influence simply because there is a tiny chance that they would be correct. JoshuaZ ( talk) 07:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Come now, no one said we should advance which fringe ideas will end up being correct. What is proposed is a consistently impartial and factual tone.
No one is saying we should not be uncritical when warranted. That is where this version had excellent wording IMO.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable.Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the documented consensus against them - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the matter.
Ward20 ( talk) 07:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Disagree – these variations are straying from the simple and clear presentation in this version, and in particular the use of piped links under different headings to another section in the same policy looks very confusing. If something needs said it should be said clearly and independently, and not require the reader to hop between sections. The wording "representation of all includable positions" is problematic, and "all notable positions" expresses the aim more clearly. The reference to "frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories" is misleading, as this section is particularly relevant where fringe views have not been debunked, but should still be shown as a minority view in the context of mainstream views of the subject. Saying that "an article must not contain editorial opinion or value judgments of the viewpoints presented, or of the topic of the article." misrepresents "A simple formulation", as such editorial opinion should be shown ansd attributed to the reliable sources – the issue is not really one of tone, but of avoiding original research. In general, reframing other sections by piped links in this way is a really bad idea. . . dave souza, talk 08:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
DS, I have to respectfully disagree with all of your points. The wikilinks are used to demonstrate consistency with other policies and policy sections, they are not 'needed' to understand what is being discussed. In response to your "all notable positions" statement, the word "notable" creates a problem. If a group is notable enough to have its own article, (AIDS denialsm? Flat earth proponents?) does that mean that their opinions are "notable" enough to include in the main topic article? Some other subpage? I see that creating many many more problems than it solves, just by opening that line of argument up. Unless we want to derive some kind of notability criterion for ideas, I don't see how we can use the idea of "notable opinions" here. Finally, showing editorial opinion (specifically the opinion of the wikipedia editors) is not justifiable as it clearly violates WP:NOR. The opinion cited in the secondary sources is not what is meant there. The wording can be changed to reflect this. HatlessAtless ( talk) 13:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I think these suggestions are getting far too over-prescriptive. This is a policy, not a style guide. There are different ways of complying with this policy, and our style guides can be used to set forth "best practice" suggestions for doing so. -- Jenny 16:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Disagree. There's nothing wrong with the original prose that's stood for years. Odd nature ( talk) 17:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Odd nature - the original prose that stood for years was the cause of this debate, when MastCell and ScienceApologist decided that the terms 'fair and sensitive' had to go (which was a response to my calling some edits 'unfair and insensitive'). it began here, moved here with this reversion and several following reversions [5] [6], shifted to an attempt to delete a template I'd created to address fair tone wp:TfD#Template:Fair_tone, and then (after I posted my comment about this being a larger discussion] they moved to modifying policy directly to remove references to 'fair and sensitive', here, which ultimately led to the root of our current discussion at wp:Neutral_point_of_view#Fairness_of_tone_wording. there is obviously a problem with this passage from MastCell's, ScienceApologist's, and OrangeMarlin's perspective - I myself wouldn't mind reverting to the original version (with the 'fair and sensitive' construction), but if that's not going to happen then I see no reason to oblige the extensive efforts these editors have taken to impose a policy that suits their purposes. -- Ludwigs2 18:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • No bloody way. Nope. Not ever. •Jim62sch• dissera! 21:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm very uncomfortable with this wording, as it could all too easily be used to promote fringe. For instance, by claiming that sourced criticism - even if the criticism is the majority view - was not impartial. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 21:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • hunh - I'm sorry Jim, I don't see where you're getting this - where exactly does it say or imply that sourced criticism is not impartial? -- Ludwigs2 22:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
      • First off, I'm not Jim. =) Secondly, it depends which one we're talking about - I rather like the last one by Ward, but we need to be crystal clear and explicit that, when a fringe view's assertions are wildly at odds with accepted science or facts, it's not neutral to present both sides as equally valid, or to present the fringe view without carefully explaining what is accepted by mainstream [science/history/etc] and what is specific to the fringe theory. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 06:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
        • first off - oops! sorry...  :-D. second, I'd agree with you completely. as I keep saying, my only concern here is to keep fringe theories from being treated with unnecessary contempt. if something is not accepted by science, or is wildly at odds with it, or is just plain wrong, then that is the way it needs to be presented. but we I think we can always point out that something is wrong in a polite, even-toned manner. since I like Ward's last version as well, how could we make it more crystal clear? -- Ludwigs2 20:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"Concerned party"

This seems a particularly vague phrase. I was BOLD and reworded "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties." to read "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject."

I did this since I don't see how you can reasonably define a "concerned party". For example, a large number of people believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks, they are certainly concerned parties, but giving this viewpoint equal weight to the views published in reliable sources on this topic would be unwise. Please feel free to revert and discuss this change. Tim Vickers ( talk) 23:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree -- the idea of having to discuss what a 'concerned party' is gives me nightmares. And would have the potential of undermining our policy on reliable sources. Doug Weller ( talk) 10:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I also agree. This is the sentiment of NPOV as described explicitly elsewhere. HatlessAtless ( talk) 15:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Back to the discussion

It appears that there is, as of yet, no consensus. Let's move away from what the wording is and look at what we, as writers, want it to say. In my opinion, the section on tone should cover the following points:

-> Thesis: tone is part of content and must also be neutral.

  • Structure contributes to tone.
  • Word choice contributes to tone.
  • Weight contributes to tone but WP:UNDUE has priority.
  • Other things also contribute to tone.

In the spirit of "Customer Service", we should acknowledge the following groups of users likely to be reading the policy:

  1. A new editor trying to get their bearings or a reader attempting to determine the reliability of the article.
  2. An editor acting in good faith who was directed to this policy because of concerns about their writing.
  3. An admin trying to explain why a persistent violator was blocked.
  4. A tendentious editor looking for loopholes.

The first group will probably only really retain the thesis. The second group wants more details. The third group wants specifics so that they can avoid charges of being arbitrary and capricious. The fourth group will abuse overly specific wording. A guiding principle of " Less policy is better" is a consensus. Examples wouldn't hurt. SDY ( talk) 17:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

ok, this is a good starting place, though I think we should add (to your customer service lines) that the real focus of this policy is the non-editor reader. ultimately, articles need to read as neutral because if they don't reaad that way casual readers are going to shrug wikipedia off as a biased source, and the encyclopedia's credibility will be shot to hell and back again. -- Ludwigs2 19:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I think they'd essentially have the same approach as the first category, with the same essential result: looking for big picture, not details. SDY ( talk) 19:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
maybe that's true; I just don't want to lose sight of this point. it's easy for us editors to get lost in our own little disputes and forget that there's a few billion people who could care less what our problems are. -- Ludwigs2 20:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
In my mind, we have two potential dangers here; the civil POV-Pusher, and the fringe advocate. If an edit war starts, then admins can step in, and dispute resolution can take over. I think, however, that by stating "you don't have a right to your wording, but you may present your facts" we might guide through a lot of problem editors by encouraging them to work with their phrasing. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Some proposed language largely following this structure, taking into account a few other things:

Tone, for the purpose of this policy, is the style rather than the substance of an article. The tone must also be neutral, and problems with word choice, structure, and phrasing can lead to a biased article even when the basis of the article is verifiable facts.

This does not mean the article should be "balanced", since WP:WEIGHT requires minority views to be portrayed in proportion and WP:FRINGE states that views that have very little support should be left out entirely. It does mean that views, minority or majority, must not be portrayed as wrong, foolish, or immoral except in clearly attributed statements with appropriate context. Common sense applies, and words such as "hoax" can be used when there is consensus that they are appropriate, such as with Piltdown Man.

(Structurally: 1. Definition of terms, statement of policy. 2. Explaining that the policy does not nullify other policies, explaining what the policy does allow, appealing to common sense.)

This is really not that different from the long-standing "fairness of tone" section, but I believe that it expresses the same content without abusable words like "fair" and requesting emotional judgments from editors. There is wiggle room in that it appeals to common sense, but it is otherwise worded in terms of prohibitions and exceptions. The second sentence in the second paragraph is probably the stickiest one, but I do want to allow for verifiable statements like the Durban Declaration which pull no punches. The pro-life argument that abortion is immoral must be allowed in any discussion of abortion, but it must be clear that Wikipedia is only reporting the argument, not making it. SDY ( talk) 17:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, SDY. I don't think this wording actually resolves the issue (at least, not the issue I see...). you're reducing the solution to idiosyncratic judgements of 'appropriate context' and common sense, when in fact the judgement and common sense of editors is the thing in question. what happens when an AIDS Denialist wants to say 'the Durban Declaration' is the political opinions of this group of scientists, not a scientific document, and so the context is not appropriate for inclusion of this overly harsh statement'? I'd rather preclude any argument that might remove properly sourced material, and focus the debate on how that material is to be used in the article. -- Ludwigs2 01:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
We ultimately have to trust the judgment of a consensus of editors. The policies should be ground rules, not prescriptions. The solution must always come from common sense, both in the figurative and literal definition (i.e. consensus). You cannot legislate common sense, you can only give boundaries to the discussion. SDY ( talk) 02:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Self-contained definition of fairness of tone?

Here is a statement-of-intent form that might condense the "neutrality of tone" section into a self contained form. It is a completely opposite approach from the other side. It says nothing about which facts/opinions deserve mention, which is covered elsewhere, nor does it discuss the weight those opinions receives. It restricts itself entirely to the consideration that editors will have to deal with the fact that facts they disagree with will be in articles, but that wording will still have to be crafted carefully to avoid pissing people off. I actually think it sidesteps two of the competing interests that hounded the wording of the previous suggestion. Specifically, it explicitly states that editors may not try to exclude information they don't like, and ensures that the scientific viewpoints, with their large numbers and well documented and reliable sources are not excluded from articles. At the same time, those whose views disagree with the scientific majority, may present well sourced information that challenges scientific consensus. Both sides can use this to ensure that the facts presented say only what they mean and no more, and moves arguments towards inoffensive wording, rather than factual content.

  • In a nutshell: as a reader or editor, someone may present a reliably sourced argument that a belief you hold dear is wrong. If the fact meets the criteria for inclusion in the Wikipedia, you can't object to the fact itself, but you can insist that the article only say that you're wrong, and not imply you're an idiot for holding that belief.
  • Wikipedia strives to be as useful to a wide range of individuals, some of which have deeply held opinions and beliefs. Readers and editors will be faced with facts that disagree with or challenge such fundamental beliefs, and with which they disagree; sometimes vehemently. Presenting all facts relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia while keeping emotion cool requires careful balancing of language within any article.
  • In the interest of presenting facts that challenge a reader or editor's beliefs or values without inciting passions, it is possible that sources may require paraphrasing rather than quotations. Facts may require careful placement within the article structure. Choices of words and phrasing may require revision so as both to remain faithful to facts presented and simultaneously present those facts in a light as palatable to as many readers as possible. Finally, It is possible that some issues may be too contentious to declare final judgment on even when an editor believes the weight of reliable sources makes such judgment clear.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

  • I'd like to think about this for a day or so, but I could probably see using this version as well. thanks for being a reasonable voice - I respect the work you've been doing here.  :-) -- Ludwigs2 20:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
2¢ from a passer-by: I think the idea of focusing this section only on tone of the writer's "voice"--rather than issues of undue weight, fringe opinions or other matters that are handled elsewhere--is very appropriate. The above draft veers away from my understanding of the reasons for this policy, though: the goal is to present material from a neutral point of view, to the extent possible, not to keep editors or readers from becoming emotional. Also, the concept of fairness seems to have disappeared from this version; do we want to dump that? (I think that needs to be in the NPOV policy someplace.) In any case, perhaps this bit should be relabeled "neutral tone of writing" or something. I also think the word "disinterested" could be useful here: that gets to the heart of the matter, as I understand it. BTfromLA ( talk) 00:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
BTfromLA; you nailed it on the head when you said this veers. Let me be specific about my intent here; I approached this from a purely functional perspective, rather than an ideological one. Instead of trying to prevent anyone from writing with a POV tone, the aim of this section is to help fix POV sections and articles, rather than reverting POV changes. We accomplish two things by taking this approach. First and foremost, articles that are edited using this section as guidance will end up being neutral and fair, while providing specific guidance as to how to get there.
I don't think we'll be able to draft a policy paragraph or two that will stop POV articles, sections or statements from appearing in articles; Civil POV pushers and wikilawyers will hide behind shades of meaning in any ideological policy. Newbies will make POV statements out of ignorance for the policy, and insensitive people will make POV posts and not care about the policy. What my proposed wording does is focus on fixing POV statements and articles once they have appeared, the end result of the process being a neutral tone. Responding to your words exactly: writing in a neutral tone is what keeps readers from getting emotional; conversely if we write an article that keeps readers from getting emotional, we will end up with a neutral tone. In addition, reverting someone's POV statements and pointing to a policy is grating and can spark edit wars. It can also be questionable in terms of removing facts that should be in wikipedia so only because they are POV, instead of fixing it.
This policy statement is also crafted to be of immediate use to as many wikipedians as possible, as SDY so eloquently described in the previous section, I will elucidate point by point:
  1. For a new or good faith editor, reading the first couple of sentences along with the title will give them a good idea of what they should keep in mind when they edit. Just taking the time to think "am I writing in a way that will avoid pissing people off" will likely succeed for 90%+ of statements, and helps with good faith.
  2. For an editor trying to understand why other editors are concerned about their writing style, and for those editors who have to direct an editor to this section, it provides very specific action-based language that can be pointed to. "Facts may require careful placement within article structure" is not nearly as amenable to the rebuff "but my tone was fair and balanced!". Replying to a concern raised within any of the cautions in this draft immediately requires answering the question "why?". This raises the level of discourse immediately, which will naturally tend to avoid edit wars.
  3. For the admin explaining exactly why an editor was warned, blocked, or for a mediator trying to resolve an edit war or a dispute, this provides crystal clear guidance: all wording is open to negotiation. "stubbornly refusing to discuss moving a fact from an article header to a subsection" or "stubbornly refusing to consider alternative phrasings for a loaded statement" is much less subjective as an admin's statement than is "the presentation was unfair to group X".
  4. For the tendentious editor looking for loopholes, this is intended to force the discussion to elevate. An editor must explain "why" and requires things such as discussions on the talk page. The last sentence in the proposal is intended to emphasize that no single editor may declare consensus in an article, since other editors may dispute it. The key here is that for the tendentious editor or the civil POV-pusher, this section makes it harder to hijack articles, and more difficult to interfere with making an article neutral; rather than focusing on trying to force tendentious editors into writing neutral articled in the first place.
In short, the idea behind this proposal is to change from "getting it right on the first try" to "getting it almost right on the first try, and then getting the process right to fix it". Let WP:Undue and WP:FRINGE stand on their own for arguments of who gets heard and in how much detail. Let's have this section focus on the best guidance for editors on how to fix POV. HatlessAtless ( talk) 04:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate your thoughtful reply, HatlessAtlas. I stand by my opinion that, even if avoiding offense is brought in as a problem-solving principal, the overriding goal of creating an unbiased encyclopedia deserves a mention. I certainly agree that providing guidance for working one's way out of a conflict is a fine aim for the policy page, and to that end I'd suggest developing specific examples: a sentence that has ostensibly the same content that has been reworded two or three times to demonstrate both positive and negative models of this policy, say. Concrete examples are usually a good idea, but I think there is an especially urgent need in this case, as a significant number of editors seem to be "tone deaf": that is, they don't seem to grasp the concept of tone of voice when applied to encyclopedic writing, so it becomes imperative to demonstrate that idea as explicitly as possible. (And, perhaps, to state explicitly that ridicule and derision have no place here.) I wholeheartedly agree with keeping this focused and concise. I wonder whether veering away from describing the concept of fair tone and into what you call "the best guidance for editors on how to fix POV" might suggest two sections--one describing neutral tone, another describing things to keep in mind when addressing POV problems. What do you think? BTfromLA ( talk) 15:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I see and understand both points. Both of your comments could be addressed by expanding the "fairness of tone" section into three subsections, of which the above proposal would be section number two. I would certainly have no objection to a single sentence, or perhaps two, as part of the beginning of the first paragraph, that states the principle of using an unbiased and neutral tone, and then linking that with the guidance on how that neutral tone is achieved. I just think its important that the policy section devote its primary weight to guidance on how to successfully achieve neutral tone, rather than worrying about being too extensive in defining neutral tone. As for specific examples, we'll have to be very careful with how this is done, since if we're going to enshrine specific examples in policy, we'll have to balance examples that are clear, but also subtle. Examples that are too egregious and obvious won't be that useful, but at the same time, ones that are too subtle may be difficult to fathom and analyze. It would be perfect fodder for an essay, which I may write. To be clear, I have no objection to enshrining some examples in policy, only recognizing that it will be challenger. HatlessAtless ( talk) 15:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps the first paragraph could read: "Wikipedia strives to be as useful to a wide range of individuals, some of which have deeply held opinions and beliefs. In the interest of being as useful as possible to all readers, articles and sections must be written in a tone that impartial, balanced, and does not take sides in controversy. Readers and editors will be faced with facts that question or challenge their fundamental beliefs, and with which they disagree; sometimes vehemently. Presenting all facts relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia while keeping emotion cool and maintaining neutrality requires careful balancing of language within any article." HatlessAtless ( talk) 16:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Perhaps it'd be better to have the policy simply say "write in a neutral tone" and define what we mean by tone since the rest of the page defines what we mean by neutral. Some of this could be incorporated into an essay that addresses my second case (people who want more information). Two of the other three groups (nonwikipedians and problem editors) are best served with a relatively straightforward policy, and the final group (admins) would probably want a policy that they can cite without the appearance of cherry-picking. WP:TLDR is a major problem with this proposal. SDY ( talk) 16:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY, I think you may have misunderstood both what the proposal was and the intent. The proposal is the 167 word boxed quote at the top of this section, and is the same length as the proposal in the "consensus achieved" section above that you got behind. The long reply post to BTfromLA was not a revision to the policy proposal, it was an explanation of my thoughts as to why approaching the policy in this way. Look at my point #1 as to why this is simple and straightforward to nonwikipedians and problem editors, and my point #3 as to why this is useful for admins who need to quote it. I think this is perfectly clear, concise, and useful for editors, readers, and admins, but an essay on this policy would be useful for exploring in depth specific cases, rather than filling up the policy page. As for your comment about creep, this is simply a clear, concise, and action-oriented approach to how to get neutral tone rather than trying to define neutral tone, which gives wikilawyers and civil pov-pushers too much ammunition. HatlessAtless ( talk) 16:53, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Here is an even shorter and cleaner, single-paragraph presentation of above. I've shaved some redundancy out of it and defined neutral tone in the first sentence. Per WP:SOAP we do not take part in controversy, but we are free to write about controversy, which is how that fits in. It defines a neutral tone, drills into why a neutral tone is important, and then gives a concise, clear, and useful explanation of how to achieve neutral tone.

Neutrality and tone:

  • In the interest of being as useful as possible to all readers, articles and sections must be written in a tone that impartial, balanced, and does not take sides in controversy. Readers and editors will be faced with facts that question or challenge their fundamental values or beliefs, and with which they disagree; sometimes vehemently. Presenting all facts relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia while keeping emotion cool and maintaining neutrality requires careful balancing of language within any article. Sources may require paraphrasing rather than quotations. Facts may require careful placement within the article structure. Choices of words and phrasing may require revision so as both to remain faithful to facts presented and simultaneously present those facts in a light as palatable to as many readers as possible. Finally, it is possible that some issues may be too contentious to declare final judgment on even when an editor believes the weight of reliable sources makes such judgment clear.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

HatlessAtlas, While I respect your efforts, I don't think either proposed draft does the job you want it to do: it is really vague about things that the writing "may require." but it doesn't give anything more than a hint about when or why such changes might be appropriate. SDY is right, we need to spell out specifically what we mean by tone. I've been amazed to find that quite a number of editors don't grasp the concept; some seem to doubt that what we call "tone" really exists. (Just read through the arguments on this page for examples.) An essay might be valuable, but upon reflection I'm not convinced that this revision is the right way to go. I don't think that the existing paragraph is all that bad: it might make better sense to start with that, add specifics about tone and remove the stuff that duplicates undue weight and fringe topic issues. Perhaps you could propose, separately, a new section on conflict resolution. BTfromLA ( talk)
My problem is that there are very few rules in the proposal, just a lot of suggestions. In other words, I disagree that it is clear (it doesn't define what we mean by tone), concise (dropping the first paragraph wouldn't change much), or action-oriented (though I'm not sure exactly what that means, I'm expecting "do this" and I'm not seeing a lot of statements like that). I would also hold that it does not even promote a neutral tone, it promotes an inoffensive one. A neutral tone is patently offensive to zealots on all sides (i.e. "you're either with us or against us"). "Tone" is a word that means many things to many people, and this section's primary goal should be to explain what we mean by tone, since "neutral" is all over the rest of the page. SDY ( talk) 17:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

BTfromLA: I think you may have misunderstood why those statements are intentionally vague. It would be impossible to enumerate all of the ways POV can be slipped into an article. The reason the word "may" is included in all of these cases is simple; it puts the burden on the editor correcting a POV statement to justify why that statement is POV. For egregious cases, an edit summary would suffice, such as "attributing inflammatory statement to make it NPOV". If an editor has one of their posts changed with a rational reason for being NPOV, then the burden is on that editor to defend why that statement was neutral before reverting the change. The emphasis here is the fact that all wording is open to discussion is key here. It relies on the principle that we, as a community of editors "can't necessarily define (POV) but we know it when we see it". As to your suggestion for a conflict resolution section, how would you suggest I title/structure it? HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I have to side with SDY on this, and I'd go even further: the suggestions themselves are unclear. Obviously, enumerating all possibilities is not an option. But there is a big distinction between a brief statement that is general--it clearly lays out a basic, though not universal principal--compared to a vague statement, which really doesn't tell us much at all. As to the conflict resolution bit--I'll need to think a little more about how to structure that: the reason I suggested it is that seems to be your primary interest here. We should probably check to see where and how that is being dealt with on WP policy and guideline pages already before diving in. BTfromLA ( talk) 18:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
well, if you want a clear definition of tone, that's not too hard. something like this, maybe (adapting the first version in this section...):
  • Wikipedia strives to be informative to a wide range of readers, who have an equally wide range of opinions and beliefs. Since many of these beliefs may clash, and even the clearest facts may be interpreted differently by different readers, editors should take care to balance the tone of language within articles. A balanced tone avoids excess: positions are neither overstated nor understated relative to their importance; discussion is sufficient to make a given point clear, without redundant or tangential commentary that might distract from other points; milder phrases are used instead of stronger ones, particularly when discussing bitter disputes. In general, editors should write in an educational manner that tries to describe uncontested facts and contested opinions without offending those who might think otherwise, and should keep in mind that where one editor complains about the tone of an article, a small army of silent readers have likely already been offended.
  • It is possible to present facts that challenge beliefs or values without causing offense. It may require paraphrasing of sources rather than direct quotations, or the careful placement of facts and opinions within the article structure to avoid unwarranted implications. Word choice and phrasing may need revision to simultaneously remain faithful to the facts presented and to present those facts in a light palatable to as many readers as possible. Some issues may be so politically or emotionally heated that even common-sense evaluations by editors are too strong, and the article may need to fall back on simple description.
well, I feel like I've editorialized a bit, but I think you can get my drift here. -- Ludwigs2 01:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with your sentiment and much of your wording, but I disagree strongly with only this part: sourcing is sufficient to establish a point, but not so excessive that it drowns out other points Inclusion of a point, along with the relevant, sourced, and substantiated facts to back it up, is exactly how we let the facts speak for themselves. Majority opinions are considered majority opinions because of the strong weights of facts backing up the viewpoints. This sentiment is not in line with "Equal Validity" as it could be used by minority POV-pushers to defend stripping important facts defending majority opinions and imply that the minority opinions are stronger relative to the majority opinions than they actually are. If you were to rephrase this in such a way that its clear that you are referring to redundant facts and citations and balance this with sentiment in line with WP:PRESERVE, that information relevant to the topic should stay in wikipedia, and the sentiment stated in WP:UNDUE as Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. would completely resolve my concern. (If you want more details on how I am thinking about this, see the conversation on neutrality on my talk page) HatlessAtless ( talk) 15:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
ok, I hadn't been thinking about it in that way at all, and I see your point. let me look at your talk page and then I'll modify the text above with something (hopefully) better. -- Ludwigs2 17:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
(revision) I think my error was casting that line as a sourcing issue in the first place (because, of course, it isn't about sourcing). I've revised the passage to talk about 'discussion' instead, using "discussion is sufficient to make a given point clear, without redundant or tangential commentary that might distract from other points". that should solve the WP:PRESERVE problem nicely, though maybe it could highlight WP:UNDUE issues a bit more. -- Ludwigs2 18:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
This revision I can get behind. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not thrilled with it. It's more about being inoffensive than being neutral. The two are often associated, but they're not equivalent. It strives and considers and wants to do the right thing, but it's more " consider mommy's feelings" than " honor thy mother." My concerns include but are not limited to:
  • "Educational Manner" will run afoul of WP:NOTTEXTBOOK and can easily run into WP:SOAP.
  • The discussion on "balance" can easily be read to create a conflict with WP:WEIGHT.
  • "Without offending those who might think otherwise" runs contrary to WP:NOTCENSORED.
It could easily be read to contradict other policies, most of which have far greater weight than concerns about tone. SDY ( talk) 20:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
hmmm... SDY, without debating that this version would need improvements, I think you're shadow-boxing. the point that I've brought up repeatedly (and that maybe needs to be highlighted more in the text) is that this policy section would only apply after other policies are satisfied. to address your points individually...
  • "Educational Manner" may be bad phrasing, but considered in context all it means is that one should write with the intention of informing people of things they don't know, without judging them for not knowing it. WP:NOTTEXTBOOK is something that would be resolved before considerations of Fairness of Tone (FOT) ever arose, and this 'educational' thing is intended to prevent the kind of judgmentalism that would lead to WP:SOAP.
  • WP:WEIGHT (with respect to sourcing issues, and inclusion/exclusion) should be determined before any discussion of FOT becomes pertinent. after that, this passage from WEIGHT - "Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements" - starts bleeding into FOT issues, and so FOT would not conflict with WEIGHT, but instead augment it.
  • again, WP:NOTCENSORED would have precedence over FOT. FOT is not intended to exclude viewpoints, but just temper them to a neutral tone. I'll point out that this is already de-facto policy on wikipedia: even the most die-hard science advocate editors wouldn't include a phrase like 'scientists think this theory is stupid and irritating', even if they could find proper sourcing for it, because it obviously carries a biased, unprofessional tone. all I'm trying to do here is hone that generic intuition into a clear, established point of policy.
I see FOT as a policy that should be applied when (and only when) all other policies have been satisfied but a dispute still exists between editors about bias in the article. Basically (if inelegantly put), FOT should hold that "If editors cannot reach consensus about neutrality on the basis of reliable sourcing (and other policies) alone, then the reliable sources given must be phrased and used in a manner that provokes the least offense possible (given what the sources say), since the offendedness of editors and readers is the only measure of bias left that could resolve the dispute." see what I'm reaching for, here? -- Ludwigs2 01:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

(Undent) If the policy isn't meant to contradict other policies, it should either be clearly worded so that it doesn't, or explicitly state that those other policies have priority. As it is, I'm not 100% sure what the policy means other than "try not to say anything clearly, you might offend someone." SDY ( talk) 05:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

ok, I'll make some edits to reflect that - give me a bit of time.
with respect to what the policy means, it's not 'try not to say anything clearly' but rather 'don't be more clear that the sourcing allows.' lets take an obvious example, like 'remote viewing'. an old (and at that time heavily defended) version of the page said "As with all pseudoscientific claims of extra-sensory perception and the paranormal, the scientific community accepts none of the alleged instances of remote viewing as being actual evidence of psychic perception." now a phrase like this isn't wrong per se, and was certainly sourced, but it kept running into objections (from me, and others) because it read as though disdain were being laid on with a trowel. certainly anyone who happens to believe in remote viewing (as silly as you and I might think that is) would take this phrase as an electronic slap in the face. the current version of the passage, by contrast, reads: "Remote viewing, like other forms of extra-sensory perception, is generally considered as pseudoscience due to the need to overcome fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles currently held by the scientific community, and the lack of a positive theory that explains the outcomes." This gets across exactly the same idea and information, but explains why scientists reject it, and avoids the potentially offensive overstatements (e.g. 'As with all pseudoscientific claims...', 'accepts none of the alleged...'). I think the second version is a much better way of expressing the idea, as well as (or because it's) more palatable to all readers, and I want this policy to guide people towards that kind of phrasing and away from the former kind. that's the meaning I'm trying to get across. -- Ludwigs2 16:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Part of my problem with some of these proposals is that they're really more appropriate for WP:MOS. They're really more about good writing, which is obviously a GA and FA criterion, and there's a balance between clarity and heavy-handedness that is far too subjective for policy. Interestingly, I got into a bit of a spat about this recently, where the exact problem happened: someone disagreed with the tone of an article and immediately assumed that a writing problem was someone pushing a fringe POV.
I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying, but I don't think it would work as policy because it is by nature an extremely subjective judgment. SDY ( talk) 16:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
yeah, this is definitely a tricky and difficult issue. The main reason I don't think the WP:MOS is right for this is the it clearly is a bias issue, not just a style issue. it's just not necessarily a bias in the 'POV-Pushing' sense of the word. for instance, there's nothing stylistically wrong with any of the following phrases:
  • Scientists reject a fringe theory
  • Scientists despise a fringe theory
  • Scientists have not accepted a fringe theory
  • Scientists discount a fringe theory
but each phrase carries a different set of implications about the relationship between scientists and the fringe theory, which can impose a wide range of implicit meanings without any sourcing whatsoever. plus, even where you would think that the MOS would address these issues - such as wp:MOS#Avoid_contested_vocabulary - it turns out that it only refers to common usage (in this case avoiding archaic and 'strained' sounding words), not to the connotations of different word choices. -- Ludwigs2 18:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


Should we assume good faith to group motives as part of NPOV?

I've been reading the arguments about neutrality of tone and some of the articles used for illustration, and I think I've noticed something. I think that a lot of the "treat fairly" and "respect opinions" seems to come down to a proxy observation that groups should have their beliefs treated in good faith. I think there is a place in NPOV for a statement to the effect that "Unless multiple reliable secondary sources indicate a motive for a group, care should be taken that an article or section does not assert or imply a motive to a group." Also, though I don't know how to phrase it, I also think that even when a clear consensus in RSS's has been reached about a group's motivations, I think that the group's self-asserted motivation should still be stated, and that attribution is particularly important when asserting motivation for a group.

I think that there are two useful reasons for this thought. First, implying that a group's motivations are disingenuous is an easy way to piss off supporters of those groups, and second, attributing something like motivation to a group without a source is not only NPOV, but also OR. Especially given the volatility and potential for veiled incivility, I think attribution of motivation is particularly important.

