Wikipedia:WikiProject Neutrality

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Welcome to the Wikipedia Neutrality Project
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The Wikipedia Neutrality Project Dedicated to maintaining the integrity of Wikipedia through Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy

Contents Introduction Scope and Focus New Requests Open Requests Closed Requests Participants Tools Suggestions Related Articles

Introduction

This WikiProject aims for promotion of the neutral point of view (NPOV) guidelines as set out in WP:NPOV, removing bias from articles and helping to resolve POV-related disputes.

Scope and Focus

The goal of this WikiProject is to help to better establish Wikipedia as a legitimate encyclopedic source by removing bias from Wikipedia. Its focus will be on pages which contain visible bias towards some political or racial group, as this is the most flagrant form of NPOV violations on Wikipedia, however it endeavours to ensure that all articles are sufficiently neutral.

Neutrality Review Requests

New Requests To request attention for a page from the Wikipedia Neutrality Project, please post under this heading with a subheading and explanation of the nature of the request. Steps to list a New Request 1 Check the article talk page of the article you think has a NPOV problem. If there is already active discussion of the issue, the problem may resolve itself; if the discussion is stalemated, following the recommendations on dispute resolution may be more appropriate than listing the article here. 2 Create a new request as a subheading under this category. Be sure to use the following format: ===={{article|<<articlenamehere>>}}==== ''Put a brief description of the POVconflict or POV problem here.''' ~~~~ 3 Be sure to look back at this page for follow-up replies. Project members may request additional information on the issue to better understand the problem you have identified. Note: Requests which have been declined or closed longer than a week will be archived. Stale requests will also be archived. Can't find your request here? It may have been Opened, Declined, or declared Stale. Opened requests can be found further down the page. Declined requests are also further down the page but are archived periodically. Stale requests are archived at Wikipedia:Neutrality Project/Stale. Waterboarding (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) An interesting POV/NPOV Problem here. When I arrived on the page there appeared to be two views: 1. The article MUST explicitly say that waterboarding is torture. 2. The article MUST NOT connect waterboarding with torture. I looked around and came to the sense of a third view: 3. The idea that waterboarding is torture is disputed. There are a variety of NPOV problems here. Many people advocating either 1 or 2 appear to have a political agenda. But the NPOV Issue I would like to request some insight on is this: WP:NPOV, particularly WP:ASF states that a Fact is something that is not seriously disputed. And if it is not a "fact" it is an "opinion" or a position. WP:WEIGHT 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." But.."Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all." I have found neutral, reliable and verifiable sources that describe the issue as "debated". The view that waterboarding is not torture is a minority position (according to polls) held by about 29% of the population vs about 65% who believe it is torture (approx. 1:2 ratio). I have also found objective, reliable sources that provide the names of notable supporters of the minority position, so it meets the criteria set by Jimbo Wales: "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents". Consequently, I believe the issue over waterboarding is "Seriously Disputed" as described by NPOV Policy. People who disagree with me claim that because the disputing faction is a minority, the dispute is not serious. Instead, it is a WP:FRINGE opinion and accepting their dispute would violate WP:WEIGHT. I feel that a 1:2 ratio with notable adherents gives the minority position sufficient traction that we must conclude the issue is "Seriously Disputed". As a sort of footnote, I add that I consider the recognition that it is disputed to be a neutral compromising position between the two views that Waterboarding is Torture and that Waterboarding is not Torture. --Blue Tie (talk) 11:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC) Could you please cite where you got that poll from? Counting the references and sources on the talk page I come up with a ratio of 8:1 of "waterboarding is torture" to the opinions of "waterboarding isn't/may not be torture", "it's irrelevant" and "it's uncertain" combined. Quoting Stephan Schultz from the talk page: "The extremely few dissenting voices barely qualify even as a fringe. Claiming anything else is simply politically motivated dissembling. That we have to have this discussion reflects bad on "western civilization" (ref. Gandhi)--Stephan Schulz 21:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)" - Nothing more to say. Endymi0n (talk) 19:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC) Turning Stone Resort & Casino (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Under the Legal Action heading contains POV as to the meaning of various decisions rather than summarizing what was or was not decided by them. For example "the fact that the amended complaint was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds speaks volumes for the compact's validity " Dtwarren (talk) 00:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC) So was the interpretation of a 1993 letter that the casino was unauthorized. You didn't complain then. And from my analysis of the page, it's more a summation of facts rather than a point of view. POV suggests opinion not wholly supported by fact, such as the casino not being authorized under the compact when clearly the DOI said it took NO position but that the compact allows gambling on Indian