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Language in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Okay, folks. I need your input to see how it looks from WP:NPOV. I’ll start here. The issue is the language in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Short description of the issue we are having --> :

As a result of the Unions in 1385 and 1569, Poland and Lithuania became one country called Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish language was already a written language at the time. The Lithuanian language still had no writing system in 1385. Lithuanian writing appeared for the first time in 16th century, although it wasn't used in some documents in the 17th century but remained rather marginal. Books and documents were printed in Polish and Latin, two official languages of the Commonwealth. Between the 15th and 16th centuries, the Polish language was slowly adopted by the Lithuanian political and cultural segments of the society. The Polish language became the tongue of nobility, and it was the primary written/printed language well into the 19th century, therefore their names were written in Polish. The Lithuanian language began to be properly and widely codified in the second half of the 19th century. Nowadays, Polish historians are using Polish versions of the names of historical figures, as they were written throughout the centuries. However, contemporary Lithuanian historians use the Lithuanianized version of their names. An example is the figure of General Romualdas Giedraitis, a Polish and Lithuanian military man, who the Lithuanian historiography calls Romualdas Giedraitis, although according to available sources he used a Polish-sounding name Romuald Giedroyć. Other examples are Laurynas Gucevičius (Wawrzyniec Gucewicz), Mikalojus Tiškevičius (Mikołaj Tyszkiewicz) or Tomas Kušleika (Tomasz Egidiusz Kuszłejko). If a figure widely appears in English-language literature, there is no issue as we can use the version of the name dominant in that literature. But the problem emerges with the minor personalities whose names do not appear in English literature.

- brief visual explanation of the issue (hoping to strive interests of others) - [1]

Now I need to ask you this:

• What language (Polish or Lithuanian) should we use in English Wikipedia to document the names of the people whose names do not appear in English literature?

Pinging - Marcelus and Cukrakalnis - GizzyCatBella🍁 10:48, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella: - In order to avoid bias, I'd suggest that English-speaking users who are neither Polish nor Lithuanian should express their opinions if they are aware of the context. Merangs (talk) 21:54, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you @GizzyCatBella: for creating this discussion, as it was created at my request. For my part, I would just like to add that we are talking about people whose first language was Polish and they grew up in Polish or Polish-Lithuanian culture. I would not like to focus here on their self-identification, which was often complicated and different from how we define Lithuanian and Polish today. I would like the discussion to be about the writing of the names only. I would ask for the discussion to be factual, without resorting to accusing others of bad intentions. I would also like to point out that the problem concerns also some figures from the borderland of Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian history. This is not only a Polish-Lithuanian problem. Marcelus (talk) 22:05, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Just an example to illustrate Marcelus' point of view. Yesterday he stated that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was called Poland (his edit). So despite polite looking statements, he does not seek for WP:NPOV, but aims to Polonize everything as much as possible. -- Pofka (talk) 09:07, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm literally tired of arguing with you, once again seeing how dishonestly you present it I said. I never stated that the GDL was called Poland, but that the entire state of the Commonwealth, has been referred to as Poland very often since at least the late 17th century. In doing so I cited specific historical sources.

Let me remind you that you are the one with a history of creating false historical evidence, when, in order to prove that the Lithuanian term for the coat of arms of Lithuania "waikymas" has a usage older than the early 19th century, you falsely used a page from an early 18th-century German religious book as evidence, hoping that no one would figure it out. Here is our exchange on the topic, here is the my deletion request on Commons.Marcelus (talk) 10:59, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

One of the examples of Marcelus' recent hatred of the Lithuanian language: his edit. He is basically hunting Lithuanian words in Wikipedia. Moreover, his acts of Polonization were also performed in Vilnius article: 1, 2, and he is also trying to Polonize an ethnic Lithuanian family name of Alšėniškiai and Principality of Alšėnai (see: HERE and HERE). It is clear that he is performing Polonization activities on a daily basis and it's not because he seeks for WP:NPOV as he is performing it even without waiting for some kind of consensus here. -- Pofka (talk) 16:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@Pofka please, ad hominem arguments are not helping here. - GizzyCatBella🍁 19:01, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella: It clearly show his aims in Wikipedia as he is performing Polonization of names before any WP:CONS is reached here. -- Pofka (talk) 15:55, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

@Pofka I warned you once, but since you didn't stop with your insults I will report you for your harrasment of me. None of the examples you showed prove anything you are accusing me of.Marcelus (talk) 21:37, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Lithuanian primer Mokslas skaitymo rašto lietuviško, published and widely used by hundreds of thousands / millions in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1783)

Universitas lingvarum Litvaniae, the oldest surviving grammar of the Lithuanian language published in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1737)

•  Comment: Polonized names were used in Polish texts, so it is not surprising that Polish authors also use the Polonized variants in their English publications, however the Lithuanian authors are using a vice versa approach and are using proper Lithuanian names in their English language publications. So to avoid biased interpretations violating the WP:NPOV we must use names based on the people's nationality. @GizzyCatBella: your statement "The Lithuanian language began to be properly and widely codified in the second half of the 19th century." is not completely true as already in the 18th century (when the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was still fully functional) the Lithuanians were printing thousands of Lithuanian language primers (see: Mokslas skaitymo rašto lietuviško). Moreover, Universitas lingvarum Litvaniae is the oldest surviving grammar of the Lithuanian language published in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1737. So why we should Polonize Lithuanians names when thousands of them were studying and using Lithuanian language? This is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. The Old Lithuanian language had full literacy traditions in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (see: Category:Old Lithuanian texts), so it was not marginal and was widely used in Lithuania proper (spoken and written). In 1552, Grand Duke Sigismund II Augustus ordered that orders of the Magistrate of Vilnius be announced in Lithuanian, Polish, and Ruthenian. The same requirement was valid for the Magistrate of Kaunas. After all, it was the mother tongue of the Gediminids, who later founded the Jagiellonian dynasty, and of many Lithuanian nobles. -- Pofka (talk) 22:18, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Exactly as Pofka proves, the description provided at the top is historically inaccurate and does not give a full, balanced picture.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 16:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

No one is trying to diminish or degrade the Lithuanian language. The Lithuanian language and writing in that language developed at its own pace and made significant progress in developing a literary language. It was certainly the living language of the ethnic Lithuanian population, including the home language of a significant portion of the Lithuanian nobility. Nevertheless, the process of polonization of Lithuanian society, especially of the upper classes, was significant. Between 1553 and 1660 about 1500 different books were published in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. 44.5% of them were published in Polish, 37% in Latin and 12.5% in Ruthenian. Fourteen books were published in Lithuanian during this period in the GDL. Four in Italian and twelve in German. Overall, about 30 books were published in Lithuanian during the entire period of the Commonwealth. (Data after an article by Maria B. Topolska "Książka na Litwie i Białorusi w latach 1553-1660 (Analiza statystyczna)") Marcelus (talk) 14:45, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

If there is no English use, we need to discuss this case by case. I'd focus on self-identification, since IMHO it determines the correct cultural context and is generally tied to the language used by the subject, and the name they knew, signed with and responded to. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:18, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

That was my initial point of view. But users such as Pofka or Cukrakalnis keep reverting my changes and insisting on using Lithuanian-sounding names, it was really tiresome, so I decided that we need to establish some ground rules. Sadly many Lithuanian editors try to ignore the fact that many people in Lithuania were (still are) Polish speakers. Marcelus (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@Marcelus - We will hopefully. I’m planing on having more neutral users involved here but that takes time. - GizzyCatBella🍁 16:46, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

It is unknown how many historical sources were lost through the years of various wars, so identification one-by-one is impossible due to the lack of data and it is not necessary because it would create fake presumptions that there were Lithuanians and other Lithuanians. Are we going to allow the raging of the Litvinism monster here? It is absolutely enough that the Lithuanian language was respected and widely used in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, so Polish language priority in Lithuanians names is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. Do not forget that many Lithuanian nobles also spoke German, French languages, so are we going to Germanize and to French their names as well? And how are we going to do that? By calculating percentage how often each individual spoke Polish, German, French, Lithuanian? That's an utter absurd. The lie that the Lithuanian language was irrelevant should finally stop because it was the mother tongue of residents of the Lithuania proper and allowed to reestablish Lithuania in the 20th century. The Lithuanians certainly did not use Polish names when they spoke in the Lithuanian language. By the way, even the Constitution of 3 May 1791 had a Lithuanian language variant and it was adopted by nobles, not peasants. -- Pofka (talk) 18:02, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I' have thought self-identification if possible or other ientification like a gravestone or their relatives. The central problem you have though is people edit warring and to fix that you need something that's agreed to that you can point at. Something both the Polish and Latvian Lithuania WikiProjects (sorry) can have a link to. So I'd have thought the best idea woud ebto organise a discussion and then an RfC on one of those projects and put an invitation in to the other to get an agreed policy. NadVolum (talk) 18:11, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

@Piotrus - In your long history here, do you recall any similar case being solved somehow or this one is unique? I'm witnessing that the conservation of Lithuanian historical names of the Commonwealth is important to some users and often backed by sources. Perhaps we could accommodate that someway, such as creating the policy of using both languages? - GizzyCatBella🍁 19:22, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella For placenames, we do have WP:NCGN, and extending it to people is common sensical. Generally, both Polish and Lithuanian names should be used in lead. Which name to use for the main title and throughout the body, IMHO, generally needs to be determined on case by case basis, but rule of thumb, the dominant culture with which the given person engaged and felt a part of is the one whose language should be used. That would be Lithuanian for individuals connected to the Lithuanian National Revival and of course modern Lithuanians, and Polish for most of the others. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:14, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

The Lithuanian culture and language existed before the Lithuanian National Revival as well. -- Pofka (talk) 16:01, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella, Piotrus, and Cukrakalnis: It seems that it will be difficult to come to a consensus. One thing we can all agree on is that each case should actually be dealt with individually, one by one. I also think that a general rule should be to follow the person's main language - the language in which they created, the linguistic sphere in which they worked.Marcelus (talk) 20:36, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - WP:EPOV – en.WP Atsme 💬 📧 23:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion if it helps we recently decided that Zelenskyy was more correct than Zelensky because this is the way he himself writes it. Elinruby (talk) 13:34, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Motion to Add Context to the Persecution of Harari People

A third editor has recommended that we request help in resolving an issue with regards to the persecution of Harari people on the Haile Selassie Wikipedia page (section four on the talk page). I personally believe that context should be added as the Emperor is relentlessly slandered on the pretext of tribal and ethnic oppression for political reasons even to this day (see The Romantic Rewriting of Haile Selassie's Legacy Must Stop, Woyane rebellion and the Tigray War for example). Omission of crucial context in the opening paragraph is a subtle yet obvious ploy to promote a political narrative and goes against basic neutrality guidelines in my opinion. The sentence in question is: "During his rule the Harari people were persecuted and many left the Harari Region."

I proposed the following edits which were all consequently rejected:

1. "During his rule the Harari people who aligned themselves with Islamic Somali nationalist political movements were persecuted and many left the Harari Region."
2. "During his rule Harari criminals were persecuted and many left the Harari Region."
3. "During his rule Harari secessionists who collaborated with the Italians during the war were persecuted and many left the Harari region."

I've notified the parties involved, any assistance with this deadlock will be greatly appreciated thanks for all you do.Czar Petar I (talk) 13:11, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

@Czar Petar I: & @Magherbin: It would be more conducive if both of you stick to one venue regarding Harari's instead of continue using the talkpage. Talkpage is arguably WP:BLUDGEON or WP:TEXTWALL and may discourage other editors engagement. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 03:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the above proposals, source backs this. YonasJH (talk) 12:14, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

References

Staffordshire Bull Terrier

Is the NPOV tag on the article justified? ^{(Note: I filed at WP:ORN for the OR and SYNTH tags.)} All substantial fringe theories are already included per DUE as evidenced here. The article was promoted to GA in 2019 & remained stable until Cavalryman's proposed merge in 2021; closed 9+/- months later as no-consensus. Soon following, Cavalryman tag-bombed the article so I worked on updating sources, tweaking and clarifying...and then the underlying issue finally dawned on me. The NPOV tag remains, and from what I gather, it's because he wants the fringe theory to be stated in WikiVoice and given more WEIGHT (based on the single sentences or paragraphs obviously cherrypicked from chosen sources, most of which don't mean what he thinks they mean or were taken out of context. A GAR was filed. The thinking behind the theory that an undocumented, non-pedigreed heterogenous group of dogs referred to as bull and terrier is the renamed modern Staffordshire Bull Terrier fails the rule of logic. It based on unverifiable anecdotal accounts dating back 2 centuries. The first logical name choice for a direct descendant of the bull and terrier cross is the Bull Terrier, a TKC recognized purebred developed by James Hinks (1860–1870); a dog that looked very much like the bull and terrier crosses of the 1800s than the modern Bull Terriers of today. It wasn't until a half-century or so later (1935) that TKC would even recognize the modern SBT as a purebred. The various labels/aliases that were hung on dogs in the early-to-mid 1800's adds to the confusion we're dealing with today. DNA studies, cladograms, and multiple RS such as old books and historic documents are corroborated in the published history of the breed by the 3 largest & oldest breed registries in the world: The Kennel Club (TKC), American Kennel Club (AKC), and United Kennel Club (UKC). FACT: 6 distinct purebred dogs descended from the bull and terrier crosses, and share the same ancestry, not just one breed. See the Introduction (pg 9) in the book The Bully Breeds by David Harris which names the 6 descendants of the bull-and-terriers and each chapter respectively covers the history of all 6 modern purebreds. I also contacted TKC for verification because they maintain an extensive library with historic documentation and references. The library manager did the research and sent me email verification that corroborates my position and that of numerous RS: in a nutshell – the 1800s bull and terrier was not a bona fide breed & was not renamed to Staffordshire Bull Terrier. See this information. The email verification is filed under (VRTS Ticket#2022030910008018) and can be accessed by any VRT member or admin with VRTS access. Atsme 💬 📧 09:07, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Important addition – The Complete Guide to Staffordshire Bull Terriers by Dr Jo de KLERK (Chapter 2, Breed History, pg 18)

The Bull and Terrier was quite a broad term with regional variations depending on the local stock of dogs chosen for crossing. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier that we know today originated from the Cradley Heath type that had more Bulldog blood. In fact, one lesser-held theory is that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier had no terrier blood at all, but was derived from selective breeding of the original Old English Bulldog. This is unlikely, given the successful introduction of Terrier qualities in the Bull and Terrier breed and the unregulated breeding at the time, but demonstrates how the Bulldog genetics are more evident in the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. That theory is included in the article which also includes a DNA study and cladogram that supports it. Nowhere do the breed registries that actually approved the name of the SBT state that it is the renamed Bull and Terrier. The NPOV challenge is all based on figurative language, and an illogical and unverifiable theory. Atsme 💬 📧 17:59, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

RS with accurate statements of fact that disprove the fringe claim

829 Is the Staffie the True Bulldog? by David Hancock - "I believe it perfectly reasonable to consider the Staffie as the contemporary example of a bulldog and am saddened that we can no longer view the pedigree Bulldog as the sporting breed it once was. For the English Bulldog to lose its claim on its own breed title is more than a shame, it's a tragedy." "The Staffordshire Bull Terrier shares the same ancestry as the Bull Terrier, i.e. Bulldog crossed with the Black and Tan terrier, and was developed as a fighting dog. When the founder of the Bull Terrier James Hinks added other breeds like the Collie to change the head shape of that breed, devotees of the original type of bull terrier cross remained loyal to their preferred type. Because of its early association with fighting it was, for some time, difficult to get recognition for the breed and it was not until the 1930s that The Kennel Club recognised the breed. It carried the name Staffordshire as the breed was developed in the “black country” of Staffordshire and northern parts of Birmingham. "As dog fighting became popular, a new type of dog began to emerge – one that possessed the strength and courage of the bulldog but also had the agility, tenacity and intelligence required to excel in this new sport. To achieve this the breeders of the time crossed the bulldog with various breeds of small terrier. Not yet a breed in their own right, it was this cross between the Bulldog and the terrier that resulted in the early forbears of the Amstaff, known at the time as the bull-and-terrier. This bull-and-terrier would eventually evolve into a number of our modern breeds, the American Staffordshire Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the Bull Terrier and the American Pit Bull Terrier." "From among the profusion of breeds created in this way, most now extinct, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, perfected by one James Hinks, of Birmingham, England, in the mid-19th century, emerged as one of the most successful and enduring. The breed name that finally came to these burly, broad-skulled terriers is a nod to the county of Staffordshire, where the breed was especially popular." NOTE: The beginning statement in the History was misconstrued by Cavalryman as is the case in many other RS from which he cherrypicked single statements but when read in context, it is clear that his interpretation is incorrect. "The story of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is a relatively brief one in the grand scheme of canine history, but it can be confused by the several different names hung on the breed at various times. The Bull-and-Terrier, the Patched Fighting Terrier, the Staffordshire Pit-dog, and the Brindle Bull are a few of the Stafford’s historical aliases." The keywords are "confusion" and "hung on the breed at various times". Atsme 💬 📧 20:09, 4 March 2022 (UTC) "From Bull-and-Terrier to Bull Terrier Another breed that descended from these rough-hewn crosses was the Bull Terrier, which was molded into a distinct breed by James Hinks of Birmingham, England." "Test data from the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory has also found the dominant haplotype 1 of the English bulldog in the French bulldog, Bull Terrier, Bull mastiff, Miniature bull terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier, Wire-haired fox terrier, Beagle, and Coton de Tulear." J Appl Anim Welf Sci. - "Furthermore, what was perceived as a Staffordshire bull terrier in the United Kingdom tended to be classified as a pit bull in the United States. Although what is deemed a pit bull is clearly of greater importance within a specific country or within a locale subject to BSL than it is between countries, it does bring into question the validity of determining breed identity based on appearance." In our study, some of the largest differences between UK and U.S. participants' responses to whether each photographed dog was a pit bull were for the two dogs who more than 90% of UK participants considered to be Staffordshire bull terriers (Dogs 11 and 17). A high percentage of UK participants did not consider those two dogs to be pit bulls, whereas a high percentage of U.S. participants did consider them to be pit bulls. This is likely because in the United Kingdom, the Staffordshire bull terrier breed is perceived as separate from the pit bull and is not banned under the Dangerous Dog Act." "Bloodsport and the Michael Vick Dogfighting ¶Case: A Critical Cultural Analysis by Wil Massey – "Dogfighting was particularly prominent in the Black Country’s landlocked coal and iron mining county of Staffordshire, where the new Bull and Terrier breed came to be known as the Staffordshire Bull Terrier (Semencic 1984)."