Comments please? HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how we'd need to change policy to do this; we already can with current policy. Antelan 18:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
WP:V seems to handle this, yes. I'm mainly concerned that in the instance of groups where the motive has been demonstrated that some people would use arguments about tone to censor that information. This is especially important with things like health fraud. If it hasn't been documented, we shouldn't be assuming any motives at all, good faith or bad faith. SDY ( talk) 18:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
hmmm... I'm not sure verifiability quite makes the grade for this. I'm thinking about Intelligent Design, where there is documented evidence that ID proponents were engaged in a political gambit, but this evidence gets used to disparage ID proponents as mere machiavellian schemers (when in fact, I'm guessing their motives are more complex than that, involving an honest concern about spiritual welfare).
Hatless - I think you're right. at least, I know that the boundary line between group identity and personal identity is thin to the point of non-existence, so making incorrect attributions about a group will (almost invariably) be taken by group members as an attribution about their own individual behavior. plus, these kinds of attributions risk reducing a group to a 2-dimensional cardboard cutout of itself. that's never good. -- Ludwigs2 18:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
The discussion over whether an active political entity is a "person" has some strange legalisms to it, but the consensus over at WP:BLP appears to be that policy only applies to individual human beings. I agree that the claims should not be used spuriously, but they should also not be removed if they are verifiable and attributable to a reliable source. Wikipedia should not be a " Second Life for corporations" as the Silly Party's candidate for president put it. SDY ( talk) 18:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't see how we'd need to change policy to do this; we already can with current policy. Antelan 18:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC) Which existing policy are you reading, and how, that already does this? I agree that existing policy already has sentiment of this kind, but if one were to make and edit with the edit summary attributing assertion of group motive per WP?, which WP would I point to to make my rationale clear? (Please do not read this as a sarcastic or challenging question, if I've missed or misunderstood a policy then there's no need to try to hammer out a change to NPOV) HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:54, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

tags

  1. {{ POV|date=September 2008}} — message used to warn of problems
  2. {{ POV-section|date=September 2008}} — tags only a single section as disputed
  3. {{ POV-check|date=September 2008}} — message used to mark articles that may be biased. ({{ POV-check|date=September 2008}} may be used for short)
  4. {{ POV-title|date=September 2008}} — when the article's title is questionable
  5. {{ POV-statement|date=September 2008}} — when only one sentence is questionable
  6. {{ articleissues}} — When an article or section fails to abide by multiple Wikipedia content policies

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.15.239 ( talk • contribs) 17:37, 28 April 2008

What is the point of a neutral point of view?

Is this political correctness? It extends to discussions as well as articles right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.4.239 ( talk) 02:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

neutral point of view, as I understand it, primarily refers things that affect article content. talk page discussions should adhere to wp:civility, and the hope is that civil discussion on the talk pages will produce neutral perspectives in article content.
neutrality is not political correctness (which as I understand it simply avoids anything that might offend anyone); neutrality means that we are trying to present a view on the subject that either lacks a particular perspective, or offers all of the major perspectives without giving any undo preference to any of them. it's actually very difficult to achieve neutrality because none of us can really claim to be neutral, and there's no real objective guideline for when something is neutral, and sometimes neutrality means that a perspective some people find offensive has to be given. -- Ludwigs2 20:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
talk pages should be PC; articles should have NPOV and be PC (when possible). Keep in mind, both are subjective topics and the ability of humans to strictly adhere to either is a matter of philosophical discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.220.172.236 ( talk) 12:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I disagree, talk pages must be civil but political correctness has no place whatsoever in the encyclopedia (other than as the subject of the aforementioned article of course). Political correctness chills discussion, which is the very antithesis of what a talk page is all about. Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 21:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

So I take it it's OK to start arguments in the discussion of any given article? (civily of course). (Original poser of the question what is the point of a NPOV). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.3.53.83 ( talk) 04:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The point of NPOV is so that an article doesn't become unduly biased. Print encyclopaedias often are not neutral - two good examples being early Encyclopaedia Britannica which had things from an English view point (favourable to english exploits etc) and more recently: the Encyclopedia of World Biography which landed George Bush in trouble after he labelled Silvio Berlusconi a "political amateur known for corruption and vice" see here. Wikipedia is accessible throughout the world and should look not to unduly favour anything but the most accepted point of view, giving lesser priority to more minor views. Also, libellous or dubious claims should not be given any space on a wikipedia article. Sillyfolkboy ( talk) 05:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok sorry to bother; initial poser of question here. I am being accused of libel in a wikipedia discussion about a politician about an issue which i know to be FACT. Is this little setup going to stick to it's original encyclopediadic sense? If i will be prevented from putting political argument into articles where else will I go? I understand the problem ... certain discussions go on, those that need conjecture, most commonly conspiracy theories. I am told to only discuss possible enhancements to articles. And I'm being shut down. Civility only? Are you sure?

If you are referring to this claim [7] then it falls under the policy WP:BLP and as far as I can see, unless you can provide a reliable source to back up the claim, you have been correctly reverted. It is not a matter of "NPOV". Shot info ( talk) 00:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V29aDnQlPWk <- reliable source to back up claim (film). I was prevented from posting this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.3.171.10 ( talk) 19:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


missed edit summary

reverted a change by Science Apologist, that assumed a non-existent consensus. no doubt he will revert it back in, however. -- Ludwigs2 21:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The revision as restored by SA looks a considerable improvement to me. . dave souza, talk 22:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I think SA's language is clearer. It doesn't change long-standing policy, but it does clean up the wording. I think there's still room for improvement, but I would rather have this version than some of the recent proposals. SDY ( talk) 22:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Could we remove the ref to notability? (we should be phasing that concept out, right? Or am I jumping ahead too far?)
Otherwise: both versions have merits. I like the warmer and more informal tone of [8], though. Warm tone, relaxed attitude and especially giving people ideas on where and what to negotiate on improves usage of the project namespace pages when it comes to wikipedia's dispute resolution system. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 23:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC) (wikipedia is WP:NOT a bureaucracy or anything, so any way we can strengthen the "feel" of consensus tends to help people cooperate better on making our encycopedia. And that's part of the goal of the project namespace.
When it comes to discussing with people who are adamantly opposed to WP:ENC and prefer to think of Wikipedia as a community, informal tones tend to make them too focused on social interaction and not focused enough on editing. That's a problem. ScienceApologist ( talk) 23:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
In other words: it's a consensus if one makes a huge assumption of bad faith and thereby discounts all contrary opinions. 64.86.17.112 ( talk) 00:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Can an administrator please block this Davkal wikistalker? Thanks. ScienceApologist ( talk) 00:41, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
SA, is everyone who says something you don't like automatically a Davkal puppet?
Kim - consensus is something achieved, not something imposed. imposing a consensus when there is none is not consensus at all, but some form of authoritarianism. and strengthen the '"feel'" of consensus in the absence of consensus is propaganda, nothing more. if that's the way you want policy decided, fine, but please don't rationalize it by asserting that it's a normal part of consensus.
my real objection here (as always) is with ScienceApologist's approach to the problem. I wouldn't mind using his preferred version of the section (or any other place we've edited together) if he or his buddies bothered to take the time to discuss the matter and convince me it was better, but all he seems to know how to do is edit it in by brute force, and then keep it there by whatever means necessary (short of actual discussion). it's rude, inconsiderate, and deliberately thumbs its nose at consensus. now, again, if that's the way you all want things to be run here, say so - I'll go somewhere else where I don't have to deal with this kind or degree of stupidity. otherwise, I don't see why you all put up with it. -- Ludwigs2 20:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, then edit or propose your changes. WP:OWN specifies that this is our not his policy. I read the discussion of SA's version to indicate that consensus reflected that the SA version of the tone article was an improvement over the policy that was there. Consensus did not dictate that this was the perfect wording. More importantly, consensus and unanimity are not the same. Also, let's point out that its consensus, not having any one of us convinced that a particular thing is best. I still want one of my wordings that I proposed to be the one that ends up here, but I'll work with what I've got. Come, let's take the substrate SA has and that consensus tolerates and tweak it into the perfect policy section instead of arguing that we should hash out the endless talk-page debate to conclusion before making a change. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggested revision to tone section

The current wording This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority views should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all.

Runs into an a-priori/a-posterioiri problem, as well as one of implied non-notability. Specifically, the views of a 51%/49% minority will be treated as almost equal to the "majority" viewpoint, while an 85%/15% minority will receive much less. More importantly, that division (51%/49% vs 85%/15%) is determined by representation in reliable sources, not some outside judgement by wikipedia editors. The wording above runs the risk of editors trying to violate WP:UNDUE pushing a majority viewpoint by stripping relevant and important facts about a minority viewpoint using the the above phrasing of tone as an excuse. Just as importantly, WP:PAPER/ WP:UNDUE makes it clear that we should not strip out encyclopedic content about a minority view in a page dedicated to that minority view. The lack of specificity above means that an editor could go to an article on a minority opinion and improperly claim that the article should have less content than the respective article on a majority viewpoint.

I think these can be resolved by changing the wording to be as follows:

This does not mean that all views should get equal space when describing multiple viewpoints on a topic, nor that those viewpoints should be presented as equal: Minority views will only be presented in proportion to their mention in reliable sources outside the articles dedicated to the groups that hold those views. Views in the extreme minority will not receive mention in Wikipedia at all beyond the articles dedicated to the groups that hold those views

HatlessAtless ( talk) 01:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

We don't have to repeat the entirety of WP:WEIGHT in the section, just acknowledge that providing appropriate weight instead of "balanced" coverage is acceptable, even though it nominally gives a tone to the article. SDY ( talk) 01:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the intent of the tone section has been to require that each view be presented from the perspective of its proponents, using its best arguments (as its proponents see them) when there is a dispute. The fact that a view happens to be a majority view at the moment does not mean it is correct. The purpose of the tone section hitherto has been to ameliorate, not enhance, the effect of the weight section. In general, weighing sources with anything like the sort of specificity that is being called for -- identifying how much stature each view has --requires a subject-matter expert and is probably not possible in a Wiki environment. Everyone tends to think that their view has the better argument and is better represented in reliable sources. Weight has traditionally, and wisely, required only a purely qualitative assessment requiring more emphasis to a clearly dominant view and prohibiting clearly minority views from unduly dominating the article. Attempts to introduce anything like a quantitative assessment, with views weighted in proportion to claims about their specific degree of acceptance, sounds nice in theory but in practice will introduce so much subjective judgment into the picture that it undoes rather than reinforces the intended effect of WP:NPOV. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 02:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Tone ameliorates weight only in that it does not allow scornful representation of minority opinions, a point that is already brought into great detail by other sections of the NPOV policy. I'm just pointing out that adding this additional language is redundant. It may be correct, but policies shouldn't drone on in endless repetition. SDY ( talk) 05:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I see the connection between your response and my concerns? Personally I think this section should not allude to WEIGHT at all, and simply let it stand on its own, but consensus seems to be against me on that one, so I want to avoid potential conflict. How does the current wording prevent someone from making an AfD case against ID (or the article on some tiny minority but notable political party) for example, by quoting this wording of core policy? HatlessAtless ( talk) 11:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
The only reason the tone section has to mention weight at all is that NPOV and weight can conflict when some will read "neutral" as "fair and balanced." The tone section is not the entirety of the NPOV policy, it's a minor section that deals exclusively with subtle problems like wording, choice of quotes, and some stylistic decisions. Notability is covered by its own guideline; all that this section covers is avoiding bias creep. SDY ( talk) 14:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the current wording, but the proposed change isn't too horrible either, other than being a little clumsily worded. If it does go anywhere the end part about "Views in the extreme minority will not receive mention in Wikipedia at all beyond the articles dedicated to the groups that hold those views" would absolutely need to end with something like ", assuming they are notable enough to even deserve an article." Otherwise the wording implies that all extreme minority views should get articles of their own, which is clearly not correct. In fact, I would just leave it at no mention in Wikipedia at all. DreamGuy ( talk) 17:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

DG, the [{WP:V]], the notability criteria, and the AfD process cover plenty well that some groups will not get articles at all. HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Please discuss before changing

Folks, I reverted more deeply back to what the page was when page protection was added. We don't seem to have consensus here. Strongly suggest keeping the page reverted back to a state before the recent proposals and attempting to get a sizeable comment period and consensus on major changes. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 23:43, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, somewhat: activity is the best way to hash out a viable working rephrase, so lonmg as everyone isn't too revert-happy. Insisting on the long-standing version can be problematic in itself, where the long-standing version contains poor phrasing. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
In general I agree with shoemaker, but given that this is a core content policy, rather than an ordinary paragraph, I also understand where Shirahadasha is coming from. By the same token, looking at the current wording (longstanding version), I have to admit that I like it a lot. HatlessAtless ( talk) 00:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what version to which you are referring, but the version that is labeled "Fairness of Tone" has a lot of problems in that it equates equality and fairness with neutrality. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
That's your view, but not enough people have weighed in to establish that it's the community's view. I've posted a notice to WP:PUMP that a discussion of some substantial changes to WP:NPOV, particularly the "tone" section, is underway at this page. We let discussion at an ordinary AfD go for several days before taking action. This is a major policy page that editors need to rely on. Having the text change rapidly as issues are debated can create chaos. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 01:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
We've exceeded the length of time for most AfDs at this point. I think you might want to take an opportunity to read some of the sections that are a bit higher on this page. There has been a considerable amount of discussion on this issue. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Updates to tone section

I've made two updates to the new tone section of the policy, to keep the existing sentiment, which I like a lot, but to eliminate the two key concerns with word choice, which were expressed by a large number of editors per the original discussion of the new version. I've preserved all of the meaning in the new version.

  • I have changed the word dispassionate into impartial to make the policy mesh more tightly with WP:SOAP, and WP:NOTTEXTBOOK from the perspective that wikipedia does not get involved in disputed, it lets reliable sources do all of the telling. An article can be massively POV and still presented in a dispassionate tone, while changing a statement from a polemic one to a dispassionate tone does not necessarily remove the POV.
  • I removed the word notable opinions for the two reasons cited in the discussion of this version. First, without an essay establishing a notability criterion for schools of thought beyond that in WP:UNDUE, there's no need to point to UNDUE from this section. Secondly, using the loaded word 'notably' immediately presents a problem with making the section susceptible to wikilawering to push fringe views into articles. Since some fringe groups have unquestioned notability, this could be used as a wedge to try to force those views into articles they do not belong in (based on the criteria in UNDUE) by arguing that they are notable. To fix the section only discusses the tone of schools of thought that are being discussed in the article, leaving UNDUE to stand alone in adjudicating which schools of thought deserve mention in an article or not, eliminating all possibility of conflict.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree that one all-too-common manouvre is quoting a polemical, shrill source that tends to make the other side look as rediculous as possible, and that one thing the tone section should do is explain that we should avoid that. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 10:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I always support the removal of the word notable where there is no objective notability scale or criterion provided. Notability isn't a real word here. It is a term of art to describe whether an article ought to be included in the Wikipedia or content ought to be included in a Wikipedia article: useful when objective, useless when arbitrary. patsw ( talk) 12:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Religion section - Disputes between historians or scientists and religious views

The FAQ Religion section seems ambiguous in explaining how to present religious views in disputes between religion and historians, scientists and similar. Since this is an issue that comes up time and again in the encyclopedia, suggest clarifying. Propose adding the paragraph in italics after the existing paragraph quoted to address this.

Some adherents of a religion might object to a critical historical treatment of their own faith, claiming that this somehow discriminates against their religious beliefs. They might prefer that the articles describe their faith as they see it, which might be from an ahistorical perspective (e.g. the way things are is the way things have always been; any differences are from heretical sects that don't represent the real religion.) Their point of view must be mentioned, yet note that there is no contradiction. NPOV policy means that Wikipedia editors ought to say something like this: "Many adherents of this faith believe X, and also believe that members of this group have always believed X; however, due to the acceptance of some findings (say which) by modern historians and archaeologists (say which), other adherents (say which) of this faith now believe Z."

Similarly, some historians and scientists might object to presenting religious views on subjects which they regard as properly and perhaps solely the domain of history or science, including past events or prophesized future events. Nonetheless, for the reasons explained by Larry Sanger, the neutral point of view includes neutrality in these disputes and significant religious views should be fairly and sensitively presented where appropriate. Such views should be described using language which explains the basis of adherence without endorsing point of view. Articles describing a disputes between religious authorities and e.g. historians could say something like this: "According to [scriptural narrative or religious sources], X happened. (religious interpretation sources) explain that X has (religious significance Z) (etc.). However, modern historians/archaeologists/etc. (say which) have generally accepted that X did not happen because of findings A, B. ..." The article, including the introduction, should attempt to avoid using language that would tend to endorse one view or the other. It should neither present the scriptural narrative or religious belief as fact, nor present a characterization of it as a myth or ahistorical as fact. Language should present differences in how different viewpoints understand reality in a way that is accurate (e.g. religious sources "believe" or "recieve a tradition that", historians "find", scientists "observe", etc.), but jargon language that has negative connotations in common use ("myth", "cult", "heresy", etc.) should generally be used only when presenting the viewpoint that uses the jargon (with appropriate link). ("Anthropologists characterize the Noah's Ark narrative as a myth" rather than "The Noah's Ark story is a myth about..."). Similarly, care should be taken to use neutral terms when describing religious narratives and beliefs. For example, terms like "narrative" rather than "story" should be used when describing scriptural accounts except when presenting specific views of them (or describing their use as children's stories).

I think an example clearly explaining how to handle this situation would be helpful and appropriate because of the frequency with which this kind of dispute comes up. The first paragraph could be interpreted as describing only internal religious disputes. When the subject matter of an article is something described in a religious source (for example, a Biblical narrative), the first paragraph doesn't always provide clear guidance on how to handle the situation. The specific proposals I've made can doubtless be improved, but guidance on this issue will I think be very helpful. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:54, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Just for readability, consider breaking it up into "answers" and "lists of examples." It's a very dense block of text. It could probably be more explicit about disagreements between religious groups of the same faith, historically the cause of some pretty messy disputes. SDY ( talk) 01:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Addressing disputes within a faith is the subject of the first paragraph (which already exists.)I agree better clarity would be welcome on that issue as well. Suggest addressing improving that section in a separate proposal. We might have a better chance of reaching consensus on the current issue if we don't bite off more than we can chew. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 02:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Additions are basically good. Separate proposal regarding the extant first paragraph would probably have to cover material which is the object of religious belief for several distinct religious groups, as there are a number of groups of both the Abrahamic and Dharmic religious families which use the same words, and sometimes even use the words to describe the same subjects, but have vastly different ideas regarding the significance or meaning of those subjects. But no real objections to the proposed additions. John Carter ( talk) 13:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you are putting way too much weight on Larry Sanger's personal interpretation of NPOV, as the NPOV policy as stated here and used in encyclopedias as a standard policy do not just let religious views get treated with the same weight as scholarly views. I would strongly oppose that entire proposed change until it is rewritten to remove the idea that people being offended about information that conflicts with their religious beliefs (being scared of the word myth, demanding their views in science articles, etc.) should be coddled. That's not how things work here, as is clear in all other writing about NPOV. You're going to need pretty wide consensus to make such a sweeping change to how NPOV is handled, and the handful of responses you have so far don't come close to it. DreamGuy ( talk) 17:27, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I've looked back at the section as it stands now -- it is as perfectly clear as it needs to be, and specifies that religious people being offended isn't an excuse (in and of itself) for changing an article. That's an extremely important concept, and the rewording suggested above would completely turn that on its ear, basically welcoming religion in every article in the whole encyclopedia whether it has anything to do with the topic or not. DreamGuy ( talk) 17:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I am proposing adding a second paragraph, not to remove the (aleady-existing) first, so the issue of religious people wanting to censor scientific discussions remains addressed, and if you think it should be strengthened I'd welcome a proposal to strengthen it. The proposal discusses only the presentation of "significant" religious views, which are includable per WP:WEIGHT and related policies. It dosen't change or even discuss criteria for determining when a particular view is significant. The threshold for includability remains as it was. It simply discusses how to handle things once that threshold has been crossed. Neutrality between different points of view is what WP:NPOV is all about, and has worked very well for some time. The intent of the proposal is simply to clarify existing policy and to ensure phrasing that more appropriately reflects neutrality in practice, not to change the underlying policy. By using a phrase like "information that conflicts with their religious beliefs" and by using phrases like "they", you are inserting your belief that one view is correct and another incorrect, which is what NPOV is designed to prevent. Once religious views are includable, the question of what weight they also remains unchanged by this proposal, and per existing policy depends on the topic. On a specifically religious topic (a detail of a doctrine or ritual, for example) religious viewpoints might get primary weight, and the proposal isn't intended to suggest that religious views get primary weight in an article like Evolution. If you believe clarification is needed to avoid the possibility that this language might be interpreted as changing when religious views become included, I'd welcome a proposal. However, when religious views are includable by our ordinary criteria, they should be welcome and the door should be open to them, whether editors personally agree with them or not. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 19:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Whether one view is correct or another incorrect is often irrelevant. Let's take an example of Scientology. This particular religion believes that psychiatry is just about the worst thing ever to be inflicted upon humanity. They are adamant in their distrust and outright hatred of psychiatry. Fine. We must describe this fact in our articles about Scientology. However, we should also point out what critics have said about Scientology's disdain for psychiatry. What's more, we should not pretend that the opinions of Scientologists about psychiatry deserve as much weight as, say, an expert in the subject. We rely on reliable, third-party sources to evaluate the "sides". In pretty much all the cases I know about, the third-parties heavily discount the Scientologist opinion in favor of mainstream psychiatry. This is hardly fair to the Scientologist, but Wikipedia is not in the business of fairness. We need to be honest with our readers about what the best sources have to say about the subject, and we need to be honest when a source is the best. Otherwise, we will end up pandering and accommodating rather than integrating and explaining. This often looks to adherents as though Wikipedia is "talking a side" in the dispute. However, this is simply not the case. Consider, if you will, a hypothetical scenario where in the future, Scientology becomes a ubiquitous and mainstream belief that is not criticized by anyone but a marginal few. In such a situation, our characterization of Scientology's beliefs would remain the same, but our discussion of the responses to Scientology's beliefs would change dramatically or may even disappear altogether depending on how marginalized the naysayers became. Our job is to present what the preponderance of reliable, expert sources say (in our hypothetical scenario, the preponderance of the expert sources say Scientology rules and every other idea is marginal at best). We are not supposed to try to add any kind of balance on top of this to make sure that the impression that one view is correct and the other incorrect doesn't come across. Doing such is actually a violation of NPOV, interestingly enough. Most people, especially those who find themselves on the out-and-out with what the most reliable sources say, miss this nuance. They want to make sure that no one reading the article will come away with the impression that their cherished belief is not on equal footing with expert understanding of the subject. Generally, this is an impossibility. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think that the principle of letting the facts speak for themselves could usefully be introduced at this stage. We shouldn't assume that NPOV is unattainable and that articles will inevitably be "weighted" towards either a religious or a scientific stance. In the Noah's Ark example, I would prefer to see rather than "Anthropologists characterize the Noah's Ark narrative as a myth", "In the 1950s, John Doe, an anthropologist, made a detailed analysis of the Noah's Ark story as a myth. Jane Deer, a theologian argued that his approach ignored..." The more we add sourced and concrete detail, the more the POV problems melt away. (This is not an endorsement for writing too much though; keeping it short and sweet also helps in many cases). Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC) Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate your suggestion. I certainly agree that careful and detailed attribution and sourcing can go a long way to assisting with NPOV in a brief, unobstrusive and civil, yet rigorous and effective way. Perhaps this could be better articulated. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 10:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
As to the Scientology example, because Scientology is a small minority religion both in numbers and in historical/cultural impact, its views on a lot of subjects (other than itself) wouldn't necessarily be significant under WP:WEIGHT. The views of major denominations of major historic world religions -- Hinduism, Buddism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- will tend to be significant and includable on a broader range of subjects than the views of tiny minority religions and denominations, as a simple application of WP:WEIGHT principles. My understanding is that we don't weight based on truth, we weight based on cultural impact (how much the view has impacted thought and discourse) with respect to a particular subject. Because obscure religions would be excluded by WP:WEIGHT, would it be possible to provide another example involving a more clearly significant religious view, so we discuss issues and problems in including and describing in a more realistic case? Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 12:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand what this is about. Statements by religious adherents regarding their faith are primary sources. We can cite primary sources for what they are, but encyclopedic discussion of religious topics needs secondary sources, that is, we always need to rely on academic literature, in the case of religious topics, academic literature in the field of religious study. Conflating secondary (academic) literature on a historical question with religionist (primary) sources is an absolute no-no. The suggested paragraph above is muddle-headed cultural relativism at its worst and has no place on Wikipedia, except in WP:DISCLAIMER where we already state that our encyclopedic material may offend. That's all that will ever be needed to address this. The "point of view" of a religious faith is the very topic in articles on that faith, and it needs to be documented by referring to the pertinent literature within religious studies. Statements like "Many adherents of faith A believe X, and also believe that members of this group have always believed X" belong in the article on A, not X, and need a reference from the literature relevant to A, not some random blog kept by some self-identified adherent of A. -- dab (𒁳) 09:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

aye! -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 10:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi! According to WP:PSTS, "Primary sources are sources very close to the origin of a particular topic", eyewitness accounts and similar, while secondary sources are one stepped removed. So in religion, primary sources would describe revelation and other direct encounter experiences by people claiming to have had such experiences or people very close to them (e.g. the Gospels, the Prophets, etc.). Anything not claiming to represent direct experience (commentaries and the like) would be a secondary source. I couldn't find your view that secondary sources have to be academic or that all religious sources are primary in the WP:PSTS language. As to reliability, clearly the views of Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Moshe Feinstein, or the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards can easily be distinguished from "some random blog", and many organized, long-standing religions have academies and other ways of determining who is regarded as an expert. Finally, I don't understand why religion isn't, like science, both a subject and a point of view. My understanding here is that points of view become significant not based on their truth but by the extent to which they have influenced thought and culture - the extent to which they're discussed, not the extent to which they're agreed with. And for better or for worse there are many subjects on which religion and religious views have had a lot of influence and been part of a lot of discussions. My understanding is that "Muddle-headed cultural relativism" is essentially what WP:NPOV is about. If we don't want it, perhaps we should drop the policy entirely. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 12:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Two points: first, I strongly disagree with dab and Francis Schonken that accounts by religious people about their own religion are primary sources. They confuse kinds of sources for kinds of views. My book about an indigenous group in South American is not a secondary source because I am not indigenous. It is a secondary source beause in that book I use a particular methodological and theoretical framework to reflect on and analyze primary accounts of the indigenous culture. It is the methodological and theoretical frameworks that make my view an "anthropological" view, not the fact that I am non-indigenous. As a Jew, if I were to reflect on and analyze Jewish primary sources using the same methodological and theoretical framework, my view would still be anthropological and my essay a secondary source. Now, a religious Jew can also reflect on and analyze primary Jewish texts. Their methodological and theoretical framework is different from that of an anthropologist, so they are expressing a different view. But their analysis of primary sources itself still constitutes a secondary source.

Second, I think Shirahadasha introduces an essential element when he brings up WP:WEIGHT. I have no concerns about coddling religious people; NPOV insists that all notable views be represented no matter how wrong we think they are, I see no problem in applying this to religious views as much as anthropological views. My only concern - and I would ask Shirahadasha to incorporate the language about WEIGHT or FRINGE into the proposed change - is that people may misread the proposal to say that all religious views should be included. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I am actually arguing for "muddle headed cultural relativism" or indeed any kind of relativism. I agree with dab about preferring academic sources and that that includes works of theology. A useful question to ask when encountering difficult NPOV questions is "what discipline does this article belong to?". There will always, I think, be one or more academic disciplines, for example the study of Pokemon belongs to cultural studies, the study of Greenpeace belongs to political science or political sociology, the study of the Moon belongs to astronomy. That helps us to identify the relevant sources and scholars in the field. However, academic disciplines are not only delineated by their subject matter but also by their research questions and their methods. So an economist comes to the study of anthropogenic global warming with a completely different set of questions to a climate scientist. Hence many academic disputes and disagreements that we end up having to unravel. One way is to separate knowledge emanating from different disciplines into separate articles or sections - e.g. there is a whole lot to say about the Moon in culture and it is easily split off from the astronomy. But sometimes that won't work at all because there has been a to-and-fro of argument between scholars from different perspectives, as in my example above of an anthropologist and a theologian disagreeing. That's as far as I can get with the problem at the moment. Very interesting thread. Itsmejudith ( talk) 15:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I realize "scholarly" can have multiple meanings. It can mean a depth and breadth of knowledge, a practice of studying and reflecting on texts, or a particular approach. As a concrete example, Moshe Feinstein is an interesting test case because he had some dealings with both worlds: his writings on medical ethics questions in particular became of interest to university-based bioethicists, while his opinions and decisions on a wider variety of religious subjects became authoratative within a certain religious world. In one view, his reputation within his religious community is essentially worthless and his reliability derives solely from the fact that university-based scholars found him interesting on a small part of his writings. In a different view, his reputation within his religious community for carefully checking and thoughtfully assessing the various religious commentators and precedents, the extent to which his writings were published, studied, commented on, and cited in the religious world and the degree of respect in that world even his innovative opinions tended to have, is relevant to assessing his reliability on religious subjects. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:58, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Tone: Unfair treatment?

Whereas previous long-standing language specifically called for "fairness" of tone and called for "sensitive" treatment of viewpoints one might disagree with, the current revision does the opposite and includes languague indicating that points of view shouldn't necessarily be treated fairly. Why in the world should we specifically provide for unfair treatment? I would recommend removing that language and coming up with a way of phrasing the policy that avoids saying we won't be fair. The intent of the policy was to present different sides' views in a way that presented their best arguments (from a viewpoint reflecting and fairly presenting what the viewpoint has to say and why people who believe that viewpoint hold it) rather than through the voices of critics or in a manner that strongly suggests no serious person would believe it. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 19:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(original post; edit conflict)

The problem with 'fairness' as you describe it is that we need to maintain a balance between two competing interests and still satisfy the requirements of being encyclopedic. On the one hand, we have the majority, mainstream opinion, and on the other we have all of the schools of thought that are not in the majority. Based upon our three core content policies, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V we have to balance our interest with informing the reader about various groups and opinions with what we can verify and source. Since it is weight in sources that determines what is considered 'mainstream' or 'fringe' we also have an obligation to inform the reader about how 'weighty' in terms of reliable sources each set of arguments or schools of thought is. To that end we have to balance the requirement of informing the reader about a topic while not presenting the idea that all schools of thought are considered equal by the pool of reliable sources. Wikipedia does not treat topics fairly, it treats them neutrally. In relationship to the opinions of various groups on a given topic, neutral treatment means detail proportional to coverage in reliable sources. In articles dedicated to the groups holding those opinions NOTPAPER|there is no limit to the amount of detail that can be included, and so the groups' views can be presented fully. (As long as the presentation meets WP:V, WP:SOAP, WP:NOR) HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:23, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(OP changed statement, newer response)

Are you refering to the representations of an opinion in an article on another topic, or the opinion as held in an article dedicated to a group itself? Let's examine each case: In the case of reporting what group G believes about topic T, we report proportionally to representation in a reliable sources. We also use the best sources available. Next, in an article on group G, we report what the group believes, presenting all relevant, encyclopedic facts necessary to give a reader a clear understanding of the topic. For this, there is no limit to the amount of detail we can present (See WP:PRESERVE, WP:UNDUE, and WP:NOTPAPER) but it all must be verifiable. Since per WP:V the only inclusion we can justify is reliable sources, then if the only reliable sources publishing on a group's beliefs are the voices of critics, then that is how the article will read. Remember, the world at large is not 'fair' and we go not manufacture equality, we simply present the best arguments and how reliable sources react to them. If the only reliable sources of a group's opinions are criticisms, then the article will be critical. HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Shirahadasha - I just recently added the statement you're complaining about, partly in response to various concerns expressed here that this section would be used to demand 'equal rights' for minority positions, and partly as a prelude to adding a bit about treating all positions civilly. haven't gotten to the second part of that yet, though. let me try to do that now and see it that satisfies your concerns. -- Ludwigs2 20:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I think "civilly" is a useful adjective. In my view the WP:WEIGHT section indicates we don't give every view the same quantity of exposure, but the intent of the tone section is to try to give every view a similar quality of exposure within the space available. As long as we clarify that what we're trying to do here is present every view with a similar encyclopedic level of polish (or "sizzle"), we can avoid creating an obligation to give every view the same amount of real estate (or "steak"). I hope this helps convey the distinction I'm trying to make. In any event, saying we won't be fair strikes me as unwise -- I'm sure things can be said some other way. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 20:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I've made the revision - see if it works. and let me say that I agree with you, but there's a contingent of editors who seem obsessed with the wp:weight duplication - every time I've suggested revising it, they object (I'm not sure why, really...). I just thought it was easier to keep it and work it in rather than bump heads over it. -- Ludwigs2 21:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
It does look better! Perhaps talking just a little bit more about what the policy is, and a bit less about what it isn't, might help, something like:.

::::Editors should be careful not to imply judgements or conclusions that go beyond what is present in verified sources and to present each view with a similarly neutral, polished, encyclopedic, and perceptive tone, even though not every view should get equal space, or be treated as equal to every other view, and even though extreme minority views should generally not be presented at all.

