This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I would like to understand what the policy says about theological sources (Biblical study sources) that describe, for example, the events that happened, or allegedly happened in I - II AD in East Mediterranean. There are tons of sources authored by scholars who have a degree in theology about Christ and similar topics, and the number of works authored by the scholars who see the same events from secular perspective is much smaller. Should the POV of theologists be considered a mainstream just based on the fact that their works are historically more numerous?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:04, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
the POV of theologists be considered a mainstream just based on the fact that their works are historically more numerous. This is just your own POV.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 00:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm having trouble figuring out what to do in an NPOV tag situation. There's been about a month of discussion on a US political controversial page, Deep state in the United States. There's been about a month of back and forth on the topic with me (and others) putting up material and getting it reverted. I know, I know, par for the course in a lot of circumstances but here's the thing. The controversy is over material that is already on the page recognizing that there are non-conspiracy theories of the Deep State in the United States. A history section for the article has been squashed and recognition of the already included material in the lead paragraph has been squashed, and it's unlikely that any further development of non-conspiratorial Deep State theories will be accepted because the dominant side is saying this is only a page about the conspiracy theory even though that's not supported by the text or the RS footnotes. So I put up an NPOV tag and have been told by multiple editors that to put up such a tag would require consensus prior to it being put up. They quickly pulled it down. Since I can't find where consensus is a Wikipedia requirement for the NPOV tag, I figure either I need to get up to date on how to ask for sanctions or I need to work on the NPOV template page to clarify that consensus actually is a requirement. What would be a good next step? TMLutas ( talk) 17:48, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
A Request for Comments has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education asking the following question: How should the ledes of articles about colleges and universities describe the general reputation, prestige, or relative ranking(s) of the institution? Your participation and input would be greatly appreciated! ElKevbo ( talk) 03:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Blanchard's transsexualism typology ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology#"Controversial" in lede. A permalink for it is here. The discussion concerns not only whether or not "controversial" should be used in the first (lead) sentence of the article, but also whether or not "controversial" applies beyond references to people in WP:LABEL. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 23:12, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
Per the discussion here, I've started work on a quiz for the new editor tutorial that asks editors to identify examples of neutral/non-neutral passages. The half-finished draft is at Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines/neutrality quiz — if anyone is interested in contributing, I'd appreciate a second pair of eyes to help refine the questions/explanations and add a few more. (If it's more up your alley, the draft of the reliable sources quiz here also needs some more work.) Thanks, {{u| Sdkb}} talk 23:37, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Suicide of Kurt Cobain/Archive 1#Requested move 27 July 2020. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 02:44, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
The file File:Verifiability and Neutral point of view (Common Craft)-en.ogv is the most-used non-existent image on Wikipedia. Can anyone reupload it? TheThingy Talk 22:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
WP:UNDUE demands covering major viewpoints published in reliable sources according to their weight. WP:BIASED, from the other hand, further explains that a reliable source does not ought to be "neutral, unbiased, or objective". These two parts of POV policy provide the possibility of using sources which are not part of the mainstream media, perhaps functioning to reduce the level of a massive systematic bias. However, if it would not be possible to use a state media for the state's POV, then editors have no option left but to use the POV of those mainstream sources. But there is a recent trend aimed at muting the voices that are out of the so-called mainstream media. These discussions are kinda removing the sources not matching the liberal-democrat standards for reliable sources. The trend started by acting against the Russian media, now is dealing with the Iranian outlets and probably will go to Chinese and Arab sources in near future. The long term consequence of such an approach would be nothing but an even stronger systematic bias.
However, if the community has changed its position on WP:UNDUE and WP:Biased, so that the media which run or support by nonliberal-democratic states are considered as unreliable sources even for representation of the position of those states, then this new consensus which undermines the current explicit terms of WP:NPOV should be discussed here. Finally, we need a broader consensus to remain the current policy and neglect those case by case RFCs or rewrite the policy. I mean, it is clear that the community should not follow an approach which clearly contradicts with the main policy, unless after revision of that policy.-- Seyyed( t- c) 05:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
According to @ user:JzG, the Consensus we have reached based on the current policies is this:
There is another consensus which contradicts with the former one:
However, if the position of the community has been changed, then it should be mentioned in the policy. -- Seyyed( t- c) 06:47, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
The WP:Biased says: Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. and WP:NPOV says: A common argument in a dispute about reliable sources is that one source is biased and so another source should be given preference. Some editors argue that biased sources should not be used because they introduce improper POV to an article. However, biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view. This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether.