I agree, the article on its face is neutral, and I can't see a reason to keep the tag on it. The dispute is well-recorded on the talk page, and the fact that a given editor is in disagreement about some sourced fact reported in the article is not a basis for having the article tagged forever. Quite frankly, if that were the rule, every Wikipedia article could be perma-tagged as NPOV by someone who disagrees with something therein. BD2412 T 09:18, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. Below are the sources listed at the POV discussion:

Sources that contradict the current article

Alderton, David (1987). The dog: the most complete, illustrated, practical guide to dogs and their world. London: New Burlington Books. p. 102. ISBN 0-948872-13-6. The origins of this breed [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] are far from illustrious. It was developed primarily as a fighting dog in the early nineteenth century from terriers crossed with Bulldogs ... The American Kennel Club's meet the breeds: dog breeds from A to Z (4th ed.). Irvine: The American Kennel Club and I-5 Press. 2013. pp. 24 & 192. ISBN 978-1-935484-59-2. Added here 24 March 2022. The American Staffordshire Terrier descended from a bull and terrier strain bred in England, where it was called the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. As the breed became established in America, it evolved into a larger, heavier type of dog The [Staffordshire Bull Terrier] breed originated in the nineteenth century ... It was developed from a combination of old-style Bulldogs used for bull-baiting and agile, game, smooth-coated terriers to produce a breed with bulldog tenacity and terrier nimbleness. Known as the Bull and Terrier, Half and Half, or Bulldog Terrier, the breed was used for pit sports and dog fighting The American Kennel Club (2006). The complete dog book (20th ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. p. 346 & 436–467. ISBN 0-345-47626-3. Added here 23 March 2022. originally called the Bull-and-Terrier Dog, Half and Half, and at times Pit Dog or Pit Bullterrier. Later, it assumed the name in England of Staffordshire Bull Terrier. It [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] was called by names such as "Bulldog Terrier" and "Bull and Terrier"... James Hinks, in about 1860, crossed the Old Pit Bull Terrier, now known as the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and produced the all-white English Bull Terrier... Bull-and-Terrier types were believed to have arrived in North America in the mid-1880s. Here they developed along different lines with a heavier, taller dog being the result. Today's American Staffordshire Terrier represents that breeding. "Staffordshire Bull Terrier". The American Kennel Club. 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2022. The Bull-and-Terrier, the Patched Fighting Terrier, the Staffordshire Pit-dog, and the Brindle Bull are a few of the Stafford’s historical aliases. After the Staffordshire Bull arrived in North America in the 1880s, breeders developed a taller, heavier offshoot, the American Staffordshire Terrier Quote expanded 30 March 2022. "Extended breed standard of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier" (PDF). The Australian National Kennel Council. 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2022. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the "original Bull Terrier", simply a renamed version of the "Bull and Terrier". Beaufoy, James (2016). Staffordshire Bull Terriers: a practical guide for owners and breeders. Ramsbury, Wiltshire: The Crowood Press Ltd. ISBN 9781785000973. The result of the decision to breed more athletic dogs for fighting purposes was the emergence of the so-called 'Bull and Terrier', sometimes referred to as the 'Pit dog'. This is of prime importance in the story of the development of our breed as 150 years later this dog would be recognised by the Kennel Club as the Staffordshire Bull Terrier! Billett, Michael (1994). A history of English country sports. London: Robert Hale Limited. p. 39. ISBN 0-7090-5238-3. ... a new breed known as the bull terrier, or the 'half-and-half' breed. It was also called the pit dog and eventually the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Braund, Kathryn (1975). The uncommon dog breeds. New York: Arco Publishing Company, Inc. p. 302. ISBN 0-668-03621-4. Added here 24 March 2022. out of the cross between an Old English Bulldog and small agile terriers came ... the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. He emerged in the 1800s ... the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was called by various names: Bull Terrier, Bull and Terrier, Pit Bull Terrier and Half and Half. Buckland, Jane (1961). Terriers. New York: Viking Press. p. 7 & 13. ... the owners of bulldogs turned to dog fighting, but here they found that their heavily-built bulldogs were too slow and cumbersome in the dog-pits. So they crossed them to courageous and lively terriers, probably black and tans, and the bull-and-terrier had arrived as a definite breed. ... The original bull-and-terrier fighting dogs remained unrecognised until 1935, when they were finally registered as the Staffordshire bull terriers. ... the heavily-built bulldogs were severely hampered in the dog-pits by their lack of agility; so their owners crossed them to lively terriers of proven courage and the bull-and-terrier, or pit-dog, had arrived as a definite breed. ... [They] remained unrecognised for sixty years, finally to emerge in 1935 as the Staffordshire bull terriers. The Canadian Kennel Club (1982). The Canadian Kennel Club book of dogs: the official publication of the Canadian Kennel Club. Toronto: General Publishing Co. Ltd. p. 583. ISBN 0-7736-0104-X. Added here 23 March 2022. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is acknowledged to be a British breed dating back at least 175 years... the Old English Bulldog which when crossed with one or more terrier breeds, produced the Bull and Terrier, the dog which is today called the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. "Staffordshire Bull Terrier". The Canadian Kennel Club. 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2022. A British breed dating back some 200 years, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier ... [descends from] the Old English Bulldog, which was crossed with one or more terriers to produce the breed known as the Bull and Terrier. ... The Bull and Terrier might have disappeared if not for a group of fanciers led by Joseph Dunn, who ... persuaded The Kennel Club (England) to recognize the breed as the Staffordshire Bull Terrier... Quote expanded 25 March 2022. Carras, Roger A. A celebration of dogs. New York: Times Books. p. 110. ISBN 0-8129-1029-X. Added here 24 March 2022. The Staffordshire bull terrier emerged from those nineteenth-century crosses of terrier and bulldog. ... what was known as the bulldog terrier became the Staffordshire bull terrier. Coile, D. Caroline (27 May 2001). "Back to the time of the gladiator". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 18 July 2019. It [the name pit bull] is a generic designation for several breeds including the American pit bull terrier, which was the first breed registered by the United Kennel Club (UKC) in 1898; its counterpart, the American Staffordshire terrier, which was registered by the American Kennel Club (AKC) in 1936; and the ancestor of both breeds, the Staffordshire bull terrier. Coile, D. Caroline (1998). Encyclopedia of dog breeds. Hauppauge: Barron's Educational Series. p. 146. ISBN 0-7641-5097-9. The result [of crossing Bulldogs with terriers] was aptly called the Bull and Terrier, later to be dubbed the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Cunliffe, Juliette (2002). The encyclopedia of dog breeds. Bath: Paragon. p. 250. ISBN 0-75258-018-3. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was not recognised by the English Kennel Club until 1935, despite being bred in the UK in the nineteenth century. Dangerfield, Stanley; Howell, Elsworth, eds. (1971). The international encyclopedia of dogs. New York: Rainbird Reference Books Ltd. p. 438. Added 30 March 2022. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was bred to fight other dogs in the pit. ... It became accepted that a fighting dog must combine the strength and tenacity of the Bulldog with the terrier's agility and quick wits, hence the 'fusion' of Bulldog and Old English Terrier. ... were called 'Bull and Terrier Dogs', 'Half and Halfs', 'Pit Dogs' or 'Pit Bull Terriers'. Davis, Henry P. (1970). The new dog encyclopedia. Harrisburg: Stackpole Books. p. 656. ISBN 0-8117-1064-5. Added 30 March 2022. to combine the gameness and agility of the terrier with the tenacity and courage of the Bulldog, the cross was made in an effort to produce a dog unmatched for pit fighting. The Staffordshire name, however, was not given to the breed until after it had come through a variety of nomenclatures. Originally known as the “Bull-and-Terrier dog,” or “Half and Half,” it gradually became referred to as “Pit Dog” or “Pit Bull Terrier.” When they were brought to America in 1870, they were known as “Pit Bull Terriers,” later as “American Bull Terriers” or “Yankee Terriers.” "Staffordshire bull terrier". Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2022. Staffordshire bull terrier, breed of terrier developed in 19th-century ... created by crossing the bulldog ... with a terrier ... Once known by such names as bull-and-terrier, half and half, and pit bull terrier ... It is an ancestor of the somewhat-larger American Staffordshire terrier ... Favorito, F. (2003). American Pit Bull Terrier. Allenhurst: Kennel Club Books, Inc. p. 9. ISBN 1-59378-202-0. Added here 24 March 2022. Most American Pit Bull historians feel that the American Pit Bull Terrier is the American expression of the game-bred Stafford or Staffordshire Bull Terrier of the United Kingdom. ... Separated from their foundation stock, the gene pool of Staffordshire Bull Terriers in the United States became more distinct and was subject to the changes imposed by the thinking of American dog breeders. Fiorone, Fiorenzo (1973). The encyclopedia of dogs: the canine breeds. New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell Company. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-690-00056-6. Added here 23 March 2022. writers agree that the Staffordshire [Bull Terrier] is the ancestor of the modern Bull Terrier... Fleig, Dieter (1996). Fighting dog breeds. Neptune City: T.F.H. Publications. p. 48. ISBN 0-7938-0499-X. Added 4 March 2022. ... they [Bull and Terriers] finally were recognised as a legitimate dog breed in the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Fletcher, Walter R. (19 September 1971). "A Breed That Came Up the Hard Way". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 May 2019. His [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier's] ancestors are believed to be the bulldog and English terrier and he was known as the Pit Dog or Pit Bull Terrier. Gallagher, Cynthia P. (2006). The American Pit Bull Terrier. Neptune City: T.F.H. Publications. p. 8. ISBN 0-7938-3625-5. The result [of crossbreeding Bulldogs with terriers] was the bull-and-terrier, or half and half ... To avoid confusion with the Bull Terrier, the half and half was renamed the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Gordon, John F. (1983). The Staffordshire Bull Terrier. London: Popular Dogs Publishing Co. Ltd. p. 13. ISBN 0-09-152771-6. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier ... has existed in Britain for the best part of 175 years. Hennessy, Kathryn, ed. (2013). The dog encyclopedia: the definitive visual guide. New York: Dorling Kindersley Limited. p. 215. ISBN 978-1-4654-0844-0. Added here 23 March 2022. Originally bred for dogfighting in the 19th century, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was developed in the English Midlands from crosses between Bulldogs and local terriers. The resulting dog, first known as the Bull and Terrier ... Horner, Tom (1984). Terriers of the world: their history and characteristics. London & Boston: Faber & Faber. p. 190. ISBN 0-571-13145-X. Before obtaining Kennel Club recognition, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was known variously as the Pit Dog, Bull-and-Terrier, or even the Half-and-Half! Jones, Arthur Frederick (1964). The treasury of dogs. New York: The Golden Press Inc. p. 165. He [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] was first known as the Bull-and-Terrier Dod, then Half and Half, Pit Dog, Pit Bullterrier, and Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Jones, Arthur F.; Hamilton, Ferelith (1971). The world encyclopedia of dogs. New York: Galahad Books. p. 481 & 484. ISBN 0-88365-302-8. Quite apart from the name “Bull-and-Terrier” used freely in literature for many decades [for the Staffordshire Bull Terrier], respected authors like Pierce Egan in the Annals of Sporting (Vol. I.), 1822, refer to result of these crossings for the first time as “Bull Terriers”. The American Kennel Club registered the [Staffordshire Bull Terrier] breed in August of 1936 [as the Staffordshire Terrier] ... America's Staffordshire [Terrier] does go back to England's [Staffordshire Bull Terrier], but added elements have made it truely a product of the U.S.A. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier and its ancestors (PDF) (Exhibition brochure). The Kennel Club Art Gallery. 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2022. Unfortunately for the historian tracing a nice straight line is not easy when examining the background of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier if only because it comes under quite a few names. They might be called Bull & Terriers in some journals and at other times the dogs are called Pit Dogs, maybe Staffordshire Terriers, half-bred dog, or simply come under the general umbrella of the Bull Terrier. Kern, Kerry V. (1988). The new terrier handbook. Hauppauge: Barron's Educational Series, Inc. p. 129. ISBN 0-8120-3951-3. Added here 23 March 2022. Dogfighting reached a peak in the mid-19th century [England] when crosses with working terrier strains were introduced [to Bulldogs] to give the resulting dogs greater speed and agility. The result was the Staffordshire bull terrier ... Lane, Marion (1997). The guide to owning a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Neptune City: T.F.H. Publications Inc. p. 1 & 3. ISBN 0-7938-1880-X. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was the original pit fighting dog, from which others have descended. Added here 23 March 2022. The new breed went by many names: Bull and Terrier, Half and Half, Pit Dog, Pit Bullterrier and later — for the region where it originated — Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Lee, Clare (1998). Pet owner's guide to the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Lydney, Gloucestershire: Ringpress Books Limited. p. 10. ISBN 1-86054-082-1. The Bull Terriers attracted a higher-class owner than the older Bull-and-Terriers, and these latter were officially christened the Staffordshire Bull Terrier in 1935. Marples, Richard, ed. (1985). Encyclopedia of the dog. London: Peerage Books. p. 155. ISBN 1-85052-036-4. Bulldogs which were too slow and ponderous for the 19th-century Corinthians who introduced a dash of terrier blood to give speed and agility and so laid the foundations of the ‘Bull and Terrier’ breed. By virtue of its association with the Black Country this breed was to become the Staffordshire [Bull Terrier]. Morley, W. M. (2004). The Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Midhurst: Beech Publishing House. p. 17-18. ISBN 1-85736-256-X. it is generally accepted that the modern Staffordshire Bull Terrier is a direct descendant of dogs of mixed origin, generally known during most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the Bull and Terrier. Morris, Desmond (2001). Dogs: the ultimate dictionary of over 1,000 dog breeds. North Pomfret, VT: Trafalgar Square Publishing. p. 346, 363 & 364. ISBN 1-57076-219-8. The first recorded name of this dog [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] was the Bull-and-terrier. It has also been referred to as the Bull-dog Terrier, the Pit dog, the Brindle Bull, the Patched Fighting Terrier, the Staffordshire Terrier and the Staffordshire Pit-Dog. In the 1870s Staffordshire Bull Terriers began to arrive in North America from England, for use in organized dog-fighting. Soon, it was felt that dogs of the foundation stock were too small, so selective breeding was undertaken to make the body taller and heavier [creating the American Pit Bull Terrier]. The American Staffordshire Terrier is the show-dog version of the fighting dog called the American Pit Bull Terrier. Palika, Liz (2007). The Howell book of dogs: the definitive reference to 300 breeds and varieties. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley Publishing Inc. p. 369. ISBN 978-0-470-00921-5. Added here 23 March 2022. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier originated in England ... [descended from] the old Bulldog, and a small terrier, the dogs were known in the mid-1800s as Old Pit Bull Terriers. The dogs that were brought to the U.S. in the mid-1800s developed into taller, heavier-bodied dogs than those that remained in England. Palmer, Joan (2003). Dog facts. London: Quantum Publishing Ltd. pp. 128–129. ISBN 1-86160-532-3. Added here 23 March 2022. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the product of a Bulldog and terrier mating in the 19th century... [it] has been recognized by the United Kingdom Kennel Club since the 1930s... Once it had reached the United States in 1870 it soon became known as the Pit Dog, Pit Bull Terrier and Yankee Terrier. "Staffordshire Bull Terrier". Raad van Beheer. Amsterdam. 2022. Retrieved 23 March 2022. Added here 23 March 2022. Old English breed, written about as early as the 18th century. Created from crosses between the Bulldog and Terriers ... Because the name Bull Terrier was already given when this breed was recognised in 1935, the prefix was given to Staffordshire (machine translation) Rogers Clark, Anne; Brace, Andrew H., eds. (1995). The international encyclopedia of dogs. New York: Howell Book House. p. 450. ISBN 0-87605-624-9. Added here 23 March 2022. it is generally accepted that the [Staffordshire Bull Terrier] breed evolved in the British Isles as a direct result of a cross between a Bulldog and a smooth-coated terrier... dubbed with a variety of titles: Pit Bulldog, Pit Dog, Pit Bull, Staffordshire Bull, Patched Pit Dog and Bulldog Terrier. Rosenblum, Edwin E. (1964). How to raise and train a bull terrier. Neptune City: T.F.H. Publications Inc. p. 5. ISBN 0-87666-399-4. Added here 23 March 2022. The original Bull-and-Terrier, whose greatest popularity as a fighting dog was among the coal miners and ironworkers of Staffordshire in central England, became known as the Staffordshire Bull Terrier to distinguish it from the newer [Bull Terrier] breed... A number of Staffordshire Bull Terriers were sent to the United States shortly after the Civil War. These imported dogs are believed to have been bred to very similar, but distinctly American, strains ... Semencic, Carl (1998). Gladiator dogs. Neptune City: T.F.H. Publications, Inc. p. 140. ISBN 9780793805969. Added here 23 March 2022. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the small bull and terrier fighting dog of England that was originally brought to the United States, giving rise to the American Pit Bull Terrier breed. "Staffordshire bull terrier". The Société Centrale Canine. 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2022. It [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] was created in the 19th century in Staffordshire, by crossbreeding the Bulldog and various terriers (machine translation) Sprung, Dennis B. (1975). Popular dogs: dog lovers complete guide. New York: Arco Publishing Company, Inc. p. 189. ISBN 0-668-03795-4. Added here 24 March 2022. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was the original Bull and Terrier cross around 1800 in England, both of its ancestors, the old English Bulldog and the old English Terrier are extinct. In 1935, the breed was recognized by the Kennel Club in England. Stahlkuppe, Joe (1995). American pit bull & Staffordshire terriers. Hauppauge: Barron's Educational Series. p. 12. ISBN 0-8120-9200-7. The Staffordshire bull terrier ... only recognized by the Kennel Club of England in 1935 and the American Kennel Club in 1978, the Stafford[shire Bull Terrier] is thought to be the oldest of the bull-and-terrier breeds... Many of these dogs found there way ... to America where they played a key part in the development of the American pit bull terrier and the American Staffordshire terrier. Taylor, David (2005). Ultimate dog. London: Dorling Kindersley. p. 93. ISBN 0-7513-3394-8. Added here 24 March 2022. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier crossed the Atlantic in the 19th century and gave rise to a heavier, bigger-boned version that is now recognized as a distinct breed known as the American Staffordshire Terrier. Troy, Suzanne (1976). Dogs: pets of pedigree. New York: Drake Publishers, Inc. p. 158. ISBN 0-8473-1076-0. Added here 24 March 2022. He [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] came into prominence early in the 1800s ... [Breeders] wanted a dog lighter and more agile than the Bulldog and so the terrier cross was introduced. In 1835 all blood sports were made illegal [in England] but dog fighting still thrived ... it was the continuation of this backroom sport among the working class that kept the breed pure until introduced to the gentle art of showing in 1935. Unkelbach, Kurt (1976). The American dog book. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company Inc. p. 158. ISBN 0-87690-201-8. Added here 23 March 2022. American Staffordshire Terrier In the early years of the nineteenth century, ... they crossed him [the Bulldog] with one or more terriers and came up with a breed that eventually became known as the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Several of these dogs reached America right after the Civil War. Here lovers of the dog fight sport decided they needed a breed with more size. What they came up with was called the Pit Bull Terrier, then the American Bull Terrier. White, Kay (1987). Hamlyn practical guide to dogs. Twickenham: Hamlyn. p. 64. ISBN 0-600-30700-X. Added here 24 March 2022. Originally known as a Bull and Terrier, its [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier's] ancestors of the 1800s were the older, more athletic type of Bulldog and probably the larger Black and Tan Terrier of those times. Wilcox, Bonnie; Walkowicz, Chris (1989). Atlas of dog breeds of the world. Neptune City, N.J.: TFH Publications. p. 118, 119 & 811. the AKC [American Kennel Club] called the [American Pit Bull Terrier] breed American Staffordshire Terriers ... The American Staffordshire Terrier's ancestor, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, was developed in England and brought to the United States in the mid-19th century ... This [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] was the original “Bull-and-Terrier.” Woodhouse, Barbara (1976). The world of dogs. London: Orbis Publishing Ltd. p. 112. ISBN 0-89009-051-3. Added here 24 March 2022. It was found that the bulldog was too slow when fighting another dog, and so many owners began to look around for a cross-bred which would combine the pluck and tenacity of the bulldog with increased agility. The choice fell upon many game terriers ... The [resulting] new breed, known variously as the Bull-and-Terrier, the a Half-and-Half, the Pit dog, and later the Staffordshire Bull Terrier ...