This way, the tone section also gets to describe the desired tone a bit more fully. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
well, that's kind of a run-on sentence...  :-) maybe this?

Editors should be careful not to imply judgements or conclusions that go beyond what is present in verified sources. They should present each view with a similarly neutral, polished, encyclopedic, and perceptive tone. This does not mean that every view should get equal space or be treated as equal to every other view, or even that all views have a right be presented (see undue weight); It means that where there is a debate about bias that cannot be resolved through other policies, editors should err on the side of caution, using the most civil and innocuous tone possible to convey the sourced information.

I think it's good to highlight the 'does not mean' part, to preclude some painfully silly arguments about including things that just don't belong on the grounds of fairness, but... and feel free to go ahead and edit it in yourself - that's how the process should work.  :-) -- Ludwigs2 21:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. I prefer your wording to the recent edit. Since there's been a recent edit about unrsolvable disputes, why not retain the language about civility without having to know whether a dispute will eventually be resolved or not:

Editors should be careful not to imply judgements or conclusions that go beyond what is present in verified sources. They should present each view with a similarly neutral, polished, encyclopedic, and perceptive tone. This does not mean that every view should get equal space or be treated as equal to every other view, or even that all views have a right be presented (see undue weight); In the presence of disputes, editors should err on the side of caution, using the most civil and innocuous tone possible to convey the sourced information.

-- Shirahadasha ( talk) 23:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "perceptive", since perception is the art of seeing WP:TRUTH. "Innocuous" is also misleading; the writing should not seek to be either weak or meek or unclear. It is possible to be diplomatic without sounding like a politician avoiding a question.
My main concern about making the tone section too "nice" is that it will invite people whining about tone instead of actually working on content of articles. If a view is overstated, the proper response should always be to provide evidence that it is overstated, not complain about tone. SDY ( talk) 01:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
SDY - again, without totally disagreeing with you, the problem here is that issues of tone can rarely be resolved with evidence (if they could, they wouldn't be issues of tone, but rather issues of verifiable sourcing). for instance, if you say "most scientists reject a fringe theory" and I say "most scientists haven't bothered to look at a fringe theory", how could we possibly find evidence to resolve that? the difference is in the implication we're making of scientists' attitudes, and that's probably not reliably sourced anywhere (unless some social scientist went and did a survey...). my firm belief is that WP needs to err on the side of caution when implying attitudes, and that's a question of how we tone things to imply attitudes. better to be nice and look wimpy then to be forceful and look biased... -- Ludwigs2 17:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
We do need to err on the side of caution, but not to the point of being nauseatingly bland. If people are offended by Scientology that others call it a "Dangerous Cult", I'm afraid it's not Wikipedia's duty to mollify their hurt feelings. We should take care not to overstate, but if the facts are harsh, that does not change our duty to report the facts without editorializing them into kind and fluffy nothingness.
What I think is the problem here is that some people want fairness of tone to mean kindness of tone, which is totally inappropriate for a neutral encyclopedia. SDY ( talk) 01:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
no, SDY, the only problem we're having here is that you and a bunch of other editors (for reasons that escape me utterly) fail to make any distinction between statements as presented in sources and statements as used by editors. if reliable source John Q says "Scientology is a Dangerous Cult" (and we assume here that John Q, as a reliable source, has reasons for saying that other than a dislike of Scientology), then that's a reliable source, and I don't care how much scientologists don't like it, it has to be included. but if wikipedia editor Jane Z (who doesn't like Scientology at all, because her husband dumped her for some scientologist hussy) decides to rebuild the entire scientology article around this quote, that's not neutral. and if you think that doesn't happen every day on wikipedia, I'm going to start calling you Mr Magoo. stop denying the problem, and start trying to work through to some solution that will satisfy us both. -- Ludwigs2 01:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Even if John Q has no reasons other than that he doesn't like it, as long as he is not given undue weight in the article (i.e. he is a notable representative of a substantial popular view). Basing the article around it would give that view undue weight.

Wikipedia is not a sugar-coated lollipop of happiness and free exchange of ideas. I believe that WP:CIVIL applies to the topic of articles, but there is a difference between being civil and being nice. Mr. Magoo ( talk) 01:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Structure of tone section needs to focus on tone

When discussing the tone section of this core policy, I have noticed that we are wasting too much time alluding to other pieces of policies to resolve potential disputes. This is the exact opposite of the approach we need to be taking. If our knee-jerk reaction is to fix every possible conflict of our wording of the tone section by heaping on references to other policies, what we'll eventually end up with is a section that just references every wikipedia policy and helps nobody.

To create a good tone section, and to solve the problems it needs to solve, we need to identify wording situations that meet all of the core content policies and are defensible in terms of all other policies and guidelines and still maintain non-neutral tone. The situation with WP:UNDUE is a perfect example; the edit summary "moving unnecessary extra facts from "Views on X" section to appropriate section on group G per WP:UNDUE" is a perfectly good edit summary, and will not be strengthened by trying to somehow modify or clarify tone. If there is a problem with tone, fine, but let's not waste our time using tone as a commentary section on other sections.

We'll be better served by keeping the tone section stand-alone. Perhaps one of the first sections of tone should be: "Tone is highly subjective; if editors run across a section whose tone they disagree with, they should first consult the WP:List of policies and see if the section violates one of those." Then we can go into how a section could have non-neutral tone without technically violating a policy. I can think of a few:

  1. An article could present all relevant facts about group G's opinions on a topic in terms of attributed critical quotes from reliable sources when both sympathetic and critical reliable sources are available. While this technically gives the reader the required facts about G's views, this can prejudice the reader that all coverage is critical, or sidetrack from the intent of the section, which is to provide G's views on X.
  2. An article could present weaker arguments or weaker details rather than stronger arguments and details in a section that otherwise represents the views fairly. While all of the details and arguments merit inclusion in group G's article, the winnowing of what to include in article X was done to select unfairly against G.
  3. In a long-running debate, an article could present old-arguments that have been thoroughly rehashed. This is particularly dangerous in cases of long-running debates between pseudoscientific groups and mainstream science. The pseudoscientific authors will continuously change, refine, and contort their arguments to avoid older scientific counter-arguments. At the same time, both sides of such debates will frame arguments in terms of thoroughly destroying an older source (Lee strobel going after Origin of Species while completely ignoring 150 years of evolution research anyone?). Failing to present latest arguments, or give an accurate snapshot of the current nature of a debate is also bad, but may also be properly weighted, sourced, attributed, and verifiable.

Please add other situations where an article is non-neutral in its tone while still meeting all other criteria. We should keep in mind that it is easy to quote other core policy sections to clean up articles, we don't need tone as well, we should keep tone focussed on tone. HatlessAtless ( talk) 01:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Tone is a very nebulous thing in a written encyclopedia. If this were a spoken encyclopedia, a section on tone would look much different and probably be a lot bigger. As it is, people interpret tone into wording. We must acknowledge that lots of interpretations exist. However, just because it is possible to interpret a certain sentence having a certain tone doesn't necessarily mean that the sentence has that tone. We should avoid obvious instances of sarcastic derision of ideas within article text, for example, but there are occasions where people react to perceived tone by rewording an article to a state that is not NPOV. This is the stickiness. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think we should go for more here than simply avoiding sarcastic derision. I'd suggest that WP:WEIGHT addresses the quantity of "steak" that different views get, but tone addresses the quality of the "sizzle". Even where the quantities should not be the same, there should a qualitative similarity in that each gets its best arguments and sources and a respectful and civil presentation, words are chosen that avoid disparagement, the overall tone is encyclopedic/reflective/perceptive/somewhat tolerant, the presentation ideally should have a certain polish, etc. The sizzle can be as important as the steak. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 01:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Civility in the tone of sources would be an issue for WP:RS, not here. If you think that choosing certain sources would violate NPOV then you are putting the editorializing before the research. That's backwards. What happens first is a collection of all the sources. Then people debate the reliability and prominence of the sources. Then those sources are characterized. Excluding sources because we don't like their tone is inappropriate. The tone of the text that we use to frame sourcing should be dispassionate, of course, but the tone of sources is not something that NPOV ever touches on. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
SA nailed it on the head here. There are plenty of ways to handle even the most openly POV of sources, even going so far as to neutrally word the source. We can attribute statements, even paraphrase instead of quote if necessary. That is handled in WP:NOR and in several of the cases in the conflict section of NPOV. My primary thought about tone is to provoke discussion of this type. Different readers will interpret different sections in different ways. Really, I think a tone should be less about identifying or correcting "POV tone" (since I think in almost all cases, POV tone in reality violates some other core content policy), but more about admonishing editors to be sensitive to the feelings of those readers who have beliefs and worldviews being challenged by the editor's sourcing, and to try to write in a way that won't offend them. That simple principle really does all we need to do for tone, everything else is covered in WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOTPAPER, WP:PRESERVE and WP:WEIGHT. HatlessAtless ( talk) 02:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
The "tone" of Wikipedia has little to do with watering down or applifying other people's views on topics and a lot to do with separating those voices from Wikipedia's voice. Other places may have strong views. Other places may have weaker views. The point is that they shouldn't be Wikipedia's views. We have numerous policies and guidelines. This one is just about tone. All tone is is describing disputes without engaging in them (lifed off the NPOV/FAQ page). It doesn't take a lot to say that. Describe people's views accurately and without misrepresentation, and (as the NPOV/FAQ page also says) "all the major participants will agree that their views are presented sympathetically and comprehensively." That's neutral tone. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 02:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Nealparr, we're in agreement in here. My only qualification to that statement is that I would argue that a polemic secondary source does not need to be quoted to have its view properly represented. It would not be misrepresenting a source to rephrase disdainful language into something more encyclopedic while preserving the facts the source includes, in the interest of keeping an overall impartial tone of a section. "The point is that they shouldn't be Wikipedia's views." I agree, but this also applies to "Their words shouldn't necessarily be Wikipedia's words" either. As long as we're in agreement that the exact wording a source uses in presenting its facts may not be appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia, the rest of your statement I 100% agree with. HatlessAtless ( talk) 03:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Possibly a polemic source may not need to be quoted. Then again, possibly it might. Sometimes accurately describing a really strong view requires us to demonstrate how polemical they are in the spirit of "let the facts speak for themselves" through a direct quote. An example would be (what most consider to be the really messed up) views of the Westboro Baptist Church. We could water down their poster slogans, or we can let them speak for themselves. Likewise, we could water down the critical response they've received, or we could let those views speak for themselves. If an overwhelming emotional response of complete disdain for such views as the Westboro Baptist Church exist, and are notable, it may actually be biased to quote WBC and not quote the disdainful language of the respondents. The disdainful language may be a notable fact about the opinion.
Who knows what's appropriate quoting/language until we're down in the trenches working on an article and have to make the call. It's a case by case basis. I think, considering this is core policy, a prime directive from which guidelines spring, we shouldn't be telling editors to water down other people's language through rephrasing. We should keep it about what NPOV really is, not taking sides, being impartial in tone, not watering down or rephrasing a source's tone. A source's tone is not Wikipedia's tone.
Their words shouldn't necessarily be Wikipedia's words, but the same is true in reverse. Their words shouldn't necessarily be excluded from Wikipedia because they're not impartial. As long as Wikipedia impartially presents the partial view, Wikipedia is neutral. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 04:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Impartial tone examples...
Example 1:
  • View A: WBC has stated that they don't like homosexuals.
  • View B: The homosexual community has stated that they don't like religious intolerance.
Impartial. Both views are presented with an unbiased, watered down tone. It may not be an accurate representation of the strongly held views, but at least it's impartial in tone.
Example 2:
  • View A: WBC has stated that "God Hates Fags".
  • View B: A representative of the homosexual community responded "Those bigots can go fuck themselves".
Impartial. Both views are presented with an unbiased, strongly worded tone. It may not be "sensitive", but it's fair, impartial, and in many ways a more accurate representation of the strongly held views, in the interest of letting the facts speak for themselves.
Both examples are completely neutral and impartial. We don't need to water down other people's views to be neutral, and we don't necessarily need to be "sensitive". We just have to be consistent in tone, applying tones to views unbiasedly. It's an editorial judgement on which of the above is more encyclopedic, but that's a style guideline, not a neutrality policy. WP:NOTCENSORED is just as much a policy as NPOV. "Not censored" pretty much implies that "sensitive" may not always be realistic. Here, in NPOV, we're only concerned with being unbiased. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 04:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Though in your case of the WBC, I'll point out two things. First, as a fringe group whose views are not taken seriously by reliable sources, we would generally not expect their views to be represented in wikipedia at large. Secondly, the WBC is notable primarily for the level of sheer hate, invective and provocation in their slogans. In most cases, especially cases of scientific, or pseudoscientific arguments that claim to be 'rational', the arguments do not need to include invective to represent the arguments fairly. Just because a scientist describes the 'misguided' views of people who believe in ID just before taking apart an argument presented by an ID supporter does not mean that the scientific argument contains the word 'misguided'. I agree that we shouldn't worry about censoring ourselves, as you so aptly pointed out with WP:NOTCENSORED, but by the same token, invoking WP:NOTCENSORED should never be an excuse to avoid asking "do we really need that inflammatory wording to faithfully convey the argument?" In the case of the WBC, the answer is yes. In the case of a scientific argument about ID, probably not. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:47, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
They're just two examples out of dozens of case scenarios. As much as scientists and IDers don't get along philosophically, they're much more civil with each other. One may call the other a "crank" (not a particularly impassioned view) and the other might respond with a "reductionist" name-calling. It's not really watering it down to describe the views in more traditional-encyclopedic language. (But again, that's not an issue of neutrality if we're consistent with both sides, my overall point. That's a style guideline, not a neutrality policy. If we're inflammatory with both sides of the dispute, we're neutral, eventhough we're pretty crappy as far as encyclopedias go -- tabloid-like.) -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 06:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
That is actually somewhat of my point. It is possible to find reliable sources and texts on an argument whose overall tone is civil, but specific sources or parts of sources do in fact delve into some pretty nasty language. In the case of the overall civil debate about ID, for example, in The God Delusion, towards the end Dawkins goes into some pretty nasty arguments about how all religious thinkers are mentally diseased and such. I have also read some ID/creationist arguments making some pretty nasty fire-and-brimstone statements about scientists, pushing it far beyond just 'reductionist name calling'. Do we really need to quote Dawkins talking about how anyone who believes in God needs psychiatric help, in order to properly represent the scientific arguments he makes against ID? Just as we shouldn't water things down in the interest of maintaining fidelity to relevant arguments, neither should we include extra inflammatory language unless it is necessary to the fidelity of the argument. But then again, it seems we're in agreement about what we're trying to achieve and what we have to balance. HatlessAtless ( talk) 06:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Do we need to quote Dawkins talking about how anyone who believes in God needs psychiatric help? Absolutely! It's a mischaracterization to quote him as an unbiased expert on the relationship between science and religion when he's anything but, and his more civil comments obscure the fact that he actually feels religious adherents are delusional. Let the facts speak for themselves. I don't particularly care for Dawkins exactly because he personalizes the issue, draws the conclusion that science = atheism, when that's not necessarily true, and uses shock tactics in his critique of religion (like calling his book The God Delusion). Not including that information misinforms the reader. He's notable enough to include in the topic of ID, we don't want to exclude him just because he's polemic, and we don't want to misrepresent him. Cherry-picking his civil comments out of his overall view goes beyond neutrality issues into mischaracterization of sources. You do not want to be saying in core policy to ignore notable facts about a view to make the source seem neutral, when the goal is to make Wikipedia neutral, not the sources. If the source isn't neutral there are several ways of making Wikipedia neutral anyway. First and foremost, point out the bias. Eg. "Richard Dawkins, a popular science writer and self-described atheist, has stated that 'religion is a mental disease'". There is nothing non-neutral about that. Wikipedia neither endorses nor rejects it. Further, Wikipedia clearly stated that Richard Dawkins has biases on the topic and is not impartial. He's an atheist. What Wikipedia did not do is mischaracterize Richard Dawkins by cherry-picking just his civil comments and ignoring that he actually feels religion is a mental disease. By all means, quote the head notable creationist saying Dawkins is going to hell too, or quote Dawkin's critics as saying he's too harsh, add further details for a well rounded article. Just don't misquote anyone. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 16:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


Ahh, but here we end up in the same place again, from different routes. The relevant fact, that Dawkins claims religion is a mental disease, is quite different from the actual text of the book. You quoted Dawkins in a very neutral way, and did not try to insert his polemic into the article. This is what I'd rather incorporate than more biased language. We may or may not disagree on how relevant Dawkins' biased claims are in the context of ID, and how they should fit in the article. Point being that his statements are contextualized and attributed, which takes the teeth out of the POVness of Dawkins's statements. The inappropriate form would be something like "A leading evolutionary biologist has claimed 'religion is a mental disease' and 'teaching religion in schools should be outlawed as child abuse'", as that neither contextualizes nor attributes the quotation. In my mind, paraphrasing a source's statement to make it neutral is one method that can be used, like attribution/contextualization, to make almost anything neutral, as long as it is done carefully and faithfully to the facts being presented. Notice that in your own statement, you only used a 3-word quote from Dawkins instead of a hypothetical block-quote, and you took care to alert the reader before the quote that they were about to read something polemic and to be aware of that. That is exactly what readers should be doing, as you gave the taste of the poison while keeping it harmless. Bravo! HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks : ) But I should say that "mental disease" was just an example. I wasn't actually quoting him, and wasn't trying to neutralize his words. It was a hypothetical quote. If he said "religious adherents should be beaten to death with a hammer, sliced into tiny bits, boiled in a huge kettle, and scattered to the ends of the earth", the same principles apply. Dawkins tone isn't Wikipedia's tone and the core policy shouldn't direct editors to tone down the source's rhetoric. There's plenty of other ways to make the article neutral. Any of Dawkin's quotes at Wikiquote [9] (even the really mean ones) could be neutrally included in an article so that Wikipedia's tone is neutral. Wikipedia doesn't have to sugar-coat it to be neutral. This first quote [10] (for example) is a really harsh, some may even say offensive, view of God. Nonetheless, Wikipedia could easily include it and remain neutral without changing the quote at all. Should we include the quote, should we not include it, is based on other criteria (like relevance), not neutrality, because we can always neutrally include it. Dawkin's tone isn't Wikipedia's tone. Source's tones have nothing to do with NPOV policy. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 21:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
An example of where Dawkin's harsh "God quote" would be relevant may be in his own article, or in an article like New Atheist views on God. Point is that it's relevance that includes or excludes the quote, not Wikipedia's desire for a neutral tone. Relevance applies to the Westboro Baptist Church scenario also, as well as any other article where strong views are by prominence very relevant in the article. Accurately describing strong, harsh, or offensive views is all about relevance. When the harsh view isn't particularly relevant, it's not necessary to include it. When it is relevant, it is necessary to include it. None of that has anything to do with Wikipedia's tone. If wording were included in Wikipedia's tone policy that said "strive to pick the most neutrally toned sources or neutrally toned parts of sources, or reword sources so that they are more neutral", we're automatically either misrepresenting offensive views or mischaracterizing them as "not that bad". We'd be excluding them even when they are the most relevant part of an article. Whereas if we word it as "keep Wikipedia's tone impartial", we're correctly talking about Wikipedia's tone, and we're encompassing all the various views out there no matter how offensive they may be and safeguarding inclusion when they are relevant. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 22:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

At which point we come to perfect agreement. I think between the two of our statements we have expressed the balance of neutrality pretty well. Sometimes it is necessary to water down statements to eliminate unnecessary polemic, sometimes the polemic needs to be included to clarify a position and let the facts speak for themselves. I was certainly not stating that we need to exclude polemic in all cases, but simply that we must consider wording of fact and statement to be one of the points for tweaking to make an article neutral (while scrupulously maintaining the factual content). If the polemic is inextricably tied to the factual content, so be it, as you've pointed out so effectively. This will not be true of all cases, however, and we will have to work article by article to determine whether polemic is necessary to represent strongly held beliefs or simply extraneous to the arguments at hand. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with that. The principles and examples I listed were also a response to some of the comments I read above that seemed to suggest we should avoid strong language as a general rule, all the time. Maybe, maybe not, but that's not an issue of neutrality. As long as we're consistent and impartial, for the purposes of neutrality it doesn't matter what language we use, the tone is neutral. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 05:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd agree with this as well. so the question now, is how do we capture this in a policy statement? -- Ludwigs2 18:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we attempt to describe what we mean by tone, which in my view includes the style and by which material should be described. It includes covering the subject in an encyclopedic style and manner, in a measured way that attempts to shed light rather than simply amplifying heat. This remains the case even when we're using sources that are themselves bitter and partisan. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
That's again, style, not neutrality. This is NPOV. What we mean by tone is "impartial and unbiased". What we mean is "Wikipedia describes disputes, not engages in them." That's not a style guideline. Sources will be bitter and partisan in many cases. Core policy needs to be able to handle those cases just as much as it is able to handle not so strong or not so offensive views. Core policy must allow for accurate descriptions of offensive views when they are relevant to the topic. Views stand on their own merits. Any attempt by Wikipedia to neutralize or tone down other's views is engaging the views, which isn't neutral. When you say we shouldn't "amplify heat", I agree, but I must also say we're not here to turn down the heat either. If the burner's already on, turning them down is engaging in the dispute. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 22:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been looking around and I can't seem to find any policy that says we need to "tone down" source's views to achieve neutrality. I find policies that require us to be impartial and unbiased, consistent, true to the source, not cherry-pick details, be fair, be civil with each other, things like that, but nothing that directs us to reword sources so that they themselves are "sensitive" or "gentle" on the topic. We're directed through a content guideline ( WP:RS) that extreme sources aren't the most reliable, which is kind of obvious, but it's a content guideline (lesser importance) written from the standpoint that such extreme views are minority views less likely to be relevant to the topic, and in fact must be directly relevant to be used. It's about relevancy, not neutrality. There's nothing about toning down viewpoints in sources as a criteria for neutrality in any policy or guideline that I can find. We're directed to be neutral in our language. We're not directed to water down strong views, or exclude them, when they're relevant or notable. Since I'm falable and may have overlooked something, has anyone else seen anything like that? -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 03:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

now (maybe) you're beginning to see why I think it's important to keep (and maybe amplify) this policy section. there are hints to this all through NPOV (where they talk about fairness, and the avoidance of moralizing, and the encouragement of 'intellectual independence' - all of which point towards a less absolute tone about things) but you['re right, there's nothing direct. that's what we need to develop here.
Look, let's forget about editors and editing for just a moment, and think about readers. if a reader comes to wikipedia, starts browsing an article, and finds himself saying 'Good God, they're really kicking the crap (or sucking the hell) out of this topic' that is generically bad for wikipedia. there are no redeeming qualities to it at all. the reader isn't going to care that it's well-sourced, because the reader isn't going to know that it's well-sourced or even know what well-sourced means. the reader might approve or disapprove of the fact that some topic got kicked around (or generously lipped), and so he might like or dislike wikipedia for wikipedia's particular bias in that case, but either way he's not going to think wikipedia is a respectable source for information. At some point we have to stop and step back an judge whether we sound like we're kissing or kicking the topic's a$$, and if we do sound that way we need to remedy it regardless of other factors, because if we don't then nobody is going to take wikipedia seriously for anything. that is the nature of the beast we're working on. all of this squabbling over policy is worse than useless if readers walk away from their computers thinking wikipedia is a hack, yah? -- Ludwigs2 06:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, those are content issues, not neutrality issues. What you're talking about makes for a very good essay, perhaps WP:RELIABLETONE, not to be confused with WP:NPOV, which is just about separating Wikipedia from the dispute, preventing Wikipedia from being part of it. Core policy presents principles and directives by which content guidelines are written. We don't have to promote choosing strong or harsh wording from sources when its not appropriate, but we do have to prevent precluding inflammatory or offensive tones existing in sources when it is actually appropriate and relevant to include it, simply by having "no comment" on it. No comment because it's not a neutrality issue. Harsh wording can entirely be neutral when it is appropriate and relevant. Several other content guidelines (like WP:RS) decide when it is appropriate and relevant. Possibly a WP:RELIABLETONE can even help with that. NPOV, a non-negotiable core policy, cannot cause censorship of relevant and appropriate material in the interest of being "sensitive", especially when there's plenty of other ways to achieve neutrality. Neutrality is impartiality, not sensitivity. In many cases (including the scenarios I've listed, plus more), Wikipedia would be less reliable having excluded such notable and relevant information. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Clarity: As a non-negotiable core policy that users are expected to abide by, what we currently have (as of this timestamp) is a policy that directs us to be "impartial" in tone. This applies to all case scenarios. If an article is inappropriately using sources that are harsh in tone, it applies. If an article is appropriately using sources that are harsh in tone, it applies. If an article is being inappropriate in choosing sources or comments from sources, we are not being impartial. If an article is appropriately choosing sources or comments from sources, we are being impartial. Above you said we should be looking for "less absolute tone about things". I feel that starts with core policy. Core policy should apply to everything if users are expected to abide by it. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Neal - let me just preface this by noting that I've been wrestling with ScienceApologist over on QuackWatch as he keeps trying to add qualifiers to the sources critical of QuackWatch (e.g, 'David Hufford, professor emeritus of Humanities at...' becomes 'David Hufford, cultural apologist for alternative medicine and professor emeritus of Humanities at...' or in its current incarnation 'David Hufford, Professor Emeritus of Humanities at [...] and writer who generally supports viewing alternative medicine as just a different culture'). there's no secondary sourcing for this (SA is getting it himself from an inspection of Hufford's CV), and it is not merely a content issue - it's an atempt to shift Hufford from being presented as an (assumedly neutral) academic to being presented as an (assumedly biased) AltMed supporter. Now SA would never admit to this, of course, but I think it's clear on inspection that he is trying to use the tone of presentation to influence the balance of neutrality in the article.
in other words, don't tell me this is just a content issue - tone and neutrality are deeply intertwined.
now if it's your intention to tell me that core policy is only interested in the writing of articles, and has no interest in the reader whatsoever, I'd like to hear some justification for that. it seems completely absurd to me, since the product is designed to be read. I know (for a fact) that if wikipedia were a 'for sale' encyclopedia (like, say, the Britannica) 'Fairness of Tone' would be the kind of thing that writers and editors could lose their jobs over, because the publisher would not risk its profit margin by allowing even a whiff of bias to enter an article and queer sales. Wikipedia is free, and openly editable, and that suggests we ought to have stronger policies about fairness, not weaker (because we don't have much of an ability to fire or sanction people for not being fair). maybe you're right that an essay is in order (and I'll see if I can write one over the weekend), but regardless this goes (much) deeper than that, and really ought to have some presence in core policy. -- Ludwigs2 20:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Ludwigs. As you know, I'm involved in that very issue. But I'm not sure it's about "tone". It's more about poisoning the well. My way of thinking about "tone" is that it is essential to represent sources accurately. I found Neal's examples, a long way above, useful. Sometimes it is not enough to say "A disagreed with B" or "A criticized B". It could mislead the reader into thinking a major disagreement was just a minor difference. We might need to say something more like "A was sharply critical of B", or "A disagreed with B on every point" or "A wrote critically of B in strong terms". Or quoting the exact terms can be concise, vivid and accurate: "Dawkins described ID supporters as 'raving lunatics'" (example, I expect inter alia he did but can't check right now). Itsmejudith ( talk) 23:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia's NPOV policy care about readers? Absolutely. It cares because it wants to give readers all significantly related information about a topic, as impartially and unbiasedly as possible. That's the textbook definition of "fairness" [11] "marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism" and the spirit of fairness as well. Keyword: honesty. PT Barnum famously said "I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right." Fairness is getting it right. It doesn't matter what is said, as long as it's said with honesty and impartiality. Like Barnum, what readers probably want is the assurance that the views are presented accurately and honestly. Wikipedia cares about giving them what they probably want. Now an important distinction: Does Wikipedia give them what they want? Do readers really want honesty, or do they want the politically correct version? Here's where Wikipedia stops being concerned about what they want. Impartiality, unbiased, and yes, fairness, means readers will get complete honesty whether they want it or not. When relevant sources are not neutral, even mean, Wikipedia nonetheless publishes that with the same impartiality that they have for less controversial views.
About your beef with ScienceApologist. I have no idea whether David Hufford is "a writer who generally supports viewing alternative medicine as just a different culture". If there's a reliable source, it's relevant. If there's not, it's an unsourced statement issue. If (keyword: "if") there is a reliable source, the guy is biased to the topic. If we don't say he's biased, we're being biased ourselves. We're assuming a false-neutral tone, trying to make it seem like the guy is unbiased when he isn't. That's engaging in the dispute and being a party to it. We're misrepresenting Hufford. We describe disputes, including source's biases, we don't assume biases ourselves. You'd expect an article to say Martin Gardner is "a science writer who generally supports viewing alternative science as just pseudoscience", pointing out his biases, wouldn't you? -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 23:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Judith - we could work this argument, I suppose. I tend to see rhetorical tricks as a matter of tone as much as logic (as a close reading of Socrates will show you, the difference between rhetoric and reason is that rhetoric uses words to make a point, while reason finds a point and tries to fit words to it). at any rate, I don't disagree with you or Neal on this. I'm still trying to dig out the real issue for examination, I think...
Neal - now there's an interesting point here. is part of your worry having to do with political correctness? because believe me, I have no more use for political correctness than you do (my concerns here are ethical, not social). if that's true, then that might be a workable consideration - I think we may be able to weed out the let's not be mean to people because it's wrong attitudes and the let's be mean to people because we can attitudes in the same stroke.
though I have to point out that using PT Barnum (the man famous for saying 'there's a sucker born every minute') as an advocate for fairness is a bit on the ironic side.  :-)
the only reason I brought up the SA thing is to point out how squidgy these things can get. Hufford is an academic who has spent a lot of time writing about AltMed, no question; however, there are no sources that that have been presented which call him an 'AltMed advocate', much less a 'cultural apologist'. however, the response I've gotten from SA (and at least one other editor) is that a cursory glance at Hufford's writings makes it clear that he has a particular interest in AM, and that that should be pointed out. suddenly we're in a gray-zone: it's not quite fair to exclude any mention of his interest in AM (because it's so obvious in his work), but it is technically correct according to policy to exclude it entirely, because there's no secondary sourcing. I have to play hardball there despite my normal leanings towards 'fairness' (because I'll become a doormat if I don't, in this particular case), but can you see what I see in this example? -- Ludwigs2 02:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Preventing "let's be mean to people because we can" is already covered by WP:NPOV#Neutrality and verifiability. The issue is that NPOV is a non-negotiable core policy that everyone is expected to abide by. It shouldn't preclude certain language or tone when such sourced material is significantly relevant to the topic, ie. there's a good reason. WP:POINT edits are already excluded. It doesn't take an extensive "tone" section for that. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 04:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I wish that were true in practice, but obviously it's not. I've seen too many instances of editors pushing the limits every way they can. Look, Neal, I think this comes down to a simple difference of belief: you believe that all issues of bias can eventually be resolved through verifiable sourcing; I believe there's a large class of cases where sourcing isn't sufficient to eliminate bias. it seems to me that if you're right there is no harm in adding extra protections, and if I'm right there is certainly harm in not having those extra protections. no? -- Ludwigs2 18:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
In the spirit of OM's observation below, I'll keep it short and sweet. Point is: This is non-negotiable policy. Whatever it says, I and everyone else have to do. Whatever you put in, I have to do. Whatever I leave out, you don't have to do. Not a simple difference of belief. I'm allowing you your own belief, you're limiting mine. Wikipedia's non-negotiable rules are necessarily minimalistic. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 21:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
so if I put something in there that you have to do anyway (per other policies, in your view) then no harm; but if you leave out something that ought to be done but isn't covered by other policies, that's an opening for abuse. -- Ludwigs2 00:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Part 1: If it's something in other policies that isn't related to Wikipedia's impartial tone, and it goes in the impartial section, yes that would be harmful. Part 2: I haven't seen anything you mentioned that ought to be part of Wikipedia's non-negotiable tone policy. Everything you've mentioned so far is either already covered by policy, a bad idea, or not related to tone. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 01:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
read the full argument for the problem I noted above (no worries, it's short Talk:Quackwatch#David_Hufford). tell me that they are not arguing to to change the tone of the passage. -- Ludwigs2 01:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's the thing. I read the thread and still think it's either WP:OR if it's synthesis or mischaracterization of sources, or simple and fair WP:N if it is true to sources and his bias (if any) is notable (I'm not going to research the sources). I don't know anything about the guy and barely know anything about Quackwatch. I avoid AltMed articles. All I know is that it's not really a case that tone should be written around, because whatever policy is applicable to it makes the "tone dispute" obsolete. Even if it is a tone issue, and the tone is not impartial, you need do nothing more than appeal the current WP:NPOV#Impartial tone. It covers that clearly. It doesn't need to be rewritten to resolve that dispute one way or the other. Rewriting it in the middle of the dispute could actually hurt your case. What I would do is follow normal WP:DR; that is, post to the WP:NPOVN and WP:NORN noticeboards and ask for an RfC. Look for some outside input. A lot of editors may agree with you that the tone is not impartial. If so, they'd be using what we already have since it covers that. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 03:39, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