However, as it clear some people who participate in RFCs in Notice Board propose different understanding which we can paraphrase like this: There are some sources which are totally unreliable due to their political or ideological viewpoints like antisemitism. In other words, the reliability of a source depends on particular interpretation of Political correctness which is common in main stream media. -- Seyyed( t- c) 12:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
"All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."-- Mhhossein talk 13:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:GENDERID being used in place of WP:Article titles and for category arguments. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 20:46, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
In the last several years, a journalistic practice has emerged in which news analysis and spot news reports will assert false equivalencies or objective falsehoods rather than explain false equivalencies or objective falsehoods. For example –
“ | John Dow made the false claim that the sky is green. | ” |
– instead of –
“ | John Dow claimed the sky is green. According to a 2010 report from NASA, the sky is blue. The blue coloring of the sky has also been described by other scientists, including Jane Smith and Jane Dow. | ” |
This is a recent evolution in journalism responding to a political communications strategy by which an outrageous claim can be made and the journalist, rather than describing the outrage of the claim, is required to source the perspective of the other side, creating the impression that the outrageous claim is equal to the factual one. A less discussed reason has to do with the economic limitations of journalism, that is, it takes no resources to make an outrageous claim but significant resources to rapidly counter-explain such a claim.
Without getting into the argument as to whether this is good journalism – because we are not a journalistic endeavor – I would like to briefly discuss whether this is good encyclopedia writing. This practice has crept into many of our articles.
On WP we have never obligated ourselves to rapidly respond to evolving news stories and we have no space limitations on our articles. Should we, therefore, be asserting objective falsehoods or explaining objective falsehoods? On the one hand, we "go by what RS say," however, we also recognize a stylistic dissymmetry between journalistic writing and encyclopedic writing, as described in
WP:NEWSSTYLE. I think we've reached a point where these two maxims have become incongruous insofar as this specific, recently popular, phrasing is concerned.
I am not making any specific suggestion or proposal. This thread is merely to seek input and opinion.
Chetsford (
talk) 04:23, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
John Dow falsely claimed the sky is green. According to a 2010 report from NASA, the sky is blue. The blue coloring of the sky has also been described by other scientists, including Jane Smith and Jane Dow.-- Aquillion ( talk) 07:05, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
By replicating the very dictatorial opressors agenda, for example the very dictatorial opressing Quranic text. The replicators instill fear and chaos into the non-muslims. Which makes the world less peaceful and sane. Who are the replicators of Quran then? Some wikipedia creators for example. Which is bad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.136.46.120 ( talk) 15:47, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
That is not the case, and that fact was mathematically proven. Briefly, if two persons discuss some subject that is not a matter of taste (for example, "is the Moon made of blue cheese?"), and they agree to use only logical arguments, and they have no hidden agenda (i.e. they openly disclose all facts and considerations their arguments are based upon), they will inevitably come to some common agreement. Since majority of Wikipedia topics are not a matter of someone's taste, but are based on published reliable sources, the space for disagreement is very narrow. We can agree to disagree on what picture would be better to add to some article, but a situation when editors agree to disagree about interpretation of some source cannot be considered normal. At least, the title of that section must be changed to something less categorical, for example "Sometimes, objectivity is hard to achieve". Again, the current statement is factually incorrect.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 21:33, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Actually, my major objection was caused by the FAQ statement "There's no such thing as objectivity. Everybody with any philosophical sophistication knows that," which is a pure postmodernist nonsense. I replaced it with what the policy says (which is non-controversial), and added quotation marks to "There is no such things as objectivity", which, imo, makes clear that that is not the statement of fact, but more like "some people believe" (as |WhatamIdoing noted). I hope that resolves the problem, at least, temporarily.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 18:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
I think this article should be deleted. Wikipedia has no right to claim that it is NPOV, as it is extremely ideologically biased to the left. This rule is a joke. The Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has even said so. NorfolkIsland123 ( talk) 17:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV says that "biased statements of opinion" must be qualified with WP:INTEXT attribution. I don't think that we want to say that all opinions must be attributed to specific sources, but I wonder whether this is the right place to draw the line. Is the problem area bias (who decides whether my opinion is biased?), or is the problem contentiousness? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:27, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
I would like to understand how that "proportion" should be determined. One interpretation is that to determine relative weights of different views on some subject, an editor is expected to examine the whole body of sources that discuss that subject, and after that to make a conclusion based on some more or less objective criterion (for example, if majority of supporters of the viewpoint A publish their articles in top journals and are being widely cited, whereas the proponents of the viewpoint B publish in less reputable journals and are being cited less frequently, then the view A is prevalent).