These sources state all or multiple aspects of:

1. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was developed in the 19th century
2. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was developed from crosses of Bulldogs and terriers with no intermediate "original cross"
3. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was initially known by a number of names, but most commonly:
   1. Bull and Terrier - per 19 sources
   2. Pit dog - per 8 sources
   3. Bull Terrier - per 7 sources (Beaufoy, Gordon and Morley all discuss it)
   4. Half and Half - per 5 sources
4. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was given its current name in 1935
5. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the ancestor of all of the bull-type terrier breeds

Most of these points are not included in the article at all. Until this is included in the article with prominence "in proportion to the prominence of ... [that] viewpoint in the published, reliable sources", this article does not present a neutral point of view. Further, caveats like "There are unsupported theories or opinions that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the original bull and terrier" is one editor's opinion that is not reflected in any source whatsoever, so is pure original research. Cavalryman (talk) 09:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC).

As far as I can make out you want the article to say the breed was there before the Kennel Club said so, and that it is the same breed as the various dogs that the modern ones derive from? That sounds to me a bit like trying to say the Romans were Italians or the Angles and Saxons were English. NadVolum (talk) 13:22, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Editors were not invited here to give their personal opinions in an ongoing debate. They were invited to apply the contents of WP:NPOV to the article. Either the article passes or fails NPOV, and no more. If it does pass NPOV, then editors need to be able to articulate why. If an editor cannot articulate why, then their comments here are useless in assisting in this matter. 14.2.206.229 (talk) 21:02, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I would think that the burden is on the editor contesting NPOV to demonstrate the contrary. BD2412 T 21:12, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

You thought wrong. The case has been made that the article is not NPOV compliant - you either have facts to rebut that case or you do not. Did you actually read what has been stated above and at the subject article? 14.2.206.229 (talk) 05:27, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

BD2412 is absolutely correct about WP:ONUS. Have you read it? As for the crux of this disagreement, common sense tells us our cousins can't be our ancestors, WP:CIR. NadVolum properly identified the non-breed issue, which further confirms the lack of merit in this NPOV challenge. To give the fringe theory more WEIGHT would violate NPOV, and create havoc that affects at least 5 other modern purebred dog articles that are reliant upon Bull and terrier for historic reference. And to shine an even brighter light on the ridiculousness of this challenge, what if we did agree to state in WikiVoice that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is "the renamed bull and terrier"? What about the 5 other distinct modern breeds that are descendants of the bull and terrier crosses, all sharing the same ancestry? Are they also the "renamed bull and terrier" since some came before the SBT, or does the SBT somehow become the cousin that is also their ancestor? It defies logic. Atsme 💬 📧 14:46, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm really not sweating the "did you even read it" take from the IP with a grand total of 4 edits to Wikipedia, ever, all in this discussion. BD2412 T 02:33, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

NadVolum, I would like the article to say what the sources say, and those presented above say the breed existed 75-100 years before kennel club recognition.

BD2412, I have provided over two dozen sources above that corroborate the above five points, yet those five points are largely excluded from the article, what other proof do you require? Cavalryman (talk) 20:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

What exactly is it you think they show that isn't in the article already? NadVolum (talk) 05:28, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

As far as I can see 'Staffordshire Bull Terrier' is a defined breed of dog which people take along to dog shows. The othe breeds you talked about were various dogs which were bred for fighting. Some dogs in old pictures might look like the Staffordshire Bull Terrier but that's because the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is derived from and bred to look like them. However if one started attacking the other dogs in a show I guess it would get thrown out. What you've got is like a person wearing a tartan and with a dirk in his garter but the dirk is blunt and useless, they're not an old Scotsman if ever they were like that I don't know. NadVolum (talk) 09:13, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Seemingly what I referred to is actually a sgian-dubh and dirks aren't all that commonly worn. NadVolum (talk) 21:42, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

What sources do you have that state the 'Staffordshire Bull Terrier' is a defined breed of dog which people take along to dog shows? I am unaware of any. Cavalryman (talk) 21:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC).

Staffordshire Bull Terrier, don't see anything there about it being good at dog fights. Do you think they are bred to engage in dog fights? NadVolum (talk) 10:07, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the Kennel Club's breed standard does not include any of the breed's history, but their breed information page says the breed was developed as a fighting dog, and further it says Because of its early association with fighting it was, for some time, difficult to get recognition for the breed and it was not until the 1930s that The Kennel Club recognised the breed. So in their view the breed existed for some time before the 1930s. Further, in the above collapsed box they say Unfortunately for the historian tracing a nice straight line is not easy when examining the background of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier if only because it comes under quite a few names. They might be called Bull & Terriers in some journals and at other times the dogs are called Pit Dogs, maybe Staffordshire Terriers, half-bred dog, or simply come under the general umbrella of the Bull Terrier. Cavalryman (talk) 00:33, 21 March 2022 (UTC).

NadVolum, you are correct. ^{Adding a link to the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show 2016} They are not being bred to fight in dog fights - at least not legally or openly. It would be a serious misinterpretation of the facts (per WP:CIR) to think TKC is registering Staffordshire Bull Terriers knowing they are being developed or bred to be fighting dogs today. I seriously doubt the legal system in the UK would allow it. What the TKC actually states refers to the breed's ancestry: The Staffordshire Bull Terrier shares the same ancestry as the Bull Terrier, i.e. Bulldog crossed with the Black and Tan terrier, and was developed as a fighting dog. Centuries ago, the bull and terrier crosses were developed to be fighting dogs until blood sports became illegal in the early 1800s. By 1860–1870 James Hinks was developing the Bull Terrier to be a gentleman's dog - a refined, conformation show dog that was completely different from the non-pedigreed mongrels and crossbreeds of unknown origin except for what were thought to be bulldog and various terrier types and crosses used for clandestine pit fighting. The modern purebred Staffordshire Bull Terrier is even further removed from that ancestry and was further refined as a conformation show dog, but first, a new breed of dog had to be developed for it to be accepted as a purebred - purebreds breed true. The article includes an old photograph of the first dog show, and states "The first Staffordshire Bull Terrier show was held in August 1935 at Cradley Heath in West Midlands. There were 60 dogs and bitches entered in the show.[18]" The AKC recognized the breed in 1974, and very clearly explains in the History section: "Since then, more than a hundred years of responsible breeding has transformed both breeds from brawlers to trustworthy family companions." In fact, it took nearly half a century after TKC recognized the Bull Terrier before they would recognize the Staffordshire Bull Terrier as a purebred (1935). There were no verifiable purebreds in the lineage when breeders first attempted to get TKC recognition. A group of breeders had to create their own strain of purebred dog per registry requirements which included verifiable pedigrees, updated Stud Books, and records of the crosses and refinements for several generations. Conformation dog shows were the proving grounds where dogs were judged according to the breed standards. For more info, see the history here, and the Dogster article about how the dogs were being used. Everything that should be in the article is in the article, but it does not/should not include figurative language in WikiVoice as statements of fact; that is what the NPOV tag is all about. Atsme 💬 📧 07:08, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't know why this is going on when there is already a article about Bull and terrier. There seems to be a number of people if he is right trying to say they are the same thing, I know it is daft but is this a thing about which there is something which can be written about? People can be a bit strange about their pets, do some want to think of their dog like that? Even if they had identical genes they would not be the same any more than a modern Italian is the same as the Romans who went in for kiling people in an arena. NadVolum (talk) 14:37, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Exactly, NV. The argument that there is a NPOV issue is based on a fallacy, not logic or science, or WP:PAGs. Atsme 💬 📧 03:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Staffordshire Bull Terrier - break

Atsme, in the above collapsed box I have provided four dozen sources that state all or multiple aspects of:

1. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was developed into a distinct breed of dog in the 19th century
2. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was developed directly from crosses of Bulldogs and terriers (with no intermediate breed in their lineage)
3. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was initially known by a number of names, but most commonly: "Bull and Terrier", "Pit dog", "Bull Terrier" and "Half and Half"
4. the breed's name was later changed to "Staffordshire Bull Terrier" in order to achieve kennel club recognition, this occurred in 1935
5. the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the ancestor of all of the other bull-type terrier breeds (except possibly the Boston Terrier which many sources state descends from separate crosses of Bulldogs and terriers that occurred in the US).

In addition to the over three dozen independently authored works (several of which are tertiary, but according to policy they may be used determine due weight), there are three sources from the American Kennel Club, two from the Canadian Kennel Club, and one each from the Kennel Club of Britain, the Australian National Kennel Council, the Raad van Beheer of the Netherlands and the Société Centrale Canine of France (the last three of which are member clubs of the Fédération Cynologique Internationale, the latter has not published a breed history that I am aware of). Additionally, a number of those sources are cited in the article, one is cited nine times.

Given the abundance of these sources, these are clearly mainstream views held by kennel clubs, independent authors and independent publishing houses. Yet the article does not acknowledge four of those points at all, and the one point it does acknowledge is given the tiniest possible mention, and it is wrapped in excusatory language that is not corroborated by any source whatsoever.

Per the majority of respondents to your earlier post at FRINGEN, the article needs to represent all of the views articulated in reliable sources. And it does not do so. @Roxy the dog, JPxG, Only in death, SMcCandlish, Blueboar, Wbm1058, SilverTiger12, Hob Gadling, Justlettersandnumbers, and FunkMonk: apologies if the ping is unwelcome, notifying you all to this discussion as participants in the two previous directly related discussions.

Given the article still excludes this content, both this article and bull and terrier do not present a WP:NPOV, let alone give WP:DUEWEIGHT. Cavalryman (talk) 22:02, 24 March 2022 (UTC).

So you disagree with the very first line of the article "The Staffordshire Bull Terrier, commonly called Stafford, is a shorthaired, purebred dog breed of medium size that originated in the Black Country of Staffordshire in the English Midlands"? You're saying it is the same as "Bull and terrier was the most common name for bulldog and terrier crossbreeds that date back to the early 1800s. Other names used for these hybrids were half-and-halfs and half-breds" rather than being a descendant of them? Do you want to merge the articles and not have an article about the kennel club breed standard? I read those statements as just saying they're like some old bull and terriers. I don't have accessto the book you cited but "originally called the Bull-and-Terrier Dog, Half and Half, and at times Pit Dog or Pit Bull terrier. Later, it assumed the name in England of Staffordshire Bull Terrier. It [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] was called by names such as "Bulldog Terrier" and "Bull and Terrier"... James Hinks, in about 1860, crossed the Old Pit Bull Terrier, now known as the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and produced the all-white English Bull Terrier... Bull-and-Terrier types were believed to have arrived in North America in the mid-1880s. Here they developed along different lines with a heavier, taller dog being the result. Today's American Staffordshire Terrier represents that breeding." is just all wrong. If the [the Staffordshire Bull Terrier] bit is correct then the Staffordshire Bull Terrier gave rise to a heavier taller dog and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the result. I'm my own grandma comes to mind. And which ones in all those years followed kennel club breed standards or is that irrelevant to you? NadVolum (talk) 14:24, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Do you believe it is not possible for animal's physical characteristics to be changed over generations through selective breeding? Cavalryman (talk) 01:48, 27 March 2022 (UTC).

Certainly there are lots of different looking dogs and cows and horses. But back to the question, do you think the Staffordshire Bull Terrier article should be deleted because it is actually a Bull and Terrier hybrid? Or is it actually a defined purebreed that originated in Staffordshire from the bull and terrier crossbreeds? And if it is a defined purebred, how can one then say that others that weren't purebred and didn't follow the standard are the same as the defined purebred ones? NadVolum (talk) 09:06, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment First of all, the kennel clubs only accept purebred dogs. So, one of the reasons the Staffordshire Bull Terrier did not join the Kennel Club earlier than 1935 is that the KC was waiting for it to be a defined purebred. Which Hinks did eventually. The kennel clubs, started in the late 19th Century, were responsible for all of the breed registration and everything to do with, so I acknowledge all of their history about themselves and the dogs and their purebred status, and breed information. It's a RS. In reviewing the article, I don't find any disparities in the introductory paragraph. But that's just my viewpoint. I'm not sure why adding something to make it neutral means changing what is already there, which is already complete, cited, and factual. Or, is the thought to add some content to it? dawnleelynn^(talk) 19:13, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

NadVolum, no one is even suggesting the Staffordshire Bull Terrier article should be deleted. Where did you get that idea?

Dawnleelynn, I agree completely, kennel clubs are not involved in any breed's development, they only recognise breeds after they are established (or imported into a country). The POV tag was placed on the article because the article deliberately omits information that is corroborated by the 48 sources listed in the above collapsed box. Specifically, that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier developed into a breed in the 19th century from crosses of Bulldogs and terriers, it was initially known by a number of names, but most commonly "Bull and Terrier", "Pit dog", "Bull Terrier" and "Half and Half", the breed's name was changed in 1935 to "Staffordshire Bull Terrier" in order to achieve kennel club recognition, and that the breed was imported into the United States in the 19th century and was the foundation stock for the American bull-type terriers. It is stated in some sources that the Kennel Club refused to recognise the breed earlier because of its continued widespread use in blood sports, but to be fair to the Kennel Club there are no accounts of recognition being sought before the 1930s. This is all corroborated by over three dozen independently authored sources as well as the Kennel Club of Britain, the American Kennel Club, the Australian National Kennel Council, the Canadian Kennel Club, the Dutch Kennel Club and the French Kennel Club, all are listed with quotes above. Cavalryman (talk) 21:51, 28 March 2022 (UTC).

You are in effect saying the article is a WP:FORK of Bull and Terrier with the points you make above, and forks should be deleted

• the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was initially known by a number of names, but most commonly: "Bull and Terrier", "Pit dog", "Bull Terrier" and "Half and Half"
• the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the ancestor of all of the other bull-type terrier breeds (except possibly the Boston Terrier which many sources state descends from separate crosses of Bulldogs and terriers that occurred in the US).

When it was as you say known as Bull and Terrier or Bull Terrier, Pit dog, or Half and Half was it a purebred? When it was an ancestor to all those was it a Staffordshire Bull Terrier? How does anyone check if 'it' is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier or not? NadVolum (talk) 07:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

NadVolum, I am not saying anything, the sources are saying it. And unless all of those sources are deemed to be unreliable the article should incorporate what they say, or it does not adhere to WP:NPOV. You keep mentioning purebreds, what is your understanding of the definition of a "purebred"? Cavalryman (talk) 11:41, 29 March 2022 (UTC).

See Purebred. You are interpreting your sources as saying what you say. For instance in order of your sources

• Alderton - 'It was developed..", it here reers to the ancestors of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier not the breed itself.
• American Kennel Club - here you misread originated as meaning it existed then rather then its ancestors were then
• American Kennel Club - It [Staffordshire Bull Terrier] , it refers to the ancestors not to what the breed became.
• American Kennel Club - that cite says the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was bred by James Hinks which is simply wrong - the Bull Terrier without the Staffordshire was bred by them and has another breed mixerd in.
• Australian National Kennel - if you read further you get "But it is important to remember that nearly all aspects of the standard have their origins in the pit," It says it has been renamed and there is no indication the originals were purebred - quite the reverse as it is talking about how he originals were bred.
• Beaufoy - it talks about the development of the breed. Can't figure out how you got this down as contradictingthe article.
• Billet - and eventually? after it was bred and became a purebred and recognized by the Kennel Club.

It just goes on like that. You read what you want to read into it. Purebred is in the first line of Staffordshire Bull Terrier. If you want to get rid of that you want to get rid of the article because it can be subsumed into Bull and Terrier. Do you want to get rid of purebred? Why are you asking me what it means? NadVolum (talk) 14:31, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

NadVolum, please see WP:CIRCULAR, we don't use Wikipedia as a source. But please look at some independent definitions of "purebred": Cambridge, Chambers, Lexico and Merriam-Webster, they all state a purebred is an individual animal that is the offspring of two examples of the same breed. So no breed (including the Staffordshire Bull Terrier) is or ever has been "purebred", but all individual animals with a breed (including individual Staffordshire Bull Terriers) are purebreds. You seem hung up on the Staffordshire Bull Terrier emerging as a breed in the 19th century (which practically every source says it did), no sources have been presented anywhere that state the breed did not exist before the 20th century. Do you know of any? Cavalryman (talk) 21:22, 29 March 2022 (UTC).