←This discussion has surpassed the minimum standards of WP:TLDR. I swear this is going in circles. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 09:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. if you're bored, stop reading; if you want us to be plainer in what we're saying, we could do that too. or did you have something else in mind? -- Ludwigs2 18:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Dave Matthews Band‎

Can someone please take a look at the Dave Matthews Band‎ article and see if the recent additions by an IP (which I have reverted... but unfortunately I'm out of reverts) of a fact tag after the rock descriptor in the lead is POV? Thanks. I've raised this on the talk page, but apparently, no one cares. Qb | your 2 cents 10:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanky much! Qb | your 2 cents 11:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Just to let ya'lls know... the IP is doing it again. Qb | your 2 cents 18:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
This isn't really the right place for this (read through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution), but I'll take a look. -- Ludwigs2 19:27, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Note on Balance

I used "balance" in this section in a non Wikipedia sense, but the use is confusing and as a Wikipedia term, incorrect. WP:Notability does not refer to material in the article but to criteria for the article's inclusion itself. Apologies. I am traveling and can't be on-line very often and for long so this is a stop gap edit. The section could be better explained.( olive ( talk) 19:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC))

This may be a better version than my edited earlier versions. Because there have been no comments on the changes I made earlier, I am adding this to the article where editing by other editors can take place directly if needed.( olive ( talk) 19:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC))
I'd like to reframe "Balance". Currently it's a reflection of WP:UNDUE, that is, it talks primarily about what should be done when there's a seriously disproportionate weight problem, like in the case of WP:FRINGE topics. It talks about a "primary view". Only in disproportionate balance scenarios is there a "primary view". In all other cases there's just two or more views with none more important than another. Example: Democrats vs. Republicans. There's no primary view there. Views aren't "equal" in some cases, but in many (bordering on most) cases they actually are. In most cases no one view is any more "primary" or important than another, they're just different. The balance section should point that out, point out that when competing views are proportionate that they should be allowed to compete on the same page (similar to the earlier wording that's been hacked up recently), with a special case for disproportionate views that references UNDUE. Ideally, UNDUE and "Balance" go hand in hand. They should really be a part of the same section, with a subsection that briefly covers when "all things are equal", share all views. It seems, at least to me, that editors who work primarily on controversial fringe articles have swarmed on this policy recently and edited it based on their experiences in the trenches of fringe articles. I'd like to restore the "Balance" section reminding people that most topics aren't fringe topics. NPOV isn't just about fringe topics. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 05:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
True enough, but generally most people don't reach for the policy unless something is actually disputed, so writing the policy with those situations in mind isn't totally inappropriate. Consider maybe splitting tone into a straight no-nonsense two sentence policy, and then have a separate guideline or some FAQ points on how to deal with the inevitable situations? SDY ( talk) 05:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Neal. I think you misunderstand what I wrote and that's fine. It means its not well written enough. I'm not a fringe editor so that slant doesn't really occur to me . What does seem to be even more fundamental than what you have written and which may remedy some of the problems "fringe" editors may have is that the article must deal first and most fundamentally with what the article is about, and that must weigh appropriately against any other information that references the topic, but is not about the topic. No Wikipedia policy exists in isolation and balance in any context be it here or in a lab or in a butcher's shop is about the distribution or placement of weight.
If you can turn your thinking inside out for a second, and see this as an attempt to get at the most fundamental aspect of balance and that is to deal with the artilce's topic as primary, and then to add secondary material rather than a way to protect fringe interests well that's what I'm getting at.
Another way of seeing this might be to think about the policy in two ways. One, as something an editor will look at in order to write an article, and two as place to come in case of dispute. If an editor is writing an article more fundamental information might be needed. The wording now, may only serve an editor in a dispute situation.( olive ( talk) 16:35, 25 July 2008 (UTC))
  1. ^ a
  2. ^ b
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Archive_33&oldid=1142664315"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


non-sequitur argument

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

No, the 1st sentence is NOT a Non sequitur (logic), the second clause is dependent on the first clause but not entirely so. This was addressed above but here we go again. "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view." This is not a non sequitur. That is, an article may well present all relevant points of view in a dispassionate manner and yet still be highly partisan but an article that does not use a "consistently dispassionate tone" will almost always be perceived as highly partisan. For it to be a non sequitur, one would have to claim that the second clause proves the first. That is, an article presents all relevant points of view but is still perceived as highly partisan, therefore the article does not use a consistently dispassionate tone. That is not the case here, the sentence merely says that without a consistently dispassionate tone the article will be perceived as partisan but having a dispassionate tone is not the sole criteria for a neutral characterization. Second sentence: Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized. I think the word "implied" should be replaced with "inferred", words can not imply anything a reader infers based upon their own POV. Third sentence: Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all notable positions. I would strike "proportionate" and replace "notable" with "relevant". Proportionate makes no sense in this context and notable is a loaded word around here. Relevant is much better, I think, as a position may be notable but still irrelevant to the subject of the article. That is, for example, Noam Chomsky's opinions on US foreign policy is notable but completely irrelevant to an article on foreign policy because Chomsky is a professor of linguistics and not a diplomat, poli/sci professor, historian, etc. The Discovery Institute has a notable position on biology but it is not relevant to an article about biology. With the aforementioned change in sentence 3, sentence 4 is fine. Can we put this to rest now? Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 15:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

As for point #1, The other things need not be included in this policy because the other needed things (other legs of the tripod if you will) are the policies on verifiability and original research. Taken together as a whole WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:N are what is needed to make a neutral article. L0b0t ( talk) 17:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

Synthesis of MC, SDY, HA, LW2 concerns

The line of conversation over the current MC-derivative version seems to be compounding into the current discussion, so I'm going to split this off to help MC/SA and LW2 find the current version when they come back online. Bold emphasis represents changes to MC version to capture primary concerns of LW2. I have modified slightly the wording of SDY for the consensus viewpoints, but trying to resolve wording I find I have concerns with.

"A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.

Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. Proper compliance with WP:WEIGHT is not a value judgement. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority views should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of large scientific consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect scientific consensus, as is documented in the official policy."

HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

  • As a follow on, I think that there would be a place for "If the primary source of an opinion contains value judgements, polemic, invective, or incivility, the opinion should be paraphrased neutrally and cited, rather than quoted." HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I would change this sentence "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view." to this "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles might end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view.". The addition of the qualifier "might" will obviate the IP's non sequitur concerns. L0b0t ( talk) 17:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

I'm not sure what Wikipedia:Consensus has to do with scientific consensus (except that they happen to both be consensus-es). :-P

That and NPOV is not exactly the same as SPOV. I think your version conflates the two? There are a number of people who don't quite understand the difference, and who manage to get themselves and wikipedia into trouble at times. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Kim - I second this, completely. I've been coming to realize myself how many people here confuse scientific objectivity with neutral point of view. they've obviously never seen an episode of "House".  :-) Scientific objectivity tries to make correct or useful statements about objects in the physical world; wikipedian neutrality tries to make balanced presentations of viewpoints in the social world. there's no valid logic that connects the two. -- Ludwigs2 18:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • ok, this is looking better to me, though I'd still like to contest a couple of points (summarized here, and included in the discussion above):
    • dispassionate (as I argue above) is actually a worse word than some cognate of 'fair' - there is just no measure of what is or is not dispassionate, and this will simply prompt edit wars of the I'm dispassionate, you're not variety. a word (maybe 'just' or 'equitable'?) that has some reference to group consensus would be far superior. not that I object to the word entirely, but as the sole measure it doesn't cut the mustard.
    • the line about minority views should read something like: "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented, they should neither be presented as equal to majority views, nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority." this ensures that WP:WEIGHT issues are satisfied in both directions - keeping the majority view as prominent without disparaging the minority view unduly.
    • I'd still like the excessive references to WP:WEIGHT brought under control. if I count correctly, there are two direct references and three indirect references to weight in the last paragraph alone. that's just silly, and poor writing to boot. -- Ludwigs2 18:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)


I take issue with the clause "nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority." that sounds like an invitation to trolls and POV pushers of all stripes, opening the floodgates to allow more warring by flat-earthers, creationists, we've never been to the mooners, holocaust deniers, and all the other improvident lack-wits of the world with an ideological axe to grind. Quite frankly, some views are incorrect and invalid and should be treated as such. Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 18:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
"Quite frankly, some views are incorrect and invalid and should be treated as such." Which is, of course, the opposite of NPOV. How do you determine which views are incorrect and invalid? -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The beauty of Wikipedia is that I don't have to. I have our core policies of WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:N to do this for me, I just report what is already written in reliable sources. In my view, the opposite of NPOV would be in giving deference to views that are incorrect and invalid. Neutrality means accurately reflecting realty, not tip-toeing around calling a spade a spade because a reader might get their feeling hurt by reading that their cherished misconception of reality is, in fact, a misconception of reality. L0b0t ( talk) 19:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
OMG! :-O . Please, the beauty of wikipedia is that you get to use your brain for a change! (aka. the pretty text is only there to help you).
NPOV is not about accurately reflecting reality (whatever that is), or even real knowledge (no clue here either), because that is a very hard thing to do, and not all wikipedians are high-falutin' philosophers. What we *can* do is accurately represent what people have been saying and writing about their views on reality. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 00:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC) ps, spades have historically been somewhat controversial? ^^;;
L0b0t - all of these 'bad people' you mentioned would be excluded by the first part of the passage: "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented..." which explicitly invokes WP:WEIGHT. nice straw-man argument, but it doesn't fly. now, can you think of some example(s) where a significant view on a topic (per WP:WEIGHT) should be presented as incorrect or invalid, just by virtue of being a minority view? and no neutrality does not mean 'actually reflecting reality' - that's what reliable sourcing does. neutrality means "representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views" - whoops, sorry, there's that dreadful 'fair' word again - lol.
honestly, L0b0t, it's beginning to sound like you have an axe to grind. is that the case? -- Ludwigs2 19:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's try this on for size then. I'm reducing the horse-beating of WP:Undue and I'm going to try to clean up the "consensus" part, and clear out the possible reading of this as equating the mainstream view as a neutral view (that was never my intent). I agree with both criticisms. Thanks for the feedback.

"A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently nonjudgmental tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.

Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy."

HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The language and sentiment looks good to me. ( reliable should have a period after it). SDY ( talk) 21:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • well, I could quibble (and probably will, but not any more today - lol). but this is definitely shaping up. -- Ludwigs2 23:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Misleading wording

" For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority." Eh? That's misleading at best. The article *does* mention the view that the earth is flat. It doesn't currently have any links directly to the flat earth society, but otoh, iirc that scoiety is historic atm, and thus best kept at flat earth. (So for practical reasons, not due to the reason mentioned here).

To amplify: I often use the fact that Earth does mention Flat Earth as the canonical example of our scrupulous adherence to NPOV!

And now that I re-read our section on undue weight... it's actually saying the opposite. I wonder how much this page still actually describes NPOV.

-- Kim Bruning ( talk) 18:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

How is the above misleading? The sole mention of "flat Earth" in the article Earth is the following sentence "In the ancient past there were varying levels of belief in a flat Earth, with the Mesopotamian culture portraying the world as a flat disk afloat in an ocean.", that's it, no mention whatsoever of any flat Earth beliefs from the past 2500 years. L0b0t ( talk) 19:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
well, that's probably a mistake from a historical perspective (there were a number of debates on this issue during the pre-colonial exploratory period, as well as all sorts of mythical constructs aside from mesopotamia). I'll check in there and see if sources need to be added. thanks. -- Ludwigs2 20:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it's more an editorial thing, we have several articles on flat earth now, so it could be thought to suffice to link to the main article on the matter now. The fun thing is that NPOV sometimes actually leads to more objective reporting on an issue. Careful examination of sources shows that the belief that people believed the earth was flat, is *itself* an incorrect belief. So L0b0t has shot himself in the foot, by promising to defend wikipedia against a myth, afaict ;-P. (that and wikipedia doesn't need defending against such people, wikipedia is not a battlefield. We just need to explain NPOV to them, provided that this page accurately represents it at the moment). -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 20:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
What a cool article, thanks for the link. I'm reading a book right now about Chinese circumnavigation of the globe in the 15th century. No, the history of humanity's understanding of our universe is something that should be written about extensively, including the beautiful myriad of cosmologies humans have invented throughout the ages. were it not for the presence of articles on flat Earth I would be in agreement with Ludwigs2 that the Earth article could use more mention of it. My objection would be to modern adherents of a flat Earth theory demanding that their beliefs be accorded space in an article about the Earth. Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 20:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
you know, L0b0t, I have to say that this is one of the things that pains me most about working on WP. I have absolutely no doubt that you and other editors argue in good faith, from a reasonable and sophisticated perspective, and I know that I do (as best I can). but I feel like I get caught up in arguments that are just carry-overs from arguments that have been had with other (long-gone) people. perfectly understandable, I suppose, and I don't know how it could be otherwise, but still... at any rate, yes, just know that I wouldn't want wikipedia to turn into wonkapedia any more than you would.  :-) -- Ludwigs2 21:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
and kim - there really is a push here to de-neutralize NPOV (probably unintentional, but still...). I've seen this happen in a number of different venues - once things that should be a matter of consensus are reduced to the 'purportedly' objective judgments of individuals, neutrality goes out the window (because neutrality is inherently based in consensus, and doesn't survive outside it). fortunately, common sense negates the problem in most practical cases, but it's still sad to see the ideal get worn down. -- Ludwigs2 20:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Usually it comes down to a question of "what is a fact?" v. "what is an opinion?" When the consensus is that a statement is a fact and others want to treat it as an opinion (or vice versa) we run into problems. In a legal setting, expert opinions are facts. In the realm of politics, facts are opinions. Wikipedia, like most of the human experience, is somewhere between these two extremes. SDY ( talk) 21:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
yeah, that makes sense. I guess my own bias is that I'd prefer that the answer to that question be negotiated rather than asserted. assertions are always going to boil down to a we're right, you're wrong, so be quiet thing that satisfies no one and makes the losers angry. seems to me that if you can say, instead: here are the facts we're working with, but there's some wiggle-room about how we're going to present them then the wiggle-room will get wiggled by all sides, and everyone will at least be happy that they got some say in the matter. -- Ludwigs2 21:58, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I sometimes see a conflict between "organization asserts X" versus "X is fact". That conflict seems to be the source of a lot of the issues Ludwigs is talking about, and that is the perspective I am taking when presenting my ideas for the neutral tone section wording. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's a question for this policy: should we attempt to define the characteristics of a fact as opposed to the characteristics of an opinion? Has it already been done? Philosophically the two are massive minefields. It might be more of a topic for an essay than a policy, but I think this conversation points out that it is not always obvious what is what. SDY ( talk) 22:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) wow, that is a minefield(s) - lol. you'd even have to extend it a bit. there's:
  • sourced objective facts (i.e. statements about the world that have physical evidence
  • sourced 'objective' opinions (i.e. statements experts make about their work which are not 'facts' but are generally accepted as true)
  • sourced 'subjective' opinions (i.e. statements people make which are significant and important, but are disputed by some)
  • unsourced 'subjective' opinions (i.e. pervasive attitudes or beliefs that really shouldn't be in wikipedia but probably influence lots of editors, one way or another...)
but now that you mention it, maybe I should do some essay writing. lord knows I'm halfway there already with the arguments I make, and essays might annoy people less. hmmmm... -- Ludwigs2 23:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I generally don't see a problem of that type. If I have a reliable source that group G asserts statement S, then we can reasonably take as fact that "group G asserts statement S". The issue is that, unless broad consensus agrees, S may not be a fact. The key here is that for neutral tone, as long as we keep the caveat that "mainstream science consensus is S", "Major minority opinion asserts M" etc, we shouldn't have to worry about "fact vs opinion". Arguing too much about "fact" invites arguments and value judgments, and unless consensus is reached, they should stay as cited assertions, not cited facts. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
well, there is a problem, particularly with science, of over-attributing. for instance the claim 'group G asserts statement S' is fine in and of itself, but when group G is scientists, there's a tendency to assume that statement S is true and any other statement is false, even when the statement has nothing to do with science at all. it's the old '4 out of 5 dentists say...' thing: 5 out of 5 dentists want you to brush your teeth, and none of them care which toothpaste you use, but the reference to experts is convincing in and of itself. plus, I've seen editors play it up that way, particularly on fringe theories (where it sometimes seems that the opinion of anyone with any kind of PhD trumps everything else - I call that the Martin Gardner Syndrome :-) ). -- Ludwigs2 23:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
That's exactly why I appeal to consensus. If group G is scientists, but so is group G2, there is a problem. Final judgements have to represent a consensus of the community (but not unanimity). When making the jump from a set of well sourced opinion to a "final judgment", I see the key guidance in WP:CON, for when an idea reflects broad consensus, and WP:civil for how the arguments are presented on the talk page. When going from "mainstream science considers the Piltdown man to be a hoax" to "The Piltdown man is a hoax" would be a product of how the discussion is framed on the talk page, as guided by Civility and Consensus, rather than some attempt at an "objective" formulation of when we can make a transition from opinion to fact. Put another way, in my mind, is that we define a proper process for how to determine whether something is a "fact" or an opinion (which may change more than once over the lifetime of an article), and then invoke WP:PI. And we just sit back and recognize that some stuff is so blatantly obvious and accepted (air is breathed, not eaten) that this process can be ignored. HatlessAtless ( talk) 10:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
yes, I don't think I disagree with you. but I'm suspicious of the 'consensus of the community' statement; it seems oddly fluid. a community often achieves consensus by excluding perfectly valid views that they happen to disagree with (e.g. Christians have consensus that Christ was God incarnate by simply preventing anyone who doesn't believe that from being called a Christian, and scientists have a secular consensus simply by excluding transcendent views as unscientific). nothing wrong with that, but it makes some difficult decisions for editors - do we evaluate a claim from the perspective of this community, or that community, or some broader community that the first two belong in... as long as those really are governed by wp:civility on the talk page, this would work, but what I see happening is one side defending a particular viewpoint (often the scientific one) to the death. -- Ludwigs2 18:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Judging it in the context of what it claims to be seems to be a reasonable way to go about it, and I think that's mostly the way it has happened so far. SDY ( talk) 18:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, ultimately, I see it as coming down to the consensus of the community of wikipedia editors. Given that we have pluralistic and broad statements in our mission, it means that we as a community will make a good faith effort and do our best to make sure that we don't exclude people who shouldn't be excluded, etc. I mean, that's the situation we're in when it comes right down to it, but since we are making an effort to be neutral and not adopt any external ideology, and since we are trying to come to our consensus through civil discourse, etc, I am ok with it, even if we know it isn't perfect. The fact that the wikipedia is imperfect and continuously needs work and improvement is one of, if not the most fundamental part of the project. To answer your question specifically, the only community perspective we are capable of adopting is our own; the perspective of the community of wikipedia editors. And given how diverse, friendly, cooperative and thoughtful most of that community is, I am ok with that, even while recognizing it is imperfect. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
well, Hatless... I salute your idealism while shaking my head ruefully.  :-) the fact is that I have seen numerous examples of editors trying to limit consensus to people who agree with them (you can do a quick survey of this or other pages to see how often people try to exclude editors by calling them POV-pushers, or by cooperating to silence dissent). without some affirmative statement asking for broad consensus, what you're going to get on any contested page is a manufactured consensus designed to push through a point of view as fact over less organized opponents. sad as it is, that's the way politics works on wikipedia. and no, I'm not suggesting you give up your ideals, but ideals need to have some teeth, otherwise there will be plenty of people willing to take advantage (teach your daughters that the world is a beautiful place, but make sure they carry pepper spray, yah?). -- Ludwigs2 17:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Important qualification: Majority views should not be used to create a bias against minority views

This should, in some way, be part of the policy. Too many articles, especially around the and discrimination areas, use UNDUE in a way to present a negative bias. Now, I'm not an expert regarding UNDUE, but I don't think that's what the spirit of it is. WP:NPOVFAQ#Giving "equal validity" and WP:PSCI don't seem to support that view either - they seem to say "It's fine to characterise a minority viewpoint as such in the viewpoint's article, and when viewpoints are compared, we should focus on the scientific majority viewpoint", but it doesn't say "it is fine to use a person's support of a minority viewpoint to present a bias against them" - NPOV as a whole prohibits that. We don't present a visible negative bias for Time Cube or David Icke, so we shouldn't for the slightly more plausible fringe theories. Sceptre ( talk) 10:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you intend the term "bias" to be interpreted here? Could you give a concrete example of this bias? -- Jenny 10:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
For example ("omg bullying!"), Jonathan Wells (intelligent design advocate). Weasel words, guilt by association, et cetera. A version from yesterday is worse, and was only fixed by the grace of Moreschi. Sceptre ( talk) 11:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
By the way, I'm okay for saying "Wells is an ID advocate whose actions are controversial", but I'm not for "Wells is an ID advocate. ID is controversial". The former would be fact while the latter compromises neutrality by guilt-by-association and straying off-topic. Sceptre ( talk) 11:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I see that issue as falling into WP:Civil, WP:Weasel, and WP:NPA. We already have understood policies against making judgment calls like that, and WP:BLP is particularly strict on this topic. "It's fine to characterise a minority viewpoint as such in the viewpoint's article, and when viewpoints are compared, we should focus on the scientific majority viewpoint", but it doesn't say "it is fine to use a person's support of a minority viewpoint to present a bias against them" First, as we've already discussed above, scientific majority and consensus viewpoints may not necessarily be the same. (I think they are far more often than they are not, but for the situations where it is important, it is very important). Second, if you look at the last iteration of the neutral tone proposal, it has a prohibition against wording implying value judgements, as well as requiring an nonjudgemental tone. In general, I would tend to think that this would keep concerns like you've expressed to ones that can be resolved with edits or talk page discussion. I don't think additional wording would be necessary as part of this policy, but by all means, propose some wording. HatlessAtless ( talk) 12:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
actually, I think the extra terminology is useful. all a statement like "Majority views should not be used to create a bias against minority views" (or my original "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented, they should neither be presented as equal to majority views, nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority") would do would be to keep editors from implying that a viewpoint is wrong just because they are a minor position. editors would still be able to point out that it's a minority position, and still be able to point out that it is rejected by the mainstream opinion, but editors would not be able to twist that mainstream rejection into some assertion of ontological failure. -- Ludwigs2 17:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, I couldn't agree more. I will incorportate that clause (or at least that sentiment) in my next draft of a synthesis "neutrality of tone". HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
What happens, though, when a minority viewpoint is wrong, or entirely implausible, or beneath serious notice in the view of experts in the field? Wikipedia needs to reflect that. AIDS denialism, for instance, is not merely a "minority view thought to be unsupported by the majority of the mainstream conventional scientific community" - it is wrong, fundamentally so, and if Wikipedia can't make that clear, then we may as well pack it in as far as ever becoming a serious, respectable reference work. Sceptre's concerns are valid, but they involve WP:COATRACKing and WP:BLP, not WP:NPOV. Of course a biographical article should not serve as a vehicle to denouce a set of views, but we don't need to change WP:NPOV to address that. I don't see Ludwig2's distinction between "rejected" and "invalid"; views that are rejected by the relevant academic community are, academically speaking, considered invalid. I don't see a lot of room to split those hairs without further bloating what should be a very straightforward issue. Does Brittanica worry that rejection by the scientific community should not make an idea appear "invalid"? Does any other serious, respected reference work? MastCell  Talk 17:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
You beat me to the punch MC, since that just occurred to me. I think, however, that we can resolve the situation with a scope of article issue. AIDS Denialism is sufficiently notable for its own article, but it is a tiny minority with respect to views on AIDS. Therefore, they wouldn't deserve mention on the aids article, but we would still fairly present criticism (extensive as it is) on the article for AIDS denialism. HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:59, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
To borrow some unfortunately wikilawyeresque language: "Innocent until proven guilty", modified to "plausible until proven false." In the same vein, we should expect evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt". If there is no reasonable doubt among reliable sources, then that, in my mind, is the neutral point of view. The Durban Declaration is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a breaking point between minority views and fringe views, and views that are truly fringe should not be treated as plausible. Active attacks and incivility are obviously a problem, especially for WP:BLP, but treating things without editorial judgment and treating them as plausible are two very different questions. SDY ( talk) 18:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think we may have reached a point where we'll have to leave it ambiguous and fight it out on individual talk pages. I think that labeling a group 'fringe' on its own article and not mentioning it in the main article about which the group has its views would be sufficient balance for now. Between that and WP:RELY and WP:V I think we've got enough guidance to go by, and leaving the "fairness of tone" section open for interpretation will let us try to get it right article by article. Specifically, if a fringe group is denied mention in the respective topic article (for lack of RSS's defending its views), is labeled fringe on its own article, its assertions and notability derived from some source other than scientific validity, and the mainstream opinions running counter to the fringe group's ideas are defended by RSSs (while no RSSs can be mustered in defense of the fringe group's views), I think I am ok with not declaring a theory bunk or no. It will be plainly clear to the reader either way. HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:21, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Simplicity

Maybe simpler is better. All of this abstract talk about tone is making my head hurt. Why not just say:

Wikipedia strives to accurately and proportionately reflect the current state of human knowledge and opinion on a topic. Wikipedia's coverage of a topic should reflect its treatment by independent, reliable sources. An effort should be made to accurately and dispassionately convey the tone and substance of the topic's coverage in such sources.

Thoughts? This emphasizes the primacy of reliable sources rather than editorial emotion, it avoids "fairness" and "validity" meta-arguments, and it's flexible enough to deal with minority vs. fringe topics without being overly prescriptive. Or I think so, anyway. MastCell  Talk 18:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It does sound good, a lot better than the abusable UNDUE. I'm still worried about bias from straying off-topic, though, but I do agree, that's not strictly NPOV - it's WEASEL, COAT, and BLP. Sceptre ( talk) 19:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I have a lot of trouble with that for three reasons, two of which are good ones. First, the word (and sentiment) of dispassion has been strenuously objected to by several editors, per the discussion above. Second, I don't believe that that wording will be useful in sorting out POV edit wars, since it is amenable to a a "favorable source" treatment, which would not solve much. Finally (and included entirely for humor) its not the same as the version I spent all weekend negotiating! HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Also, "convey the tone and substance" is problematic with NPOV. If an RSS's tone is polemic, that tone has no place in wikipedia. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Finally, I am thinking this might make an awesome seed for an essay related to NPOV, but I am worried that it also fails to give critical guidance. Specifically, it does not address how we as a community of editors would decide what sources we should include or which ones we shouldn't, given that organization, presentation, and selection of quotes and RSS citations can make an article a heavily biased opinion piece as easily as a neutral and encyclopedic article. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Those decisions are generally made on article talk pages - there's no suitably general guidance we can give on which sources to choose applicable to all articles, and even if we could it would be more appropriate for WP:V and WP:RS (see WP:MEDRS for an effort to codify "good" sourcing in one small subject area). I don't see a problem with "convey the tone", but I think we disagree fundamentally: I think that if reliable sources consistently disparage a subject, then we need to convey that here. There is nothing in policy or practice which says that if an otherwise reliable source is "polemical" about a subject that it becomes unworthy of inclusion here. Truly reliable sources tend not to be polemic; Nature, Science, the New York Times, and the World Health Organization rarely take a polemic tone, and when they do, it's notable enough to be reflected here. MastCell  Talk 20:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Product of the weekend's discussion

Since we're discussing possible wording for the "neutrality of tone" section, here is what appears to have come out of the discussion from this weekend.

  • A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently nonjudgmental tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy.

I think this does pretty much everything we need it to do. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Overall this looks pretty good. One major objection: "The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article" has to go. This is a blanket invitation to wikilawyering; anything negative or contextual could be called a "value judgement". A good article absolutely contains value judgements about the topic, though they are the value judgements made by reliable sources. Perhaps you could amend this to say: "The article must not reflect an editor's value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article." This makes clear that it's editorial judgement you want to avoid.

I dislike the word "nonjudgemental" in the first sentence for the same reasons; a good, NPOV article may be judgemental, if the weight of reliable sources treat its topic judgementally. So long as we don't substitute our judgements for those of reliable sources, we're good. MastCell  Talk 20:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds as if it is contradicting itself. This is what I hear, translating the proposed paragraph:
  • 1. Neutral tone means tone without bias or judgment.
  • 2. The sum of individually neutral parts may be biased.
  • 3. Neutral tone means tone without bias and proportionate representation.
  • 4. Follow other policies such as V and RELY.
  • 5. No judgments of the article's topic.
  • 6. Present views according to WP:UNDUE.
  • 7. Present uncontroversial value judgments.
Points five and seven don't agree with each other. Points one and three could be condensed. Point two could be read as disagreeing with point six. The ultimate question for NPOV, in my mind, is "how do we keep the article unbiased when the policy on weight requires us to present an inherently biased article?" My perception of reconciling these two views has always been: "Make Wikipedia's bias consistent with the bias of reliable sources." My bias is that the section on tone should say "let reliable sources kill the horse, editors may only take pictures." SDY ( talk) 20:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think taking into account MC's comments fixes your objection with #5 and #7, if reliable sources are heavily biased one way, articles can reflect that. I don't read #2 the way you do, I read #2 as "Presentation of neutral parts may impart a bias into the whole", which does not mean the same thing; put another way, "the facts never speak for themselves", and so I don't believe it conflicts with point 6. HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

That's exactly the feedback I needed. First, the easy one: nonjudgemental was an attempt to improve on "dispassionate". I'll replace it with "impartial" to try to avoid your concern without changing the spirit of the wording. At first glance, I had a negative reaction to your thinking that we do treat topics judgementally, but on a second reading, I like your wording anyway. It enforces attribution, and is in the spirit of:

Let the facts speak for themselves

  • Karada offered the following advice in the context of the Saddam Hussein article:
  • You won't even need to say he was evil. That is why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man"—we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.

Since it means that we can cite and attribute value judgements without forcing the article to adopt the value judgements as its own, while not preventing us from pointing out the obvious if we have broad consensus in RSS's about a topic.

  • A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently impartial tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not reflect an editor's value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Please note that we do not have to have passed judgments on all articles. When there is a clear weight of reliable sources as to a disposition, (ie, the horse is dead), then of course we can say that. However, there are plenty of situations (the really interesting ones, at least from the neutrality perspective) where the horse may or may not be dead. Take Intelligent Design, for example (which I disagree with, so my bias is clear). From a scientific perspective, ID is a fringe view, and is roundly judged as such by mainstream science, and has almost no representation in the most reputable journals. However, the ID community is very large, very active, and there is plenty of RSS documentation in prestigious places in the public view that lies outside of the scientific forum. It is these kinds of conflicts where I see erring on the side of "nonjudgemental" as being the most useful. Since Wikipedia has not been defined as taking the scientific viewpoint on such issues, we exacerbate risk exacerbating edit wars if we are too favorable to pronouncing "weight of evidence". Reliable sources may kill the horse, but we should only publish pictures with the headline "the horse is dead" if there is a broad consensus that the horse is actually dead. Luna lovegood notwithstanding. HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's a nightmare, but there are parts of it where there is a clear consensus. To summarize very briefly, there is a bit of a debate whether the overall controversy means all points covered in the article are controversial because the topic is controversial. Back on topic, borrowing some language from WP:BLP:

"The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves. The writing style should be neutral and factual, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. ..."