However, a second interpretation is also possible. The quote from Wales says:
That may imply that to determine if some viewpoint is a majority view, we need to provide some reliable source that explicitly says so, otherwise all viewpoints should be treated as significant minority views. However, that immediately raises a question on how can we make sure that the RS saying "A is a majority view" by itself expressed a majority viewpoint. In connection to that the third interpretation is that NPOV provides no strict instruction on how the above mentioned proportion can be determined, and we should use common sense instead. In connection to that, I am wondering which interpretation seems more correct. Any thoughts?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 15:20, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate [that viewpoint] with reference to commonly accepted reference texts, i.e., "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to find RS that have that viewpoint". — 2d37 ( talk) 10:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel like the spirit of WP:BESTSOURCES is that very reliable sources outrank less reliable sources. But I do not feel like this is currently said clearly. Instead it says it obliquely by talking about "good and unbiased research". Is there any interest in adding the following paragraph to the WP:BESTSOURCES section?
Not all sources are created equal. If two sources of different reliability levels say different things, the source that is more reliable should be assumed to be the correct source. For example, if one source is primary and one source is secondary, or (on the
reliable sources list) one source is "no consensus" and one source is "generally reliable", or one source is not academic and one source is academic.
– Novem Linguae ( talk) 19:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
The first sentence under WP:DUE reads as such:
"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."
I need the "in proportion to prominence of each viewpoint" to be clarified more please. What does it mean exactly?
For instance, if we are talking about POV-A and POV-B and there are 10 and 5 sources respectively for POV-A and POV-B, does DUE say the amount of the content on POV-A and POV-B to be represented in the page should keep the same proportion as 10 and 5? -- Mhhossein talk 19:38, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Notability#Notability and due weight of failed lawsuits for a discussion that might interest readers of this talk page. Regards, CapnZapp ( talk) 09:12, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
Currently policy says in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources
. But shouldn't this be limited to secondary and tertiary sources that are independent of the subject? I see someone talked about
something like this a while back. For example, an article about a book should not use the book itself to establish DUE-ness. If a sentence exists in a book (or a book's translation), but that sentence hasn't been covered by any reliable, secondary sources then wikipedia article should also not be covering that sentence.
VR
talk 05:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
wikipedia is an absolute joke when it comes to any controversial topic. All it does is echo the blatant lies of the corporate media uncritically. Here's a suggestion: a source isn't a source unless it links to data that substantiates the claim. A bare assertion by a journalist is worthless, no matter how prestigious the venue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:20C:7500:5D85:7CBF:BD2F:4203 ( talk) 05:16, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I ask to change the section about religion. It's formulated in an offensive fashion designed to ridicule religious believers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.235.159.39 ( talk) 23:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Magazines and newspapers are, by definition, not NPOV. They shouldn't be among the sources of a serious knowledge enterprise.