land. That's POV. But the fact that the pleading was dismissed on smj grounds is an affirmation, not POV, that the compact is valid. If not, then answer why the court dismissed the pleading. The article then summarizes differing arguments from both sides of the table. Seems pretty neutral. [[User:Neutralman1024|Neutralman1024] ([User talk:Neutralman1024|talk]) 08:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC) Immaculate Conception (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This is a very important element of Roman Catholicism that is one of the first points of difference between Christian denominations that are called upon when studying the Christian religion. However this article takes a strong condescending and superior tone against other Christian denominations that don't share its belief. Like the Saddam Hussein comment earlier, it would be a disservice to let an article like this sway people's opinions. I think that if it could be tagged or similar to warn people against its heavy slant until it is fixed it'd give people a bit more scope in their attitude towards it. I recognise that virtually every article should have a tag like this because nothing is going to be wholly neutral. I just think that this is far too one way for it to be looked over, and I think it is a topic of research and discussion that can very easily be misinterpreted by either side of the playing field. Robert Davis (New Orleans) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This article is about an event of alleged police brutality. The two officers were white, and the arrested man was black. As you can imagine, there are disputes. Note this change, highlighting the two sides' positions. I have attempted to fix the article to help it adhere to NPOV, but I'm not sure it's right yet. Can someone else look it over? Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (random) 13:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)  DoneJame§ugrono 05:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC) Saddam Hussein (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Biased towards Hussein. The Talk page for this article demonstrates some of the issues at hand. This article omits the atrocities committed against Iraqi civilians during Hussein's rule, actively makes Iraq look like the victims in the Iran Iraq war in which they were the aggressors, and tries to make Kuwait appear responsible for being invaded. I also suspect that the information regarding the infrastructure, in particular the electricity grid, is false. I will be attending to these problems as soon as I can. For now, there needs to be some kind of official flag at the top of the article that mentions that the neutrality is disputed, so that people don't form their opinions based on this article. ' 58.160.66.242 15:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC) YThere's nothing really official here, seeing as all of our actions can easily be reversed. However, there is one tag, which can be added to this article, and that is the {{POV}} tag. This is for article where there is an open and active dispute about the neutrality of the article already on the talk page. Hope that helps. Jame§ugrono 06:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC) Lori Berenson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Does not present both sides of her case - leans heavily towards the "guilty" verdict. 68.22.193.210 (talk) 05:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)  Note:I have left a comment on the talk page; I will summarise my points here. She was found guilty, even though the fairness of the trial may have been disputed. This seems like such a contentious page, and the fact that there are so few citations makes it difficult for someone (like myself) with little to no understanding nor background knowledge of the subject to rewrite the article, as any revisions on my part may be a misinterpretation of unfounded claims. This page needs to be substantially referenced, with inline citations for the more explicit claims. I hope that helps. Please return to us once the page has been cited and referenced suitably. Any other member of the Project is welcome to try to re-write this page, however, I am declining it.  Declined — This article needs substantial referencing or the attention of an editor with substantial knowledge of the subject before it can be rewritten from a NPOV.Jame§ugrono 20:12, 30 November 2007 (UTC) Consumer privacy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) The paragraph concerning the effects 9/11 on consumer privacy attribute them to having created a police state. This statement appears to be a political statement and not relevant to the description of Consumer Privacy. "After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, privacy took a back-seat to national security in most legislators' minds. Accordingly concerns of consumer privacy in the United States have tended to go unheard as questions of citizen privacy versus the state, and the development of a police state or carceral state, have occupied advocates of strong privacy measures." Opening Seems to be worth fixing. (Busy at moment, but will return to it tomorrow) --Bfigura (talk) 05:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC) Valkyrie (film) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This is more preemptive than anything, but I'd like to get some feedback about a section. There is a World War II film called Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise and being filmed in Germany. Some German parties have protested the involvement of Cruise based on his background as a Scientologist. I have created a section for this coverage at Valkyrie (film)#German response, and I would like some feedback as to whether I have addressed all sides adequately. I imagine that the controversy may heighten by the time the film comes out, so I would like to have a neutral section ready for such incoming traffic. Any comments are welcome! Erik (talk • contrib) - 00:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC) Seems rather balanced so far, although I'd welcome another's insight. --Bfigura (talk) 05:19, 15 September 2007 (UTC) Has a good set of viewpoints and comes across overall as neutral. As the film premeir draws closer I will have another look Phillipmorantking (talk) 12:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC) Global Warming Although the mainstream opinion on global warming is that there is sufficient fossil fuel for scarcity of supply to be a restriction, there are a number of experts who do maintain that fossil fuel scarcity could be the controlling factor restricting global warming. As I understand the wikipedia policy on NPOV: "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by a reliable source." I have tried about half a dozen approaches varying for a small section to a very detailed section as given here: [1] to a short change in the introduction paragraph to make it clear that there are contrary views. Models referenced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predict that global temperatures may increase by 1.4 to 5.8 °C (2.5 to 10.5 °F) between 1990 and 2100. The uncertainty in this range results from both the difficulty of predicting the volume of future greenhouse gas emissions and uncertainty about climate sensitivity. Add: However, some experts use models that predict fossil fuel scarcity will be a controlling factor for global warming and suggest either no rise [2] or a rise of a "couple of degrees" Unfortunately, every attempt has been simply deleted without discusssion. I have even put a { { POV } } at the top of the article as I thought his was the procedure in the wikipedia policy. My friend who has reappeared not knowing about the 3RR rule kept revert the removal of the { { POV }} and ironically it was him who eventually got blocked. I know global warming is a contentious issue, but that is no reason to squash properly sourced alternative views. I would appreciate some help in resolving this dispute. LordsReform 19:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC) Not an issue for WikiProject:Neutrality - referred elsewhere. We don't resolve disputes, however, here are some places which you may be looking for: WP:RFC WP:AN/I WP:WQA These are places to formally and informally resolve disputes. Jame§ugrono 06:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Lyndon LaRouche A published critic of LaRouche, Dennis King, has opened a Wikipedia account as Dking (talk · contribs). The dispute is over the extent to which the article may become a vehicle for King's theories, particularly his theory that LaRouche, who professes to be an opponent of fascism, is actually a secret fascist himself. King employs a technique of "decoding" which purports to discover hidden meanings in LaRouche's writings, hidden meanings which contradict the stated opinions of LaRouche. There is also a great deal of guilt by association, of the sort that WP:BLP prohibits. I am asking the neutrality project to intervene in particular because the neutrality dispute centers on possible violations of WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. --Tsunami Butler 00:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC) Stale  – No comments for a month. Will be archived in one week unless it is opened or declined. Jame§ugrono 07:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Puerto Rican general election, 2008 This article is curently received a contribution with a lot of unverified and biased claim. See history. Esurnir 05:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Stale  – No comments for a month. Will be archived in one week unless it is opened or declined. Jame§ugrono 07:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Cultural mandate This article is infrequently edited by just a handful of editors, and needs a lot more work to be NPOV and independently sourced to be properly encyclopedic. The claims in the article are largely WP:OR statements attached to quotes drawn from directly involved sources. The article has a promotional or advocacy tone as the result of reliance on one-sided, directly involved sources and links named. -Professor marginalia 18:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC) Stale  – No comments for a month. Will be archived in one week unless it is opened or declined. Jame§ugrono 07:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Template:Lloyds TSB This seems to contain a lot of PR for Lloyds TSB beyond simple history and description, amounting almost to a publicity page. 81.240.60.195 (talk) 11:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC) Declined Requests An archive of old declined requests is available at Wikipedia:Neutrality Project/Declined. Open Requests This section is designed to coordinate the editing of pages to conform to a neutral tone and point of view as per WP:NPOV guidelines. It is essentially a "to-do" list. Please report any pages in need of Wikipedia Neutrality Project members' attention as a subheading of this section, to the top. Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Cocoaguy believes the article contains Peacock/Weasel words and an American POV. But, as the principle contributor the article I believe it conforms to the High Court verdict and the reports of Bangladeshi newspapers (which are the principle source for the article). Aditya(talk • contribs) 14:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC) Y Opened. Jame§ugrono 10:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC) Is there any way of speeding the case a bit? Aditya(talk • contribs) 09:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC) Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) The articles contains very strong phrasing and a lot in incriminatory quotes without any reference citing. I know the organization is worthy of a lot of finger pointing (in fact I wrote much of the original article), but this may be bit too non-neutral. Aditya(talk • contribs) 17:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC) Britches (monkey) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This is an article with what seems to me as a clear extremist POV --- for example, it documents an event disrupting laboratory experiments, but is named after one particularly photo-opportune animal. I noticed this article after it was linked to the Macaque page, which is otherwise largely a list of species of macaques, and I have been involved in discussing (but not editing) it for some time. The article does have one paragraph documenting opposing view points on the laboratory assault and the condition of the animals, so it is not completely a one-sided work of activism. However, this does not mean it is actually neutral. I have tried adding a check POV tag twice, but both times it was quickly deleted. I would like advice about not only this article in particular, but the level of activism that is acceptable on Wikipedia in general. Clearly the very choice of what (and whom) we document is political and I don't personally think that should be avoided. At the same time, I want to understand the difference between propaganda and a good article.--Jaibe 19:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC) Coming from someone who is rather indifferent to animal rights, I do not see any "clear extremist POV" here. The article documents a particular monkey that was a part of an odd experiment. The wording of the article gives me no indication of whether this was "good" or "bad". The only POV issue I can see is the lack information regarding the researchers and the experiment the monkey was involved in; what was the goals of the experiment? why was the experiment carried out the way it was? That is just a matter of finding sources to flesh out more details. —Mitaphane ?|! 01:26, 8 February 2007 (UTC) In my opinion, this article inherently may have undue weight/POV and WP:SOAPBOX issues. The article comes across as promoting a "poster child" of a particular issues group (whether the group is extremist is besides the point here). An article about particular kinds of animal experimentation of this sort (which are common, not odd) - or maybe about a particular controversy - would be more appropriate and more capable of neutrality. Focusing on a "poster child" monkey seems undue unless the monkey gained a substantial amount of third-party celebrity (I don't see any evidence of this). I don't see this article as something within the scope of this project however (which is focussed on fixing unbalanced content with the assumption that the article subject itself is sound). I suggest that the petitioner research the sources used for the article (do they actually mention the specific subject discussed? - sometimes references listed in articles actually don't or do so in a minimal way. If the specific subject is discussed, what is context and use, and do they support a potentially neutral and encyclopedic notable form of this article? Are the sources used one-sided? Are they authoritative?) After this the petitioner should consider if they want to propose a merger or move for the article, or if they wish to nominate the article for deletion on WP:SOAPBOX/notability grounds Bwithh Join Up! See the World! 00:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Sorry, I now see this may be the wrong place to ask this question, but one of my problems with the article is the fact that the references are just activist videos & books on a specialist vegetarian/animal rights press. I am trying to persuade the people who have these books to actually cite the original sources of the government reports they claim these books document. Is that kind of referencing grounds for a merge or deletion?--Jaibe 22:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Superfluous "Pseudoscientific"? Hi, an interesting dispute arose (I raised the issue) surrounding the use of "pseudoscientific" as a modifier for "intelligent design" on the PZ Myers page. The discussion is here I'd like to request an outside viewpoint. Thanks, Gabrielthursday 08:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC) I suppose a wording change from "As well as criticizing the pseudoscientific claims of intelligent design proponents and others" to perhaps "As well as offering criticisms of Intelligent Design, notably asserting that its claims are psuedoscientific." It would focus the article on Meyer's views and not inadvertently offer a biased or dysphemismtic qualifier. If Meyers criticisms include the concept of pseudoscientific then it would be appropriate to note that. D. M. Arney, M.A. 06:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC) Illegal immigration to the United States This article is very heavily biased towards the pro-illegal alien perspective. I am trying to document all examples in the talk page, but have limited free time which I can give to do so. What the article (and related articles as well) really needs is more people who can provide NPOV.-Psychohistorian 18:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC) Software as a service (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) The largest current deployment of SaaS is by Wachovia, using a SuccessFactors solution with 85,000 users, and the company anticipates an additional 25,000 users over the next two years.[6] Using the example of SuccessFactors as a SAAS provider to Wachovia provides the vendor commercial advertising, as it links to their press releases on their site. This does not follow the Wikipedia:neutral point of view guidelines and should be removed. Wikipedia is not a link farm for service providers. PRlady 17:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)  Done removed POV material and the source. Λua∫Wise (talk) 15:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC) Closed Requests When requests have been addressed, they are archived at Wikipedia:Neutrality_Project/closed. This is almost always without prejudice - you can usually open a request if bias is reintroduced to the page.