Most of the sources you've listed don't say what you think they say - Use-mention distinction; historic references to Staffordshire bull terriers are not references to the modern purebred Staffordshire Bull Terrier – bona fide breed names did not exist prior to the formation of TKC, AKC & UKC. See your own clarification in this diff. Furthermore, most of the RS you've listed have author opinion disclaimers in the Preface, and the context of those books often contradict the logical fallacy that the modern Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the original bull and terrier – mixed breeds of undocumented origin are not an original anything short of being a mongrel. There simply is no NPOV issue in SBT or B&t as proven by your failure to gain consensus, and the fact that at least 4 editors have opposed you in this discussion, and at least 8 overall have opposed your merge, the GAR, and your proposals in the article TP. A quick read of both articles will confirm that all substantial fringe views have been included in both articles. Your tag-bombing of a GA has been highly disruptive, and the tags do not properly identify a problem. You tagged a well-sourced statement as OR, and removed an RS as unreliable. Your argument is based entirely on the logical fallacy that the modern Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the renamed bull and terrier when it is neither verified by the sources themselves, nor supported by factual evidence. The James Beaufoy book you listed provides a perfect example of how you cherrypicked the author's figurative language and presented it out of context without considering the fact that, immediately following his exclamation, he presented 2 theories about the SBT's origins. WP does not present theories as statements of fact, and we certainly don't give UNDUE to fringe theories. I even obtained email verification from the spokesperson of The Kennel Club Library who researched their books, & historic documentation and replied via email, rejecting the claims that the SBT is the original bull and terrier renamed. Any VRT member or administrator with access can read that email via VRT Ticket#2022030910008018. The AKC and TKC are indeed RS. A research article in PNAS considers them the foremost authority, which is further substantiated by multiple citations in Science.gov. Atsme 💬 📧 19:14, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• Request - will an experienced closer or admin please close this discussion? I posted it on March 15, 2022. Atsme 💬 📧 19:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Atsme, you cannot just write off language you disagree with as "figurative", are you honestly suggesting the authors of the above 48 50 sources are all universally speaking figuratively? You keep branding the views held by practically every author and kennel club as fringe, but no one at your earlier post at FRINGEN agreed with you on that. You have provided only three sources (de Klerk, Harris and Flaim) that express a contradictory viewpoint, and their views should remain in the article to ensure it is compliant with Wikipedia's second pillar. But to exclude what is stated in all of those 48 50 sources is not presenting a NPOV of the subject matter. Cavalryman (talk) 21:32, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Atsme, let's just look at the most simple point, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was initially known by a number of names, but most commonly "Bull and Terrier", "Pit dog", "Bull Terrier" and "Half and Half":

• 26 sources corroborate "Bull and Terrier"
• 15 sources corroborate "Pit dog"
• 12 sources corroborate "Half and Half", and
• 10 sources (including Beaufoy, Gordon and Morley) corroborate "Bull Terrier".

Yet this view is not acknowledged anywhere in the article, so unless all of those sources (which include four kennel clubs) are deemed to be unreliable, by excluding this content completely the article does not present a neutral view of the subject matter. Cavalryman (talk) 01:31, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• I don't understand why this dispute it still ongoing after all these discussions. We have a pretty common scenario here, of sources that don't entirely agree with each other. It should be a simple matter to write in, with various sources, that the SBT is descended from B × T cross-breeding, once known as "Bull and terrier" as a group, and in this case mostly from a particular sub-type (if we like the source that says so); then with other sources, note that "Bull and terrier" is an ambiguous term because it has been applied to the SBT itself. Note that at the B&T article as well. We know from various sources that other modern, standardised breeds are also derived from B&T stock, and should say so at the B&T article and each each relevant breed article. That should really take care of it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:30, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

How does one find common ground when they want to put in something like "the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the ancestor of all of the other bull-type terrier breeds (except possibly the Boston Terrier which many sources state descends from separate crosses of Bulldogs and terriers that occurred in the US)." And they disagree with the whole idea of purebred, they take a short dictionary definition rather than what's actually used for pedigree and push it to ridiculous extremes to say the concept is meaningless - so in effect they say the first sentence of the article is wrong or meaningless. NadVolum (talk) 15:47, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

1700–1880 Bull Terrier

Bull and terrier, Rose (Paris, 1863)

As a result of all the confusion stemming from SBT's origins, the article requires carefully worded text to avoid adding more, and we have done that in compliance with NPOV and V. The modern SBT did not exist in the 1800s; rather, it was developed and refined later in England & accepted as a purebred by the KC in 1935, a half-century +/- after the Bull Terrier was recognized as a purebred (2 types of Bull Terriers diverged after Hinks' added outcrosses that one group of breeders didn't like). Confusion abounds, which is why it is important for us, as an encyclopedia, to not add more. Bull and terrier hybrids are the ancestors of several modern breeds, not just the SBT. Per AKC: Argument begins when breed experts try to nail down which preexisting terrier breeds reside in the AmStaff’s genetic background. Some suggest that such extinct breeds as the White English Terrier and Black-and-Tan Terrier were part of the genetic mix that led to the creation of the Staffordshire Terrier, forerunner of the AmStaff. Same applies to SBT - see Bull and terrier for more historic reference & why I included DNA studies in the article. If we went by old paintings and photos – as many authors have done in a substantial number of books, including those Cavalryman listed – the AmStaff (formerly Staffordshire Terrier) and American Pit Bull Terrier look more like the original bull and terriers of the 1800s than does the modern SBT which is a conformation show dog/family dog. Also, note the bulldogs of that era look nothing like the modern bulldog, and yes, it is relevant to evolution which explains why the SBT cannot possibly be the renamed bull and terrier. For further enlightenment, TKC Library spokesperson, who researched their historic documents for me, stated the following:^{(VRTS Ticket#2022030910008018)}

"That the modern Staffordshire Bull Terrier more closely resembles the old type of bull terrier - was developed from bull-and-terrier crosses - as it was before being modified in to something resembling its modern form by the efforts of James Hinks is not in doubt. This is evident from photographs and artwork of the period. But general resemblance is not sufficient to make the very definitive statement that this is the same breed of dog under another name. It is certainly a leap to say that the modern Staffordshire Bull Terrier is simply a renamed bull-and-terrier and to assert that the bull-and-terrier was a breed in the modern understanding of the word." They go on to say: The Australian National Kennel Council’s extended standard states “The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the “original Bull Terrier”, simply a re-named version of the old fashioned ‘Bull and Terrier”. It would be much more accurate to state that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier’s ancestry derives from bull terriers developed in the 19th century. These early bull terriers in turn were developed from crosses made between bulldogs and various terriers, a broad type generically known as bull-and-terriers. It shares ancestry with the modern Bull Terrier, which developed along different lines so that the two modern breeds do not closely resemble each other. ¶Alas, there isn’t anything we at the Kennel Club (UK) can do about what the Australian National Kennel Council chooses to include in their extended breed standard. It looks to me as if their author, in an attempt at brevity, has ended up over-simplifying things.

The sources cited in the article support what is stated by the spokesperson for TKC, along with what they have published, as well as what the AKC has stated and has published. They are the foremost authorities when it comes to purebred dogs. Several books have been cited, as well as articles – there is no lack of diversity in the citations. And that's it in a nutshell, and it applies to both the Staffordshire Bull Terrier and Bull and terrier articles. Atsme 💬 📧 20:59, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

NadVolum, please provide a reliable source that defines whatever it is that you believe a "purebred" is, linking to a largely unsourced article with issues tags tells us nothing.

Atsme, "all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable, published source", private email correspondence is not "a reliable, published source". Above I have provided 50 reliable, published sources that articulate the five points you are fighting to exclude from the article, to continue to do means the article does not present all neutral view of the subject matter. Cavalryman (talk) 04:19, 1 April 2022 (UTC).

Cavalryman, it doesn't matter what NadVolum believes is a "purebred" – it has nothing to do with your tag bombing Staffordshire Bull Terrier (GA), or Bull and terrier. My purpose for bringing the discussion here is to get input from uninvolved editors about your tag-bombing a GA based on DONTLIKEIT. So far, you have failed to convince 5 editors who have commented in this discussion, 9 editors overall including other discussions, that the article has a NPOV issue. Please stop playing the same song to an audience that has turned off the radio, and let the process work. They can read the articles for themselves without you pushing your POV. Atsme 💬 📧 09:22, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Christian abolitionism

Something about the tone of this one doesn’t sit right. That and the first source on the page being a dead link from a religious site. Hyperbolick (talk) 12:39, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I see what you mean. THe lead seems to be for another of those articles saying how great and enlightened protestants are compared to catholcs but the contents don't really bear that up to any great extent. NadVolum (talk) 13:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

What a thoroughly dishonest article. No mention that 'spreading Christianity' was one of the justifications given for the Atlantic slave trade in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that the tone is off… and that it omits the role Christians played in the creation of the slave trade. However, it is factual that the abolitionist movement (at least in the UK and US) was an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening, and heavily influenced by changes in Protestant religious sentiments of the era (especially the rise of Methodism). One can not discuss the growth of the Abolitionism without also discussing the changes that were happening in various Christian (and especially Protestant) denominations of the era. Blueboar (talk) 14:03, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Thing that bothers me most is the opening: "Although many Enlightenment philosophers opposed slavery, it was Christian activists, attracted by strong religious elements, who initiated and organized an abolitionist movement." Suggests that Christianity writ large is inherently antislavery, not that it was a split issue within the religion. At the time of the antislavery movement, the faithful were divided, and the religion was as much of a proslavery tool as an anti one. And it conflates the dominant religious framework in society with society itself -- sort of like claiming that slavery was abolished because White males were antislavery, motivated to oppose it by their whiteness. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:37, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
  • As the article mentions despite the tone of the lead, in 1741 Pope Benedict XIV condemned slavery generally. That was well before the Second Great Awakening. Practically everybody went in for slavery, not just white people. It was the slave trade across the Atlantic that was run by white people. In fact most slave trade especially in the last thousand years was of that sort - people enslaving and selling people who were different from themselves. The difference with the abolitionists was they wanted to get rid of it for everyone. As to being protestant, the main early abolitionists were Quakers and some of them don't even believe in God. Overall I don't see what thei article gives that Abolitionism dosn't. NadVolum (talk) 15:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
    • @NadVolum: Was going to add that it's surplus to Christian views on slavery as well, but it only took a glance to see that one's a headscratcher as well. Mostly reads as though Christianity has always been against slavery and we don’t know what religion these people were who were doing all this enslaving people in America. Hyperbolick (talk) 20:55, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
      • The article is definitely surplus to Christian views on slavery whatever one might feel about that article. I think it should be deleted. NadVolum (talk) 08:48, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
        • @NadVolum: Not sure I've ever done a deletion, but if you do I'll support it. Hyperbolick (talk) 05:47, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Use of the term "falsely accused" at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

There is currently a discussion at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Use of the term "falsely accused". It primarily pertains to this statement in the lead:

Russian president Vladimir Putin espoused irredentist views, questioned Ukraine's right to statehood, and falsely accused Ukraine of being dominated by neo-Nazis who persecute the Russian-speaking minority.

A similar statement is made in the body of the text at 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Russian accusations and demands:

To justify an invasion, Putin falsely accused Ukrainian society and government of being dominated by neo-Nazism, invoking the history of collaboration in German-occupied Ukraine during World War II, and echoing an antisemitic conspiracy theory which casts Russian Christians, rather than Jews, as the true victims of Nazi Germany.

The question is whether, "falsely" can be stated in a WP voice given the present state of the article and/or what should be done? Your comments there would be appreciated. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Well you could always use 'falsely claimed' as is done in the Donald Trump article. If it gets past there surely it is good enough for Putin. I don't see anything there which shouldn't have been said in Wikivoice. NadVolum (talk) 08:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that this terminology is widely used in RSs cited in the article. For instance:

• NewYorkTimes: "Neo-Nazis have been a recurring character in Russian propaganda campaigns for years, used to falsely justify military action against Ukraine in what Russian officials have called “denazification.”"
• CBS: "Putin built a false premise for a war against "Nazis" in Ukraine"
• CNN: "The false accusations of Nazism and genocide from Putin and his aides against the Zelensky government have drawn outrage."
• NBC: "Putin has long sought to falsely paint Ukraine as a Nazi hotbed, which is a particularly jarring accusation given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost three family members in the Holocaust."
• WallStreetJournal: "The references to Nazi Germany come against the backdrop of Russia falsely alleging that the Ukrainian government is run by neo-Nazis and that one of the aims of its war is to “de-Nazify” the country"
• Politico: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish himself and whom Russian President Vladimir Putin has cynically and falsely called a Nazi"
• BBC: "The claim of Nazis and genocide in Ukraine was also a fiction."
• The_Guardian: "Putin’s claim that Russia is invading Ukraine to denazify it is therefore absurd on its face"
• Der_Spiegel: "Just as they now provided false pretexts for the invasion of Ukraine?"
• The_New_Yorker (my personal favourite quote): "Graphically, the “Z” is clearly closer to the swastika than to any prominent Soviet symbol, such as the five-pointed star, the hammer and sickle, or the red flag. Its use seems to require a double inversion: first, the people of Ukraine—a nation that suffered some of the greatest losses at the hands of Nazi Germany and one that is currently led by a Jewish President—are rendered as Nazis; then, the Russians, who claim to be fighting for peace and “de-Nazification,” adopt a visual symbol that appears to reference the swastika."

The use of falsely is strongly backed by Reliable Sources, and the even the exact terminology itself is used repeatedly, so its usage is not placing us outside of the pack in regards to terminology or content but rather smack dab in the middle. It's also worth noting that the accusation itself, that the Jewish President of Ukraine is a nazi whose government is committing genocide against Russian Christians is an instance of Holocaust inversion, which as per Wiki policy is always false. Alcibiades979 (talk) 11:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

As said above, given its frequency in use by RS yes. Slatersteven (talk) 13:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

A broad problem with the phrase "falsely accused" or "falsely claimed" or other variant is that thus implies the one making the claim or statement knew a proiri it was wrong but still made it. This requires knowledge of what they were thinking, which no source can have at all. It is quite possible Putin knowingly has made false claims but it is impossible to prove, and so thus is language we should avoid in wikivoice. We can say "Putin made accusations that have been shown false that X..." which still keeps the key aspect, that the claims have no weight in fact to them, but avoids that awkward phrasing. --Masem (t) 16:14, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I think "falsely claimed" is different from "lied", the latter of which would require knowledge of what they were thinking. I don't think anybody would object to saying that flat-earthers falsely claim that the Earth is flat, even if they are convinced that the Earth is flat and have no intent to lie. — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:31, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I also think that saying a criminal prosecutor "falsely accused" a defendant of a crime doesn't imply malintent on the side of the prosecutor; there are perfectly reasonable reasons that false accusations of crime happen. — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

There is definitely better support for when the phrase is used towards the target of the accusations, since what is "false" can be readily established from their stance, eg saying "The defendant was falsely accused by the prosecuter..." is accepted since the focus becomes the nature of the claims relative to the defendant. Its the reversed phrasing, while essential similar, throws shade on the motives of the one accusing. Eg in the case of the flat earthers, that "they falsely claim the earth is flat..." implies a malicious motive for this stance. Its something that here a slight change of wording keeps the key points (putins made some claims about Ukraine everyone else knows are untrue) while avoiding an accusations tone. --Masem (t) 17:07, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

If the big difference is essentially the use of the term in the active voice as opposed to the passive voice, we'd wind up with something like Russian president Vladimir Putin espoused irredentist views and questioned Ukraine's right to statehood. Ukraine was falsely accused by Putin of being dominated by neo-Nazis who persecute the Russian-speaking minority. I think the active voice version is better style-wise and I don't really see a substantial difference in the meaning conveyed aside from the slightly more awkward construction. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:32, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• I think that this roughly reflects the sources. The fact that that claim is false is absolutely central to understanding the topic and is highlighted prominently by (as far as I can tell) every independent source that covers it, in a manner comparable to this. There's room to tweak the precise wording a little, but I think we 100% have to make it clear that it is false in the article voice at the first mention given how much weight the sources give that aspect; and I don't see anything particularly wrong with this particular wording. --Aquillion (talk) 16:35, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, but I don’t think we should use the word “falsely”. Use Putin claims or Putin accused etc. without falsely to be neutral. Readers will draw own conclusions. - GizzyCatBella🍁 17:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  If sufficiently expert sources have called the claims false, we should also make sure they are identified as false in the same way we'd call out pseudoscience. Just that there's other ways to do it without saying "putin falsely claimed.." which ascribes some additional motive. --Masem (t) 18:07, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  What about the references that do not say falsely [2] ? ... IDK but to me, the moment we say falsely in an encyclopedic voice, the WP:NPOV benchmark is out the window. - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• In real life situations "falsely ......" is inevitably subjective and a characterization. For those my opinion is that if ~90% of sources agree, it's information and OK to include, if only 60% do then it's spin/politics and not info and should be left out. IMO this falls under the 90% and is OK. North8000 (talk) 18:24, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

It is helpful when inserting claims into the article that they accurately reflect the cited sources. In the first case, our text says Putin "falsely accused Ukraine of being dominated by neo-Nazis who persecute the Russian-speaking minority." The source says, "Putin's rationalization for invading Ukraine includes a claim that he is fighting neo-Nazism....While it's true that the Ukrainian National Guard is home to the Azov Battalion — a force populated by neo-Nazis — there is no evidence to suggest widespread support for such extreme-right nationalism in the government, military or electorate." Putin's actual statement was "It is not surprising that Ukrainian society was faced with the rise of far-right nationalism, which rapidly developed into aggressive Russophobia and neo-Nazism."

The source does not say Putin falsely claimed Ukraine was "dominated by neo-Nazis," it says there is no evidence there is "widespread support for such extreme-right nationalism in the government, military or electorate." In fact, what Putin said was "Ukrainian society was faced with the rise of far-right nationalism, which rapidly developed into aggressive Russophobia and neo-Nazism." (Jonathan Allen, "Putin says he is fighting a resurgence of Nazism. That's not true." NBC News Feb. 23, 2022.)

There is also an issue of using an analysis by a reporter as a statement of fact (See WP:NEWSORG.) Another anaylst may say that supporting a neo-Nazi battalion is a problem, even if it is a small part of the military. Allen says the fact that Azoz's party and its allies failed to win a single seat in the 2019 election is proof the far right is not a problem. But he doesn't mention it got 2.15% of the vote and that the election was almost three years ago. We don't know what vote they would get today and other analysts might think that is a high vote for fascists. Far right parties. Also, far right parties got 0.00% of the vote in the 2020 U.S. elections, but some anaylsts think there is a problem with the far right.

The problem with this type of discussion is that some editors don't look for the best sources and ensure that articles reflect them. Instead they decide what the article should say, then look for sources. These discussions never end.

TFD (talk) 18:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

We could just cut the Gordian knot and delete the entire passage in question, then relegate it to the body where it can be discussed at length; after all isn't the core problem we're dealing with space and not content? The reason for the word falsely is because the lede is inherently pressed for space. So we move it out to the body where Putin's stated reasons could get a more thorough discussion and where we can talk about the allegation and that the president or Ukraine is Jewish yada-yada-yada. Then replace it in the lede with more accurate reasons as to why Russia invaded Ukraine ie: Ukraine gravitating to the west, fear of color revolutions, mis-appraisal of Ukrainian army strength, colonial ambitions in former soviet realms etc. That would be both more accurate, would leave the reader better informed, and allow controversial statements to be treated in sections where they have room enough to be explored fully. Also just because far right parties received zero votes doesn't mean that far right politicians received zero. Alcibiades979 (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Good points and sounds like a good plan.North8000 (talk) 21:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that would reflect reliable sources with proper weight at all. It would be Wikipedia doing OR. His false accusations are a prime motivator in the war whatever the strategic reasons are. I'm afraid this issue can't be swept under the carpet. NadVolum (talk) 06:50, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

That may be true but we need to be very careful about how we word it so we don't give readers space to imagine their own narratives as to what is happening. The nuance between intentionally and unintentionally making a false accusation is something that may be misleading here so we should try and find a better wording than just "falsely accused", at least at this time. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 06:55, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

It is careful speak the way it is done in newspapers and in courts. We haven't said anything about Putin's internal state or intentions or if he has any, what came out his mouth was false. NadVolum (talk) 09:45, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that said motivation cannot be adequately addressed in the lead section. It is easy to gloss over critical nuance in the lead section, and I would rather the lead section be replaced with far more general commentary ("Putin repeated dubious claims regarding Ukrainian governmental support", "Putin repeated erroneous statements regarding Ukrainian society", and so forth). Augend (drop a line) 20:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I would not object to the plan to cut the segment from lede entirely if that could prevent jumping to conclusions by readers.Augend (drop a line) 20:34, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment The problem is that essentially the same statement (I quoted it above) is in the body. The "evidence" that might support it being false then follows. It is being presented "up front" as a fact. Shortly following is the quoted test with a hidden comment. The text previously read "analyst", lacked the third reference and was tagged by me with {{who}}.