Sources to be taken into account should only be peer-reviewed journals, academic publications, other encyclopedias and non-academic essays aimed to the general public. Lacking a significant amount of such sources, the subject should be treated as non-encyclopedic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.235.159.39 ( talk • contribs) 23:34, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Blender does not reflect the legitimate criticism allowed to be mentioned by the neutral point of view policy. The magazine was notorious for bashing any artist based on the reviewer's hatred for a certain genre, as evidenced by the Top 50 Worst Songs list, who's rule of only allowing songs that were popular hits practically reflects its bias towards indie music and hatred of pop music. Plus, it no longer exists in print nor online form. It should be removed as a reliable source and banned from WP:NPOV. -- 174.255.66.157 ( talk) 16:58, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
In Special:Diff/996952192, I edited the definition of "Obvious pseudoscience" in WP:NPOVFAQ § Pseudoscience to keep it in sync with the ArbCom ruling in the Pseudoscience case, from which this definition explicitly is quoted. In particular, I updated the quoted definition to reflect the ruling's 2 July 2010 amendment. Especially as I am fairly new as an editor, I felt I should post a notice of my edit here at WP:NPOV's talk page — which has over ten times as many watchers as WP:NPOVFAQ — so that, in case I made some mistake in making this change, the community has a better chance to catch the mistake. — 2d37 ( talk) 09:53, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Something that I've long considered and think this is one of those aspects to add is that within the advise of UNDUE, that we should caution editors about trying to establish UNDUE/DUE/WEIGHT too soon after some event or the like, as WP:RECENTISM outlines. I don't know exactly how to word it, and so this is more throwing the idea there, but basically we'd want editors to give time for viewpoints to settle down after some event (particularly ones that are emotional or contentious) before trying to write in opinions, analysis, etc. into an article. (This is separate from "Reactions" to disasters or other similar events, which are generally factual statements of how gov't reacted to events). Ideally we'd want editors to wait for longer-term secondary analysis (academic) of those viewpoints but that usually is years in the making, but the short-term should avoid trying to establish what is DUE or UNDUE in the hours and days after such an event. Some weeks or so after the event has settled out, then editors will have a better place to start judging where DUE/WEIGHT sits to include commentary and analysis, ideally using sources displaced farthest from said event to use to judge DUEness. The DUE/WEIGHT view that is set out immediately after an event may not change in those weeks (eg most of the same views related to the Jan 6 Capitol attacks remain the same today), but it is better if we don't rush in include that right after an event until we can judge if that's really the correct view or not.
By extension, this also implies that UNDUE/DUE/WEIGHT should be best judged by sources far removed in time from the event or situation, if possible. Eg: the US media's view of the Gulf war while it was happening compared to modern sources is far different. With that, we do have to be aware of WP:PRESENTISM issues that can arise if we're too far separated from the event and there have been major shifts in social and political norms that would put that event in a different light if one moves too far.
How to word this in, however, I don't know how it would best fit. -- Masem ( t) 15:57, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
The discussion at RSN is increasingly focused on DUE weight and balance - things that fall under the NPOV policy - rather than just reliability. As such, the conversation may be of interest to watchers of this page, and your input would be appreciated. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 11:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice. Sometimes, when genocide is sanctioned by God, it is a necessary evil, but it absolutely always may be described using the word "evil". Wikipedia shouldn't say in an instructional article For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action" Here is a better example ...an article should not state that pepperoni pizza is the best flavor.... Genocide being evil is not in the realm of opinion, while pizza toppings superiority is in the realm of opinion. You the man( converse) 09:44, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
As someone who edits on some controversial topics. There are moments where I realize certain information or sources are problematic. But I feel guilty for removing a problematic source.
Or there are times where I afraid to put a certain detail in a article because I know it’s controversial.
Like I have to put in certain facts that come off as controversial to certain religious groups or certain minority groups. CycoMa ( talk) 07:24, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect WPL:WEIGHT. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 10#WPL:WEIGHT until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. dud hhr Contribs 04:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
Here is something that I have always been considered about.
Editors have their own personal beliefs and points of views, at times it hard to convince them why a certain source is reliable or whether on how mainstream a certain view is.