"... If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out."

The second section is from WP:WELLKNOWN, which should apply to all controversial topics where problems of neutrality of tone are a concern. There is extreme value in having these two policies be consistent in their treatment of a topic. I think the current BLP language covers the topic quite succinctly and is well worded. SDY ( talk) 21:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) hmmm...
  1. I think "reflect an editor's value judgments" should be replaced by "reflect editors' value judgments" - this isn't necessarily about the mistaken judgement of a single editor.
  2. the line "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all" is just a repetition of WP:UNDUE, and should be removed and/or replaced by a reference to UNDUE.
  3. there is nothing here that distinguishes between (proper) criticism in sources and (improper) criticism from editors. I'd suggest rewriting the last paragraph along these lines:

    Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the consensus against them as documented in consensus policy - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the conflict.

    -- Ludwigs2 21:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
SDY - I think those quotes you gave have value here. -- Ludwigs2 21:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I reworded the version, It seems to be fairly close IMO, the biggest change is linking to a different policy, and writing about facts, "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." I am wondering if it may be possible to conclude the topic if people edit this box on the talk page as if it were the main page until consensus is reached, no reversions, only improvement to the wording.
  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently neutral and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable.Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the documented consensus against them - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the matter.
Ward20 ( talk) 21:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Include Ludwigs' improvements. Ward20 ( talk) 21:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

SDY I agree with all of your statements. I think that the last version of the neutral tone section I posted is consistent with that policy. We could concievably strengthen the ties to WP:WELLKNOWN by including "statements must be verifiable, reliable, and properly attributed to the source". While I beleieve that simply citing the source should be sufficient; for controversial statements attribution in the body as opposed to hiding it in a citation tag would be beneficial. (in the case of the WELLKNOWN example, this would mean stating the messy divorce as "according to the New York Times, John doe had a messy affair with Jane Doe [1]" as opposed to "John doe had a messy affair with Jane Doe [2]". HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't like the recursive definition (using "neutral tone" in a definition of neutral tone), and I put ASF specifically linked. Otherwise, bullseye Ward.
  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently impartial and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwigs, I think Ward20 nailed it. Granted I'd have liked to preserve my wording, but I can't argue with most of his changes. He caught #1 with editorial. I beleive #2 is a quote from Jimbo, and I see it having value here as well. Prohibiting editorial criticism nails #3. HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
HatlessAtlas, I like the version you have above as much as any. Can we just edit one version now to see if it can get consensus? Ward20 ( talk) 22:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Ward, I've been beating that horse since before the weekend. Since we've got Ludwigs on board (with the exception of his minor quibbles, like everyone else's) and SDY, I think we're really close. I agree, let's wee if we can get consensus. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it looks good too. Sceptre ( talk) 22:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Do we have consensus to put the last version above in the article, and then gently improve it from discussion on the talk page? And if someone starts reverting instead of trying to improve the section, we wack them with a trout? Ward20 ( talk) 22:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think so, yes. Sceptre ( talk) 22:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Pretty darn close. Two minor quibbles:

  • Consider using "report" instead of "present".
  • "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as being equally accepted. Minority schools of thought for instance should not be represented as having the same acceptance as the majority view, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all." These two sentences are kind of redundant and could probably be condensed, maybe to "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as being equally accepted." Less to read, more or less the same message. SDY ( talk) 22:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think 'present' is the best word under the circumstances; 'report' has subtleties that make it slightly more amenable to quoting polemic in my view, which might be problematic.. I have made the other change. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Consensus Achieved?

Based on the last four statements, I think we appear to be in agreement for the new wording of the "Neutrality of tone" section, as follows:

  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently impartial and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Endorse change, This does what we need it to do, and is hugely improved over the existing version. I think, though, that page protect should be left up for another week to let the discussion die down. HatlessAtless ( talk) 23:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Agree This works. I have some minor formatting and style quibbles, but they're truly minor. SDY ( talk) 23:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree. I think I like Ward's version (above) slightly better, but not to the extent that it's worth making a fuss over. I've gone ahead and edited in one minor stylistic changes - I moved the start of the WP:ASF link to distinguish it from the WP:RELY link - and I'll list out two others for consideration, but otherwise I'm good with this:
    1. "equally accepted. Representations" should be "equally accepted: representations" the latter phrase is an exemplification of the former, so the colon works better
    2. the 'of' in "especially of historical theories" should probably be 'concerning' or 'regarding' (i.e. "especially concerning historical theories...") -- Ludwigs2 01:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Ludwigs, I didn't intend the "representations" to be an exemplification of weight, I intended it to stand on its own, but I don't have a particular problem with your quibble, it just links two meanings I did not intend to have links. The underlying sentiment and what we're trying to achieve is essentially the same. HatlessAtless ( talk) 02:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
        • agreed, this is very minor. I'd only meant that as a stylistic improvement. -- Ludwigs2 02:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree There is no "partisan commentary." There will be editors who will complain about a completely neutral article, and they will use these statements to defend their complaints. I wish someone would explain to me why we even have to do this? I also will await comments from MastCell, ScienceApologist, and numerous other editors before I would be convinced there is any type of consensus. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 01:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
why am I not surprised...? lol -- Ludwigs2 02:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Your personal attacks are not going unnoticed. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
OrangeMarlin, I'll explain exactly why we need to do this. There are three critical reasons. 1) Only a small fraction of the articles on Wikipedia are amenable to science and mathematical rationale. Things such as religious beliefs cannot be discussed in terms of scientific facts; they must be discussed in terms of the assertions and articles of faith, in which case tone is of paramount importance. 2) What facts actually are requires care and a sharp eye to separate fact from opinion from assertion. When linking multiple facts or contrasting contradictory facts, again, tone is important. As anyone who has ever written a scientific paper knows, 3) Wikipedia adopts a neutral POV, even towards science. This means that, in context, the "scientific consensus" can be a minority view, or be contested significantly enough to merit discussion. In all cases, unless there is to be an eternal edit-feud between which set of "facts" gets premium placement in each article, and how they are interconnected and so on, we must have this policy. HatlessAtless ( talk) 02:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
HA (not hah), let me first say how much I appreciate your good faith and civil response, as opposed to other individuals in this discussion. Let me reply to you point by point: 1) Well, I'm not sure it's that small, but your point is valid for non-scientific articles which are subject to more subjective study. I don't think an article should start "XXX is not supported by science, and all the twits who believe in XXX should be subject to further education at a respected institution of study". But, there is a level of tone that needs to point out the anti-science nature of certain fringe theories--and that should border on derision. But even in the non-science areas, how do you treat Holocaust denial? There's no science there (unless I'm mistaken), it's a historical fact, and those people who support it don't deserve a balanced "tone", whatever that is. The problem here is that tone is so open to subjectiveness we'll have a rule that will be referenced as WP:NPOV#Tone#number of conditions#words acceptable. Impossible to manage. 2) Science does work in facts, so I have no clue how to respond. But back to Holocaust denialism, history can be fact-based, especially more recently. I think we can calculate the number of votes in an election, or who was King of England in 1463. Science is based on theory, validation, repeatability etc, so there are no facts. But again, how are you to judge tone? I think this point alone makes my case. Finally, 3) I would contend that you're misinterpreting NPOV. In science, statements are verified by reliable sources. And if there are 1 million sources support Evolution by natural selection etc., and 10 support Intelligent design, and none of those 10 are reliable, then the science = NPOV. In fact, science has no POV or I would say SPOV = NPOV. Since "tone" is so subjective, and could cause infinitely worse edit-warring than we have now, I stand firmly opposed to any change in this statement. IN fact, I would delete it, but it's there, so I'm all right with it. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, let me reply to your comments point by point:
  • Extreme fringe views like Aids denialism are actually quite easy to handle within the context of this guideline. Since the group is obviously fringe, withing WP:UNDUE they do not deserve any mention at all in any serious treatment article of AIDS. In the article itself, the opening paragraph should assert that the group is a fringe theory, and in the article section on claims or criticisms, the weight of scientific citations that refute their claims (assuming that their claims are part of their notability) that there won't be any need to be derisive. IMO derision only serves to piss people off (and in many cases can be taken as a personal attack). It may just be my nature, but I don't piss people off if I can avoid it, its bad in life, and its bad for wikipedia.
  • The only facts in science are the observations of experimenters and the proofs of mathematicians. "I think we can calculate the number of votes in an election" This is where we get into needing a sharp eye 'fact' versus 'opinion'. There is the fact, which is the number of votes cast in the election (call it fact V). Then there are another set of facts, which represent the different estimates of the number of votes cast, based on their assumptions and methods of estimation, including simple counts and such (call them estimates E1, E2, etc). Since for major elections with millions of participants, with the inevitable irregularities, we likely do not know V, we are stuck trying to figure out which estimate EX most closely approximates V (or in the case of the 2000 US presidential election, which estimate EX which is favorable to us in florida can we sell to the supreme court) "or who was King of England in 1463." If this was a time when the kingship was disputed or in flux, different lines of legal reasoning may yield different results. There could be a de-jure king, a de-facto king, an ex-post-facto king, a quid-pro-hoc king, etc. (forgive my latin, but I hope you get my point as well as my joke).
(just an afterthought) I don't want to imply that all facts are as ambiguous as the ones I brought up. If a scientist observes that nitric acid dissolved copper, and reports those findings, and lots more scientists do it, we can be reasonably sure that nitric acid will dissolve copper (done it myself before). This can also be true of history; we can be reasonably sure who the second president of the US was, it is a well established historical fact, with no controversy at all (that I know of). In those cases, we can simply state the fact, and back it up. My point was to be careful with some facts, because asserting that X was the king of England at some point in history may be not true; the fact being asserted is that X was the 'legal' king of England at that point, since someone may have been ruling as king in his stead, including using the title. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I can't believe it. I used 1463 as an example of a fact of who was King of England, and of course, I chose a date right in the middle of the War of the Roses, when Henry VI and Edward IV were battling for the crown. Of course, unless one is a solid Lancastrian or Yorkist, it's hard to create a tone of any when discussing who was King of England. I'll have to get back to your other points. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • In your example of Intelligent design; the significance of the cultural phenomenon is irrelevant to its lack of scientific credibility. In an article on the scientific claims of ID, I agree that the scientific weight of evidence would overwhelm the scientific weight for ID. However, there are enough reliable secondary sources, prominent adherents, and ardent followers that it is essentially impossible to justify it as fringe. It is too large, vocal, (and in my hometown, aggravating, but that is a separate discussion) to dismiss. In an article discussing the ID for its notability as a cultural phenomenon, the scientific failures of the movement's claims would only merit one section, and since the scientific viewpoint and mainstream scientific acceptance is only peripherally related to the movement, it would not be possible to relate the mainstream scientific viewpoint to all aspects of the cultural phenomenon. To answer your question about how one judges tone? Basically, its an attempt to write in such a way as to piss off as few people as possible, and to try to make it so as few people as possible feel that their deeply held beliefs are being insulted, while at the same time stating the obvious and keeping all important, relevant and encyclopedic info in the articles.
HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I'll add two points:
  1. the claim that SPOV = NPOV is itself a POV that has no basis in scientific reality. Science is objective, not neutral, and so science can only inform debates, it can't answer them. there is, in fact, a common opinion in the scientific community that explicitly precludes science from entering into public debates (you might remember the old 'scientists build the bombs, but politicians decide where to use them' arguments). scientific objectivity tells us that we can spread butter on toast (because of the particular properties of butter and toast); neutrality says that some people like to do that, and some people don't. are you suggesting that we say the people who don't like to spread butter on toast are wrong, because science tells us that we can?
  2. where you say "there is a level of tone that needs to point out the anti-science nature of certain fringe theories--and that should border on derision..." why? isn't pointing out that fringe theories have no scientific grounding sufficient to show that they have no scientific grounding? you personally may feel derision towards these theories, but I don't (I just dismiss them) - so why should your particular point of view have a presence in an article on the topic? -- Ludwigs2 18:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I actually agree with you. Science has no POV, because it is based upon hypothesis, experimentation, repeatability, falsifiability and a bunch of other things. POV is an opinion. However, your rest of stuff is just so much original research. Never heard of most of that stuff, and it's simply incorrect. Science is at the center of social debates everywhere, including evolution, abortion, stem cell research, global warming, and so many other issues I'd hurt my typing fingers typing it. As for fringe theories, it's one simple issue--as long as Wikipedia is the #1 source on the internet for medical and science, then anyone reading an article ought to know that Homeopathy does not work and it might hurt you, because there are some homeopaths who think a dilution of the Berlin Wall will cure you of cancer. That's why fringe theories should be eliminated or treated with the derision that they so richly deserve. And it's not because I have a POV, it's because there are millions of articles that say evolution is scientifically accurate. And Intelligent design has none, and is really just an attempt by individuals to force religious teaching in US schools. There is no positive tone that I could see for ID. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 07:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. Science reflects the point of view that the important things in human life can be learned about via hyporthesis, experimentation, repeatability, faslsifiability, etc. This is definitely a point of view because it tends to magnify the significance of aspects of experience that are ameliorable to this kind of treatment and diminish the significance of aspects of experience which are not. Science tends to de-emphasize individual experience, emotion, intuition, and other sources of knowing that other points of view say are appropriate ways to direct the course of an individual life. Each one of our lives, and the universe as a whole, is utterly non-repeatable -- it will never be in the same state twice. In order to do science, one always has to take a point of view which ignores these individual and non-repetitive aspects and assume they are unimportant to the problem one is looking at. In human affairs, creating approximately repeatable states requires performing operations (random assignment and the like) that impose articifical conditions different from what people experience in a natural state, and this affects outcomes. (As the Hawethorne effect indicates and the Subject object problem attempts to discuss, being in an experiment results in different outcomes from not being in an experiment.) It also requires treating individual differences as unimportant so one can abstract two objectively different people into repetitions of the "same" underlying thing. Claiming that these types of perspectives are not a point of view ignores a great deal of contemporary philosophy, particularly when the view is simply asserted as self-evident with no sensitivity or even awareness of the numerous contrary arguments. Saying it's so doesn't make it so. Willing it to be so doesn't make it so. Such assertion represents a religious act, an attempt to impose ones faith on others rather than engage in reasoned discourse with them. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 17:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Self-evidently wrong. Science reflects the view that empirical explanations based on emirically testable evidence are useful, whether or not other untestable explanations might be true. Religion is inherently a matter of faith rather than testability, and while there is plenty of room for the perspective that religious views are important and true, they are not science and are not amenable to scientific examination. Of course there is a philosophical position that the most important, or only, things are those that can be scientifically tested, but that's not the only view of science and many religions or philosophical positions find no disagreement with the findings of purely empirical science. . . dave souza, talk 17:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, most of the debates you've just cited are not scientific debates (Only global warming is). The evolution debate (at least in its current incarnation of teaching ID in schools) is an argument over the right of parents to control what their kids learn, and whether or not they have a right to learn a non-scientific alternative. The debate over abortion is one over the morality of abortion, not its scientific value as a medical procedure. The debate over stem cell research is essentially an extension of the abortion debate. There is no question related to the scientific validity of stem cell research, or to its possible benefits; but instead questions of morality. Global warming as a phenomenon is not fully understood, and there is some pretty significant debate about the causes, consequences, and solutions to global warming within the scientific community. I mean, the observed fact, that there is a global trend towards higher temperatures is not really in doubt, but the relationship between cfc's, CO2, and CH4 is still an active area of research. In every single case you've mentioned, the scientific research and information is secondary to the policy debate. The question in most of these public arguments is "should", which is not a question science is equipped to answer. Granted that I agree with the policy positions most scientists advocate, but they're not advocating those policies as scientific theories, they're advocating them as people and are trying to use science as insight into how to achieve the results they want. HatlessAtless ( talk) 14:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
This is getting hard to reply. Maybe someone should keep the "votes" in a separate section from this discussion. But in reply to HA, they are all scientific debates. Evolution is science--ID and Creationism are religious ideas that should be taught at home or church. I'm not going to get into the debate that "it is an argument over the rights of parents to control what their kids learn", because that isn't relevant to me. Abortion is not a moral argument, it is fundamentally a science one. Life either exists or does not exist at conception. Scientifically, it does not. Religiously, there seems to be a debate. Science is fundamental to each of these issues. Your attempt at moving the discussion to a religious/moral grounds is precisely why NPOV exists. The science behind Evolution is pristine. The science behind Global Warming is fairly pristine. They are supportable. Right of parents to control children, or denying global warming belong in denialist articles. I now see why there is a push to weaken the NPOV on Wikipedia. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) OM: "that isn't relevant to me" is exactly why we're disagreeing. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia devoted only to explaining the scientific status of various theories, it is an encyclopedia that deals with everything, including public policy debates. Again going back to our discussion of ID vs Evolution in schools; I have do disagree 180 with you on this one. Whether the science were right or wrong about evolution (and for the record, I agree with you both that the science on evolution is overwhelming and consistent, though I hesitate to use the word pristine, and I agree with you that science should be taught in school and and ID at church.) would not change the public policy debate in the slightest. The question revolves around a loaded one: "Does the freedom of religion, the right to privacy, and the right of a parent to be the primary educator of their children mean that parents have the right to control the curriculum of a public school?" There is lots of reliable sourcing behind and discussing the controversy itself, and in entire regions of the US, the coverage in reliable sources of the controversy is actually slanted against mainstream science. (And the fact that I live in one depresses me). Advocates of ID in public schools are a significant and notable minority. The "pristine" science behind evolution is silent on the topic of whether evolution should be taught in public schools along side, or instead of ID. Its not something that can be researched. Science can prove all day that evolution is a valid theory, but it cannot answer any questions that begin with the word "should" understood in the moral, rather than the probabilistic sense. You have made your own Bias clear, and I have to admit that I am a little unsettled that you take the stance that you do towards controversies over policy where it relates to science, since it seems that you challenge the underlying nature of NPOV, but I am still convinced that you edit in good faith, so please don't misunderstand my reservations. HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Just as a follow on, this just occurred to me. OM, do you equate the policy positions held by the significant majority of scientifically trained people to be the non-POV of science? I notice that while "science" is silent on whether ID has a place in schools, the majority of scientists (I'm not sure how big the majority it, but I believe it is pretty massive one) believe ID should not be taught in schools. The same is true for most of the opinions you've presented. Science may not have a POV but there is an SPOV = Scientists' Point Of View. Could this be a fair understanding of where you're coming from? HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, only the data itself is really objective, and whether that data is worth using is an opinion (obvious poor quality data sets are a hallmark of junk science). Science isn't devoid of opinions, its main claim to credibility is that it actually discards opinions that don't work. SPOV is a biased and human opinion, but it happens to be the POV of the relevant experts in many debates. The problem with so many pseudoscience debates is not that the SPOV is " truth" but that the Psci supporters refuse to accept that their explanation just doesn't provide consistent or predictable results. SDY ( talk) 15:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Once again, there is no Scientific POV. There is an Anti-Science POV, but that's not relevant here. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, does that imply that the people (scientists) are free from POV as well as science itself? Are you combining the two? HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Science lacks a POV. Scientists are just the tool that builds good science. Unless a scientist is paid to produce a result (and I consider them shills or something to that effect), they write the conclusion from the results of analysis (experimentation). Sure, sometimes, scientists get all emotional over a discovery, but that's the human being, not the science itself. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) A monkey can collect data, it takes expertise to make sense of it. That "sense" is an interpretation, which is at its most basic point an opinion. Whatever. At any rate, I think this conversation is getting a little off topic. I think it's relevant to NPOV and it should probably just get its own thread. SDY ( talk) 23:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah heavens... and I'm trying so hard here to be nice. OM - when you say things like "Abortion is not a moral argument, it is fundamentally a science one. Life either exists or does not exist at conception" you're neglecting the fact that 'the existence of life at conception' is only a single question in the bigger moral issue. for instance, we know that adults are alive, but we consider it perfectly acceptable to kill them in certain contexts (self-defense, warfare, public executions of criminals, etc...). science only enters into the abortion issue to answer specific factual questions that get raised; science has no capacity whatsoever to answer the moral issue.
SDY, you're probably right that this needs a separate thread, but frankly I'm amazed we have to discuss it at all. it's making my head spin. -- Ludwigs2 00:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
  • meh I was going to hold back, as I don't think writing a prescription for neutral tone would be easy, and I don't want to condem all approaches, but I don't care for this itteration too much either. Too munch jargon and not neccessarily applicable phrases. "Competing schools of thought?" Do most articles have more than one, if any, schools of thought? "Factual tone?" Like, if it has a tone, is that a fact? What do facts sound like? And the "partisan commentary" phrase, while longstanding, sort of assumes, well, "partisanship." And the second paragraph is more about the policies it links to than about NPOV in terms of tone. I think an effective section on tone could be possible, but it would probably take an audiologist to work out the niceties. If I were to rewrite this I would probably leave it at a single sentence, something like: "Presenting material in a neutral tone is important," as the more you get into it or try to explain it the more it all unravels. Amerique dialectics 02:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) Actually, Amerique, writing a prescription for neutral tone is not difficult at all, nor is that the problem we've been having in this discussion. this whole issue is polarized between (a) editors who think that tone can by itself bias an article unfairly, and (b) editors who deny that possibility, or just don't care if it's true (with, of course, a number of good souls between trying to balance things). I frankly don't know what to do with editors who aren't concerned with whether an article sounds fair and impartial (even though "sounds" is a nebulous, difficult-to-assess word) because we all know that most people who read Wikipedia are going to pay at least as much attention to the way it sounds as to what it actually says. now I can understand the Machiavellian side here - there are a number of editors (I imagine) who've gotten good milage from making topics they like/dislike sound good/bad by playing with the wording, and may be worried that a revamp of this policy will start to undo their carefully defended schemes (who knows, yah?). but aside from that I can't see the problem. this version is better than what's there now; at worst, it won't change anything at all, and at best, it will make wikipedia a better encyclopedia. where's the downside? -- Ludwigs2 03:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe it's perfect, but I do think it's better than the current version. SDY ( talk) 03:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I went looking at some online style guides discussing the matter of tone. I would say, any discussion of tone on Wikipedia, for NPOV policy, should be able to come up with something along the lines any of these: [1], [2], [3], [4], rather than seem to be derived, and tortuously so, from attempts to mediate between sides of an on-site conflict. As written, this proposal (like the prior version, but even more so this time) preemptively assumes that tone is going to be the site of a partisan battleground. If the proposal was actually about tone, and not about "how not to use WP as a battleground," I would say it was a definite improvement, but given the climate here I don't see the ongoing problem, the lack of a simple and universally applicable policy that is actually about achieving impartial tone across all articles, being easily addressed. So for the record, I don't support this iteration of the policy. Amerique dialectics 16:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I think this is good enough for disco. Wikipedia is living/breathing and I imagine that any kinks will be worked out in time. I support this version. -- Levine2112 discuss 04:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Very strong oppose unless this version preserves the "views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all." part that the actual version has (no need to have the exact same wording). This part is very important to prevent all sort of very minor fringe stuff to start crawling into the articles. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 04:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • The "equal space" text links to WP:WEIGHT which clearly says how we handle extreme minority opinions. -- Levine2112 discuss 05:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Enric, from WP:Weight

    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. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority.

In general, fringe groups are defined by having a huge paucity of RSS's backing up their claims, so they will be easy to exclude under a number of policies. Specific to your rationale to opposition, by linking to WP:weight, we are in fact including the statement that we will not include fringe views. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (I see that this point was discussed yesterday, apologies for not noticing and complaining then) We know how people will cite WP:TONE and won't read the linked pages. I don't agree with the sentence being redundant because the "not including extreme minority POVs" is a very used and powerful argument that, for convenience reasons, should be made explicit here to avoid loopholes and wikilawyering from POV pushers ("oh, WP:WEIGHT says that, but WP:TONE doesn't" and similar misreadings). Basically, not including that sentence is very incovenient for real-world usage.
As an apart, it's amazing how some people will distort all sort of RS to claim that they support their fringe view, so the amount of RS sources by itself can be misleading. You need to nail down the POV and identify it as too minor for inclusion and then cite that "very extremely minor POV don't make it into articles".... and then you discover that you have citing a policy that doesn't include that wording, but which does say that all views should be treated, altough in accordance to the amount of RS, and then you get start getting the wikilawyering with the amount of sources, RS or not RS, the differences with WP:WEIGHT, etc..... really incovenient, and a loss of time. Please, add the sentence for the poor guys that have to argue this point frequently. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 05:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support, Everything is there in the right place I believe. It could be polished some as SDY and Ludwigs said. I do kind of like some pharasing in Ludwigs last version toward the middle to the end that appeared to be based on info that SDY posted.
Enric, but this version of WP tone points right to it, "Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions."
OM, derision is about the same as ridicule, Magellan's, Galileo's, Pasteur's ideas were all ridiculed in their time, it was wrong then and it is wrong now to ridicule ideas that are different. Even today science has not yet progressed to the point of being infallible. People who support Holocaust denial deserve an article with a consistently impartial and factual tone so they will read it, then hopefully change their mind. If they see an article that literally describes their present beliefs as asinine and retarded (see the tone?) they will probably never take it seriously.
Ward20 ( talk) 05:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Ugh, I'm not sure if that is strong enough to compensate removing that sentence. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 06:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Ward 20, I'm not sure about Magellan or Pasteur, but Galileo was treated harshly by the church, who was opposed to scientific inquiry, because it would undermine the order set up by the church (and a few hundred other reasons, which aren't germane to this discussion). Your argument is an old canard that is used by Fringe Theorists the world over. It's a different world, and scientific inquiry is different than a religious one. A more contemporary example would be with work of Luis Alvarez who postulated that bolide impact caused the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event. When he proposed such, it was based on scientific evidence, mostly iridium layers over the world. At first he was dismissed, but because of the science behind his hypothesis, his theory stuck for about 25 years. However, recent evidence indicates that it might be something else. Science works by evolution of thought. Fringe theories do not, they are stated as facts that are not falsifiable, etc. And those fringe theories deserve derision. And an encyclopedia shouldn't change minds, let the folks at Conservapedia do that. Holocaust denial should be treated with indignity and derision that it so richly deserve. We'll stop short of laughing at them in the article. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
To expand on what OM said: we don't in advance which fringe ideas will end up being correct. No doubt some of them will. And no doubt the vast majority will not. Great scientists have been criticized and ridiculed, but so have flat earth proponents, hollow earthers, phrenologists and many more. Just because a tiny minority will succeed is in no way a reason that Wikipedia should approach them all uncritically. When the scientific consensus changes then Wikipedia should change to reflect that. There is no need to give ideas extra weight and influence simply because there is a tiny chance that they would be correct. JoshuaZ ( talk) 07:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Come now, no one said we should advance which fringe ideas will end up being correct. What is proposed is a consistently impartial and factual tone.
No one is saying we should not be uncritical when warranted. That is where this version had excellent wording IMO.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable.Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the documented consensus against them - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the matter.
Ward20 ( talk) 07:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Disagree – these variations are straying from the simple and clear presentation in this version, and in particular the use of piped links under different headings to another section in the same policy looks very confusing. If something needs said it should be said clearly and independently, and not require the reader to hop between sections. The wording "representation of all includable positions" is problematic, and "all notable positions" expresses the aim more clearly. The reference to "frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories" is misleading, as this section is particularly relevant where fringe views have not been debunked, but should still be shown as a minority view in the context of mainstream views of the subject. Saying that "an article must not contain editorial opinion or value judgments of the viewpoints presented, or of the topic of the article." misrepresents "A simple formulation", as such editorial opinion should be shown ansd attributed to the reliable sources – the issue is not really one of tone, but of avoiding original research. In general, reframing other sections by piped links in this way is a really bad idea. . . dave souza, talk 08:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
DS, I have to respectfully disagree with all of your points. The wikilinks are used to demonstrate consistency with other policies and policy sections, they are not 'needed' to understand what is being discussed. In response to your "all notable positions" statement, the word "notable" creates a problem. If a group is notable enough to have its own article, (AIDS denialsm? Flat earth proponents?) does that mean that their opinions are "notable" enough to include in the main topic article? Some other subpage? I see that creating many many more problems than it solves, just by opening that line of argument up. Unless we want to derive some kind of notability criterion for ideas, I don't see how we can use the idea of "notable opinions" here. Finally, showing editorial opinion (specifically the opinion of the wikipedia editors) is not justifiable as it clearly violates WP:NOR. The opinion cited in the secondary sources is not what is meant there. The wording can be changed to reflect this. HatlessAtless ( talk) 13:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I think these suggestions are getting far too over-prescriptive. This is a policy, not a style guide. There are different ways of complying with this policy, and our style guides can be used to set forth "best practice" suggestions for doing so. -- Jenny 16:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Disagree. There's nothing wrong with the original prose that's stood for years. Odd nature ( talk) 17:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Odd nature - the original prose that stood for years was the cause of this debate, when MastCell and ScienceApologist decided that the terms 'fair and sensitive' had to go (which was a response to my calling some edits 'unfair and insensitive'). it began here, moved here with this reversion and several following reversions [5] [6], shifted to an attempt to delete a template I'd created to address fair tone wp:TfD#Template:Fair_tone, and then (after I posted my comment about this being a larger discussion] they moved to modifying policy directly to remove references to 'fair and sensitive', here, which ultimately led to the root of our current discussion at wp:Neutral_point_of_view#Fairness_of_tone_wording. there is obviously a problem with this passage from MastCell's, ScienceApologist's, and OrangeMarlin's perspective - I myself wouldn't mind reverting to the original version (with the 'fair and sensitive' construction), but if that's not going to happen then I see no reason to oblige the extensive efforts these editors have taken to impose a policy that suits their purposes. -- Ludwigs2 18:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • No bloody way. Nope. Not ever. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; dissera! 21:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm very uncomfortable with this wording, as it could all too easily be used to promote fringe. For instance, by claiming that sourced criticism - even if the criticism is the majority view - was not impartial. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 21:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • hunh - I'm sorry Jim, I don't see where you're getting this - where exactly does it say or imply that sourced criticism is not impartial? -- Ludwigs2 22:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
      • First off, I'm not Jim. =) Secondly, it depends which one we're talking about - I rather like the last one by Ward, but we need to be crystal clear and explicit that, when a fringe view's assertions are wildly at odds with accepted science or facts, it's not neutral to present both sides as equally valid, or to present the fringe view without carefully explaining what is accepted by mainstream [science/history/etc] and what is specific to the fringe theory. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 06:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
        • first off - oops! sorry...  :-D. second, I'd agree with you completely. as I keep saying, my only concern here is to keep fringe theories from being treated with unnecessary contempt. if something is not accepted by science, or is wildly at odds with it, or is just plain wrong, then that is the way it needs to be presented. but we I think we can always point out that something is wrong in a polite, even-toned manner. since I like Ward's last version as well, how could we make it more crystal clear? -- Ludwigs2 20:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"Concerned party"

This seems a particularly vague phrase. I was BOLD and reworded "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties." to read "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject."

I did this since I don't see how you can reasonably define a "concerned party". For example, a large number of people believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks, they are certainly concerned parties, but giving this viewpoint equal weight to the views published in reliable sources on this topic would be unwise. Please feel free to revert and discuss this change. Tim Vickers ( talk) 23:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree -- the idea of having to discuss what a 'concerned party' is gives me nightmares. And would have the potential of undermining our policy on reliable sources. Doug Weller ( talk) 10:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I also agree. This is the sentiment of NPOV as described explicitly elsewhere. HatlessAtless ( talk) 15:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Back to the discussion

It appears that there is, as of yet, no consensus. Let's move away from what the wording is and look at what we, as writers, want it to say. In my opinion, the section on tone should cover the following points:

-> Thesis: tone is part of content and must also be neutral.

  • Structure contributes to tone.
  • Word choice contributes to tone.
  • Weight contributes to tone but WP:UNDUE has priority.
  • Other things also contribute to tone.

In the spirit of "Customer Service", we should acknowledge the following groups of users likely to be reading the policy:

  1. A new editor trying to get their bearings or a reader attempting to determine the reliability of the article.
  2. An editor acting in good faith who was directed to this policy because of concerns about their writing.
  3. An admin trying to explain why a persistent violator was blocked.
  4. A tendentious editor looking for loopholes.