... experts<!-- see provided sources; per historians, academics, regional analysts & diplomats --> have described Putin's rhetoric as greatly exaggerating the influence of far-right groups within Ukraine; there is no widespread support for the ideology in the government, military, or electorate.

As far as I can see, the first reference gives no attribution to the opinion therein. The second gives opinion from a former ambassador to Russia, a representative of aUnkrainian expatriate organisation, and a representative of a Jewish community organisation. The third gives attribution to an "analyst" Ruslan Leviev of the the CIT (Conflict Intelligence Team). Leviev is actually a Russian journalist[3] and ABC News would describe the CIT as "It's basically a bunch of independent bloggers slash researchers slash military equipment enthusiasts," said Kirill Mikhailov, one of a handful of the group's core members. Mikhailov, 33, is from Russia but currently lives in Kyiv, Ukraine.[4]

This article is mainly sourced from news sources which naturally, use editorial language. While WP:NEWSORG would say that good quality news sources are generally reliable for "fact", this does not extend to journalistic opinion (editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces) though they may be a source for opinions of specialists and recognized experts. I don't think that many editors at the article are discerning the distinction made at WP:NEWSORG and when or for what news sources can be considered reliable. Consequently we have partisan language throughout of which the subject of this post is one example. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:33, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I think the opposite is true, I think it's WP:CHERRY. The neo-nazi thing gets singled out but the rest is left out. Here from BusinessInsider we have: "Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely described Ukraine's government as a "band of junkies and neo-Nazis" in a television appearance on Friday. In the speech, Putin also said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's government "took control of Kyiv and holds the whole people of Ukraine hostage." Putin urged members of Ukraine's armed forces to prevent "neo-Nazis" from using "your children, your wives and parents as a living shield."" <---This is clearly insane. If the entire thing is put back in to context it comes off like the angry rant that it is. If the quotes get left intact like this one then the ridiculousness of the accusations becomes more apparent. Beyond that are we countenancing this to the extent that are we also going to say the jury's out on whether or not Ukraine is governed by drug addicts? It seems strange to me because we have these accusations which are patently absurd, numerous RSs have been posted such as the NYT and WSJ which state they are false, but it's not good enough so the neo-Nazi accusation gets picked out and then treated as if it could be reasonable accusation. Alcibiades979 (talk) 12:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I don’t even know if "We will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine" and other simillar declarations by Putin are the kind of statements that can be assessed in terms of true or false. To me they look more like policy objectives hinting at regime change, or expressive statements aimed at escalating the conflict. One can embrace them or fight them, but really there's no much point in mantaining that they are "false" as a point of fact. Anyway Putin's statements are not entirely devoid of empirical basis, as there are fascists on the ground in Ukraine and serious reasons for the Russian minority to be worried about violence and discrimination based on language (e.g. [5]). How dangerous the fascists are, how influential on Ukrainian politics, how worried the Russians should be – these are matter for political judgment where reasonable people can reasonably disagree, and there's no factual error for us to correct ("Putin is wrong! you shouldn't be too worried").

So I agree with TFD and Cindarella157 that WP:NEWSORG is helpful here, especially for the distinction between factual content and opinion content. The true/false alternative here oversimplifies, and I’m afraid that the whole article would utterly fail WP:NPOV if we were to take the immediate reaction by Western media as reliable source for a political judgment as this one, and use "wikivoice" to echo it as ours. We are writing an encyclopaedia, not a daily press review, and we should subject our reliable sources (a handful of editorials in the aftermath of the invasion) to critical editorial scrutiny: a grain of salt. I feel we should refrain from partisan politics, especially in a time of war, and aim at increasing knowledge and understanding rather than labelling and trivializing points of view which we might not fully understand. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:21, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:NEWSORG is clear that news sources are WP:RS for fact but not opinion or analysis. They can also be a primary source for opinion offered by "experts" or for Putin's own words. But we should not be painting the term "expert" with too broad a brush as has been done in the example above in a way that is a bit too loose with the truth in order to bolster the apparent credibility of the statement. We should not need to inflate the credentials of the "experts". If Putin's words are clearly insane, let them speak for themselves. If "experts" (ie academics in an appropriate field of study or analysts and such with established and recognisable credentials) are saying Putin is wrong for X reason or his allegations are false, we should be referring to them and not relying on the analysis and opinion of journalists, even though I don't disagree with their analysis and opinions. WP must only maintain a NPOV but must also be seen to be doing so. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:33, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Claims that have been universally regarded in RS as "false" must be defined as such in WP pages. Consider QAnon, racist theories by Nazi, etc. This is one of them. Labeling an outright misinformation as misinformation is very important. So, yes, that was correctly framed on the page. My very best wishes (talk) 18:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  I disagree. I find no obligation as editors to make this differentiation, and given the nuance of the situation at hand (especially noting how Putin's statements, however misconstrued or falsified, has some tangential relation to reality), agree with the aforementioned proposal to strike the contents from the lead section entirely. This combined with the apparent impression of taking sides, which discredits the appeal of the article and provides the perception of an overtly biased page. Augend (drop a line) 20:29, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

• With all due respect, I find those who argue against labeling Putin's lies ad such may misunderstand how Wikipedia works. NPOV does not mean finding a neutral position between lies and reality. Similarly, the "impression of taking sides" is quite natural, when one side has launched a brutal war of aggression on a side merely defending itself. In that case, pointing out the facts is not "taking sides", but merely reporting the facts based on RS. Moreover, the only action that would go against NPOV is if we would follow what these users argue. WP is very clear that fringe theories, conspiracy theories, and outright lies are identified as such, and it would be against NPOV to merely repeat Putin's lies without pointing out that they are just that, lies. Again, there are countless other examples across WP where we clearly label falsehoods as such, so there is nothing unusual in this article. And, quite obviously, we do not make up these claims, but back them up with references to several good RS. In short, the only thing that would violate WP guidelines would be to try to strike some false balance here. Jeppiz (talk) 12:55, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

• NPOV means we represent all significant viewpoints in a neutral way. If 99% if RS say water is wet and one does not we say water is wet, we do not say "water might be wet". If 100% of RS call it wet, or do not offer a judgment we call it wet. Only if there is significant disagreement between RS do we say "alleged" (or whatever word you think fits). There appears to be no disagrement in RS this was (and is) false. As they think its false so do we. Slatersteven (talk) 12:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
  • That's not correct from the stance we represent all significant viewpoints in a neutral way. If all major sources are expressing the same viewpoint, we should of course report that majority viewpoint but as a type of attributed viewpoint, not as fact, particularly if there is current controversy over the matter (and not just strictly looking at what RSes say, but considering the 60,000 ft view). This doesn't mean we have to create a false balance of minority viewpoints, but we absolutely should not be reporting viewpoints as facts in the short term, which is the case here. --Masem (t) 15:21, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

    I agree with the preceding comment, and I’d like to add the following consideration. If you read carefully the survey of reliable sources here above posted by Alcibiades979, you will see that they all agree on using the adjective "false" but refer it to different objects: that Russia is invading Ukraine to denazify it, that neo-Nazism justifies military action, that the people of Ukraine are Nazi, that the Zelenskyy government is Nazi, that Zelenskyy himself is a Nazi. In order to make sense of this bundle of disparate claims, we came up with "falsely accused Ukraine of being dominated by neo-Nazis", which actually Putin never said explicitly. So what are our reliable sources (and ourselves) conveying here? To me it is clear: they (and we) are saying that it is false that neo-Nazism in Ukraine is so important as to justify the invasion. But this is a political judgment and, reasonable as it is, it is not objectively valid (true/false), as if we were stating that "water is wet" or debunking a conspiracy theory. Reasonable and well-informed people can have different views on this, and we should acknowledge the fact instead of jumping to the judgmental "It's false! Neo-nazism is not that important in today's Ukraine", which is over-simplistic, incompatible with WP:NPOV and not conductive to common understanding. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• I would observe that the key issue here is perhaps being missed by may commenters here. A general opinion here is that given its frequency in use by RS we can express the opinion/theory/analysis that it is false in a WP voice. The problem is that the sources used are news sources and this is the opinion/theory/analysis of the journalists. News sources are not a RS for the opinion/theory/analysis of the journalists. They may be a source for attribution to a party of "particularly good standing" but few sources are making attribution and where they are, the parties being attributed are a mixed bag with few rising to a level of "particularly good standing". Not only on this particular question but generally, we appear to have jumped on the shirt-tails of public opinion as expressed in the press rather than being more circumspect and writing at arms-length and without the appearance of being partisan. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:17, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Agreed; how quickly the public memory fades: irrefutable evidence 14.2.198.139 (talk) 09:55, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

    Firstly, what matters here is not comparisons with past cases but the specific weight of sources in this instance. The sources are clear Putin's claims regarding Ukraine having a genocidal neo-Nazi government are false. Secondly, Iraq is not comparable. Claims about WMDs were made by a small number of Western (US & British) government officials, and the appropriate stance if it happened today would be to attribute such claims. In this case, there's a deluge of reliable sources calling Putin's (blatant) lie a lie. Anyone can check the previous Ukrainian election results themselves, in case they were in any doubt how much influence the Ukrainian far right has in the current government. Jr8825 • Talk 10:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

    I'm not sure the argument based on election results is convincing. For most people what matters is how influential aggressive nationalism, neo-fascism and racism are on everyday life, on the ground, rather than the number of MPs they get. Besides, their political influence is not necessarily proportionate to electoral success. Claiming that fascism in today's Ukraine is not that important might fail to acknowledge certain legitimate and reasonable viewpoints. If I were a member of the Russian minority who is prevented from using their language in political campaigning, cultural activities and public events ([6]), or a Roma exposed to fascist violence ([7]), or a Jew targeted by hate campaigns by MAUP's and requests of racial profiling by the police ([8]), I might have different views on the relative importance of fascism. Surely most ethnic Russians, Roma and Jews strongly oppose this hateful invasion, but they know that in Ukraine there's a problem that we shouldn't brush off, as we would do if we were to label other people's judgments on the importance of fascism simply as "false". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:48, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Ukraine has a far-right problem ≠ Ukraine has a drug-addled neo-Nazi government committing genocide against Russians. I oppose any attempt to give this farcical-if-it-wasn't-so-serious propaganda more credence than the best sources indicate is due. This is an entirely separate issue from thoroughly documenting, in appropriate places and with appropriate due weight, Ukraine's problems with far-right extremism (a problem common to many democracies). To clarify my above comment, just because the falsity of Putin's ludicrous claims (I mean seriously, Ukraine has a Jewish, Russian-speaking president) is transparent, doesn't mean we should be careless in assertion of its falseness. Jr8825 • Talk 11:22, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

It is false and we should make clear it is false in the lede. Many people won’t read any further than that, and great care should imho be taken to prevent any appearance that we endorse this ethnic slur. There is no question that he said it. There is no question that it is false. Elinruby (talk) 14:09, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Sources

"Genocide denial" and Uyghurs

See discussion here: Talk:Genocide_denial#POV_pushing. Is it okay to include the Chinese government's denial of their genocide of the Uyghurs in the article genocide denial, even though denial that a genocide is taking place is mainstream scholarly opinion? Endwise (talk) 06:45, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

It is definitely wrong to baldly state or imply that there is a genocide of Uyghurs happening without any qualification, especially about what is meant by genocide in that context. However if there is suitable and clearly stated qualification I think it can be included in that article. At the moment it is just wrong , and it needs qualification explaining what is meant by genocide there not just attribution to fix. NadVolum (talk) 08:31, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

RS have said there is, so we do, but we can say China denies it. Slatersteven (talk) 11:56, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

No, that's incorrect. We do not on Wikipedia say that China is committing genocide, there is in fact consensus against that. Endwise (talk) 12:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

So if we do not say they have, why do we need to include their denial? Slatersteven (talk) 13:51, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Huh? I'm saying that the genocide denial article should not include the Chinese government's denial of the genocide of Uyghurs. Endwise (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I have not seen anything which suggests that "denial that a genocide is taking place is mainstream scholarly opinion" nor have I seen any sources which say that. We can't do OR to invalidate what WP:RS are saying, if WP:RS use the term "genocide denial"(which they appear to do) then its going to be hard for us to second guess them without sources which explicitly do that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 11:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

There was an abundance of sources presented in the RfC at the main article: Talk:Uyghur_genocide#The_first_sentence_does_not_make_sense, and there was consensus in favour of the fact that There exists a serious debate in reliable sources as to whether the events/actions are a genocide. The events/actions may not be labelled as a genocide in wikivoice, that is, as an uncontested fact. To claim that it is an uncontested fact that genocide is taking places goes against existing community consensus. Endwise (talk) 12:18, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

And how do you make the jump from a debate over the name to denial? I don't see any sources referring to the debate over the name as denial, they appear to be pointing to denial that the event is occurring at all when they talk about genocide denial. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

There is a case for saying some reliable sources say there is a genocide - but the statement would still needs to be qualified as to what they mean by genocide as the common meaning is quite different from that of the UN convention. The word does not have anything like a unique meaning. NadVolum (talk) 14:11, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

But thats not what we appear to be talking about, we're talking about genocide denial (which to be clear is not quibbling over the name). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• At a glance I don't think the current sources are appropriate for this. The problem is that "genocide denial" has a fairly specific meaning - I don't think it's appropriate for us to build a section out of news sources where a government simply says a genocide isn't taking place. We should use scholarly / academic sources specifically saying that this is genocide denial (or words that clearly have the same meaning), and should probably attribute to those unless the consensus about what's happening is overwhelming, which I don't think it is. If those sources can't be found then it shouldn't be mentioned at all; the current formulation strikes me as WP:OR. --Aquillion (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

There is an extensive Xinjiang denial-industrial complex. I think that coverage of this denial complex is quite apt. — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

We could only call it genocide denial if there was a consensus in reliable sources for the description. A lot of the arguments for including it are synthesis - editors conclude it is genocide denial based on their interpretation of the facts and definitions of genocide and genocidal definitions. TFD (talk) 18:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Arguments are not WP:SYNTH when there are reliable sources that explicitly describe the denial of abuses as a very real phenomenon. What are you talking about? — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:24, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

You first have the problem that the events with Uyghur are not widely considered to be a genocide across all reliable sources in the first place, so to find if there us agreement that China is going to be considered to engage in genocide denial in widespread agreement is going to be impossible. You can certainly cherry pick a few sources but for a claim this great, that's not sufficient.--Masem (t) 19:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I think this is the central problem. Endwise (talk) 02:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Don't forget that the "genocide denial" contains an implicit statement that the event in question was/is a genocide. Also that being sourced is requirement for inclusion, not anything else such as a mandate or a categorical green light for inclusion. North8000 (talk) 19:37, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

We don't do second level analysis, if the WP:RS says "genocide denial" its not our place to ask "Sure, but was it genocide in the first place?" and by the same token if the source does not say genocide denial we can't say "Well its a genocide so thats genocide denial and we can label it as such" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:12, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

We are allowed to try and figure out the meaning of what something says rather than just searching for words and copying. That is particularly important here because of the different meanings of genocide. NadVolum (talk) 14:37, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Genocide denial means genocide denial, it is not our place to question that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 12:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Referring to which definition of genocide? The UN convention one or the dictionary one or something different or changes between sections depending on what you want it to be or you don't care provided the word is used? NadVolum (talk) 15:25, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Thats a level of analysis beyond what we as wikipedia editors do. Please see WP:OR. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:08, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Our job is to summarize sources, and that means being familiar with how a topic is presented across all mainstream and academic works, not just cherry picking a few sources. It was clear from the Uyghur genocide talk page that while the title uses the term, otherwise treating the situation as genocide as fact in wikivoice did not follow agreement from sources, and so knowing that, it us absolutely clear we can't treat this ad a "genocide denial" for the same reasons, lack of source agreement.--Masem (t) 14:24, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Do we have a lack of source agreement? I don't see any case where one source calls something "genocide denial" and another source disputes that characterization. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 12:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

There is definitely a lack if source agreement on whether it is a genocide to begin with, so by that implication, there absolutely would be the same on whether China's behavior can be called a denial of that. Further, before we go stating this as fact in wikiboice, there better be mass agreement across a majority of sources, and not just pointing to a few sources that use the term (cherry picking) while others do not offer any such claim. Otherwise that's making the minority sources' view UNDUE. We are not married to only considering the story told by RSes but instead have to be fully cognizant if the big picture when we are going to make statements like this, otherwise we become an echo chamber. --Masem (t) 13:12, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

"there absolutely would be the same on whether China's behavior can be called a denial of that." if thats absolutely true I'm sure you can find the sources. As far as I can tell the characterization of "genocide denial" is the majority opinion, I actually can't find its counterpoint expressed in reliable sources... I have to go to places like The Greyzone to find them at all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:34, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Lets put it this way...say there are 100 RSes talk broadly discuss the situation re Uyghur. How many of those specificly say "genocide denial"? If it's anything less than say 15 or so, then you are definitely in the realm of cherry picking. It may be majority viewpoint, but if no one else is even providing a viewpoint or taking a side, it us wrong to claim that as a majority viewpoint. That's why it's important to look past just what you can claim the RSes say. --Masem (t) 14:33, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Thats not how WP:DUE works, if the topic is genocide denial (it is, the page in question here is genocide denial, not Uyghur genocide) then we look at sources which cover genocide denial. Why when covering the topic of genocide denial would it be cherrypicking to use sources which cover genocide denial instead of those which do not? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:37, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

"China is engaging in genocide denial" is clearly, by its very nature and due to it being an ongoing event, is a highly contentious statement. It needs to have strong agreement across a wide array of sources to make that claim in wikivoice, or other it has to be treated as attributed opinion (which begs whether it should be included on the genocide denial page to start). This is why I again ask to what proportion of the RSes are making the claim relative to the number covering the topic. If they are in the minority, then it fails being DUE for a controversial topic. To contrary, there is widespread agreement that Russia invaded Ukraine, and not Russia's purported statement on its military encounters, so we run with the invasion angle. --Masem (t) 18:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I can't find any sources covering the topic of genocide denial which disagree. If its highly contentious then why don't we appear to have any RSes contending otherwise? If you are saying that we should be attributing the claims to the sources that make them thats fine, but thats not what you appear to be arguing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:06, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