I’m not entirely sure where I should comment this at. CycoMa ( talk) 05:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I would like to understand what the policy says about theological sources (Biblical study sources) that describe, for example, the events that happened, or allegedly happened in I - II AD in East Mediterranean. There are tons of sources authored by scholars who have a degree in theology about Christ and similar topics, and the number of works authored by the scholars who see the same events from secular perspective is much smaller. Should the POV of theologists be considered a mainstream just based on the fact that their works are historically more numerous?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:04, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
the POV of theologists be considered a mainstream just based on the fact that their works are historically more numerous. This is just your own POV.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 00:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm having trouble figuring out what to do in an NPOV tag situation. There's been about a month of discussion on a US political controversial page, Deep state in the United States. There's been about a month of back and forth on the topic with me (and others) putting up material and getting it reverted. I know, I know, par for the course in a lot of circumstances but here's the thing. The controversy is over material that is already on the page recognizing that there are non-conspiracy theories of the Deep State in the United States. A history section for the article has been squashed and recognition of the already included material in the lead paragraph has been squashed, and it's unlikely that any further development of non-conspiratorial Deep State theories will be accepted because the dominant side is saying this is only a page about the conspiracy theory even though that's not supported by the text or the RS footnotes. So I put up an NPOV tag and have been told by multiple editors that to put up such a tag would require consensus prior to it being put up. They quickly pulled it down. Since I can't find where consensus is a Wikipedia requirement for the NPOV tag, I figure either I need to get up to date on how to ask for sanctions or I need to work on the NPOV template page to clarify that consensus actually is a requirement. What would be a good next step? TMLutas ( talk) 17:48, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
A Request for Comments has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education asking the following question: How should the ledes of articles about colleges and universities describe the general reputation, prestige, or relative ranking(s) of the institution? Your participation and input would be greatly appreciated! ElKevbo ( talk) 03:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Blanchard's transsexualism typology ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology#"Controversial" in lede. A permalink for it is here. The discussion concerns not only whether or not "controversial" should be used in the first (lead) sentence of the article, but also whether or not "controversial" applies beyond references to people in WP:LABEL. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 23:12, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
Per the discussion here, I've started work on a quiz for the new editor tutorial that asks editors to identify examples of neutral/non-neutral passages. The half-finished draft is at Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines/neutrality quiz — if anyone is interested in contributing, I'd appreciate a second pair of eyes to help refine the questions/explanations and add a few more. (If it's more up your alley, the draft of the reliable sources quiz here also needs some more work.) Thanks, {{u| Sdkb}} talk 23:37, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Suicide of Kurt Cobain/Archive 1#Requested move 27 July 2020. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 02:44, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
The file File:Verifiability and Neutral point of view (Common Craft)-en.ogv is the most-used non-existent image on Wikipedia. Can anyone reupload it? TheThingy Talk 22:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
WP:UNDUE demands covering major viewpoints published in reliable sources according to their weight. WP:BIASED, from the other hand, further explains that a reliable source does not ought to be "neutral, unbiased, or objective". These two parts of POV policy provide the possibility of using sources which are not part of the mainstream media, perhaps functioning to reduce the level of a massive systematic bias. However, if it would not be possible to use a state media for the state's POV, then editors have no option left but to use the POV of those mainstream sources. But there is a recent trend aimed at muting the voices that are out of the so-called mainstream media. These discussions are kinda removing the sources not matching the liberal-democrat standards for reliable sources. The trend started by acting against the Russian media, now is dealing with the Iranian outlets and probably will go to Chinese and Arab sources in near future. The long term consequence of such an approach would be nothing but an even stronger systematic bias.
However, if the community has changed its position on WP:UNDUE and WP:Biased, so that the media which run or support by nonliberal-democratic states are considered as unreliable sources even for representation of the position of those states, then this new consensus which undermines the current explicit terms of WP:NPOV should be discussed here. Finally, we need a broader consensus to remain the current policy and neglect those case by case RFCs or rewrite the policy. I mean, it is clear that the community should not follow an approach which clearly contradicts with the main policy, unless after revision of that policy.-- Seyyed( t- c) 05:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
According to @ user:JzG, the Consensus we have reached based on the current policies is this:
There is another consensus which contradicts with the former one:
However, if the position of the community has been changed, then it should be mentioned in the policy. -- Seyyed( t- c) 06:47, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
The WP:Biased says: Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. and WP:NPOV says: A common argument in a dispute about reliable sources is that one source is biased and so another source should be given preference. Some editors argue that biased sources should not be used because they introduce improper POV to an article. However, biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone, although other aspects of the source may make it invalid. Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view. This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether.