The first group will probably only really retain the thesis. The second group wants more details. The third group wants specifics so that they can avoid charges of being arbitrary and capricious. The fourth group will abuse overly specific wording. A guiding principle of " Less policy is better" is a consensus. Examples wouldn't hurt. SDY ( talk) 17:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

ok, this is a good starting place, though I think we should add (to your customer service lines) that the real focus of this policy is the non-editor reader. ultimately, articles need to read as neutral because if they don't reaad that way casual readers are going to shrug wikipedia off as a biased source, and the encyclopedia's credibility will be shot to hell and back again. -- Ludwigs2 19:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I think they'd essentially have the same approach as the first category, with the same essential result: looking for big picture, not details. SDY ( talk) 19:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
maybe that's true; I just don't want to lose sight of this point. it's easy for us editors to get lost in our own little disputes and forget that there's a few billion people who could care less what our problems are. -- Ludwigs2 20:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
In my mind, we have two potential dangers here; the civil POV-Pusher, and the fringe advocate. If an edit war starts, then admins can step in, and dispute resolution can take over. I think, however, that by stating "you don't have a right to your wording, but you may present your facts" we might guide through a lot of problem editors by encouraging them to work with their phrasing. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Some proposed language largely following this structure, taking into account a few other things:

Tone, for the purpose of this policy, is the style rather than the substance of an article. The tone must also be neutral, and problems with word choice, structure, and phrasing can lead to a biased article even when the basis of the article is verifiable facts.

This does not mean the article should be "balanced", since WP:WEIGHT requires minority views to be portrayed in proportion and WP:FRINGE states that views that have very little support should be left out entirely. It does mean that views, minority or majority, must not be portrayed as wrong, foolish, or immoral except in clearly attributed statements with appropriate context. Common sense applies, and words such as "hoax" can be used when there is consensus that they are appropriate, such as with Piltdown Man.

(Structurally: 1. Definition of terms, statement of policy. 2. Explaining that the policy does not nullify other policies, explaining what the policy does allow, appealing to common sense.)

This is really not that different from the long-standing "fairness of tone" section, but I believe that it expresses the same content without abusable words like "fair" and requesting emotional judgments from editors. There is wiggle room in that it appeals to common sense, but it is otherwise worded in terms of prohibitions and exceptions. The second sentence in the second paragraph is probably the stickiest one, but I do want to allow for verifiable statements like the Durban Declaration which pull no punches. The pro-life argument that abortion is immoral must be allowed in any discussion of abortion, but it must be clear that Wikipedia is only reporting the argument, not making it. SDY ( talk) 17:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, SDY. I don't think this wording actually resolves the issue (at least, not the issue I see...). you're reducing the solution to idiosyncratic judgements of 'appropriate context' and common sense, when in fact the judgement and common sense of editors is the thing in question. what happens when an AIDS Denialist wants to say 'the Durban Declaration' is the political opinions of this group of scientists, not a scientific document, and so the context is not appropriate for inclusion of this overly harsh statement'? I'd rather preclude any argument that might remove properly sourced material, and focus the debate on how that material is to be used in the article. -- Ludwigs2 01:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
We ultimately have to trust the judgment of a consensus of editors. The policies should be ground rules, not prescriptions. The solution must always come from common sense, both in the figurative and literal definition (i.e. consensus). You cannot legislate common sense, you can only give boundaries to the discussion. SDY ( talk) 02:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Self-contained definition of fairness of tone?

Here is a statement-of-intent form that might condense the "neutrality of tone" section into a self contained form. It is a completely opposite approach from the other side. It says nothing about which facts/opinions deserve mention, which is covered elsewhere, nor does it discuss the weight those opinions receives. It restricts itself entirely to the consideration that editors will have to deal with the fact that facts they disagree with will be in articles, but that wording will still have to be crafted carefully to avoid pissing people off. I actually think it sidesteps two of the competing interests that hounded the wording of the previous suggestion. Specifically, it explicitly states that editors may not try to exclude information they don't like, and ensures that the scientific viewpoints, with their large numbers and well documented and reliable sources are not excluded from articles. At the same time, those whose views disagree with the scientific majority, may present well sourced information that challenges scientific consensus. Both sides can use this to ensure that the facts presented say only what they mean and no more, and moves arguments towards inoffensive wording, rather than factual content.

  • In a nutshell: as a reader or editor, someone may present a reliably sourced argument that a belief you hold dear is wrong. If the fact meets the criteria for inclusion in the Wikipedia, you can't object to the fact itself, but you can insist that the article only say that you're wrong, and not imply you're an idiot for holding that belief.
  • Wikipedia strives to be as useful to a wide range of individuals, some of which have deeply held opinions and beliefs. Readers and editors will be faced with facts that disagree with or challenge such fundamental beliefs, and with which they disagree; sometimes vehemently. Presenting all facts relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia while keeping emotion cool requires careful balancing of language within any article.
  • In the interest of presenting facts that challenge a reader or editor's beliefs or values without inciting passions, it is possible that sources may require paraphrasing rather than quotations. Facts may require careful placement within the article structure. Choices of words and phrasing may require revision so as both to remain faithful to facts presented and simultaneously present those facts in a light as palatable to as many readers as possible. Finally, It is possible that some issues may be too contentious to declare final judgment on even when an editor believes the weight of reliable sources makes such judgment clear.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

  • I'd like to think about this for a day or so, but I could probably see using this version as well. thanks for being a reasonable voice - I respect the work you've been doing here.  :-) -- Ludwigs2 20:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
2¢ from a passer-by: I think the idea of focusing this section only on tone of the writer's "voice"--rather than issues of undue weight, fringe opinions or other matters that are handled elsewhere--is very appropriate. The above draft veers away from my understanding of the reasons for this policy, though: the goal is to present material from a neutral point of view, to the extent possible, not to keep editors or readers from becoming emotional. Also, the concept of fairness seems to have disappeared from this version; do we want to dump that? (I think that needs to be in the NPOV policy someplace.) In any case, perhaps this bit should be relabeled "neutral tone of writing" or something. I also think the word "disinterested" could be useful here: that gets to the heart of the matter, as I understand it. BTfromLA ( talk) 00:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
BTfromLA; you nailed it on the head when you said this veers. Let me be specific about my intent here; I approached this from a purely functional perspective, rather than an ideological one. Instead of trying to prevent anyone from writing with a POV tone, the aim of this section is to help fix POV sections and articles, rather than reverting POV changes. We accomplish two things by taking this approach. First and foremost, articles that are edited using this section as guidance will end up being neutral and fair, while providing specific guidance as to how to get there.
I don't think we'll be able to draft a policy paragraph or two that will stop POV articles, sections or statements from appearing in articles; Civil POV pushers and wikilawyers will hide behind shades of meaning in any ideological policy. Newbies will make POV statements out of ignorance for the policy, and insensitive people will make POV posts and not care about the policy. What my proposed wording does is focus on fixing POV statements and articles once they have appeared, the end result of the process being a neutral tone. Responding to your words exactly: writing in a neutral tone is what keeps readers from getting emotional; conversely if we write an article that keeps readers from getting emotional, we will end up with a neutral tone. In addition, reverting someone's POV statements and pointing to a policy is grating and can spark edit wars. It can also be questionable in terms of removing facts that should be in wikipedia so only because they are POV, instead of fixing it.
This policy statement is also crafted to be of immediate use to as many wikipedians as possible, as SDY so eloquently described in the previous section, I will elucidate point by point:
  1. For a new or good faith editor, reading the first couple of sentences along with the title will give them a good idea of what they should keep in mind when they edit. Just taking the time to think "am I writing in a way that will avoid pissing people off" will likely succeed for 90%+ of statements, and helps with good faith.
  2. For an editor trying to understand why other editors are concerned about their writing style, and for those editors who have to direct an editor to this section, it provides very specific action-based language that can be pointed to. "Facts may require careful placement within article structure" is not nearly as amenable to the rebuff "but my tone was fair and balanced!". Replying to a concern raised within any of the cautions in this draft immediately requires answering the question "why?". This raises the level of discourse immediately, which will naturally tend to avoid edit wars.
  3. For the admin explaining exactly why an editor was warned, blocked, or for a mediator trying to resolve an edit war or a dispute, this provides crystal clear guidance: all wording is open to negotiation. "stubbornly refusing to discuss moving a fact from an article header to a subsection" or "stubbornly refusing to consider alternative phrasings for a loaded statement" is much less subjective as an admin's statement than is "the presentation was unfair to group X".
  4. For the tendentious editor looking for loopholes, this is intended to force the discussion to elevate. An editor must explain "why" and requires things such as discussions on the talk page. The last sentence in the proposal is intended to emphasize that no single editor may declare consensus in an article, since other editors may dispute it. The key here is that for the tendentious editor or the civil POV-pusher, this section makes it harder to hijack articles, and more difficult to interfere with making an article neutral; rather than focusing on trying to force tendentious editors into writing neutral articled in the first place.
In short, the idea behind this proposal is to change from "getting it right on the first try" to "getting it almost right on the first try, and then getting the process right to fix it". Let WP:Undue and WP:FRINGE stand on their own for arguments of who gets heard and in how much detail. Let's have this section focus on the best guidance for editors on how to fix POV. HatlessAtless ( talk) 04:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate your thoughtful reply, HatlessAtlas. I stand by my opinion that, even if avoiding offense is brought in as a problem-solving principal, the overriding goal of creating an unbiased encyclopedia deserves a mention. I certainly agree that providing guidance for working one's way out of a conflict is a fine aim for the policy page, and to that end I'd suggest developing specific examples: a sentence that has ostensibly the same content that has been reworded two or three times to demonstrate both positive and negative models of this policy, say. Concrete examples are usually a good idea, but I think there is an especially urgent need in this case, as a significant number of editors seem to be "tone deaf": that is, they don't seem to grasp the concept of tone of voice when applied to encyclopedic writing, so it becomes imperative to demonstrate that idea as explicitly as possible. (And, perhaps, to state explicitly that ridicule and derision have no place here.) I wholeheartedly agree with keeping this focused and concise. I wonder whether veering away from describing the concept of fair tone and into what you call "the best guidance for editors on how to fix POV" might suggest two sections--one describing neutral tone, another describing things to keep in mind when addressing POV problems. What do you think? BTfromLA ( talk) 15:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I see and understand both points. Both of your comments could be addressed by expanding the "fairness of tone" section into three subsections, of which the above proposal would be section number two. I would certainly have no objection to a single sentence, or perhaps two, as part of the beginning of the first paragraph, that states the principle of using an unbiased and neutral tone, and then linking that with the guidance on how that neutral tone is achieved. I just think its important that the policy section devote its primary weight to guidance on how to successfully achieve neutral tone, rather than worrying about being too extensive in defining neutral tone. As for specific examples, we'll have to be very careful with how this is done, since if we're going to enshrine specific examples in policy, we'll have to balance examples that are clear, but also subtle. Examples that are too egregious and obvious won't be that useful, but at the same time, ones that are too subtle may be difficult to fathom and analyze. It would be perfect fodder for an essay, which I may write. To be clear, I have no objection to enshrining some examples in policy, only recognizing that it will be challenger. HatlessAtless ( talk) 15:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps the first paragraph could read: "Wikipedia strives to be as useful to a wide range of individuals, some of which have deeply held opinions and beliefs. In the interest of being as useful as possible to all readers, articles and sections must be written in a tone that impartial, balanced, and does not take sides in controversy. Readers and editors will be faced with facts that question or challenge their fundamental beliefs, and with which they disagree; sometimes vehemently. Presenting all facts relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia while keeping emotion cool and maintaining neutrality requires careful balancing of language within any article." HatlessAtless ( talk) 16:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Perhaps it'd be better to have the policy simply say "write in a neutral tone" and define what we mean by tone since the rest of the page defines what we mean by neutral. Some of this could be incorporated into an essay that addresses my second case (people who want more information). Two of the other three groups (nonwikipedians and problem editors) are best served with a relatively straightforward policy, and the final group (admins) would probably want a policy that they can cite without the appearance of cherry-picking. WP:TLDR is a major problem with this proposal. SDY ( talk) 16:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY, I think you may have misunderstood both what the proposal was and the intent. The proposal is the 167 word boxed quote at the top of this section, and is the same length as the proposal in the "consensus achieved" section above that you got behind. The long reply post to BTfromLA was not a revision to the policy proposal, it was an explanation of my thoughts as to why approaching the policy in this way. Look at my point #1 as to why this is simple and straightforward to nonwikipedians and problem editors, and my point #3 as to why this is useful for admins who need to quote it. I think this is perfectly clear, concise, and useful for editors, readers, and admins, but an essay on this policy would be useful for exploring in depth specific cases, rather than filling up the policy page. As for your comment about creep, this is simply a clear, concise, and action-oriented approach to how to get neutral tone rather than trying to define neutral tone, which gives wikilawyers and civil pov-pushers too much ammunition. HatlessAtless ( talk) 16:53, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Here is an even shorter and cleaner, single-paragraph presentation of above. I've shaved some redundancy out of it and defined neutral tone in the first sentence. Per WP:SOAP we do not take part in controversy, but we are free to write about controversy, which is how that fits in. It defines a neutral tone, drills into why a neutral tone is important, and then gives a concise, clear, and useful explanation of how to achieve neutral tone.

Neutrality and tone:

  • In the interest of being as useful as possible to all readers, articles and sections must be written in a tone that impartial, balanced, and does not take sides in controversy. Readers and editors will be faced with facts that question or challenge their fundamental values or beliefs, and with which they disagree; sometimes vehemently. Presenting all facts relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia while keeping emotion cool and maintaining neutrality requires careful balancing of language within any article. Sources may require paraphrasing rather than quotations. Facts may require careful placement within the article structure. Choices of words and phrasing may require revision so as both to remain faithful to facts presented and simultaneously present those facts in a light as palatable to as many readers as possible. Finally, it is possible that some issues may be too contentious to declare final judgment on even when an editor believes the weight of reliable sources makes such judgment clear.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

HatlessAtlas, While I respect your efforts, I don't think either proposed draft does the job you want it to do: it is really vague about things that the writing "may require." but it doesn't give anything more than a hint about when or why such changes might be appropriate. SDY is right, we need to spell out specifically what we mean by tone. I've been amazed to find that quite a number of editors don't grasp the concept; some seem to doubt that what we call "tone" really exists. (Just read through the arguments on this page for examples.) An essay might be valuable, but upon reflection I'm not convinced that this revision is the right way to go. I don't think that the existing paragraph is all that bad: it might make better sense to start with that, add specifics about tone and remove the stuff that duplicates undue weight and fringe topic issues. Perhaps you could propose, separately, a new section on conflict resolution. BTfromLA ( talk)
My problem is that there are very few rules in the proposal, just a lot of suggestions. In other words, I disagree that it is clear (it doesn't define what we mean by tone), concise (dropping the first paragraph wouldn't change much), or action-oriented (though I'm not sure exactly what that means, I'm expecting "do this" and I'm not seeing a lot of statements like that). I would also hold that it does not even promote a neutral tone, it promotes an inoffensive one. A neutral tone is patently offensive to zealots on all sides (i.e. "you're either with us or against us"). "Tone" is a word that means many things to many people, and this section's primary goal should be to explain what we mean by tone, since "neutral" is all over the rest of the page. SDY ( talk) 17:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

BTfromLA: I think you may have misunderstood why those statements are intentionally vague. It would be impossible to enumerate all of the ways POV can be slipped into an article. The reason the word "may" is included in all of these cases is simple; it puts the burden on the editor correcting a POV statement to justify why that statement is POV. For egregious cases, an edit summary would suffice, such as "attributing inflammatory statement to make it NPOV". If an editor has one of their posts changed with a rational reason for being NPOV, then the burden is on that editor to defend why that statement was neutral before reverting the change. The emphasis here is the fact that all wording is open to discussion is key here. It relies on the principle that we, as a community of editors "can't necessarily define (POV) but we know it when we see it". As to your suggestion for a conflict resolution section, how would you suggest I title/structure it? HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I have to side with SDY on this, and I'd go even further: the suggestions themselves are unclear. Obviously, enumerating all possibilities is not an option. But there is a big distinction between a brief statement that is general--it clearly lays out a basic, though not universal principal--compared to a vague statement, which really doesn't tell us much at all. As to the conflict resolution bit--I'll need to think a little more about how to structure that: the reason I suggested it is that seems to be your primary interest here. We should probably check to see where and how that is being dealt with on WP policy and guideline pages already before diving in. BTfromLA ( talk) 18:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
well, if you want a clear definition of tone, that's not too hard. something like this, maybe (adapting the first version in this section...):
  • Wikipedia strives to be informative to a wide range of readers, who have an equally wide range of opinions and beliefs. Since many of these beliefs may clash, and even the clearest facts may be interpreted differently by different readers, editors should take care to balance the tone of language within articles. A balanced tone avoids excess: positions are neither overstated nor understated relative to their importance; discussion is sufficient to make a given point clear, without redundant or tangential commentary that might distract from other points; milder phrases are used instead of stronger ones, particularly when discussing bitter disputes. In general, editors should write in an educational manner that tries to describe uncontested facts and contested opinions without offending those who might think otherwise, and should keep in mind that where one editor complains about the tone of an article, a small army of silent readers have likely already been offended.
  • It is possible to present facts that challenge beliefs or values without causing offense. It may require paraphrasing of sources rather than direct quotations, or the careful placement of facts and opinions within the article structure to avoid unwarranted implications. Word choice and phrasing may need revision to simultaneously remain faithful to the facts presented and to present those facts in a light palatable to as many readers as possible. Some issues may be so politically or emotionally heated that even common-sense evaluations by editors are too strong, and the article may need to fall back on simple description.
well, I feel like I've editorialized a bit, but I think you can get my drift here. -- Ludwigs2 01:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with your sentiment and much of your wording, but I disagree strongly with only this part: sourcing is sufficient to establish a point, but not so excessive that it drowns out other points Inclusion of a point, along with the relevant, sourced, and substantiated facts to back it up, is exactly how we let the facts speak for themselves. Majority opinions are considered majority opinions because of the strong weights of facts backing up the viewpoints. This sentiment is not in line with "Equal Validity" as it could be used by minority POV-pushers to defend stripping important facts defending majority opinions and imply that the minority opinions are stronger relative to the majority opinions than they actually are. If you were to rephrase this in such a way that its clear that you are referring to redundant facts and citations and balance this with sentiment in line with WP:PRESERVE, that information relevant to the topic should stay in wikipedia, and the sentiment stated in WP:UNDUE as Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. would completely resolve my concern. (If you want more details on how I am thinking about this, see the conversation on neutrality on my talk page) HatlessAtless ( talk) 15:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
ok, I hadn't been thinking about it in that way at all, and I see your point. let me look at your talk page and then I'll modify the text above with something (hopefully) better. -- Ludwigs2 17:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
(revision) I think my error was casting that line as a sourcing issue in the first place (because, of course, it isn't about sourcing). I've revised the passage to talk about 'discussion' instead, using "discussion is sufficient to make a given point clear, without redundant or tangential commentary that might distract from other points". that should solve the WP:PRESERVE problem nicely, though maybe it could highlight WP:UNDUE issues a bit more. -- Ludwigs2 18:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
This revision I can get behind. HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not thrilled with it. It's more about being inoffensive than being neutral. The two are often associated, but they're not equivalent. It strives and considers and wants to do the right thing, but it's more " consider mommy's feelings" than " honor thy mother." My concerns include but are not limited to:
  • "Educational Manner" will run afoul of WP:NOTTEXTBOOK and can easily run into WP:SOAP.
  • The discussion on "balance" can easily be read to create a conflict with WP:WEIGHT.
  • "Without offending those who might think otherwise" runs contrary to WP:NOTCENSORED.
It could easily be read to contradict other policies, most of which have far greater weight than concerns about tone. SDY ( talk) 20:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
hmmm... SDY, without debating that this version would need improvements, I think you're shadow-boxing. the point that I've brought up repeatedly (and that maybe needs to be highlighted more in the text) is that this policy section would only apply after other policies are satisfied. to address your points individually...
  • "Educational Manner" may be bad phrasing, but considered in context all it means is that one should write with the intention of informing people of things they don't know, without judging them for not knowing it. WP:NOTTEXTBOOK is something that would be resolved before considerations of Fairness of Tone (FOT) ever arose, and this 'educational' thing is intended to prevent the kind of judgmentalism that would lead to WP:SOAP.
  • WP:WEIGHT (with respect to sourcing issues, and inclusion/exclusion) should be determined before any discussion of FOT becomes pertinent. after that, this passage from WEIGHT - "Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements" - starts bleeding into FOT issues, and so FOT would not conflict with WEIGHT, but instead augment it.
  • again, WP:NOTCENSORED would have precedence over FOT. FOT is not intended to exclude viewpoints, but just temper them to a neutral tone. I'll point out that this is already de-facto policy on wikipedia: even the most die-hard science advocate editors wouldn't include a phrase like 'scientists think this theory is stupid and irritating', even if they could find proper sourcing for it, because it obviously carries a biased, unprofessional tone. all I'm trying to do here is hone that generic intuition into a clear, established point of policy.
I see FOT as a policy that should be applied when (and only when) all other policies have been satisfied but a dispute still exists between editors about bias in the article. Basically (if inelegantly put), FOT should hold that "If editors cannot reach consensus about neutrality on the basis of reliable sourcing (and other policies) alone, then the reliable sources given must be phrased and used in a manner that provokes the least offense possible (given what the sources say), since the offendedness of editors and readers is the only measure of bias left that could resolve the dispute." see what I'm reaching for, here? -- Ludwigs2 01:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

(Undent) If the policy isn't meant to contradict other policies, it should either be clearly worded so that it doesn't, or explicitly state that those other policies have priority. As it is, I'm not 100% sure what the policy means other than "try not to say anything clearly, you might offend someone." SDY ( talk) 05:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

ok, I'll make some edits to reflect that - give me a bit of time.
with respect to what the policy means, it's not 'try not to say anything clearly' but rather 'don't be more clear that the sourcing allows.' lets take an obvious example, like 'remote viewing'. an old (and at that time heavily defended) version of the page said "As with all pseudoscientific claims of extra-sensory perception and the paranormal, the scientific community accepts none of the alleged instances of remote viewing as being actual evidence of psychic perception." now a phrase like this isn't wrong per se, and was certainly sourced, but it kept running into objections (from me, and others) because it read as though disdain were being laid on with a trowel. certainly anyone who happens to believe in remote viewing (as silly as you and I might think that is) would take this phrase as an electronic slap in the face. the current version of the passage, by contrast, reads: "Remote viewing, like other forms of extra-sensory perception, is generally considered as pseudoscience due to the need to overcome fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles currently held by the scientific community, and the lack of a positive theory that explains the outcomes." This gets across exactly the same idea and information, but explains why scientists reject it, and avoids the potentially offensive overstatements (e.g. 'As with all pseudoscientific claims...', 'accepts none of the alleged...'). I think the second version is a much better way of expressing the idea, as well as (or because it's) more palatable to all readers, and I want this policy to guide people towards that kind of phrasing and away from the former kind. that's the meaning I'm trying to get across. -- Ludwigs2 16:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Part of my problem with some of these proposals is that they're really more appropriate for WP:MOS. They're really more about good writing, which is obviously a GA and FA criterion, and there's a balance between clarity and heavy-handedness that is far too subjective for policy. Interestingly, I got into a bit of a spat about this recently, where the exact problem happened: someone disagreed with the tone of an article and immediately assumed that a writing problem was someone pushing a fringe POV.
I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying, but I don't think it would work as policy because it is by nature an extremely subjective judgment. SDY ( talk) 16:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
yeah, this is definitely a tricky and difficult issue. The main reason I don't think the WP:MOS is right for this is the it clearly is a bias issue, not just a style issue. it's just not necessarily a bias in the 'POV-Pushing' sense of the word. for instance, there's nothing stylistically wrong with any of the following phrases:
  • Scientists reject a fringe theory
  • Scientists despise a fringe theory
  • Scientists have not accepted a fringe theory
  • Scientists discount a fringe theory
but each phrase carries a different set of implications about the relationship between scientists and the fringe theory, which can impose a wide range of implicit meanings without any sourcing whatsoever. plus, even where you would think that the MOS would address these issues - such as wp:MOS#Avoid_contested_vocabulary - it turns out that it only refers to common usage (in this case avoiding archaic and 'strained' sounding words), not to the connotations of different word choices. -- Ludwigs2 18:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


Should we assume good faith to group motives as part of NPOV?

I've been reading the arguments about neutrality of tone and some of the articles used for illustration, and I think I've noticed something. I think that a lot of the "treat fairly" and "respect opinions" seems to come down to a proxy observation that groups should have their beliefs treated in good faith. I think there is a place in NPOV for a statement to the effect that "Unless multiple reliable secondary sources indicate a motive for a group, care should be taken that an article or section does not assert or imply a motive to a group." Also, though I don't know how to phrase it, I also think that even when a clear consensus in RSS's has been reached about a group's motivations, I think that the group's self-asserted motivation should still be stated, and that attribution is particularly important when asserting motivation for a group.

I think that there are two useful reasons for this thought. First, implying that a group's motivations are disingenuous is an easy way to piss off supporters of those groups, and second, attributing something like motivation to a group without a source is not only NPOV, but also OR. Especially given the volatility and potential for veiled incivility, I think attribution of motivation is particularly important.

Comments please? HatlessAtless ( talk) 18:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how we'd need to change policy to do this; we already can with current policy. Antelan 18:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
WP:V seems to handle this, yes. I'm mainly concerned that in the instance of groups where the motive has been demonstrated that some people would use arguments about tone to censor that information. This is especially important with things like health fraud. If it hasn't been documented, we shouldn't be assuming any motives at all, good faith or bad faith. SDY ( talk) 18:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
hmmm... I'm not sure verifiability quite makes the grade for this. I'm thinking about Intelligent Design, where there is documented evidence that ID proponents were engaged in a political gambit, but this evidence gets used to disparage ID proponents as mere machiavellian schemers (when in fact, I'm guessing their motives are more complex than that, involving an honest concern about spiritual welfare).
Hatless - I think you're right. at least, I know that the boundary line between group identity and personal identity is thin to the point of non-existence, so making incorrect attributions about a group will (almost invariably) be taken by group members as an attribution about their own individual behavior. plus, these kinds of attributions risk reducing a group to a 2-dimensional cardboard cutout of itself. that's never good. -- Ludwigs2 18:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
The discussion over whether an active political entity is a "person" has some strange legalisms to it, but the consensus over at WP:BLP appears to be that policy only applies to individual human beings. I agree that the claims should not be used spuriously, but they should also not be removed if they are verifiable and attributable to a reliable source. Wikipedia should not be a " Second Life for corporations" as the Silly Party's candidate for president put it. SDY ( talk) 18:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't see how we'd need to change policy to do this; we already can with current policy. Antelan 18:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC) Which existing policy are you reading, and how, that already does this? I agree that existing policy already has sentiment of this kind, but if one were to make and edit with the edit summary attributing assertion of group motive per WP?, which WP would I point to to make my rationale clear? (Please do not read this as a sarcastic or challenging question, if I've missed or misunderstood a policy then there's no need to try to hammer out a change to NPOV) HatlessAtless ( talk) 17:54, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

tags

  1. {{ POV|date=September 2008}} — message used to warn of problems
  2. {{ POV-section|date=September 2008}} — tags only a single section as disputed
  3. {{ POV-check|date=September 2008}} — message used to mark articles that may be biased. ({{ POV-check|date=September 2008}} may be used for short)
  4. {{ POV-title|date=September 2008}} — when the article's title is questionable
  5. {{ POV-statement|date=September 2008}} — when only one sentence is questionable
  6. {{ articleissues}} — When an article or section fails to abide by multiple Wikipedia content policies

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.204.15.239 ( talk • contribs) 17:37, 28 April 2008

What is the point of a neutral point of view?

Is this political correctness? It extends to discussions as well as articles right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.4.239 ( talk) 02:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

neutral point of view, as I understand it, primarily refers things that affect article content. talk page discussions should adhere to wp:civility, and the hope is that civil discussion on the talk pages will produce neutral perspectives in article content.
neutrality is not political correctness (which as I understand it simply avoids anything that might offend anyone); neutrality means that we are trying to present a view on the subject that either lacks a particular perspective, or offers all of the major perspectives without giving any undo preference to any of them. it's actually very difficult to achieve neutrality because none of us can really claim to be neutral, and there's no real objective guideline for when something is neutral, and sometimes neutrality means that a perspective some people find offensive has to be given. -- Ludwigs2 20:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
talk pages should be PC; articles should have NPOV and be PC (when possible). Keep in mind, both are subjective topics and the ability of humans to strictly adhere to either is a matter of philosophical discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.220.172.236 ( talk) 12:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I disagree, talk pages must be civil but political correctness has no place whatsoever in the encyclopedia (other than as the subject of the aforementioned article of course). Political correctness chills discussion, which is the very antithesis of what a talk page is all about. Cheers. L0b0t ( talk) 21:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

So I take it it's OK to start arguments in the discussion of any given article? (civily of course). (Original poser of the question what is the point of a NPOV). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.3.53.83 ( talk) 04:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The point of NPOV is so that an article doesn't become unduly biased. Print encyclopaedias often are not neutral - two good examples being early Encyclopaedia Britannica which had things from an English view point (favourable to english exploits etc) and more recently: the Encyclopedia of World Biography which landed George Bush in trouble after he labelled Silvio Berlusconi a "political amateur known for corruption and vice" see here. Wikipedia is accessible throughout the world and should look not to unduly favour anything but the most accepted point of view, giving lesser priority to more minor views. Also, libellous or dubious claims should not be given any space on a wikipedia article. Sillyfolkboy ( talk) 05:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok sorry to bother; initial poser of question here. I am being accused of libel in a wikipedia discussion about a politician about an issue which i know to be FACT. Is this little setup going to stick to it's original encyclopediadic sense? If i will be prevented from putting political argument into articles where else will I go? I understand the problem ... certain discussions go on, those that need conjecture, most commonly conspiracy theories. I am told to only discuss possible enhancements to articles. And I'm being shut down. Civility only? Are you sure?

If you are referring to this claim [7] then it falls under the policy WP:BLP and as far as I can see, unless you can provide a reliable source to back up the claim, you have been correctly reverted. It is not a matter of "NPOV". Shot info ( talk) 00:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V29aDnQlPWk <- reliable source to back up claim (film). I was prevented from posting this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.3.171.10 ( talk) 19:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


missed edit summary

reverted a change by Science Apologist, that assumed a non-existent consensus. no doubt he will revert it back in, however. -- Ludwigs2 21:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The revision as restored by SA looks a considerable improvement to me. . dave souza, talk 22:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I think SA's language is clearer. It doesn't change long-standing policy, but it does clean up the wording. I think there's still room for improvement, but I would rather have this version than some of the recent proposals. SDY ( talk) 22:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Could we remove the ref to notability? (we should be phasing that concept out, right? Or am I jumping ahead too far?)
Otherwise: both versions have merits. I like the warmer and more informal tone of [8], though. Warm tone, relaxed attitude and especially giving people ideas on where and what to negotiate on improves usage of the project namespace pages when it comes to wikipedia's dispute resolution system. -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 23:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC) (wikipedia is WP:NOT a bureaucracy or anything, so any way we can strengthen the "feel" of consensus tends to help people cooperate better on making our encycopedia. And that's part of the goal of the project namespace.
When it comes to discussing with people who are adamantly opposed to WP:ENC and prefer to think of Wikipedia as a community, informal tones tend to make them too focused on social interaction and not focused enough on editing. That's a problem. ScienceApologist ( talk) 23:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
In other words: it's a consensus if one makes a huge assumption of bad faith and thereby discounts all contrary opinions. 64.86.17.112 ( talk) 00:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Can an administrator please block this Davkal wikistalker? Thanks. ScienceApologist ( talk) 00:41, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
SA, is everyone who says something you don't like automatically a Davkal puppet?
Kim - consensus is something achieved, not something imposed. imposing a consensus when there is none is not consensus at all, but some form of authoritarianism. and strengthen the '"feel'" of consensus in the absence of consensus is propaganda, nothing more. if that's the way you want policy decided, fine, but please don't rationalize it by asserting that it's a normal part of consensus.
my real objection here (as always) is with ScienceApologist's approach to the problem. I wouldn't mind using his preferred version of the section (or any other place we've edited together) if he or his buddies bothered to take the time to discuss the matter and convince me it was better, but all he seems to know how to do is edit it in by brute force, and then keep it there by whatever means necessary (short of actual discussion). it's rude, inconsiderate, and deliberately thumbs its nose at consensus. now, again, if that's the way you all want things to be run here, say so - I'll go somewhere else where I don't have to deal with this kind or degree of stupidity. otherwise, I don't see why you all put up with it. -- Ludwigs2 20:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, then edit or propose your changes. WP:OWN specifies that this is our not his policy. I read the discussion of SA's version to indicate that consensus reflected that the SA version of the tone article was an improvement over the policy that was there. Consensus did not dictate that this was the perfect wording. More importantly, consensus and unanimity are not the same. Also, let's point out that its consensus, not having any one of us convinced that a particular thing is best. I still want one of my wordings that I proposed to be the one that ends up here, but I'll work with what I've got. Come, let's take the substrate SA has and that consensus tolerates and tweak it into the perfect policy section instead of arguing that we should hash out the endless talk-page debate to conclusion before making a change. HatlessAtless ( talk) 22:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggested revision to tone section

The current wording This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority views should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all.