It is surely self-evident that anyone who argues that this is not genocide, or even argues that we don't yet know what it is, is also arguing against genocide denial, even if not stated explicitly. It would be a logical nonsense to say something other than genocide occurred but China is guilty of genocide denial (which is a wholly different thing from simply saying what occurred is not genocide, or even that nothing bad occurred). An absence of sources saying explicitly that Pincrete is not a Martian, doesn't automatically make a small number saying he is, true. All those arguing that there are no such thing as Martians can reasonably be treated as affirming that Pincrete isn't one! Pincrete (talk) 10:34, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't get the analogy, in that situation Pincrete's page would need to cover the martian claims per WP:NPOV. Genocide denial also exists whether China does it or not, so martians would exist even if Pincrete is not a martian. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:22, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

That's not an appropriate read of DUE from NPOV, particularly in light of a ongoing or recent situation where opinion and debate are still developing on a topic. (I intend to raise the need for NPOV to address RECENTISM soon here). If Uyghur situation happened twenty years ago and of the RSes that reported on it, the only majority viewpoint was that it was a genocide and that China engaged in it denial, it would likely be okay to say that in wikivoice. But the situation is still ongoing, the investigation continuing, so we know not all opinions and final judgements have been formed. We know that making any claim of finality in wikivoice now is jumping the gun, and thus inappropriate for us now to try to assert the one viewpoint as fact. It can be used as attributed opinion, but that likely means not on the genocide denial page. --Masem (t) 13:41, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

So where is the appropriate home for the information about genocide denial? We have too many WP:RS for it not to have a home, if that home isn't genocide denial where is it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 11:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

It likely would have to be on the Uyghur genocide page, but included as attributed opinion of those sourced ("According to media outlets like X, Y, and Z claim that China is engaged in genocide denial in relation to the Uyghur situation."). --Masem (t) 12:25, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

• I think this can be addressed with a simple logic chain. 1. Is it established that a genocide happened? 2. Is an established genocide being denied? I'm not sure that it has been established that this is a genocide thus I'm not sure we should call it genocide denial at this point. Thus, if the answer to the first question is no then the answer to the second isn't relevant. Springee (talk) 13:51, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• Some editors above have hit the nail on the head. Opinions on or acceptance of human rights abuses against the Chinese Uyghur population as genocide is immaterial to whether the topic is covered on this page. As is whether someone or some government has denied this genocide. Genocide denial as a phenomenon, process or area of study is very different from a recorded instance of "X denying the genocide of Y". We need to look at what the RS says and there is a range of literature dealing with genocide denial. I've had a good dig through this and have not been able to find any sources in this field treating the responses to the Uyghur genocide as genocide denial (aside from some opinion pieces [9] [10] [11] [12]). This is probably because the abuses in Xinjiang are ongoing and #1 rigorous academic publications are not quick to produce and #2 (according to Gregory Stanton) genocide denial is often the final part of the genocide process. In contrast, Chinese government response to abuses in Tibet have been spoken about in genocide denial literature (as in Forgotten Genocides : Oblivion, Denial, and Memory). In summary, regardless of consensus or acceptance of the Uyghur genocide if RS discuss the response to it as genocide denial (not just a news report saying China has denied this - all perpetrators deny their abuses) then it could be covered in this article (with appropriate consideration of WP:DUE as it pertains to the genocide denial topic). Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:46, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• Easy solution. The article genocide denial is supposed to be about the general phenomenon of genocide denial, rather than specific cases. Focus on sources that are about the general phenomenon of genocide denial and wait to cover the Chinese government's statements about the Uyghur issue until it makes its way into such general sources. (t · c) buidhe 04:15, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Turkish War of Independence & Atroticies

Previous discussions available at Turkish War of Independence talk page under the headings "Semi-protected edit request on 9 March 2022", "Semi-protected edit request on 9 March 2022 (2)" and "Reply to abstention from mentioning the atrocities against Muslim Turks".

The proposed request for change available at Turkish War of Independence talk page under the heading "Semi-protected edit request on 9 March 2022 (2)" and under the subheading "3 ATROCITIES AGAINST MUSLIM TURKS DURING THE TURKISH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE".

The current version of Turkish War of Independence article almost completely omits the atrocities against Muslim Turks. The proposed text explains these atrocities with background information and academic sources. The content in question was mostly unchallenged, nevertheless, the proposal was rejected on the grounds of a lack of consensus. In the absence of any engagement from other editors, it is unclear how it was determined that there was no consensus for the proposed change. Therefore, it is kindly requested this content to be added to Turkish War of Independence article.--176.219.213.70 (talk) 16:20, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

User Stuartyeates

Hi there, I'm unsure how to proceed with this, but I'm concerned about some of User:Stuartyeates's public pronouncements concerning the Listener letter on science controversy and in particular about a number of NZ scientists involved in that controversy. The problem is that recent Twitter comments suggest that he is about to create entries for a number of people as a way of attacking them. On April 3rd, he wrote (with regard to a number of academics who signed an open letter to the Royal Society of New Zealand, 'You know, some of those folks will be getting their own stub wikipedia biographies, just so I can include that fact that they're this racist ...' (https://twitter.com/stuartayeates/status/1510566667990237185). On September 21st last year, he asked 'Which other Kiwi villains should I write about?' and 'Here is a series tentatively entitled "Slapping Auckland Turnips"' (https://mobile.twitter.com/stuartayeates/status/1440244134715932676) before listing a number of entries he created on the signatories to the Listener letter. (I also have screenshots of these tweets by the way, if anyone needs those.) My concern is not only that this may violate Wikipedia policies on neutral point of view, balance in creating BLPs, and perhaps conflict of interest, but also that we may soon have a flood of some purposefully negative entires on NZ academics. I'm not aware of any other issues with this user and I appreciate he has done lots of work for Wikipedia, but I wonder whether he might recuse himself (or be removed from) editing entries on NZ scholars involved in the Listener letter on science controversy and those who signed the letter printed here (who he has pledged to create pages for 'just so I can include the fact that they're this racist'): https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/04/02/fellows-of-new-zealands-royal-society-demand-apology-and-full-review-of-the-society-after-poor-treatment-of-two-members/ If this is not the place for this concern or if I've made some technical faux-pas please let me know. Cleisthenes2 (talk) 08:47, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Cleisthenes2 Do you have a specific edit you can point to which has not had a neutral point of view? Stuartyeates (talk) 09:30, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

C'mon folks, this Stuart Yeates guy is going around accusing 70+ people of being racist, just because they dared to object to the NZ Royal Society's ridiculous treatment of an esteemed Māori scientist, Garth Cooper, who has devoted his career to improving health and educational outcomes for Māori. And since last year, he's been systematically using Wikipedia to grind his axe against the writers of the "Listener" letter from July 2021, *even though* the Royal Society took down their letter against those writers, and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland has also basically retracted her initial critical claims against the letter. She now says "nobody is wrong here," (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/auckland-plans-dialogue-maori-knowledge-and-science) and is sponsoring a symposium at the University to discuss the raised issues of indigenous knowledge and science. I think Wikipedia should do something or eventually this guy will get Wikipedia sued for defamation. 222.153.123.28 (talk) 21:08, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

User:Stuartyeates is a respected and productive editor on NZ topics on Wikipedia. What he (or someone appearing to be him) may or may not have said on Twitter isn't something that should concern anyone unless it's reflected in his Wikipedia editing. Unless you can show examples of actual non-neutral editing this isn't going to go anywhere. Daveosaurus (talk) 11:39, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Just to respond to Daveosaurus's doubts about whether User:Stuartyeates is Stuart Yeates on Twitter, the articles Stuart Yeates boasted about creating on Twitter were all then created by User:Stuartyeates. Also, he has the same name and lives in New Zealand. Also, User:Stuartyeates links to his Twitter account on his Wikipedia editor page.Cleisthenes2 (talk) 21:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, this page creation would seem to display exactly the kind of lack of balance which User:Cleisthenes2 sounds concerned about? It was one of five such BLPs User:Stuartyeates created on the same day using more or less the same material; all were co-authors of the Listener letter. A BLP for a sixth co-signer of the open letter was created by User:Stuartyeates the next day; one already existed for the seventh co-author.

This behaviour seems to exactly match that threatened in the "You know, some of those folks will be getting their own stub wikipedia biographies, just so I can include that fact that they're this racist ..." tweet.

The article name of the BLP page creation I just linked to above was referenced in the tweet reading:

Here is a series tentatively titled "Slapping Auckland Turnips" [..]. I'll get to the others as time allows."

[For the uninitiated, "turnip slapper" is a racist slur for a white or non-Māori New Zealander.]

The fact that the subject of that BLP has Māori heritage, but was referred to using a racist pejorative in the tweet suggests that the creator of the article was ignorant of this pretty basic piece of biographical information. Given this, it seems reasonable to wonder about what the motivation behind creating the new article (and the other five) was. Not least because User:Stuartyeates shortly afterwards tweeted:

The last of the authors of THAT letter now have Wikipedia biographies including the backlash to the letter... [link to WP article about one of the co-signers] #turnipslapper".

With the greatest of respect, the creation of articles with this apparently biased motivation is likely to do great harm to WP's reputation - our friends at The Daily Mail would have a field day. JezGrove (talk) 20:46, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

They can complain about Twitter all they want. That is nothing to do with Wikipedia. Now go read Wikipedia:No legal threats, then go back to work improving the encyclopaedia. Daveosaurus (talk) 03:36, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi User:Daveosaurus -- do you really think Stuart Yeates didn't write this? Let's ask him! User:Stuartyeates, did you, or did you not, write this Twitter post?

https://twitter.com/stuartayeates/status/1510566667990237185

"@stuartayeates

Replying to @REasther

You know, some of those folks will be getting their own stub wikipedia biographies, just so I can include that fact that they're this racist ...

10:35 PM · Apr 3, 2022"

If you wrote it, be brave and own it. If it's fake, you've got a major problem, someone has been pretending to be you for a long time. 222.153.123.28 (talk) 21:12, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Google 'Garth Cooper Auckland'; the article reflected the secondary sources, this group of academics have had a LOT of press about this trainwreck. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:15, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Are the tweets yours, because that goes to the heart of this issue? JezGrove (talk) 21:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Good question. Why won't User:Stuartyeates answer? He's been using Wikipedia to dish it out for a long time, can he not take a little criticism? 222.153.123.28 (talk) 22:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you read WP:OUTING. Daveosaurus (talk) 03:36, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Outing?! Whatever are you talking about? Stuart Yeates's twitter is public, so is his Wikipedia activity, it's clear it's the same guy in both places, he himself has admitted it publicly in all ways except personally clarifying it for you right here. You are the only one raising the vague possibility it is someone else, clearly in an attempt to avoid the embarrassing main issue. 222.153.123.28 (talk) 03:44, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I suggest that those editors who criticise Stuart should read Wikipedia:Five pillars. The editors may then measure Stuart's WP conduct against these fundamental principles. What matters here is what Stuart does on WP. What Stuart does off WP is nobody's business. The other thing that matters is the conduct displayed in this discussion and I refer to the fourth pillar. Schwede66 22:53, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

With all respect, if an editor - especially one of such long standing - is alleged to have publicly threatened to create BLP articles specifically so that they can accuse the subjects of racism that is of very legitimate concern. As I mentioned above, the editor involved has already created this unbalanced BLP, and five others very like it, and boasted about having done so on Twitter using the racist slur "turnipslapper". The fact that the articles are now more balanced doesn't detract from the apparent bad faith behind their creation.

(Bad faith is not a phrase to be used lightly, I agree, but it is one that is hard to dance around in these particular circumstances. The public statements and the edits related to them have been taking place almost simultaneously over many months and the editor has so far ignored requests to dissociate themselves from the tweets, despite having visited this page since those requests were made.) JezGrove (talk) 23:37, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

This discussion doesn't belong here. It belongs on WP:ANI, at minimum. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:56, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Seconded. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:58, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Also agreed. I am most concerned about the implied legal threats from JezGrove and the attempted outing from the OP and the IP. Daveosaurus (talk) 03:41, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Daveosaurus, I'd be genuinely interested to know what you think I've written above that can be construed as any kind of "implied threat", yet alone a "legal" one. JezGrove (talk) 14:07, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I've opened Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Drama_at_Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

222.153.123.28 you really need to read our outing policy. What matter is whether Stuartyeates has linked their Twitter from Wikipedia. It doesn't make if their Twitter is public, nor does it matter if the Twitter account has said they edit Wikipedia. If you have concerns about something but it can't be discussed on Wikipedia due to outing concerns, then take it to arbcom. Nil Einne (talk) 08:25, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

It's been brought to my attention at WP:ANI that Stuartyeates did link their Twitter account on Wikipedia with this edit [13]. That seems to satisfy generic concerns about discussing the Twitter account here. As I also mentioned at ANI this connection really need to be established from the beginning rather than after the fact, and it's also what matters, not any similarity of account names nor what the Twitter account has said about Wikipedia. Nil Einne (talk) 09:17, 5 April 2022 (UTC) 14:05, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Too much drama... An editor's Twitter history may legitimately be mentioned, but it isn't very helpful to building a better encyclopedia and it doesn't need prolonged discussion here. I suggest that the time of anyone interested in the Listener letter on science controversy would be best spent on looking at the relevant articles, and working for a consensus on improvements to those articles.

Also, I don't see anything above that I'd describe as a legal threat and I hope to hear no more about the idea. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:16, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Richard Keatinge: You're mistaken. You cannot discuss an editor's Twitter history unless they have linked to it themselves, our outing policy is clear on this. The editor concerned did do so in this case, however it's entirely reasonable to ask those who wish to discuss it to demonstrate this before we discuss it. Also NLT ultimately deals with the chilling effect of threatening to use external means to deal with disputes on Wikipedia. While most commonly this relates to threats to sue someone or report them to some authority, threatening to go to the media may have the same chilling effect so isn't something that should happen either. That said, it doesn't seem to me this was really a threat to go to a media instead just a comment on what may happen. Nil Einne (talk) 14:13, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

report them to ANI, and the page is now on my watch list, and they can read WP:NOTDUMB. Slatersteven (talk) 14:20, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide

I would like some guidance in regards to calling this group a terrorist group or/and calling there actions terrorism? The contested edits can be found at this dif:https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Justice_Commandos_of_the_Armenian_Genocide&type=revision&diff=1081223378&oldid=1081219402 and also see the talk page. Thank you for any clarification. Hardyplants (talk) 02:43, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Taking a look. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:04, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Pizza cures heart disease

I found this on the floor in a Denny's bathroom

Pizza#Pizza_and_health I'm suggesting that this section is unduly using case studies to illustrate a medical point. MarshallKe (talk) 16:28, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I think that instead of posting stuff like this you should try to do something useful. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 16:34, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Funny, I feel the same way about you, Roxy. MarshallKe (talk) 16:50, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Keep it polite, and take it to your talk pages. Slatersteven (talk) 16:51, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. MarshallKe (talk) 16:53, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Are you doing your tone policing on just me, or both of us? Do stoppit. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 16:57, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Both of you, and it is not "tone policing" it is asking you to obey wp:talk "Comment on content, not on the contributor or It's the edits that matter, not the editor: Keep the discussions focused on the topic of the talk page, rather than on the editors participating.", I am asking both of you to obey policy. Slatersteven (talk) 17:00, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Requesting close by uninvolved user of user conduct-related comments here, leaving the concern about the pizza article MarshallKe (talk) 17:05, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I've cut out the offending section. MarshallKe (talk) 17:44, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

The material seems cited to reputable medical journals. This seems therefore to pass NPOV. Slatersteven (talk) 17:47, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I've restored it. Calidum 17:49, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

If this headline is true, then I am likely immortal, and you are all in deep trouble. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:50, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Dude I'm eating a pizza right now and I can literally feel my body healing itself in real time MarshallKe (talk) 18:50, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Read WP:MEDRS instead of tone policing people. You'd benifit, and so would we. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 18:24, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

• The claims are cited to non-WP:MEDRS sources, so should not be there. As usual, some editors are revert happy without being aware of the relevant WP:PAGs. Calidum is a particular offender in this regard. Alexbrn (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Can you explain how the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the International Journal of Cancer fail WP:MEDRS. Our respective articles on each refer to them as peer-reviewed medical journals. Calidum 18:22, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

    Read WP:MEDRS to see that the requirement for medical sources is rather high, and does not actually depend on the publication of itself. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 18:26, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

    Just tell me, in plain English, what is wrong with the two sources in question. Enough of this Kafkaesque bullshit. Calidum 18:27, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

    By a quick glance, the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition article is "We conducted a hospital-based case–control study on 507 cases of nonfatal AMI and 478 controls in Milan, Italy, between 1995 and 1999." WP:MEDASSESS has "case-control study" as the lowest form of reference that even qualifies as high as primary, and is nowhere near secondary. DMacks (talk) 18:42, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

    Thank you. Calidum 18:45, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

    "Peer-reviewed" is even a weak argument unrelated to more-stringent particulars of MEDRS. General WP:PST policy (and WP:RS guideline) sitewide would flag any article that is actual research itself ("primary") rather than any sort of review article or independent analysis ("secondary"). DMacks (talk) 18:53, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

  I think you'll find that you cannot cure heart disease without having heart disease. In that way, pizza is an important first step in curing heart disease. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:24, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

That reminds me of why I started smoking: so I could quit and reduce my chances of having lung cancer. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:31, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• WP:MEDRS is quite clear about primary sources. What does it say (in bold)? This is basic stuff. Calidum is edit-warring to preserve unreliable sources. Alexbrn (talk) 18:27, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Do we need WP:MEDRS to note that any putative benefits of pizza eaten by Italians in their own country may not necessarily be reproduced through consumption of alleged 'pizza' produced elsewhere? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:29, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump an observation about a medical claim should be sourced to MEDRS if possible if it isn't as obvious as "the sky is blue". I think of this in the sense A is a medical statement, A-1 is a hypothesis for why A is the case in some areas more than others, so while not necessarily a strictly medical claim in and of itself it still qualifies a previous medical statement. Especially in a section about pizza's effect on health, we should try to keep all claims up to MEDRS standard imo. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 18:33, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I think the implication that eating pizza reduces the risk of digestive tract cancer, sourced to a 20-year-old unreliable source, is Wikipedia at its worst. Alexbrn (talk) 18:36, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I had Pizza in Italy once. It was poor compared to Yorkshire Pizza. Pasta is much better. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 18:35, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

There's an awful lot of snark and crosstalk above and it's all unhelpful. I am not an expect on WP:MEDRS and I appreciate that others are. If the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and International Journal of Cancer are not a sufficient sources on medical claims about Europeans, then I would appreciate someone explaining to me why not. Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) is almost 64K long. I'm not reading it all the way through and then coming back to ask the same question. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Good grief. see WP:MEDRS Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 18:36, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

If you want to edit Wikipedia cluefully, you need to read the WP:PAGs. Alexbrn (talk) 18:37, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Man, been a while since I got templated! Mackensen (talk) 19:30, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

In short, the studies are primary studies rather than meta-analyses, systematic reviews, or clinical recommendations by governmental authorities. See WP:MEDPRI. MarshallKe (talk) 19:03, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, that's the sort of answer I was looking for. Mackensen (talk) 19:05, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

• This whole episode is pretty depressing. There seems to be a number of editors out there who, when an edit is made referencing a WP:PAG think, "Well, I can't be fucked to ready any boring WP:PAGs, I'll just assume the other party is wrong and keep reverting my preferred version". Alexbrn (talk) 19:39, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

  This has been a master class in what I would call anti-persuasion. I don't know that I'd recommend you continue down this path (and I agree with you on the main issue). Mackensen (talk) 21:27, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

ACORN (PRNG)

ACORN (PRNG)'s principal editor, User:Jwikip, appears to be the developer of the ACORN PRNG. His website is signed jw, also used as a signature on Jwikip's user page. Blah2 (talk) 16:38, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Blah2 this is best discussed at the conflict of interest noticeboard. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 18:26, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

No, @Blah2 I am not the developer of ACORN PRNG.
After reviewing your comment and WP COI pages carefully, I may have ['potential' or an 'apparent' conflict of interest'] - but I am NOT the developer of ACORN PRNG, nor am I paid for this or any other of my numerous contributions to Wikipedia, where I very carefully try to be neutral.