Project Coordination

Participants Review Team To join the Wikiproject, add your name to the list: Alloranleon (talk · contribs · logs) Egfrank (talk · contribs · logs) FT2 (talk · contribs · logs) Jamessugrono (talk · contribs · logs) - More information here. Pinkadelica (talk · contribs · logs) Watchdog07 (talk · contribs · logs) Wildhartlivie (talk · contribs · logs) Ed Poor (talk · contribs · logs) Cocoaguy (talk · contribs · logs) Snowfreak91287 (talk · contribs · logs) DanCBJMS (talk · contribs · logs) Phillipmorantking (talk · contribs · logs) Auawise (talk · contribs · logs) TableManners (talk · contribs · logs) Inactive Members Inactive members will be listed here in chronological order, latest to oldest. If this list reaches 20, the last five people will be notified then removed from here. You may also add yourself to the inactive members list - do this if you are not going to contribute for a while. Simply add {{User3|<your username here>}} to a bulleted point (using *) at the bottom of the list. Userbox If you want to show your support, add this userbox to your user page: {{User wikipedia-neutrality}} This user is a participant in WikiProject Neutrality. Tools Templates A few templates to aid in maintaing Wikipedia's integrity: Template:POV, {{POV}} - To mark general NPOV disputes. User:Wizardry Dragon/Templates/Project NPOVWarning (experimental) - Use when you want other WNP members to join discussion and improvement of the article. Please remember to add a note on our talk page and include your rationale for disputing the article. Template:POV-check, or {{POV-check}} serves to request a neutrality review. We shouldn't use this template, but rather check the articles carrying it and either report neutrality issues here or remove the template. See the list of dispute-related templates for more specific situations. Suggestions for Reviewers First, be sure you are well versed in the Wikipedia Neutral Point of View guidelines. Second, make sure you can be pretty active. Picking an article a week would be good. We will run activity checks every two or three months. Then there are a few things you can do: Check pages in Category:Articles which may be biased, which contains articles nominated for POV check, where it is unsure whether they are neutral. Help to resolve issues or remove {{POV check}} template if there are no significant NPOV violations. Category:NPOV disputes is a broader list of articles with {{POV}} template, generally with ongoing discussions. Sometimes another opinion can help resolve the problem, and sometimes correction will help. If there is no dispute, the template should be removed, according to its guidelines. Keep an eye on the new pages list to ensure that new articles are presented in a objective matter. Please also remember - don't bite the newbies. Watch pages where you note particular problems (vandalism, edit wars, etc.) to ensure they follow NPOV guidelines. Try to check some of the articles in Wikipedia:Neutrality Project/Stale. Do not list articles on Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion in relation to NPOV guidelines. Add appropriate cleanup templates or NPOV warnings instead. An article that is blatantly POV should usually be the subject of cleanup, not deletion. If it is spam, then please give the community a chance to construct a good article for it, or at least post the page to the WNP talk page to bring the page to the attention of editors here to gain some consensus and feedback as to what should be done about the page. Regarding New Requests When opening new requests, please keep a few things in mind: Please use indicators. Yes, some people find them obnoxious, but it makes the intent of your posting clear. Please do not open new requests when there is ongoing Dispute Resolution on the article. We don't want to step on toes here, and that's a big way we can do so. Talk first, act after. Requests posted here are often hot topics were the consensus is not clear. Discussion can help you feel out where the problems are. Related Articles Wikipedia NPOV Guidelines Wikipedia Recent Changes Patrol Public WikiProject Proposition for the Wikipedia Neutrality Project