Runs into an a-priori/a-posterioiri problem, as well as one of implied non-notability. Specifically, the views of a 51%/49% minority will be treated as almost equal to the "majority" viewpoint, while an 85%/15% minority will receive much less. More importantly, that division (51%/49% vs 85%/15%) is determined by representation in reliable sources, not some outside judgement by wikipedia editors. The wording above runs the risk of editors trying to violate WP:UNDUE pushing a majority viewpoint by stripping relevant and important facts about a minority viewpoint using the the above phrasing of tone as an excuse. Just as importantly, WP:PAPER/ WP:UNDUE makes it clear that we should not strip out encyclopedic content about a minority view in a page dedicated to that minority view. The lack of specificity above means that an editor could go to an article on a minority opinion and improperly claim that the article should have less content than the respective article on a majority viewpoint.

I think these can be resolved by changing the wording to be as follows:

This does not mean that all views should get equal space when describing multiple viewpoints on a topic, nor that those viewpoints should be presented as equal: Minority views will only be presented in proportion to their mention in reliable sources outside the articles dedicated to the groups that hold those views. Views in the extreme minority will not receive mention in Wikipedia at all beyond the articles dedicated to the groups that hold those views

HatlessAtless ( talk) 01:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

We don't have to repeat the entirety of WP:WEIGHT in the section, just acknowledge that providing appropriate weight instead of "balanced" coverage is acceptable, even though it nominally gives a tone to the article. SDY ( talk) 01:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I think the intent of the tone section has been to require that each view be presented from the perspective of its proponents, using its best arguments (as its proponents see them) when there is a dispute. The fact that a view happens to be a majority view at the moment does not mean it is correct. The purpose of the tone section hitherto has been to ameliorate, not enhance, the effect of the weight section. In general, weighing sources with anything like the sort of specificity that is being called for -- identifying how much stature each view has --requires a subject-matter expert and is probably not possible in a Wiki environment. Everyone tends to think that their view has the better argument and is better represented in reliable sources. Weight has traditionally, and wisely, required only a purely qualitative assessment requiring more emphasis to a clearly dominant view and prohibiting clearly minority views from unduly dominating the article. Attempts to introduce anything like a quantitative assessment, with views weighted in proportion to claims about their specific degree of acceptance, sounds nice in theory but in practice will introduce so much subjective judgment into the picture that it undoes rather than reinforces the intended effect of WP:NPOV. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 02:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Tone ameliorates weight only in that it does not allow scornful representation of minority opinions, a point that is already brought into great detail by other sections of the NPOV policy. I'm just pointing out that adding this additional language is redundant. It may be correct, but policies shouldn't drone on in endless repetition. SDY ( talk) 05:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I see the connection between your response and my concerns? Personally I think this section should not allude to WEIGHT at all, and simply let it stand on its own, but consensus seems to be against me on that one, so I want to avoid potential conflict. How does the current wording prevent someone from making an AfD case against ID (or the article on some tiny minority but notable political party) for example, by quoting this wording of core policy? HatlessAtless ( talk) 11:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
The only reason the tone section has to mention weight at all is that NPOV and weight can conflict when some will read "neutral" as "fair and balanced." The tone section is not the entirety of the NPOV policy, it's a minor section that deals exclusively with subtle problems like wording, choice of quotes, and some stylistic decisions. Notability is covered by its own guideline; all that this section covers is avoiding bias creep. SDY ( talk) 14:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the current wording, but the proposed change isn't too horrible either, other than being a little clumsily worded. If it does go anywhere the end part about "Views in the extreme minority will not receive mention in Wikipedia at all beyond the articles dedicated to the groups that hold those views" would absolutely need to end with something like ", assuming they are notable enough to even deserve an article." Otherwise the wording implies that all extreme minority views should get articles of their own, which is clearly not correct. In fact, I would just leave it at no mention in Wikipedia at all. DreamGuy ( talk) 17:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

DG, the [{WP:V]], the notability criteria, and the AfD process cover plenty well that some groups will not get articles at all. HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Please discuss before changing

Folks, I reverted more deeply back to what the page was when page protection was added. We don't seem to have consensus here. Strongly suggest keeping the page reverted back to a state before the recent proposals and attempting to get a sizeable comment period and consensus on major changes. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 23:43, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, somewhat: activity is the best way to hash out a viable working rephrase, so lonmg as everyone isn't too revert-happy. Insisting on the long-standing version can be problematic in itself, where the long-standing version contains poor phrasing. Shoemaker's Holiday ( talk) 00:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
In general I agree with shoemaker, but given that this is a core content policy, rather than an ordinary paragraph, I also understand where Shirahadasha is coming from. By the same token, looking at the current wording (longstanding version), I have to admit that I like it a lot. HatlessAtless ( talk) 00:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what version to which you are referring, but the version that is labeled "Fairness of Tone" has a lot of problems in that it equates equality and fairness with neutrality. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
That's your view, but not enough people have weighed in to establish that it's the community's view. I've posted a notice to WP:PUMP that a discussion of some substantial changes to WP:NPOV, particularly the "tone" section, is underway at this page. We let discussion at an ordinary AfD go for several days before taking action. This is a major policy page that editors need to rely on. Having the text change rapidly as issues are debated can create chaos. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 01:36, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
We've exceeded the length of time for most AfDs at this point. I think you might want to take an opportunity to read some of the sections that are a bit higher on this page. There has been a considerable amount of discussion on this issue. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Updates to tone section

I've made two updates to the new tone section of the policy, to keep the existing sentiment, which I like a lot, but to eliminate the two key concerns with word choice, which were expressed by a large number of editors per the original discussion of the new version. I've preserved all of the meaning in the new version.

  • I have changed the word dispassionate into impartial to make the policy mesh more tightly with WP:SOAP, and WP:NOTTEXTBOOK from the perspective that wikipedia does not get involved in disputed, it lets reliable sources do all of the telling. An article can be massively POV and still presented in a dispassionate tone, while changing a statement from a polemic one to a dispassionate tone does not necessarily remove the POV.
  • I removed the word notable opinions for the two reasons cited in the discussion of this version. First, without an essay establishing a notability criterion for schools of thought beyond that in WP:UNDUE, there's no need to point to UNDUE from this section. Secondly, using the loaded word 'notably' immediately presents a problem with making the section susceptible to wikilawering to push fringe views into articles. Since some fringe groups have unquestioned notability, this could be used as a wedge to try to force those views into articles they do not belong in (based on the criteria in UNDUE) by arguing that they are notable. To fix the section only discusses the tone of schools of thought that are being discussed in the article, leaving UNDUE to stand alone in adjudicating which schools of thought deserve mention in an article or not, eliminating all possibility of conflict.

HatlessAtless ( talk) 19:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree that one all-too-common manouvre is quoting a polemical, shrill source that tends to make the other side look as rediculous as possible, and that one thing the tone section should do is explain that we should avoid that. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 10:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I always support the removal of the word notable where there is no objective notability scale or criterion provided. Notability isn't a real word here. It is a term of art to describe whether an article ought to be included in the Wikipedia or content ought to be included in a Wikipedia article: useful when objective, useless when arbitrary. patsw ( talk) 12:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Religion section - Disputes between historians or scientists and religious views

The FAQ Religion section seems ambiguous in explaining how to present religious views in disputes between religion and historians, scientists and similar. Since this is an issue that comes up time and again in the encyclopedia, suggest clarifying. Propose adding the paragraph in italics after the existing paragraph quoted to address this.

Some adherents of a religion might object to a critical historical treatment of their own faith, claiming that this somehow discriminates against their religious beliefs. They might prefer that the articles describe their faith as they see it, which might be from an ahistorical perspective (e.g. the way things are is the way things have always been; any differences are from heretical sects that don't represent the real religion.) Their point of view must be mentioned, yet note that there is no contradiction. NPOV policy means that Wikipedia editors ought to say something like this: "Many adherents of this faith believe X, and also believe that members of this group have always believed X; however, due to the acceptance of some findings (say which) by modern historians and archaeologists (say which), other adherents (say which) of this faith now believe Z."

Similarly, some historians and scientists might object to presenting religious views on subjects which they regard as properly and perhaps solely the domain of history or science, including past events or prophesized future events. Nonetheless, for the reasons explained by Larry Sanger, the neutral point of view includes neutrality in these disputes and significant religious views should be fairly and sensitively presented where appropriate. Such views should be described using language which explains the basis of adherence without endorsing point of view. Articles describing a disputes between religious authorities and e.g. historians could say something like this: "According to [scriptural narrative or religious sources], X happened. (religious interpretation sources) explain that X has (religious significance Z) (etc.). However, modern historians/archaeologists/etc. (say which) have generally accepted that X did not happen because of findings A, B. ..." The article, including the introduction, should attempt to avoid using language that would tend to endorse one view or the other. It should neither present the scriptural narrative or religious belief as fact, nor present a characterization of it as a myth or ahistorical as fact. Language should present differences in how different viewpoints understand reality in a way that is accurate (e.g. religious sources "believe" or "recieve a tradition that", historians "find", scientists "observe", etc.), but jargon language that has negative connotations in common use ("myth", "cult", "heresy", etc.) should generally be used only when presenting the viewpoint that uses the jargon (with appropriate link). ("Anthropologists characterize the Noah's Ark narrative as a myth" rather than "The Noah's Ark story is a myth about..."). Similarly, care should be taken to use neutral terms when describing religious narratives and beliefs. For example, terms like "narrative" rather than "story" should be used when describing scriptural accounts except when presenting specific views of them (or describing their use as children's stories).

I think an example clearly explaining how to handle this situation would be helpful and appropriate because of the frequency with which this kind of dispute comes up. The first paragraph could be interpreted as describing only internal religious disputes. When the subject matter of an article is something described in a religious source (for example, a Biblical narrative), the first paragraph doesn't always provide clear guidance on how to handle the situation. The specific proposals I've made can doubtless be improved, but guidance on this issue will I think be very helpful. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:54, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Just for readability, consider breaking it up into "answers" and "lists of examples." It's a very dense block of text. It could probably be more explicit about disagreements between religious groups of the same faith, historically the cause of some pretty messy disputes. SDY ( talk) 01:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Addressing disputes within a faith is the subject of the first paragraph (which already exists.)I agree better clarity would be welcome on that issue as well. Suggest addressing improving that section in a separate proposal. We might have a better chance of reaching consensus on the current issue if we don't bite off more than we can chew. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 02:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Additions are basically good. Separate proposal regarding the extant first paragraph would probably have to cover material which is the object of religious belief for several distinct religious groups, as there are a number of groups of both the Abrahamic and Dharmic religious families which use the same words, and sometimes even use the words to describe the same subjects, but have vastly different ideas regarding the significance or meaning of those subjects. But no real objections to the proposed additions. John Carter ( talk) 13:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you are putting way too much weight on Larry Sanger's personal interpretation of NPOV, as the NPOV policy as stated here and used in encyclopedias as a standard policy do not just let religious views get treated with the same weight as scholarly views. I would strongly oppose that entire proposed change until it is rewritten to remove the idea that people being offended about information that conflicts with their religious beliefs (being scared of the word myth, demanding their views in science articles, etc.) should be coddled. That's not how things work here, as is clear in all other writing about NPOV. You're going to need pretty wide consensus to make such a sweeping change to how NPOV is handled, and the handful of responses you have so far don't come close to it. DreamGuy ( talk) 17:27, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I've looked back at the section as it stands now -- it is as perfectly clear as it needs to be, and specifies that religious people being offended isn't an excuse (in and of itself) for changing an article. That's an extremely important concept, and the rewording suggested above would completely turn that on its ear, basically welcoming religion in every article in the whole encyclopedia whether it has anything to do with the topic or not. DreamGuy ( talk) 17:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I am proposing adding a second paragraph, not to remove the (aleady-existing) first, so the issue of religious people wanting to censor scientific discussions remains addressed, and if you think it should be strengthened I'd welcome a proposal to strengthen it. The proposal discusses only the presentation of "significant" religious views, which are includable per WP:WEIGHT and related policies. It dosen't change or even discuss criteria for determining when a particular view is significant. The threshold for includability remains as it was. It simply discusses how to handle things once that threshold has been crossed. Neutrality between different points of view is what WP:NPOV is all about, and has worked very well for some time. The intent of the proposal is simply to clarify existing policy and to ensure phrasing that more appropriately reflects neutrality in practice, not to change the underlying policy. By using a phrase like "information that conflicts with their religious beliefs" and by using phrases like "they", you are inserting your belief that one view is correct and another incorrect, which is what NPOV is designed to prevent. Once religious views are includable, the question of what weight they also remains unchanged by this proposal, and per existing policy depends on the topic. On a specifically religious topic (a detail of a doctrine or ritual, for example) religious viewpoints might get primary weight, and the proposal isn't intended to suggest that religious views get primary weight in an article like Evolution. If you believe clarification is needed to avoid the possibility that this language might be interpreted as changing when religious views become included, I'd welcome a proposal. However, when religious views are includable by our ordinary criteria, they should be welcome and the door should be open to them, whether editors personally agree with them or not. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 19:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Whether one view is correct or another incorrect is often irrelevant. Let's take an example of Scientology. This particular religion believes that psychiatry is just about the worst thing ever to be inflicted upon humanity. They are adamant in their distrust and outright hatred of psychiatry. Fine. We must describe this fact in our articles about Scientology. However, we should also point out what critics have said about Scientology's disdain for psychiatry. What's more, we should not pretend that the opinions of Scientologists about psychiatry deserve as much weight as, say, an expert in the subject. We rely on reliable, third-party sources to evaluate the "sides". In pretty much all the cases I know about, the third-parties heavily discount the Scientologist opinion in favor of mainstream psychiatry. This is hardly fair to the Scientologist, but Wikipedia is not in the business of fairness. We need to be honest with our readers about what the best sources have to say about the subject, and we need to be honest when a source is the best. Otherwise, we will end up pandering and accommodating rather than integrating and explaining. This often looks to adherents as though Wikipedia is "talking a side" in the dispute. However, this is simply not the case. Consider, if you will, a hypothetical scenario where in the future, Scientology becomes a ubiquitous and mainstream belief that is not criticized by anyone but a marginal few. In such a situation, our characterization of Scientology's beliefs would remain the same, but our discussion of the responses to Scientology's beliefs would change dramatically or may even disappear altogether depending on how marginalized the naysayers became. Our job is to present what the preponderance of reliable, expert sources say (in our hypothetical scenario, the preponderance of the expert sources say Scientology rules and every other idea is marginal at best). We are not supposed to try to add any kind of balance on top of this to make sure that the impression that one view is correct and the other incorrect doesn't come across. Doing such is actually a violation of NPOV, interestingly enough. Most people, especially those who find themselves on the out-and-out with what the most reliable sources say, miss this nuance. They want to make sure that no one reading the article will come away with the impression that their cherished belief is not on equal footing with expert understanding of the subject. Generally, this is an impossibility. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think that the principle of letting the facts speak for themselves could usefully be introduced at this stage. We shouldn't assume that NPOV is unattainable and that articles will inevitably be "weighted" towards either a religious or a scientific stance. In the Noah's Ark example, I would prefer to see rather than "Anthropologists characterize the Noah's Ark narrative as a myth", "In the 1950s, John Doe, an anthropologist, made a detailed analysis of the Noah's Ark story as a myth. Jane Deer, a theologian argued that his approach ignored..." The more we add sourced and concrete detail, the more the POV problems melt away. (This is not an endorsement for writing too much though; keeping it short and sweet also helps in many cases). Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC) Itsmejudith ( talk) 09:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate your suggestion. I certainly agree that careful and detailed attribution and sourcing can go a long way to assisting with NPOV in a brief, unobstrusive and civil, yet rigorous and effective way. Perhaps this could be better articulated. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 10:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
As to the Scientology example, because Scientology is a small minority religion both in numbers and in historical/cultural impact, its views on a lot of subjects (other than itself) wouldn't necessarily be significant under WP:WEIGHT. The views of major denominations of major historic world religions -- Hinduism, Buddism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- will tend to be significant and includable on a broader range of subjects than the views of tiny minority religions and denominations, as a simple application of WP:WEIGHT principles. My understanding is that we don't weight based on truth, we weight based on cultural impact (how much the view has impacted thought and discourse) with respect to a particular subject. Because obscure religions would be excluded by WP:WEIGHT, would it be possible to provide another example involving a more clearly significant religious view, so we discuss issues and problems in including and describing in a more realistic case? Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 12:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand what this is about. Statements by religious adherents regarding their faith are primary sources. We can cite primary sources for what they are, but encyclopedic discussion of religious topics needs secondary sources, that is, we always need to rely on academic literature, in the case of religious topics, academic literature in the field of religious study. Conflating secondary (academic) literature on a historical question with religionist (primary) sources is an absolute no-no. The suggested paragraph above is muddle-headed cultural relativism at its worst and has no place on Wikipedia, except in WP:DISCLAIMER where we already state that our encyclopedic material may offend. That's all that will ever be needed to address this. The "point of view" of a religious faith is the very topic in articles on that faith, and it needs to be documented by referring to the pertinent literature within religious studies. Statements like "Many adherents of faith A believe X, and also believe that members of this group have always believed X" belong in the article on A, not X, and need a reference from the literature relevant to A, not some random blog kept by some self-identified adherent of A. -- dab (𒁳) 09:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

aye! -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 10:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi! According to WP:PSTS, "Primary sources are sources very close to the origin of a particular topic", eyewitness accounts and similar, while secondary sources are one stepped removed. So in religion, primary sources would describe revelation and other direct encounter experiences by people claiming to have had such experiences or people very close to them (e.g. the Gospels, the Prophets, etc.). Anything not claiming to represent direct experience (commentaries and the like) would be a secondary source. I couldn't find your view that secondary sources have to be academic or that all religious sources are primary in the WP:PSTS language. As to reliability, clearly the views of Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, Moshe Feinstein, or the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards can easily be distinguished from "some random blog", and many organized, long-standing religions have academies and other ways of determining who is regarded as an expert. Finally, I don't understand why religion isn't, like science, both a subject and a point of view. My understanding here is that points of view become significant not based on their truth but by the extent to which they have influenced thought and culture - the extent to which they're discussed, not the extent to which they're agreed with. And for better or for worse there are many subjects on which religion and religious views have had a lot of influence and been part of a lot of discussions. My understanding is that "Muddle-headed cultural relativism" is essentially what WP:NPOV is about. If we don't want it, perhaps we should drop the policy entirely. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 12:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Two points: first, I strongly disagree with dab and Francis Schonken that accounts by religious people about their own religion are primary sources. They confuse kinds of sources for kinds of views. My book about an indigenous group in South American is not a secondary source because I am not indigenous. It is a secondary source beause in that book I use a particular methodological and theoretical framework to reflect on and analyze primary accounts of the indigenous culture. It is the methodological and theoretical frameworks that make my view an "anthropological" view, not the fact that I am non-indigenous. As a Jew, if I were to reflect on and analyze Jewish primary sources using the same methodological and theoretical framework, my view would still be anthropological and my essay a secondary source. Now, a religious Jew can also reflect on and analyze primary Jewish texts. Their methodological and theoretical framework is different from that of an anthropologist, so they are expressing a different view. But their analysis of primary sources itself still constitutes a secondary source.

Second, I think Shirahadasha introduces an essential element when he brings up WP:WEIGHT. I have no concerns about coddling religious people; NPOV insists that all notable views be represented no matter how wrong we think they are, I see no problem in applying this to religious views as much as anthropological views. My only concern - and I would ask Shirahadasha to incorporate the language about WEIGHT or FRINGE into the proposed change - is that people may misread the proposal to say that all religious views should be included. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I am actually arguing for "muddle headed cultural relativism" or indeed any kind of relativism. I agree with dab about preferring academic sources and that that includes works of theology. A useful question to ask when encountering difficult NPOV questions is "what discipline does this article belong to?". There will always, I think, be one or more academic disciplines, for example the study of Pokemon belongs to cultural studies, the study of Greenpeace belongs to political science or political sociology, the study of the Moon belongs to astronomy. That helps us to identify the relevant sources and scholars in the field. However, academic disciplines are not only delineated by their subject matter but also by their research questions and their methods. So an economist comes to the study of anthropogenic global warming with a completely different set of questions to a climate scientist. Hence many academic disputes and disagreements that we end up having to unravel. One way is to separate knowledge emanating from different disciplines into separate articles or sections - e.g. there is a whole lot to say about the Moon in culture and it is easily split off from the astronomy. But sometimes that won't work at all because there has been a to-and-fro of argument between scholars from different perspectives, as in my example above of an anthropologist and a theologian disagreeing. That's as far as I can get with the problem at the moment. Very interesting thread. Itsmejudith ( talk) 15:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I realize "scholarly" can have multiple meanings. It can mean a depth and breadth of knowledge, a practice of studying and reflecting on texts, or a particular approach. As a concrete example, Moshe Feinstein is an interesting test case because he had some dealings with both worlds: his writings on medical ethics questions in particular became of interest to university-based bioethicists, while his opinions and decisions on a wider variety of religious subjects became authoratative within a certain religious world. In one view, his reputation within his religious community is essentially worthless and his reliability derives solely from the fact that university-based scholars found him interesting on a small part of his writings. In a different view, his reputation within his religious community for carefully checking and thoughtfully assessing the various religious commentators and precedents, the extent to which his writings were published, studied, commented on, and cited in the religious world and the degree of respect in that world even his innovative opinions tended to have, is relevant to assessing his reliability on religious subjects. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:58, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Tone: Unfair treatment?

Whereas previous long-standing language specifically called for "fairness" of tone and called for "sensitive" treatment of viewpoints one might disagree with, the current revision does the opposite and includes languague indicating that points of view shouldn't necessarily be treated fairly. Why in the world should we specifically provide for unfair treatment? I would recommend removing that language and coming up with a way of phrasing the policy that avoids saying we won't be fair. The intent of the policy was to present different sides' views in a way that presented their best arguments (from a viewpoint reflecting and fairly presenting what the viewpoint has to say and why people who believe that viewpoint hold it) rather than through the voices of critics or in a manner that strongly suggests no serious person would believe it. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 19:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(original post; edit conflict)

The problem with 'fairness' as you describe it is that we need to maintain a balance between two competing interests and still satisfy the requirements of being encyclopedic. On the one hand, we have the majority, mainstream opinion, and on the other we have all of the schools of thought that are not in the majority. Based upon our three core content policies, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V we have to balance our interest with informing the reader about various groups and opinions with what we can verify and source. Since it is weight in sources that determines what is considered 'mainstream' or 'fringe' we also have an obligation to inform the reader about how 'weighty' in terms of reliable sources each set of arguments or schools of thought is. To that end we have to balance the requirement of informing the reader about a topic while not presenting the idea that all schools of thought are considered equal by the pool of reliable sources. Wikipedia does not treat topics fairly, it treats them neutrally. In relationship to the opinions of various groups on a given topic, neutral treatment means detail proportional to coverage in reliable sources. In articles dedicated to the groups holding those opinions NOTPAPER|there is no limit to the amount of detail that can be included, and so the groups' views can be presented fully. (As long as the presentation meets WP:V, WP:SOAP, WP:NOR) HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:23, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(OP changed statement, newer response)

Are you refering to the representations of an opinion in an article on another topic, or the opinion as held in an article dedicated to a group itself? Let's examine each case: In the case of reporting what group G believes about topic T, we report proportionally to representation in a reliable sources. We also use the best sources available. Next, in an article on group G, we report what the group believes, presenting all relevant, encyclopedic facts necessary to give a reader a clear understanding of the topic. For this, there is no limit to the amount of detail we can present (See WP:PRESERVE, WP:UNDUE, and WP:NOTPAPER) but it all must be verifiable. Since per WP:V the only inclusion we can justify is reliable sources, then if the only reliable sources publishing on a group's beliefs are the voices of critics, then that is how the article will read. Remember, the world at large is not 'fair' and we go not manufacture equality, we simply present the best arguments and how reliable sources react to them. If the only reliable sources of a group's opinions are criticisms, then the article will be critical. HatlessAtless ( talk) 20:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Shirahadasha - I just recently added the statement you're complaining about, partly in response to various concerns expressed here that this section would be used to demand 'equal rights' for minority positions, and partly as a prelude to adding a bit about treating all positions civilly. haven't gotten to the second part of that yet, though. let me try to do that now and see it that satisfies your concerns. -- Ludwigs2 20:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I think "civilly" is a useful adjective. In my view the WP:WEIGHT section indicates we don't give every view the same quantity of exposure, but the intent of the tone section is to try to give every view a similar quality of exposure within the space available. As long as we clarify that what we're trying to do here is present every view with a similar encyclopedic level of polish (or "sizzle"), we can avoid creating an obligation to give every view the same amount of real estate (or "steak"). I hope this helps convey the distinction I'm trying to make. In any event, saying we won't be fair strikes me as unwise -- I'm sure things can be said some other way. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 20:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I've made the revision - see if it works. and let me say that I agree with you, but there's a contingent of editors who seem obsessed with the wp:weight duplication - every time I've suggested revising it, they object (I'm not sure why, really...). I just thought it was easier to keep it and work it in rather than bump heads over it. -- Ludwigs2 21:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
It does look better! Perhaps talking just a little bit more about what the policy is, and a bit less about what it isn't, might help, something like:.

::::Editors should be careful not to imply judgements or conclusions that go beyond what is present in verified sources and to present each view with a similarly neutral, polished, encyclopedic, and perceptive tone, even though not every view should get equal space, or be treated as equal to every other view, and even though extreme minority views should generally not be presented at all.

This way, the tone section also gets to describe the desired tone a bit more fully. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
well, that's kind of a run-on sentence...  :-) maybe this?

Editors should be careful not to imply judgements or conclusions that go beyond what is present in verified sources. They should present each view with a similarly neutral, polished, encyclopedic, and perceptive tone. This does not mean that every view should get equal space or be treated as equal to every other view, or even that all views have a right be presented (see undue weight); It means that where there is a debate about bias that cannot be resolved through other policies, editors should err on the side of caution, using the most civil and innocuous tone possible to convey the sourced information.

I think it's good to highlight the 'does not mean' part, to preclude some painfully silly arguments about including things that just don't belong on the grounds of fairness, but... and feel free to go ahead and edit it in yourself - that's how the process should work.  :-) -- Ludwigs2 21:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. I prefer your wording to the recent edit. Since there's been a recent edit about unrsolvable disputes, why not retain the language about civility without having to know whether a dispute will eventually be resolved or not:

Editors should be careful not to imply judgements or conclusions that go beyond what is present in verified sources. They should present each view with a similarly neutral, polished, encyclopedic, and perceptive tone. This does not mean that every view should get equal space or be treated as equal to every other view, or even that all views have a right be presented (see undue weight); In the presence of disputes, editors should err on the side of caution, using the most civil and innocuous tone possible to convey the sourced information.

-- Shirahadasha ( talk) 23:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "perceptive", since perception is the art of seeing WP:TRUTH. "Innocuous" is also misleading; the writing should not seek to be either weak or meek or unclear. It is possible to be diplomatic without sounding like a politician avoiding a question.
My main concern about making the tone section too "nice" is that it will invite people whining about tone instead of actually working on content of articles. If a view is overstated, the proper response should always be to provide evidence that it is overstated, not complain about tone. SDY ( talk) 01:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
SDY - again, without totally disagreeing with you, the problem here is that issues of tone can rarely be resolved with evidence (if they could, they wouldn't be issues of tone, but rather issues of verifiable sourcing). for instance, if you say "most scientists reject a fringe theory" and I say "most scientists haven't bothered to look at a fringe theory", how could we possibly find evidence to resolve that? the difference is in the implication we're making of scientists' attitudes, and that's probably not reliably sourced anywhere (unless some social scientist went and did a survey...). my firm belief is that WP needs to err on the side of caution when implying attitudes, and that's a question of how we tone things to imply attitudes. better to be nice and look wimpy then to be forceful and look biased... -- Ludwigs2 17:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
We do need to err on the side of caution, but not to the point of being nauseatingly bland. If people are offended by Scientology that others call it a "Dangerous Cult", I'm afraid it's not Wikipedia's duty to mollify their hurt feelings. We should take care not to overstate, but if the facts are harsh, that does not change our duty to report the facts without editorializing them into kind and fluffy nothingness.
What I think is the problem here is that some people want fairness of tone to mean kindness of tone, which is totally inappropriate for a neutral encyclopedia. SDY ( talk) 01:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
no, SDY, the only problem we're having here is that you and a bunch of other editors (for reasons that escape me utterly) fail to make any distinction between statements as presented in sources and statements as used by editors. if reliable source John Q says "Scientology is a Dangerous Cult" (and we assume here that John Q, as a reliable source, has reasons for saying that other than a dislike of Scientology), then that's a reliable source, and I don't care how much scientologists don't like it, it has to be included. but if wikipedia editor Jane Z (who doesn't like Scientology at all, because her husband dumped her for some scientologist hussy) decides to rebuild the entire scientology article around this quote, that's not neutral. and if you think that doesn't happen every day on wikipedia, I'm going to start calling you Mr Magoo. stop denying the problem, and start trying to work through to some solution that will satisfy us both. -- Ludwigs2 01:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Even if John Q has no reasons other than that he doesn't like it, as long as he is not given undue weight in the article (i.e. he is a notable representative of a substantial popular view). Basing the article around it would give that view undue weight.

Wikipedia is not a sugar-coated lollipop of happiness and free exchange of ideas. I believe that WP:CIVIL applies to the topic of articles, but there is a difference between being civil and being nice. Mr. Magoo ( talk) 01:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Structure of tone section needs to focus on tone

When discussing the tone section of this core policy, I have noticed that we are wasting too much time alluding to other pieces of policies to resolve potential disputes. This is the exact opposite of the approach we need to be taking. If our knee-jerk reaction is to fix every possible conflict of our wording of the tone section by heaping on references to other policies, what we'll eventually end up with is a section that just references every wikipedia policy and helps nobody.

To create a good tone section, and to solve the problems it needs to solve, we need to identify wording situations that meet all of the core content policies and are defensible in terms of all other policies and guidelines and still maintain non-neutral tone. The situation with WP:UNDUE is a perfect example; the edit summary "moving unnecessary extra facts from "Views on X" section to appropriate section on group G per WP:UNDUE" is a perfectly good edit summary, and will not be strengthened by trying to somehow modify or clarify tone. If there is a problem with tone, fine, but let's not waste our time using tone as a commentary section on other sections.