However, as it clear some people who participate in RFCs in Notice Board propose different understanding which we can paraphrase like this: There are some sources which are totally unreliable due to their political or ideological viewpoints like antisemitism. In other words, the reliability of a source depends on particular interpretation of Political correctness which is common in main stream media. -- Seyyed( t- c) 12:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
"All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."-- Mhhossein talk 13:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:GENDERID being used in place of WP:Article titles and for category arguments. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 20:46, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
In the last several years, a journalistic practice has emerged in which news analysis and spot news reports will assert false equivalencies or objective falsehoods rather than explain false equivalencies or objective falsehoods. For example –
“ | John Dow made the false claim that the sky is green. | ” |
– instead of –
“ | John Dow claimed the sky is green. According to a 2010 report from NASA, the sky is blue. The blue coloring of the sky has also been described by other scientists, including Jane Smith and Jane Dow. | ” |
This is a recent evolution in journalism responding to a political communications strategy by which an outrageous claim can be made and the journalist, rather than describing the outrage of the claim, is required to source the perspective of the other side, creating the impression that the outrageous claim is equal to the factual one. A less discussed reason has to do with the economic limitations of journalism, that is, it takes no resources to make an outrageous claim but significant resources to rapidly counter-explain such a claim.
Without getting into the argument as to whether this is good journalism – because we are not a journalistic endeavor – I would like to briefly discuss whether this is good encyclopedia writing. This practice has crept into many of our articles.
On WP we have never obligated ourselves to rapidly respond to evolving news stories and we have no space limitations on our articles. Should we, therefore, be asserting objective falsehoods or explaining objective falsehoods? On the one hand, we "go by what RS say," however, we also recognize a stylistic dissymmetry between journalistic writing and encyclopedic writing, as described in
WP:NEWSSTYLE. I think we've reached a point where these two maxims have become incongruous insofar as this specific, recently popular, phrasing is concerned.
I am not making any specific suggestion or proposal. This thread is merely to seek input and opinion.
Chetsford (
talk) 04:23, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
John Dow falsely claimed the sky is green. According to a 2010 report from NASA, the sky is blue. The blue coloring of the sky has also been described by other scientists, including Jane Smith and Jane Dow.-- Aquillion ( talk) 07:05, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
By replicating the very dictatorial opressors agenda, for example the very dictatorial opressing Quranic text. The replicators instill fear and chaos into the non-muslims. Which makes the world less peaceful and sane. Who are the replicators of Quran then? Some wikipedia creators for example. Which is bad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.136.46.120 ( talk) 15:47, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
That is not the case, and that fact was mathematically proven. Briefly, if two persons discuss some subject that is not a matter of taste (for example, "is the Moon made of blue cheese?"), and they agree to use only logical arguments, and they have no hidden agenda (i.e. they openly disclose all facts and considerations their arguments are based upon), they will inevitably come to some common agreement. Since majority of Wikipedia topics are not a matter of someone's taste, but are based on published reliable sources, the space for disagreement is very narrow. We can agree to disagree on what picture would be better to add to some article, but a situation when editors agree to disagree about interpretation of some source cannot be considered normal. At least, the title of that section must be changed to something less categorical, for example "Sometimes, objectivity is hard to achieve". Again, the current statement is factually incorrect.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 21:33, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Actually, my major objection was caused by the FAQ statement "There's no such thing as objectivity. Everybody with any philosophical sophistication knows that," which is a pure postmodernist nonsense. I replaced it with what the policy says (which is non-controversial), and added quotation marks to "There is no such things as objectivity", which, imo, makes clear that that is not the statement of fact, but more like "some people believe" (as |WhatamIdoing noted). I hope that resolves the problem, at least, temporarily.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 18:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
I think this article should be deleted. Wikipedia has no right to claim that it is NPOV, as it is extremely ideologically biased to the left. This rule is a joke. The Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has even said so. NorfolkIsland123 ( talk) 17:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV says that "biased statements of opinion" must be qualified with WP:INTEXT attribution. I don't think that we want to say that all opinions must be attributed to specific sources, but I wonder whether this is the right place to draw the line. Is the problem area bias (who decides whether my opinion is biased?), or is the problem contentiousness? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:27, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
I would like to understand how that "proportion" should be determined. One interpretation is that to determine relative weights of different views on some subject, an editor is expected to examine the whole body of sources that discuss that subject, and after that to make a conclusion based on some more or less objective criterion (for example, if majority of supporters of the viewpoint A publish their articles in top journals and are being widely cited, whereas the proponents of the viewpoint B publish in less reputable journals and are being cited less frequently, then the view A is prevalent).