1. If you agree, please take the name off your above comment. I do not particularly wish or need to be 'outed' and apparently this is against Wikipedia rules.
2. I suggest that this detailed discussion be continued on the ACORN PRNG talk page, or on my own talk page, where I would like to add information about notability of ACORN.
3. I am not sure how to proceed - what do do you suggest I should do ? -- jw (talk) 19:40, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

My mistake. I thought I was following the correct procedure (I was not entirely clear.) I was only suggesting a COI. Blah2 (talk) 22:47, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

so @Blah2 do you agree to take my name off your comment ? if yes, please do so ! (although I can't say it is pleasant nor unpleasant to be named here)

how should we proceed with the COI issue ? jw (talk) 14:19, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Blah2 I have removed the name from your initial statement per Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Avoid_outing. -- jw (talk) 21:20, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Black hole information paradox

Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox

It seems that Jacob2718 is an active researcher in the field of black hole information using this Wiki to promote his works. His edits have mainly supported the (sometimes disputed) conclusions in journal papers listed below, see the article talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Black_hole_information_paradox#Technical_details

1) "Lessons from the information Paradox", PhysicsReports https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0370157321003720

2) "The Entropy of Hawking Radiation", Reviews of Modern Physics https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.93.035002

Black hole information is an area of active research, and there is sometimes sharp disagreement between experts as to what is known or not known, what has been rigorously established, etc. It seems that Jacob2718 is using this Wiki article to advance his own opinions. He is not fairly describing other work in the field. For example, the work in "Lessons from the information Paradox", PhysicsReports https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0370157321003720 of Raju et al. have been criticized and are not widely accepted, see e.g. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.04947.pdf.

But this work features prominently in Jacob2718's recent edits. Jacob2718 eliminated a discussion in the Recent Developments section about the work of Calmet et al. He moved mention of published papers in top journals like Physical Review Letters [16] and Physics Letters [17] into the Popular Culture section. It appears that the original reference to this work, written by Jacob2718 himself, described it as supportive of Raju et al.'s earlier papers. It is strange that it has now been moved into the entirely wrong section. How can Jacob2718 justify first citing Calmet et al. as (presumably) important work in the Recent Developments section, supporting Raju et al., and now claim it is only an example of Popular Culture? This is not only unjustified, it shows active bias at work.

It seems that Jacob2718 is an active researcher in the field of black hole information. His edits have mainly supported the (sometimes disputed) conclusions in journal papers listed below, see the article talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Black_hole_information_paradox#Technical_details

Clearly, Jacob2718 does not exhibit a NPOV.

Xcalmet (talk) 10:49, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

@Xcalmet, as an encyclopedia Wikipedia is not the place to report new research. Our science articles rely on secondary scholarly sources, not recent original reports that have not been assessed by the scientific community. Jacob2718 added the section originally, supported by a news article that only interviewed the original researchers. I would have considered removing it as too soon and waiting until independent researchers discussed it. Another editor tried to expand the addition into a stronger statement, which prompted Jacob2718 to move it to the popular culture section section, adding news articles in which the science journalists took the step of interviewing researchers not involved in the original research. This is a content dispute and needs to be discussed on the talk page of the article where Jacob2718 has already started a discussion. Accusing editors of bad behavior is not how issues are solved either in scientific research or on Wikipedia. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:09, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Jacob2718 added references to many recent papers by Raju et al. which have not been widely accepted by the community. I already provided a reference (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.04947.pdf by a respected third author, not me) which criticizes this work, so it is not in doubt that it is controversial. Therefore Jacob2718 is not abiding by the guidelines you describe above.

I strongly suspect Jacob2718 is involved in the recent, not widely accepted work that he has been promoting in this article. This is both a violation of NPOV and COI.

Note Jacob2718 first cited our paper, published in Physical Review Letters (often described as the top journal in Physics), and only later removed the citation. There is no good explanation of this behavior.

Jacob2718 can, at any time, clarify that he is not one of the authors of the recent Raju et al. work, but he has not. Xcalmet (talk) 21:48, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

@Xcalmet, I am not sure what you are accusing me of. A few months ago, I started to add technical details to the article on the black hole information paradox. At the time, I added the two reviews that you mention above. To quote from my own talk-page message when I started this effort I stated "I plan to use two state of the art reviews that have recently been published in the two main leading physics review journals. (Physics Reports and RMP)". These reviews have been very widely cited (hundreds of times) in the scientific literature in a short period. This doesn't mean that everyone agrees with everything in these reviews. In fact the two reviews themselves do not agree on some issues. But it is entirely appropriate to cite them in the article. In addition, the article cites other sources and notes a variety of views on the problem. I understand that you are new to Wikipedia. But please keep in mind that you should (a) assume good faith (b) comment on content, not on the contributor (c) attempt to resolve issues on the talk page before "reporting them" on central noticeboards. Jacob2718 (talk) 18:27, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@Xcalmet I now understand that you believe that I am not maintaining a NPOV because I am an author of the reviews above. That is so absurd that when I responded earlier today, I did not even appreciate that this was your complaint! If you click on the links you posted you will see that my name does not appear on the author list. The fact that I used two prominent recently-published reviews in the scientific literature to update an article on Wikipedia doesn't make me an author of either of the reviews. Please do not use me as a proxy for whatever dispute you have with those authors. The purpose of a scientific review is that it can be read and used by readers who are not the authors.

Please also note that the issue that brought you here has been resolved. The reference to the Calmet et al. paper has now been deleted from the article entirely, which is a decision that I support for reasons discussed on the talk page of the article.

As stated above, it was entirely appropriate to use these two reviews to update the article. Perhaps your issue is that the reviews were not comprehensive and over-emphasized some perspectives, while under-emphasizing others. That might be a legitimate issue and if you are aware of additional reliable secondary scientific sources, the community would welcome your inputs and we can use them to improve the article. But if you would like to persist with ill-founded allegations of some conspiracy, where you impose some imaginary identity on longstanding Wikipedia editors and then accuse them of acting in bad faith, please take that elsewhere. Jacob2718 (talk) 03:34, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

It is easy to hide behind a pseudonym, but IP logs can be very revealing. By the way, Jacob2718 is a very interesting and revealing pseudonym given the deontological issue at hand. Whether Jacob2718 is an author of some of papers mentioned on the wikipedia page on black hole information paradox is irrelevant at this point: his comments about our work and classifying it as popular science were deeply insulting and undermining. (Not to mention deeply suspicious, as he first cited our work positively in the Recent Developments section, as supporting the conclusions of the work listed below!)

Jacob2718 should refrain from such behavior in the future or I will request that he be banned from editing on wikipedia.

Furthermore, according to the standards and the rules of the game on wikipedia, the section Recent Developments should be deleted as it reports on disputed results which are not widely accepted in the community. This is written with a biased perspective and is misleading for the general public.

More specifically, it seems Jacob2718 has been editing the article in order to promote certain views, e.g., those in

[58]  Laddha, Alok; Prabhu, Siddharth; Raju, Suvrat; Shrivastava, Pushkal (18 February 2021). "The Holographic Nature of Null Infinity". SciPost Physics. 10 (2): 041. Bibcode:2021ScPP...10...41L. doi:10.21468/SciPostPhys.10.2.041. S2CID 211044141

and also in the Physics Reports review article by one of the above authors, referenced in the article talk page by Jacob2718 (see Technical Details subsection)

"Lessons from the information Paradox", Physics Reports, S. Raju

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0370157321003720

In our papers we cite the above work positively.

However this is not universally the case – for example it is criticized explicitly in https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.04947.pdf

Indeed the referee reports on [58] are available (a nice feature of the journal SciPost) and some of the referees do not find the arguments fully persuasive – many experts do not consider the results to be settled.

Furthermore, the Physics Reports article above in turn criticizes some of the conclusions of other papers currently cited in the Wiki article.

I think it is fair to conclude that many of the papers cited in this article are not fully accepted by the expert community. This is not surprising in an active, frontier area of research that is highly theoretical.

However, given this situation Wikipedia should be very careful about who is editing the article and whether they have a specific COI or lack NPOV. For these reasons, the Recent Developments section should be deleted.

An encyclopedia is not meant to be an account of recent, still-disputed scientific results.

I will not invest more time in this matter. Xcalmet (talk) 14:13, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Please understand that these recent edits were triggered by an IP-editor who tried to insert strong but unsubstantiated claims about the recent Calmet et al. paper, of which you claim to be an author. (I make no judgements about your identity but merely note your own claim.) Your own account appears to have been created shortly after these edits and continues to be a single-purpose account focusing on how Wikipedia should deal with this paper.

I understand that you are disappointed that mention of the paper has been removed from the article, while other sources remain. But I think you are missing the point of how Wikipedia works. A perspective deserves to be included in a scientific article on Wikipedia if it is taken seriously within the scientific community, as evidenced by secondary scientific sources, citations, followup studies and similar evidence.

The reason that this paper was removed from the article is that, so far, it has not been cited at all by other scientists except in papers written by the authors themselves. The few experts who have publicly opined on the paper have raised serious doubts about its novelty and relevance. The removal of this source was based on a consensus decision on the talk page. In contrast, the other sources that you mention above have all been cited a very large number of times by many scientists, with several followups in the published literature. This is an objective fact that you can verify using Google scholar or INSPIRE-HEP. It is the presence of these large number of secondary scientific sources that makes those viewpoints notable. This has nothing to do, as you seem to imagine, with the predilections of any particular editor, which quickly get balanced out in Wikipedia. If the Calmet et al. study generates the same level of interest in the scientific community in a few years, it would be appropriate to mention it in the article but otherwise it would not be appropriate.

My own mistake in this saga appears to have been that, contrary to your belief, I was too enthusiastic about your paper and initially added a reference in the article after reading multiple news reports. I soon realized, from the public comments of several experts, that I should not have done this. And my error was corrected by other editors who eventually deleted the reference.

As for your other point, about the last section of the article. I think the article is clear that there is no consensus on the subject. The lede itself states "views differ as to how precisely Hawking's calculation should be corrected". Statements to this effect are repeated several times in the article. This is the reason that the article presents a number of viewpoints. As you note yourself, the last section presents multiple perspectives that are not in agreement and some of the sources criticize each other. The only unifying thread is that all of these perspectives are notable and represented by high-quality sources. This is entirely appropriate for an article on an active field of research.

I am glad that you have decided to move on from this issue. Perhaps you could spend your time contributing constructively to the encyclopedia rather than wasting everyone's time by attacking other editors for nonexistent bias, which, unfortunately, appears to have been all you have done after joining Wikipedia. Jacob2718 (talk) 04:28, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Azov "Battalion" - several editors stubbornly refusing to address Kremlin disinfo in lede, WP:OWNERSHIP issues, WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, WP:CCC

Several editors continue to delete and ignore the leading scholarship on this issue, and the most eminently reliable (and recent) news sources.

Even if there was good-faith engagement regarding the sources on the talk page - which there isn't from those who blatantly claim WP:OWNERSHIP - an RfC is utterly redundant when literally all of the most reliable news outlets publishing in the English language (AFP, BBC, DW, CNN, WashPo,, Financial Times, et al) plus the leading academic experts on the issue of irregular militias in the conflict (A. Umland, K. Fedorenko, A. Shekhovtsov, et al) explicitly refute the propaganda emanating out of Moscow and repeated by online outlets, that the Azov Regiment of today, a 1,000-odd strong unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, is a "neo-Nazi" unit.

Peer-reviewed sources:

Umland, A. (2019). "Irregular Militias and Radical Nationalism in Post-Euromaydan Ukraine: The Prehistory and Emergence of the “Azov” Battalion in 2014." Terrorism and Political Violence, 31(1). "As briefly illustrated below, the formerly neo-Nazi leanings in the leadership of this group that today controls a relatively large military unit could present several problems..." (p. 107)

Gomza, I., & Zajaczkowski, J. (2019). Black Sun Rising: Political Opportunity Structure Perceptions and Institutionalization of the Azov Movement in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine. Nationalities Papers, 47(5), 774-800.

An in-depth study of Azov members' activity online, results attribute characterization of "Radical" far right nationalist to 38% of members, 0% as Nazi or neo-Nazi.

Fedorenko, K., & Umland, A. (2022). Between Frontline and Parliament: Ukrainian Political Parties and Irregular Armed Groups in 2014–2019. Nationalities Papers, 50(2), 237-261.

"While many commentators emphasize the right-wing extremist party as the political background of the Azov Battalion, the Verkhovna Rada deputy and Azov Civil Corps affiliate Oleh Petrenko, once a football fan club activist from Cherkassy and short-term Right Sector member, has stated that 50% of the early Azov fighters came out of the Ukrainian ultras movement of soccer fans..." (p. 243)

"Zvarych [US-born Roman Zvarych, former head of Azov] has claimed that he was critically involved in organizing combat training for Azov battalion/regiment fighters, by Georgian, American, Lithuanian, and British instructors, and to have advised the Azov movement to refrain from using symbols and ideas that could be linked to Nazism..." (p. 244)

Bezruk, T., Umland, A., & Weichsel, V. (2015). Der Fall “Azov”: Freiwilligenbataillone in der Ukraine. Osteuropa, 65(1/2), 33–41.

Zu diesen gehört das Bataillon Azov. Seine Geschichte ist dubios, Führungsriege und Symbolik sind faschistisch. Aber Azov, das zum Nationalgarderegiment aufgewertet wurde, ist atypisch....

Obwohl die Freiwilligenverbände nur einen Teil der bewaffneten Formationen der Ukraine ausmachen, spielten sie bei den ersten Zusammenstößen sowie bei weiteren bedeutenden Kämpfen mit Separatisten und der russländischen Armee im Donbass... Dies ist einer der Gründe, warum die Freiwilligenverbände neben der Nationalgarde rasch ins Blickfeld der Moskauer Propaganda rückten.

Allerdings ist nur ein Teil der Mitglieder des inzwischen zum Regiment nen Verbands Azov wie auch anderer nationalistischer Freiwilligenbataillone, rassistisch...

Das im Fernsehen und auf der Straße sehende Abzeichen [the Azov logo] wird in der ukrainischen Öffentlichkeit nicht als [neo-Nazi] Symbol, sondern als eines von mehreren populären Wappen der Freiwilligenbewegung der Ukraine wahrgenommen...

Through filibustering, wikilawyering, and outright deceptive editing, this disinformation has been displayed on Wikipedia for the duration of the war - giving credence and support to those who argue online Ukraine is indeed in need of "de-Nazification", therefore justifying the Russian invasion.

I could provide a play-by-play account of the nasty gamesmanship on display, but I'm sure any neutral taking a cursory look at the recent edit history of this page, will in several minutes see quite clearly several editors are monopolizing the content of this article to the detriment of the WP project.

- EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 13:40, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Comment Idk much about this but it seems on a quick look to be a debate over what the balance of sources actually say, so maybe the way to go is set about totting them up. Separately, I notice that OP recently made a comment at RSN (also discussing this issue) that Al Jazeera are reliable for nothing even though classed green at WP:RSP which does make me wonder about the "neutrality" here. Accusing other editors of ganging up doesn't strike me as particularly helpful, take that to ANI if there is evidence for it. Selfstudier (talk) 14:33, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what relevance Al Jazeera has to this issue, but I have plenty of resources on that if you're interested in why it has fallen so far from its heights during the early days of the Arab Spring. Watkins' 24-page 2019 research monograph is a good place to start: "Satellite sectarianisation or plain old partisanship?: Inciting violence in the Arab mainstream media" London School of Economics, Conflict Research Program, Middle East Centre Report.[14] - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 15:05, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

AJ is green at RSP, open a discussion at RSN if you think that's wrong.Selfstudier (talk) 15:12, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

The Al Jazeera article says that a video circulated on social media purportedly shows members of the unit smearing pig fat on bullets. That much is true. The video exists and I have seen it. I question its authenticity, but as far as I know it hasn't been debunked Several other videos about this unit have been traced by Bellingcat to CyberBerkut, however, but that's just an aside about why I would question it.

The really important thing is that it doesn't demonstrate neo-Naziness, as Islamophobia isn't generally considered Nazi behaviour. If true it makes them hateful bigots, but that is not the same thing. This question has already been through the RSN.

Note at well wp:npa, there was a recent RFC about this, I am currently gageing opinion for another. Slatersteven (talk) 14:56, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

If you are assessing opinion in good faith, why are you currently dismissing concerns about another editor deleting comments about this from the talk page? [15] I am also confused by your comment at RSN about...(checks notes) "NOte, if a source says water is wet, and so is ice, that does not mean water is not wet." Police in Belarus as an authority on Ukrainian military since I *think* you are saying that an article about a German lawsuit about a man who was beaten by a policeman in Belarus for wearing a t-shirt depicting Marvel's The Punisher does in fact prove that Azov Battalion is neo-Nazi. But I am really not sure.

However, this is the NPOV board, not RSN, so let's talk about WP:DUE. What's undisputed is that the founder of the group, back in the Revolution of Dignity, was a skinhead soccer hooligan street fighter. This founder later started a far-right political party, and by law had to resign from the battalion to do so and run for office.