We'll be better served by keeping the tone section stand-alone. Perhaps one of the first sections of tone should be: "Tone is highly subjective; if editors run across a section whose tone they disagree with, they should first consult the WP:List of policies and see if the section violates one of those." Then we can go into how a section could have non-neutral tone without technically violating a policy. I can think of a few:

  1. An article could present all relevant facts about group G's opinions on a topic in terms of attributed critical quotes from reliable sources when both sympathetic and critical reliable sources are available. While this technically gives the reader the required facts about G's views, this can prejudice the reader that all coverage is critical, or sidetrack from the intent of the section, which is to provide G's views on X.
  2. An article could present weaker arguments or weaker details rather than stronger arguments and details in a section that otherwise represents the views fairly. While all of the details and arguments merit inclusion in group G's article, the winnowing of what to include in article X was done to select unfairly against G.
  3. In a long-running debate, an article could present old-arguments that have been thoroughly rehashed. This is particularly dangerous in cases of long-running debates between pseudoscientific groups and mainstream science. The pseudoscientific authors will continuously change, refine, and contort their arguments to avoid older scientific counter-arguments. At the same time, both sides of such debates will frame arguments in terms of thoroughly destroying an older source (Lee strobel going after Origin of Species while completely ignoring 150 years of evolution research anyone?). Failing to present latest arguments, or give an accurate snapshot of the current nature of a debate is also bad, but may also be properly weighted, sourced, attributed, and verifiable.

Please add other situations where an article is non-neutral in its tone while still meeting all other criteria. We should keep in mind that it is easy to quote other core policy sections to clean up articles, we don't need tone as well, we should keep tone focussed on tone. HatlessAtless ( talk) 01:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Tone is a very nebulous thing in a written encyclopedia. If this were a spoken encyclopedia, a section on tone would look much different and probably be a lot bigger. As it is, people interpret tone into wording. We must acknowledge that lots of interpretations exist. However, just because it is possible to interpret a certain sentence having a certain tone doesn't necessarily mean that the sentence has that tone. We should avoid obvious instances of sarcastic derision of ideas within article text, for example, but there are occasions where people react to perceived tone by rewording an article to a state that is not NPOV. This is the stickiness. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I think we should go for more here than simply avoiding sarcastic derision. I'd suggest that WP:WEIGHT addresses the quantity of "steak" that different views get, but tone addresses the quality of the "sizzle". Even where the quantities should not be the same, there should a qualitative similarity in that each gets its best arguments and sources and a respectful and civil presentation, words are chosen that avoid disparagement, the overall tone is encyclopedic/reflective/perceptive/somewhat tolerant, the presentation ideally should have a certain polish, etc. The sizzle can be as important as the steak. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 01:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Civility in the tone of sources would be an issue for WP:RS, not here. If you think that choosing certain sources would violate NPOV then you are putting the editorializing before the research. That's backwards. What happens first is a collection of all the sources. Then people debate the reliability and prominence of the sources. Then those sources are characterized. Excluding sources because we don't like their tone is inappropriate. The tone of the text that we use to frame sourcing should be dispassionate, of course, but the tone of sources is not something that NPOV ever touches on. ScienceApologist ( talk) 01:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
SA nailed it on the head here. There are plenty of ways to handle even the most openly POV of sources, even going so far as to neutrally word the source. We can attribute statements, even paraphrase instead of quote if necessary. That is handled in WP:NOR and in several of the cases in the conflict section of NPOV. My primary thought about tone is to provoke discussion of this type. Different readers will interpret different sections in different ways. Really, I think a tone should be less about identifying or correcting "POV tone" (since I think in almost all cases, POV tone in reality violates some other core content policy), but more about admonishing editors to be sensitive to the feelings of those readers who have beliefs and worldviews being challenged by the editor's sourcing, and to try to write in a way that won't offend them. That simple principle really does all we need to do for tone, everything else is covered in WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOTPAPER, WP:PRESERVE and WP:WEIGHT. HatlessAtless ( talk) 02:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
The "tone" of Wikipedia has little to do with watering down or applifying other people's views on topics and a lot to do with separating those voices from Wikipedia's voice. Other places may have strong views. Other places may have weaker views. The point is that they shouldn't be Wikipedia's views. We have numerous policies and guidelines. This one is just about tone. All tone is is describing disputes without engaging in them (lifed off the NPOV/FAQ page). It doesn't take a lot to say that. Describe people's views accurately and without misrepresentation, and (as the NPOV/FAQ page also says) "all the major participants will agree that their views are presented sympathetically and comprehensively." That's neutral tone. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 02:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Nealparr, we're in agreement in here. My only qualification to that statement is that I would argue that a polemic secondary source does not need to be quoted to have its view properly represented. It would not be misrepresenting a source to rephrase disdainful language into something more encyclopedic while preserving the facts the source includes, in the interest of keeping an overall impartial tone of a section. "The point is that they shouldn't be Wikipedia's views." I agree, but this also applies to "Their words shouldn't necessarily be Wikipedia's words" either. As long as we're in agreement that the exact wording a source uses in presenting its facts may not be appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia, the rest of your statement I 100% agree with. HatlessAtless ( talk) 03:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Possibly a polemic source may not need to be quoted. Then again, possibly it might. Sometimes accurately describing a really strong view requires us to demonstrate how polemical they are in the spirit of "let the facts speak for themselves" through a direct quote. An example would be (what most consider to be the really messed up) views of the Westboro Baptist Church. We could water down their poster slogans, or we can let them speak for themselves. Likewise, we could water down the critical response they've received, or we could let those views speak for themselves. If an overwhelming emotional response of complete disdain for such views as the Westboro Baptist Church exist, and are notable, it may actually be biased to quote WBC and not quote the disdainful language of the respondents. The disdainful language may be a notable fact about the opinion.
Who knows what's appropriate quoting/language until we're down in the trenches working on an article and have to make the call. It's a case by case basis. I think, considering this is core policy, a prime directive from which guidelines spring, we shouldn't be telling editors to water down other people's language through rephrasing. We should keep it about what NPOV really is, not taking sides, being impartial in tone, not watering down or rephrasing a source's tone. A source's tone is not Wikipedia's tone.
Their words shouldn't necessarily be Wikipedia's words, but the same is true in reverse. Their words shouldn't necessarily be excluded from Wikipedia because they're not impartial. As long as Wikipedia impartially presents the partial view, Wikipedia is neutral. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 04:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Impartial tone examples...
Example 1:
  • View A: WBC has stated that they don't like homosexuals.
  • View B: The homosexual community has stated that they don't like religious intolerance.
Impartial. Both views are presented with an unbiased, watered down tone. It may not be an accurate representation of the strongly held views, but at least it's impartial in tone.
Example 2:
  • View A: WBC has stated that "God Hates Fags".
  • View B: A representative of the homosexual community responded "Those bigots can go fuck themselves".
Impartial. Both views are presented with an unbiased, strongly worded tone. It may not be "sensitive", but it's fair, impartial, and in many ways a more accurate representation of the strongly held views, in the interest of letting the facts speak for themselves.
Both examples are completely neutral and impartial. We don't need to water down other people's views to be neutral, and we don't necessarily need to be "sensitive". We just have to be consistent in tone, applying tones to views unbiasedly. It's an editorial judgement on which of the above is more encyclopedic, but that's a style guideline, not a neutrality policy. WP:NOTCENSORED is just as much a policy as NPOV. "Not censored" pretty much implies that "sensitive" may not always be realistic. Here, in NPOV, we're only concerned with being unbiased. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 04:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Though in your case of the WBC, I'll point out two things. First, as a fringe group whose views are not taken seriously by reliable sources, we would generally not expect their views to be represented in wikipedia at large. Secondly, the WBC is notable primarily for the level of sheer hate, invective and provocation in their slogans. In most cases, especially cases of scientific, or pseudoscientific arguments that claim to be 'rational', the arguments do not need to include invective to represent the arguments fairly. Just because a scientist describes the 'misguided' views of people who believe in ID just before taking apart an argument presented by an ID supporter does not mean that the scientific argument contains the word 'misguided'. I agree that we shouldn't worry about censoring ourselves, as you so aptly pointed out with WP:NOTCENSORED, but by the same token, invoking WP:NOTCENSORED should never be an excuse to avoid asking "do we really need that inflammatory wording to faithfully convey the argument?" In the case of the WBC, the answer is yes. In the case of a scientific argument about ID, probably not. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:47, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
They're just two examples out of dozens of case scenarios. As much as scientists and IDers don't get along philosophically, they're much more civil with each other. One may call the other a "crank" (not a particularly impassioned view) and the other might respond with a "reductionist" name-calling. It's not really watering it down to describe the views in more traditional-encyclopedic language. (But again, that's not an issue of neutrality if we're consistent with both sides, my overall point. That's a style guideline, not a neutrality policy. If we're inflammatory with both sides of the dispute, we're neutral, eventhough we're pretty crappy as far as encyclopedias go -- tabloid-like.) -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 06:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
That is actually somewhat of my point. It is possible to find reliable sources and texts on an argument whose overall tone is civil, but specific sources or parts of sources do in fact delve into some pretty nasty language. In the case of the overall civil debate about ID, for example, in The God Delusion, towards the end Dawkins goes into some pretty nasty arguments about how all religious thinkers are mentally diseased and such. I have also read some ID/creationist arguments making some pretty nasty fire-and-brimstone statements about scientists, pushing it far beyond just 'reductionist name calling'. Do we really need to quote Dawkins talking about how anyone who believes in God needs psychiatric help, in order to properly represent the scientific arguments he makes against ID? Just as we shouldn't water things down in the interest of maintaining fidelity to relevant arguments, neither should we include extra inflammatory language unless it is necessary to the fidelity of the argument. But then again, it seems we're in agreement about what we're trying to achieve and what we have to balance. HatlessAtless ( talk) 06:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Do we need to quote Dawkins talking about how anyone who believes in God needs psychiatric help? Absolutely! It's a mischaracterization to quote him as an unbiased expert on the relationship between science and religion when he's anything but, and his more civil comments obscure the fact that he actually feels religious adherents are delusional. Let the facts speak for themselves. I don't particularly care for Dawkins exactly because he personalizes the issue, draws the conclusion that science = atheism, when that's not necessarily true, and uses shock tactics in his critique of religion (like calling his book The God Delusion). Not including that information misinforms the reader. He's notable enough to include in the topic of ID, we don't want to exclude him just because he's polemic, and we don't want to misrepresent him. Cherry-picking his civil comments out of his overall view goes beyond neutrality issues into mischaracterization of sources. You do not want to be saying in core policy to ignore notable facts about a view to make the source seem neutral, when the goal is to make Wikipedia neutral, not the sources. If the source isn't neutral there are several ways of making Wikipedia neutral anyway. First and foremost, point out the bias. Eg. "Richard Dawkins, a popular science writer and self-described atheist, has stated that 'religion is a mental disease'". There is nothing non-neutral about that. Wikipedia neither endorses nor rejects it. Further, Wikipedia clearly stated that Richard Dawkins has biases on the topic and is not impartial. He's an atheist. What Wikipedia did not do is mischaracterize Richard Dawkins by cherry-picking just his civil comments and ignoring that he actually feels religion is a mental disease. By all means, quote the head notable creationist saying Dawkins is going to hell too, or quote Dawkin's critics as saying he's too harsh, add further details for a well rounded article. Just don't misquote anyone. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 16:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


Ahh, but here we end up in the same place again, from different routes. The relevant fact, that Dawkins claims religion is a mental disease, is quite different from the actual text of the book. You quoted Dawkins in a very neutral way, and did not try to insert his polemic into the article. This is what I'd rather incorporate than more biased language. We may or may not disagree on how relevant Dawkins' biased claims are in the context of ID, and how they should fit in the article. Point being that his statements are contextualized and attributed, which takes the teeth out of the POVness of Dawkins's statements. The inappropriate form would be something like "A leading evolutionary biologist has claimed 'religion is a mental disease' and 'teaching religion in schools should be outlawed as child abuse'", as that neither contextualizes nor attributes the quotation. In my mind, paraphrasing a source's statement to make it neutral is one method that can be used, like attribution/contextualization, to make almost anything neutral, as long as it is done carefully and faithfully to the facts being presented. Notice that in your own statement, you only used a 3-word quote from Dawkins instead of a hypothetical block-quote, and you took care to alert the reader before the quote that they were about to read something polemic and to be aware of that. That is exactly what readers should be doing, as you gave the taste of the poison while keeping it harmless. Bravo! HatlessAtless ( talk) 21:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks : ) But I should say that "mental disease" was just an example. I wasn't actually quoting him, and wasn't trying to neutralize his words. It was a hypothetical quote. If he said "religious adherents should be beaten to death with a hammer, sliced into tiny bits, boiled in a huge kettle, and scattered to the ends of the earth", the same principles apply. Dawkins tone isn't Wikipedia's tone and the core policy shouldn't direct editors to tone down the source's rhetoric. There's plenty of other ways to make the article neutral. Any of Dawkin's quotes at Wikiquote [9] (even the really mean ones) could be neutrally included in an article so that Wikipedia's tone is neutral. Wikipedia doesn't have to sugar-coat it to be neutral. This first quote [10] (for example) is a really harsh, some may even say offensive, view of God. Nonetheless, Wikipedia could easily include it and remain neutral without changing the quote at all. Should we include the quote, should we not include it, is based on other criteria (like relevance), not neutrality, because we can always neutrally include it. Dawkin's tone isn't Wikipedia's tone. Source's tones have nothing to do with NPOV policy. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 21:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
An example of where Dawkin's harsh "God quote" would be relevant may be in his own article, or in an article like New Atheist views on God. Point is that it's relevance that includes or excludes the quote, not Wikipedia's desire for a neutral tone. Relevance applies to the Westboro Baptist Church scenario also, as well as any other article where strong views are by prominence very relevant in the article. Accurately describing strong, harsh, or offensive views is all about relevance. When the harsh view isn't particularly relevant, it's not necessary to include it. When it is relevant, it is necessary to include it. None of that has anything to do with Wikipedia's tone. If wording were included in Wikipedia's tone policy that said "strive to pick the most neutrally toned sources or neutrally toned parts of sources, or reword sources so that they are more neutral", we're automatically either misrepresenting offensive views or mischaracterizing them as "not that bad". We'd be excluding them even when they are the most relevant part of an article. Whereas if we word it as "keep Wikipedia's tone impartial", we're correctly talking about Wikipedia's tone, and we're encompassing all the various views out there no matter how offensive they may be and safeguarding inclusion when they are relevant. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 22:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

At which point we come to perfect agreement. I think between the two of our statements we have expressed the balance of neutrality pretty well. Sometimes it is necessary to water down statements to eliminate unnecessary polemic, sometimes the polemic needs to be included to clarify a position and let the facts speak for themselves. I was certainly not stating that we need to exclude polemic in all cases, but simply that we must consider wording of fact and statement to be one of the points for tweaking to make an article neutral (while scrupulously maintaining the factual content). If the polemic is inextricably tied to the factual content, so be it, as you've pointed out so effectively. This will not be true of all cases, however, and we will have to work article by article to determine whether polemic is necessary to represent strongly held beliefs or simply extraneous to the arguments at hand. HatlessAtless ( talk) 05:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with that. The principles and examples I listed were also a response to some of the comments I read above that seemed to suggest we should avoid strong language as a general rule, all the time. Maybe, maybe not, but that's not an issue of neutrality. As long as we're consistent and impartial, for the purposes of neutrality it doesn't matter what language we use, the tone is neutral. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 05:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd agree with this as well. so the question now, is how do we capture this in a policy statement? -- Ludwigs2 18:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we attempt to describe what we mean by tone, which in my view includes the style and by which material should be described. It includes covering the subject in an encyclopedic style and manner, in a measured way that attempts to shed light rather than simply amplifying heat. This remains the case even when we're using sources that are themselves bitter and partisan. Best, -- Shirahadasha ( talk) 21:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
That's again, style, not neutrality. This is NPOV. What we mean by tone is "impartial and unbiased". What we mean is "Wikipedia describes disputes, not engages in them." That's not a style guideline. Sources will be bitter and partisan in many cases. Core policy needs to be able to handle those cases just as much as it is able to handle not so strong or not so offensive views. Core policy must allow for accurate descriptions of offensive views when they are relevant to the topic. Views stand on their own merits. Any attempt by Wikipedia to neutralize or tone down other's views is engaging the views, which isn't neutral. When you say we shouldn't "amplify heat", I agree, but I must also say we're not here to turn down the heat either. If the burner's already on, turning them down is engaging in the dispute. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 22:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been looking around and I can't seem to find any policy that says we need to "tone down" source's views to achieve neutrality. I find policies that require us to be impartial and unbiased, consistent, true to the source, not cherry-pick details, be fair, be civil with each other, things like that, but nothing that directs us to reword sources so that they themselves are "sensitive" or "gentle" on the topic. We're directed through a content guideline ( WP:RS) that extreme sources aren't the most reliable, which is kind of obvious, but it's a content guideline (lesser importance) written from the standpoint that such extreme views are minority views less likely to be relevant to the topic, and in fact must be directly relevant to be used. It's about relevancy, not neutrality. There's nothing about toning down viewpoints in sources as a criteria for neutrality in any policy or guideline that I can find. We're directed to be neutral in our language. We're not directed to water down strong views, or exclude them, when they're relevant or notable. Since I'm falable and may have overlooked something, has anyone else seen anything like that? -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 03:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

now (maybe) you're beginning to see why I think it's important to keep (and maybe amplify) this policy section. there are hints to this all through NPOV (where they talk about fairness, and the avoidance of moralizing, and the encouragement of 'intellectual independence' - all of which point towards a less absolute tone about things) but you['re right, there's nothing direct. that's what we need to develop here.
Look, let's forget about editors and editing for just a moment, and think about readers. if a reader comes to wikipedia, starts browsing an article, and finds himself saying 'Good God, they're really kicking the crap (or sucking the hell) out of this topic' that is generically bad for wikipedia. there are no redeeming qualities to it at all. the reader isn't going to care that it's well-sourced, because the reader isn't going to know that it's well-sourced or even know what well-sourced means. the reader might approve or disapprove of the fact that some topic got kicked around (or generously lipped), and so he might like or dislike wikipedia for wikipedia's particular bias in that case, but either way he's not going to think wikipedia is a respectable source for information. At some point we have to stop and step back an judge whether we sound like we're kissing or kicking the topic's a$$, and if we do sound that way we need to remedy it regardless of other factors, because if we don't then nobody is going to take wikipedia seriously for anything. that is the nature of the beast we're working on. all of this squabbling over policy is worse than useless if readers walk away from their computers thinking wikipedia is a hack, yah? -- Ludwigs2 06:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, those are content issues, not neutrality issues. What you're talking about makes for a very good essay, perhaps WP:RELIABLETONE, not to be confused with WP:NPOV, which is just about separating Wikipedia from the dispute, preventing Wikipedia from being part of it. Core policy presents principles and directives by which content guidelines are written. We don't have to promote choosing strong or harsh wording from sources when its not appropriate, but we do have to prevent precluding inflammatory or offensive tones existing in sources when it is actually appropriate and relevant to include it, simply by having "no comment" on it. No comment because it's not a neutrality issue. Harsh wording can entirely be neutral when it is appropriate and relevant. Several other content guidelines (like WP:RS) decide when it is appropriate and relevant. Possibly a WP:RELIABLETONE can even help with that. NPOV, a non-negotiable core policy, cannot cause censorship of relevant and appropriate material in the interest of being "sensitive", especially when there's plenty of other ways to achieve neutrality. Neutrality is impartiality, not sensitivity. In many cases (including the scenarios I've listed, plus more), Wikipedia would be less reliable having excluded such notable and relevant information. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Clarity: As a non-negotiable core policy that users are expected to abide by, what we currently have (as of this timestamp) is a policy that directs us to be "impartial" in tone. This applies to all case scenarios. If an article is inappropriately using sources that are harsh in tone, it applies. If an article is appropriately using sources that are harsh in tone, it applies. If an article is being inappropriate in choosing sources or comments from sources, we are not being impartial. If an article is appropriately choosing sources or comments from sources, we are being impartial. Above you said we should be looking for "less absolute tone about things". I feel that starts with core policy. Core policy should apply to everything if users are expected to abide by it. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 14:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Neal - let me just preface this by noting that I've been wrestling with ScienceApologist over on QuackWatch as he keeps trying to add qualifiers to the sources critical of QuackWatch (e.g, 'David Hufford, professor emeritus of Humanities at...' becomes 'David Hufford, cultural apologist for alternative medicine and professor emeritus of Humanities at...' or in its current incarnation 'David Hufford, Professor Emeritus of Humanities at [...] and writer who generally supports viewing alternative medicine as just a different culture'). there's no secondary sourcing for this (SA is getting it himself from an inspection of Hufford's CV), and it is not merely a content issue - it's an atempt to shift Hufford from being presented as an (assumedly neutral) academic to being presented as an (assumedly biased) AltMed supporter. Now SA would never admit to this, of course, but I think it's clear on inspection that he is trying to use the tone of presentation to influence the balance of neutrality in the article.
in other words, don't tell me this is just a content issue - tone and neutrality are deeply intertwined.
now if it's your intention to tell me that core policy is only interested in the writing of articles, and has no interest in the reader whatsoever, I'd like to hear some justification for that. it seems completely absurd to me, since the product is designed to be read. I know (for a fact) that if wikipedia were a 'for sale' encyclopedia (like, say, the Britannica) 'Fairness of Tone' would be the kind of thing that writers and editors could lose their jobs over, because the publisher would not risk its profit margin by allowing even a whiff of bias to enter an article and queer sales. Wikipedia is free, and openly editable, and that suggests we ought to have stronger policies about fairness, not weaker (because we don't have much of an ability to fire or sanction people for not being fair). maybe you're right that an essay is in order (and I'll see if I can write one over the weekend), but regardless this goes (much) deeper than that, and really ought to have some presence in core policy. -- Ludwigs2 20:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Ludwigs. As you know, I'm involved in that very issue. But I'm not sure it's about "tone". It's more about poisoning the well. My way of thinking about "tone" is that it is essential to represent sources accurately. I found Neal's examples, a long way above, useful. Sometimes it is not enough to say "A disagreed with B" or "A criticized B". It could mislead the reader into thinking a major disagreement was just a minor difference. We might need to say something more like "A was sharply critical of B", or "A disagreed with B on every point" or "A wrote critically of B in strong terms". Or quoting the exact terms can be concise, vivid and accurate: "Dawkins described ID supporters as 'raving lunatics'" (example, I expect inter alia he did but can't check right now). Itsmejudith ( talk) 23:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia's NPOV policy care about readers? Absolutely. It cares because it wants to give readers all significantly related information about a topic, as impartially and unbiasedly as possible. That's the textbook definition of "fairness" [11] "marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism" and the spirit of fairness as well. Keyword: honesty. PT Barnum famously said "I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right." Fairness is getting it right. It doesn't matter what is said, as long as it's said with honesty and impartiality. Like Barnum, what readers probably want is the assurance that the views are presented accurately and honestly. Wikipedia cares about giving them what they probably want. Now an important distinction: Does Wikipedia give them what they want? Do readers really want honesty, or do they want the politically correct version? Here's where Wikipedia stops being concerned about what they want. Impartiality, unbiased, and yes, fairness, means readers will get complete honesty whether they want it or not. When relevant sources are not neutral, even mean, Wikipedia nonetheless publishes that with the same impartiality that they have for less controversial views.
About your beef with ScienceApologist. I have no idea whether David Hufford is "a writer who generally supports viewing alternative medicine as just a different culture". If there's a reliable source, it's relevant. If there's not, it's an unsourced statement issue. If (keyword: "if") there is a reliable source, the guy is biased to the topic. If we don't say he's biased, we're being biased ourselves. We're assuming a false-neutral tone, trying to make it seem like the guy is unbiased when he isn't. That's engaging in the dispute and being a party to it. We're misrepresenting Hufford. We describe disputes, including source's biases, we don't assume biases ourselves. You'd expect an article to say Martin Gardner is "a science writer who generally supports viewing alternative science as just pseudoscience", pointing out his biases, wouldn't you? -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 23:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Judith - we could work this argument, I suppose. I tend to see rhetorical tricks as a matter of tone as much as logic (as a close reading of Socrates will show you, the difference between rhetoric and reason is that rhetoric uses words to make a point, while reason finds a point and tries to fit words to it). at any rate, I don't disagree with you or Neal on this. I'm still trying to dig out the real issue for examination, I think...
Neal - now there's an interesting point here. is part of your worry having to do with political correctness? because believe me, I have no more use for political correctness than you do (my concerns here are ethical, not social). if that's true, then that might be a workable consideration - I think we may be able to weed out the let's not be mean to people because it's wrong attitudes and the let's be mean to people because we can attitudes in the same stroke.
though I have to point out that using PT Barnum (the man famous for saying 'there's a sucker born every minute') as an advocate for fairness is a bit on the ironic side.  :-)
the only reason I brought up the SA thing is to point out how squidgy these things can get. Hufford is an academic who has spent a lot of time writing about AltMed, no question; however, there are no sources that that have been presented which call him an 'AltMed advocate', much less a 'cultural apologist'. however, the response I've gotten from SA (and at least one other editor) is that a cursory glance at Hufford's writings makes it clear that he has a particular interest in AM, and that that should be pointed out. suddenly we're in a gray-zone: it's not quite fair to exclude any mention of his interest in AM (because it's so obvious in his work), but it is technically correct according to policy to exclude it entirely, because there's no secondary sourcing. I have to play hardball there despite my normal leanings towards 'fairness' (because I'll become a doormat if I don't, in this particular case), but can you see what I see in this example? -- Ludwigs2 02:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Preventing "let's be mean to people because we can" is already covered by WP:NPOV#Neutrality and verifiability. The issue is that NPOV is a non-negotiable core policy that everyone is expected to abide by. It shouldn't preclude certain language or tone when such sourced material is significantly relevant to the topic, ie. there's a good reason. WP:POINT edits are already excluded. It doesn't take an extensive "tone" section for that. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 04:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
I wish that were true in practice, but obviously it's not. I've seen too many instances of editors pushing the limits every way they can. Look, Neal, I think this comes down to a simple difference of belief: you believe that all issues of bias can eventually be resolved through verifiable sourcing; I believe there's a large class of cases where sourcing isn't sufficient to eliminate bias. it seems to me that if you're right there is no harm in adding extra protections, and if I'm right there is certainly harm in not having those extra protections. no? -- Ludwigs2 18:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
In the spirit of OM's observation below, I'll keep it short and sweet. Point is: This is non-negotiable policy. Whatever it says, I and everyone else have to do. Whatever you put in, I have to do. Whatever I leave out, you don't have to do. Not a simple difference of belief. I'm allowing you your own belief, you're limiting mine. Wikipedia's non-negotiable rules are necessarily minimalistic. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 21:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
so if I put something in there that you have to do anyway (per other policies, in your view) then no harm; but if you leave out something that ought to be done but isn't covered by other policies, that's an opening for abuse. -- Ludwigs2 00:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Part 1: If it's something in other policies that isn't related to Wikipedia's impartial tone, and it goes in the impartial section, yes that would be harmful. Part 2: I haven't seen anything you mentioned that ought to be part of Wikipedia's non-negotiable tone policy. Everything you've mentioned so far is either already covered by policy, a bad idea, or not related to tone. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 01:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
read the full argument for the problem I noted above (no worries, it's short Talk:Quackwatch#David_Hufford). tell me that they are not arguing to to change the tone of the passage. -- Ludwigs2 01:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's the thing. I read the thread and still think it's either WP:OR if it's synthesis or mischaracterization of sources, or simple and fair WP:N if it is true to sources and his bias (if any) is notable (I'm not going to research the sources). I don't know anything about the guy and barely know anything about Quackwatch. I avoid AltMed articles. All I know is that it's not really a case that tone should be written around, because whatever policy is applicable to it makes the "tone dispute" obsolete. Even if it is a tone issue, and the tone is not impartial, you need do nothing more than appeal the current WP:NPOV#Impartial tone. It covers that clearly. It doesn't need to be rewritten to resolve that dispute one way or the other. Rewriting it in the middle of the dispute could actually hurt your case. What I would do is follow normal WP:DR; that is, post to the WP:NPOVN and WP:NORN noticeboards and ask for an RfC. Look for some outside input. A lot of editors may agree with you that the tone is not impartial. If so, they'd be using what we already have since it covers that. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 03:39, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

←This discussion has surpassed the minimum standards of WP:TLDR. I swear this is going in circles. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 09:09, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. if you're bored, stop reading; if you want us to be plainer in what we're saying, we could do that too. or did you have something else in mind? -- Ludwigs2 18:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Dave Matthews Band‎

Can someone please take a look at the Dave Matthews Band‎ article and see if the recent additions by an IP (which I have reverted... but unfortunately I'm out of reverts) of a fact tag after the rock descriptor in the lead is POV? Thanks. I've raised this on the talk page, but apparently, no one cares. Qb | your 2 cents 10:35, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanky much! Qb | your 2 cents 11:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Just to let ya'lls know... the IP is doing it again. Qb | your 2 cents 18:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
This isn't really the right place for this (read through Wikipedia:Dispute resolution), but I'll take a look. -- Ludwigs2 19:27, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Note on Balance

I used "balance" in this section in a non Wikipedia sense, but the use is confusing and as a Wikipedia term, incorrect. WP:Notability does not refer to material in the article but to criteria for the article's inclusion itself. Apologies. I am traveling and can't be on-line very often and for long so this is a stop gap edit. The section could be better explained.( olive ( talk) 19:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC))

This may be a better version than my edited earlier versions. Because there have been no comments on the changes I made earlier, I am adding this to the article where editing by other editors can take place directly if needed.( olive ( talk) 19:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC))
I'd like to reframe "Balance". Currently it's a reflection of WP:UNDUE, that is, it talks primarily about what should be done when there's a seriously disproportionate weight problem, like in the case of WP:FRINGE topics. It talks about a "primary view". Only in disproportionate balance scenarios is there a "primary view". In all other cases there's just two or more views with none more important than another. Example: Democrats vs. Republicans. There's no primary view there. Views aren't "equal" in some cases, but in many (bordering on most) cases they actually are. In most cases no one view is any more "primary" or important than another, they're just different. The balance section should point that out, point out that when competing views are proportionate that they should be allowed to compete on the same page (similar to the earlier wording that's been hacked up recently), with a special case for disproportionate views that references UNDUE. Ideally, UNDUE and "Balance" go hand in hand. They should really be a part of the same section, with a subsection that briefly covers when "all things are equal", share all views. It seems, at least to me, that editors who work primarily on controversial fringe articles have swarmed on this policy recently and edited it based on their experiences in the trenches of fringe articles. I'd like to restore the "Balance" section reminding people that most topics aren't fringe topics. NPOV isn't just about fringe topics. -- Nealparr ( talk to me) 05:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
True enough, but generally most people don't reach for the policy unless something is actually disputed, so writing the policy with those situations in mind isn't totally inappropriate. Consider maybe splitting tone into a straight no-nonsense two sentence policy, and then have a separate guideline or some FAQ points on how to deal with the inevitable situations? SDY ( talk) 05:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Neal. I think you misunderstand what I wrote and that's fine. It means its not well written enough. I'm not a fringe editor so that slant doesn't really occur to me . What does seem to be even more fundamental than what you have written and which may remedy some of the problems "fringe" editors may have is that the article must deal first and most fundamentally with what the article is about, and that must weigh appropriately against any other information that references the topic, but is not about the topic. No Wikipedia policy exists in isolation and balance in any context be it here or in a lab or in a butcher's shop is about the distribution or placement of weight.
If you can turn your thinking inside out for a second, and see this as an attempt to get at the most fundamental aspect of balance and that is to deal with the artilce's topic as primary, and then to add secondary material rather than a way to protect fringe interests well that's what I'm getting at.
Another way of seeing this might be to think about the policy in two ways. One, as something an editor will look at in order to write an article, and two as place to come in case of dispute. If an editor is writing an article more fundamental information might be needed. The wording now, may only serve an editor in a dispute situation.( olive ( talk) 16:35, 25 July 2008 (UTC))
  1. ^ a
  2. ^ b
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Archive_33&oldid=1142664315"

Videos

Youtube | Vimeo | Bing

Websites

Google | Yahoo | Bing

Encyclopedia

Google | Yahoo | Bing

Facebook




Top Of Page

Home • Search • Translate

© CSE