However, a second interpretation is also possible. The quote from Wales says:
That may imply that to determine if some viewpoint is a majority view, we need to provide some reliable source that explicitly says so, otherwise all viewpoints should be treated as significant minority views. However, that immediately raises a question on how can we make sure that the RS saying "A is a majority view" by itself expressed a majority viewpoint. In connection to that the third interpretation is that NPOV provides no strict instruction on how the above mentioned proportion can be determined, and we should use common sense instead. In connection to that, I am wondering which interpretation seems more correct. Any thoughts?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 15:20, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate [that viewpoint] with reference to commonly accepted reference texts, i.e., "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to find RS that have that viewpoint". — 2d37 ( talk) 10:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel like the spirit of WP:BESTSOURCES is that very reliable sources outrank less reliable sources. But I do not feel like this is currently said clearly. Instead it says it obliquely by talking about "good and unbiased research". Is there any interest in adding the following paragraph to the WP:BESTSOURCES section?
Not all sources are created equal. If two sources of different reliability levels say different things, the source that is more reliable should be assumed to be the correct source. For example, if one source is primary and one source is secondary, or (on the
reliable sources list) one source is "no consensus" and one source is "generally reliable", or one source is not academic and one source is academic.
– Novem Linguae ( talk) 19:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
The first sentence under WP:DUE reads as such:
"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."
I need the "in proportion to prominence of each viewpoint" to be clarified more please. What does it mean exactly?
For instance, if we are talking about POV-A and POV-B and there are 10 and 5 sources respectively for POV-A and POV-B, does DUE say the amount of the content on POV-A and POV-B to be represented in the page should keep the same proportion as 10 and 5? -- Mhhossein talk 19:38, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Notability#Notability and due weight of failed lawsuits for a discussion that might interest readers of this talk page. Regards, CapnZapp ( talk) 09:12, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
Currently policy says in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources
. But shouldn't this be limited to secondary and tertiary sources that are independent of the subject? I see someone talked about
something like this a while back. For example, an article about a book should not use the book itself to establish DUE-ness. If a sentence exists in a book (or a book's translation), but that sentence hasn't been covered by any reliable, secondary sources then wikipedia article should also not be covering that sentence.
VR
talk 05:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
wikipedia is an absolute joke when it comes to any controversial topic. All it does is echo the blatant lies of the corporate media uncritically. Here's a suggestion: a source isn't a source unless it links to data that substantiates the claim. A bare assertion by a journalist is worthless, no matter how prestigious the venue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:20C:7500:5D85:7CBF:BD2F:4203 ( talk) 05:16, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I ask to change the section about religion. It's formulated in an offensive fashion designed to ridicule religious believers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.235.159.39 ( talk) 23:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Magazines and newspapers are, by definition, not NPOV. They shouldn't be among the sources of a serious knowledge enterprise.