In a past project I have translated a large number of articles about various current and former units of the French Foreign Legion, including at least one that was part of the SAS in World War 2. Possibly it's just the French, but all of these articles covered all of the campaigns of the unit question, as well as its equipment and commanders sometimes, and any special honors, like being allowed to wear certain patches or fourragères or the SAS beret.

Azov's participation in the current Siege of Mariupol gets half a sentence at the end of "Other dates and activities". The other half of the sentence is about their commander being declared a Hero of Ukraine, the highest honor an individual can receive from the Ukrainian government.

Much is made in the article of the presence of foreign fighters; a Russian propaganda point has been that these are mercenaries. They earn, according to the article, $526 a month. There is a lot of hand waving about how a segmented circle is obviously a Nazi symbol, and an attempt is made to show that another purported Nazi symbol is still in use based on a photo.

Almost all of the references are from 2014. The primary criteria for the sources seems to be that they contain the words neo-Nazi and Azov. Those are currently sourcing "is a neo-Nazi unit" with an article about an Australian neo-Nazi trying to travel to Serbia, who according to the Australian wanted to join the Azov Regiment. This may well be true, but the concern of the Australians wasn't that he would be radicalized, it was that they considered him dangerous and didn't think he needed to learn any additional combat skills in a tough fighting unit. I think there is an obvious due weight problem here, but hey, we're asking Elinruby (talk) 11:21, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Oh! I meant to get back to the battles. There is a list in the infobox. Some of them get a one-sentence mention. I can't find anything in the body of the article about the Battle of Ilovaisk, however, where the casualty rate was 25% and over which military heads rolled, which seems at least as notable as the political beliefs of the founder of an ancestor organization in 2014. Also it is probably worth mentioning that somebody opined that Ukrainian Wikipedia editors could not be trusted to be neutral.[16] Elinruby (talk) 11:36, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

You have to ensure that the quotes you provide support your position. For example, one quote says the former head of AZOV has "claimed" "to have advised the Azov movement to refrain from using symbols and ideas that could be linked to Nazism." Being quoted in a reliable source does not make his claim reliable. Basically, you are relying on the former head of Azov to describe them. And removal of Nazi symbols does not necessarily mean the abandonment of fascism. Lots of groups from the British National Party to the Sweden Democrats to the French National Front have done that.

Also the fact that only half of the membership once belonged to a fascist party, while the other half were soccer hooligans, is not evidence that the group is not far right. A lot of far right violence emanates from soccer hooliganism. The English Defense League for example developed out of the Luton Football Club. In any case, that is your conclusion, not what your quoted text says.

I don't know why you mention that Azov only has 1,000 members. That's another argument - that it's small enough to ignore.

TFD (talk) 01:41, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

They come up too much in Russian propaganda to ignore them. Also, the regiment has a pretty extensive military history, most recently the Siege of Mariupol and a 2022 Hero of Ukraine designation for their defense of that city.

But nod, as far as Neo-Nazi is concerned, you pretty much have the picture, except that there probably wasn't much of a 50-50. I think it was more like an organized group of soccer hooligans with neo-Nazi ideas that became a militia when the Ukrainian revolution overthrew the Russian-backed government in 2014. At least some of the members of that group were, as best I can tell, pretty definitely very right-wing, and maybe neo-Nazi. Pretty good sources say that the founder, Andriy Biletsky, was almost certainly somewhere on that spectrum. And there were definitely at least a few others. So he was the head of a right-wing militia, in a country under attack by the Russians, and the military was in a shambles, as the government had just been overthrown, so the militia was allowed to patrol and perform other duties.

At about this time Biletsky founded a right-wing party and was elected to the parliament. Under Ukrainian law he could not hold office while a member of any kind of military group, so he left the battalion. How genuinely ties were cut is in question, which is fine as long as it gets sourced as to whether they were or were not. But as you point out, the sourcing is terrible. See the Reliable Sources Noticeboard also, and the sections titled "US Congressman as an authority on Nazis" and "Police in Belarus as an authority on the Ukrainian military".

Meanwhile "separatists" in the east who definitely at least somewhat overlapped with the Russian military were attacking cities there, so the battalion fought in a number of battles there. All of these are just barely mentioned in the article, and one, where the casualty rate was 25%, seems to appear only in the infobox. This is the DUE weight I was talking about. I have been told in no uncertain terms that these battles are not important. Definitely much less important than saying neo-nazi.

In November 2014 the battalion became a regiment of the Ukrainian national guard. Another point that is in question is the extent to which the members of the regiment now overlap with the original group of soccer hooligans. My own position is that this extent is probably non-zero, but whatever we say about it should be well sourced.

This is where the handwaving and eye rolling come in. Attempts are made to prove that of course they are neo-Nazi, because look, here's a list of Google search results that contain the words "neo-Nazi" and "Azov", and look, here is a photo of a flag. I am neutral on the subject of whether a segmented circle is a Nazi symbol, but if it is, we should source that as an extraordinary claim. More than half the article is devoted to showing six degrees of neo-nazism, all sourced to articles saying that the Christchurch shooter admired the unit, and supposedly they put pig fat on their bullets.

Biletsky also founded a couple of non-profits, I believe. The article doesn't really cover those except to claim in the lede that they and the regiment are one and the same organization as the former battalion. My point is that the truth is the truth and the truth is neutral, so if really this is some massive conspiracy to put pig fat on bullets then we should be able to find sources for these statements, and they should be good ones given what the article is saying. The process seems however to have been instead to find sources for statements that were already perceived as obviously true. Elinruby (talk) 06:50, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

The Azov Battalion article may be the tip of the spear of contentiousness on Wikipedia right now. It's a contentious topic, within the contentious topic area of eastern Europe and the Balkans, which is under ArbCom discretionary sanctions (WP:ARBEE). There has been one acrimonious Rfc last year on this topic, and another is underway. So, that's the background for this.

Based on what I'm reading, there has been an evolution from a group led by a neonazi leader, and heavily influenced by neo-nazism in the early days, to one that still has neonazi members but with considerably less influence than before, and whose primary goal has shifted. Editors with opposing views at the article appear to rely on reports that tend to be snapshots in time at either end, early (neonazi), or late (less so), supported by WP:CHERRYPICKED sources telling very different stories from their earlier history and their later history, whereas a neutral presentation can only come from an approach that reflects both, and the evolution between them.

There is a group of editors on one side relying on sources exclusively or mostly from the early period of Azov's existence, which accurately report the clearly neonazi nature of the leadership, ideology, and membership at that time. This group argues for saying things like, "Azov Batallion is a neonazi unit..." in the present tense. There are plenty of sources that use that wording. There is a group of editors on the other side relying on more recent events, especially the 2022 invasion of Ukraine including reports of the highly effective nature of Azov's defense of Ukraine against Russia, the recruitment of members from all political background, and the considerably decreased influence of far-right ideology and neonazis who still belong to the battalion. There are plenty of sources for this as well. Both stories are true, but neither snapshot alone is adequate to neutrally cover this topic, and this is the big failing of this article currently, in my opinion. Only a narrative which covers both, and ideally shows the evolution between them, can be neutral.

Selfstudier has the right approach. It's a bit tricky in this case, because of how online search works. If you search Google books (which I haven't done yet) I suspect that will be somewhat biased towards the earlier period, including the 2014 Donbas War, simply because it takes time to research and write a book. Searches on the web will probably appear to stress the neonazi element less, simply because there will be articles spread over the whole period, including the current war. (These are my assumptions, which I haven't tested.) So, while I think this is the right approach, there are some pitfalls lurking, and care should be taken in carrying it out, trying a variety of queries in books, scholarly journals, general web search, news, and more to get a feel of the overall picture and whether there is a consensus that there has been change since their origins, so a neutral picture of the Azov Battalion can be presented. Mathglot (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I think @Mathglot hit the nose on the head here wrt different groups becoming entrenched and selectively cherry-picking sources. Perhaps the best way forward would be to draw up all the sources, with clear notation of their timing, and then note which say "neonazi" and which do not. And which say "formerly" or "with neonazi elements" or "with some neonazi members." Similar to what we have over at Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory/Sources. And then write an RFC based exclusively on that source review. What we have now is a lot more haphazard. I think the current RFC as it stands is probably fine, but I also acknowledge that contentious RFCs like this need to be pretty much perfect if we want their consensus to stick... So I would support closing it as malformed and starting over from a purely source-based perspective. To be clear, there will always be someone who disputes the RFC no matter what, but at least we could make it more solid from an unbiased uninvolved user perspective. I will get started on that source review over at Talk:Azov Battalion/Sources but I will very likely be unable to finish it! Any help is much appreciated. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:16, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Mathglot, for carefully deliberating on both Enlightenment and Elinruby's points which so far have been stonewalled. --Nishidani (talk) 20:10, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, my nose still hurts, but if it helps get us to a more neutral article, it was worth it. Mathglot (talk) 20:19, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I would just like to add that my DUE WEIGHT concerns have absolutely nothing to do with the current RfC and the current hyperfocus on whether the lede should say “is neonazi”, or the editor behavior that has accompanied it. It is however a good example — the lede should say “is neonazi” if that is what the sources show, right? The lede is supposed to reflect the body, and the body needs a massive re-write for NPOV. How is the Siege of Mariupol somehow not worthy of mention when many paragraphs of printer ink are spilled over a 2010 quote from the founder, whose accuracy he denies? (“of course he denies it!”). I cannot vote in the current RfC because i think we should follow Wikipedia policy rather than voting to validate the articles’ preconceptions. As for ANI, don’t get me started. I was reported for telling people to read the reliable sources policy, and I see it is now EN’s turn. I still think this article should reflect Wikipedia policy even if I get reported over there all over again Elinruby (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Personally I would avoid using terms such as neo-Nazi and neo-fascist except in the most obvious cases. The American Nazi Party for example should be called neo-Nazi. Otherwise the term far right, which includes neo-Nazis, neo-fascists, Klansmen and similar groups is preferable. My problem is that if we call Azov neo-Nazi, what do we call the American Nazi Party? That's something though that should be decided on a global basis.

There are parallels with Golden Dawn (Greece). It too was founded by hooligans, uses Nazi symbols that it pretends are indigenous symbols and honors Nazi collaborators. While it is frequently called neo-Nazi, the article does not call them that but says they have been called that.

TFD (talk) 01:13, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Alternative interpretations of "The Consolation of Philosophy"

I raised a point with William Heise about how much attention should be given to non-mainstream, alternative interpretations of the The Consolation of Philosophy here. I thought it might be fruitful to bring this discussion here so that more folks can chime in. At almost 1/2 of the article's size, I worry that the current text focusing on Relihan's ideas gives far too much weigh to a non-mainstream interpretation (albeit one that I do think deserves a mention). In the talk page, William Heise has brought up some points about truth vs. verifiability. Are there any additional thoughts here about the arguments being raised? Is the idea of branching off the section into a new "Interpretations of the Consolation of Philosophy" article workable?--Gen. Quon_[Talk]^{(I'm studying Wikipedia!)} 14:11, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Big Pharma conspiracy theory

This article appears to be more advocacy than information. It's main source is "The Big Pharma conspiracy theory", Robert Blaskiewicz, European Medical Writers Association. It's a three page article by a Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The association is made up mostly of medical writers who work for the pharmaceutical industry. While the paper correctly points out that some criticisms of the industry are conspiracism, it implies that most if not all criticism is conspiracism.

The Wikipedia article then talks about various conspiracy theories that involve pharmaceutical companies even though the sources don't call them Big Pharma conspiracy theories.

Also, while the main source is about a conspiracy theory (singular), the Wikipedia article defines the Big Pharma conspiracy theory as "a group of conspiracy theories." This allows it to include conspiracy theories that the sources do not describe as the Big Pharma conspiracy theory.

The criteria for inclusion seems overly broad. It is any claim that a pharmaceutical company has acted against the public good in the interests of profits. But according to then U.S. attorneys, Purdue Pharma "admitted that it marketed and sold its dangerous opioid products to healthcare providers, even though it had reason to believe those providers were diverting them to abusers."[17] They plead guilty to fraud, which is a financially motivated crime.

The Wikipedia article seems to be more about advocacy than enlightenment.

TFD (talk) 13:10, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

The EMWA "has over 800 members from 27 countries, and includes academics and professionals working in-house or freelance for pharmaceutical and medical communications companies, research institutes and in the field of scientific journalism". It would seem your associating that they mostly "work for the pharmaceutical industry" is a ... Big Pharma conspiracy theory! There's plenty of sourcing on this, so an article is appropriate. Maybe it should be called Big Pharma conspiracy theories? Alexbrn (talk) 13:49, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

• This was already being discussed at WP:FTN#Big Pharma conspiracy theory as well as at the article Talk page. Probably better to comment in one of those venues rather than adding a third. Alexbrn (talk) 13:53, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article I linked to says the EMWA was established "as a professional organisation for European medical writers, whether working freelance or in-house at pharmaceutical companies or medical communications companies." "About the Medical Writing Journal" says, "Most members of EMWA work in the pharmaceutical, medical communications, or biomedical publications industries."

Your cavalier approach to accusing other people of conspiracism, which is a personal attack, shows that you don't understand what the term means and instead use it as a weapon. Paraphrasing Richard Hofstader, Blaskiewicz wrote, "This agent [the subject of a conspiracy theory] is, as are all antagonists in conspiratorial narratives, improbably powerful, competent, and craven." A suggestion that a publication may take an interest in conspiracy theories targeting the pharmaceutical industry because many of its members work in that industry does not reach that bar. As someone interested in medicine, you should be aware of standards of evidence and proof.

The relevance of the orientation of the publication is not reliability but weight. A topic that merits a three page article in this publication may not receive the same degree of in-depth extensive coverage in other publications.

Incidentally, the reason for noticeboards is to bring in discussion from outside editors. If discussions were restricted to article talk pages, there would be no need for noticeboards.

TFD (talk) 14:49, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Incidentally, I was unaware of the discussion at FTN which apparently you, another editor of the article and a third editor were the only contributors. When you post to a noticeboard, you are supposed to inform other editors using the article talk page. TFD (talk) 15:03, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Repeating a conspiracy theory doesn't make it true. According to the Big Pharma conspiracy theory the entire medical community is involved in it. So yes, by that, all our expert sources are part of the conspiracy. That is your argument, that Blaskiewicz has a concealed conflict of interest. But since you're also trying to attack him for being from an English professor (an excellent qualification for dealing with fiction, as it happens) then it doesn't add up. If he's from outside the medical community, how can he be also be a part of it? More generally, we don't reject reliable sources (peer-reviewed journal articles) just because a Wikipedia editor is engaged in fantasies about their provenance. (Oh, and you're wrong about FTN: there's no need to publicize a post to it.) Alexbrn (talk) 16:30, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

• The Big Pharma conspiracy theory is a group of conspiracy theories that claim [...] pharmaceutical companies, especially large corporations, operate for sinister purposes and against the public good. What a ridiculous article. It appears that the United States Department of Justice is one of the most prominent proponents of such a conspiracy theory: List of largest pharmaceutical settlements. Endwise (talk) 15:14, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
• This is clearly WP:FORUMSHOP OP hasn't been getting their way at the article talk page, and instead of continuing the discussion there, they've opened a new one here. As for "sources" and "neutrality" issues, OP has been presented with plenty of sources on the article talk page - that they keep dismissing them is their own problem. Similarly, they have been asked to clearly say what specific issues (instead of vague "this articles reads like advocacy") there are. Again, very much muted on that point. This is a classic WP:ONEAGAINSTMANY, and editors interested in the issue should go discuss it on the article talk page instead of needlessly and borderline tendentiously splitting it off here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:49, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think advertising the discussion here is tendentious or amounts to forum shopping. It got no new attention at FTN, and it appears the people in the discussion weren't notified about it, so the participants (or TFD at least) didn't know it existed. Advertising discussions at appropriate noticeboards to get the attention of additional editors is a good thing. Regarding WP:FORUMSHOP, this is the only noticeboard TFD has raised this issue at, so unless I'm reading that policy wrong isn't this essentially by definition not forum shopping? Endwise (talk) 16:21, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

  Raising essentially the same issue on multiple noticeboards and talk pages, or to multiple administrators or reviewers, or any one of these repetitively, is unhelpful to finding and achieving consensus. There was a discussion ongoing about exactly the same issue on the article talk page. The recommendation, if one wants the attention of additional editors, is to post a sweet and short neutral notice about it, not restart the whole discussion. Splitting the discussion between multiple venues by started fully-fledged sections on different pages is not "a short neutral notice", nor does it help reach a consensus, as now editors have to track multiple posts on different pages (some of which may be by editors unaware of issues already discussed on the other page, or who simply haven't bothered to look because instead of having one big discussion to wade through there are two...) and an overall waste of everyone's time and effort. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:56, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

  Emphasis on the "short", when it comes to soliciting outside editors. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 17:22, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

  I mean, you say that... I raised an issue/advertised a discussion here with a one word sentence a few sections up: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#"Genocide_denial"_and_Uyghurs. It ended up inviting more discussion here than at the talk page of the relevant article, so I'm a bit skeptical what difference brevity makes in practice. Endwise (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed. The pot-stirring I'm seeing from TFD here is really something better left for behavior boards like AE (pseudoscience DS in this case). It's reminiscent of what happened in GMO topics years ago where they were involved too, so if tendentious behavior continues to be an issue, it might be time to revisit sanctions. FTN was already the correct venue for this, and looking for the talk page of the article, this definitely was not a neutral posting here, but rather disruptive forum shopping.

That misconduct can occur in pharmaceutical research and that people will often invoke related conspiracy theories does not mean that only one of the concepts can exist. Especially for us science editors, we see people who have trouble with this concept frequently, especially in terms of WP:ADVOCACY. KoA (talk) 21:33, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Please read the wording at the top of this page: "Before you post to this page, you should already have tried to resolve the dispute on the article's talk page. Include a link here to that discussion." I discussed this topic on the talk page then brought it here for wider attention. In fact I did not set up the discussion page on the article talk page so this is the only discussion thread I have set up. WP:FORUMSHOP is "Raising essentially the same issue on multiple noticeboards and talk pages." TFD (talk) 23:13, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Elon Musk

In the elon musk subreddit the relevant Wikipedia page has been called out for being negative and a particular user keeping it that way, could someone take a look? https://www.reddit.com/r/elonmusk/comments/u69f22/elon_musks_wikipedia_page_is_seriously_biased

Back ache (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

This is not the first time. There is a good reason why the article is semi-protected long-term.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:44, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Libs of TikTok

Both User:Gamezero05 and All cats are british have said the page Libs of TikTok is biased towards the left. Both users have resorted to whitewashing the article through removal of content [18]. I am open to new ideas on how to improve the article, but removing information is not helpful. X-Editor (talk) 22:57, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The only information I have removed was blatantly biased content or irrelevant content. I have not "whitewashed" anything.  Gamezero05  talk  22:59, 19 April 2022 (UTC)