Sources to be taken into account should only be peer-reviewed journals, academic publications, other encyclopedias and non-academic essays aimed to the general public. Lacking a significant amount of such sources, the subject should be treated as non-encyclopedic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.235.159.39 ( talk • contribs) 23:34, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Blender does not reflect the legitimate criticism allowed to be mentioned by the neutral point of view policy. The magazine was notorious for bashing any artist based on the reviewer's hatred for a certain genre, as evidenced by the Top 50 Worst Songs list, who's rule of only allowing songs that were popular hits practically reflects its bias towards indie music and hatred of pop music. Plus, it no longer exists in print nor online form. It should be removed as a reliable source and banned from WP:NPOV. -- 174.255.66.157 ( talk) 16:58, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
In Special:Diff/996952192, I edited the definition of "Obvious pseudoscience" in WP:NPOVFAQ § Pseudoscience to keep it in sync with the ArbCom ruling in the Pseudoscience case, from which this definition explicitly is quoted. In particular, I updated the quoted definition to reflect the ruling's 2 July 2010 amendment. Especially as I am fairly new as an editor, I felt I should post a notice of my edit here at WP:NPOV's talk page — which has over ten times as many watchers as WP:NPOVFAQ — so that, in case I made some mistake in making this change, the community has a better chance to catch the mistake. — 2d37 ( talk) 09:53, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Something that I've long considered and think this is one of those aspects to add is that within the advise of UNDUE, that we should caution editors about trying to establish UNDUE/DUE/WEIGHT too soon after some event or the like, as WP:RECENTISM outlines. I don't know exactly how to word it, and so this is more throwing the idea there, but basically we'd want editors to give time for viewpoints to settle down after some event (particularly ones that are emotional or contentious) before trying to write in opinions, analysis, etc. into an article. (This is separate from "Reactions" to disasters or other similar events, which are generally factual statements of how gov't reacted to events). Ideally we'd want editors to wait for longer-term secondary analysis (academic) of those viewpoints but that usually is years in the making, but the short-term should avoid trying to establish what is DUE or UNDUE in the hours and days after such an event. Some weeks or so after the event has settled out, then editors will have a better place to start judging where DUE/WEIGHT sits to include commentary and analysis, ideally using sources displaced farthest from said event to use to judge DUEness. The DUE/WEIGHT view that is set out immediately after an event may not change in those weeks (eg most of the same views related to the Jan 6 Capitol attacks remain the same today), but it is better if we don't rush in include that right after an event until we can judge if that's really the correct view or not.
By extension, this also implies that UNDUE/DUE/WEIGHT should be best judged by sources far removed in time from the event or situation, if possible. Eg: the US media's view of the Gulf war while it was happening compared to modern sources is far different. With that, we do have to be aware of WP:PRESENTISM issues that can arise if we're too far separated from the event and there have been major shifts in social and political norms that would put that event in a different light if one moves too far.
How to word this in, however, I don't know how it would best fit. -- Masem ( t) 15:57, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
The discussion at RSN is increasingly focused on DUE weight and balance - things that fall under the NPOV policy - rather than just reliability. As such, the conversation may be of interest to watchers of this page, and your input would be appreciated. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 11:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice. Sometimes, when genocide is sanctioned by God, it is a necessary evil, but it absolutely always may be described using the word "evil". Wikipedia shouldn't say in an instructional article For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action" Here is a better example ...an article should not state that pepperoni pizza is the best flavor.... Genocide being evil is not in the realm of opinion, while pizza toppings superiority is in the realm of opinion. You the man( converse) 09:44, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
As someone who edits on some controversial topics. There are moments where I realize certain information or sources are problematic. But I feel guilty for removing a problematic source.
Or there are times where I afraid to put a certain detail in a article because I know it’s controversial.
Like I have to put in certain facts that come off as controversial to certain religious groups or certain minority groups. CycoMa ( talk) 07:24, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect WPL:WEIGHT. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 10#WPL:WEIGHT until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. dud hhr Contribs 04:38, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
Here is something that I have always been considered about.
Editors have their own personal beliefs and points of views, at times it hard to convince them why a certain source is reliable or whether on how mainstream a certain view is.
I’m not entirely sure where I should comment this at. CycoMa ( talk) 05:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC)