Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 47

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Please add Template:Attribution needed to the list of templates

Please add Template:Attribution needed to the list of templates in this policy. It's more useful than {{ASF}} (which merely expresses uncertainty whether something is POV or fact) in the case where you know something is POV because an opposing or different POV exists (in other sources), but the references for the "wiki fact" are so nebulous (by WP:SYNT and/or WP:BOMBARDMENT/WP:CITEKILL) that it's unclear who supports the POV presented as fact. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 06:10, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Not done: It already appears to be there - if anything, the page is better to then link to the template, as it helps editors. Mdann52 (talk) 12:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Done Mdann52 (talk) 12:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Due and undue weight - suggested reorganisation

Most of WP:WEIGHT explains how to deal with differing viewpoints in an article – of the "Earth is round" vs. "Earth is flat" type – with one of its objectives being the resolution of disputes between editors who hold different opinions.

But the 4th paragraph: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject ..." (my italics) covers a different, broader issue, namely that even if there are no differing viewpoints of the round vs. flat type, we must still give appropriate weight to each aspect depending on its overall significance to the article topic. This is important because it provides a policy brake on those who would overbalance an article with masses of content about just one aspect.

In its current position, this paragraph is badly misplaced, wedged between paragraphs that deal with the differing viewpoints issue. I propose that the 4th paragraph should be moved either to the top or the bottom of the section, or else it should be made into its own sub-section (perhaps "Balancing aspects" WP:BALASPS) to give it the importance it deserves.  —SMALLJIM  17:34, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm a believer in silence implies assent, especially on a widely-watched page like this, so I'll add WP:BALASPS as described above to the policy page in a couple of days unless significant opposition surfaces.  —SMALLJIM  13:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

• Done. Still happy to discuss, of course.  —SMALLJIM  15:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia neutral point of view

There should be a proper discussion on Wikipedia regarding the neutral point of view.

Ownership of the media by special interest groups, and a "neutral point of view on Wikipedia" needs to be discussed.

Some elements want to delete information from Wikipedia, when it doesn't suit a specific political or other agenda.

All kinds of phony terms are used to try and discredit edits made by individuals with a different point of view.

What is a neutral point of view? Is it the Zionist point of view, or the Black Panther point of view, or the Arab point of view, or the Nazi point of view ?

Deleting information when it doesn't suit and agenda is a sign of weakness, as it doesn't allow for balance.

A neutral point of view should accommodate all points of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.215.11.46 (talk) 03:44, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you really think so? Should the article on Child include all points of view, including the point of view of pedophiles? Should the article on Earth include all points of view, including the Flat Earth point of view? WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Why not simply define the "neutral point of view" as "describing what is", avoiding any statement to "what should be" ?

The user of an encyclopedia looks there for knowledge and information; therefore avoiding any type of "forward-looking statements" is a first requirement for a neutral point of view. Statements "describing what is" can be tied to references, as a whitness for the truth of the described contents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.243.55.82 (talk • contribs) 13:18, 8 July 2013‎

A truly Neutral POV should not "accommodate" any particular point of view... it should be neutral. That said, we also have to ask how much weight to give various viewpoints... and that changes depending on what the topic of the article is. In an article on astronomy, it would not be appropriate to give much (if any) weight to the POV of the Flat Earth Society. In an article on Flat Earth, however, the viewpoint of the Flat Earth Society would appropriately be given a significant amount of weight. Blueboar (talk) 17:38, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

criticism and weight for another statement

As a general proposition, if a fact or claim (otherwise qualified to be reported) is weightless and therefore unreported but thereafter a criticism is reported as to which the fact or claim is relevant and counterbalancing of the criticism, could the fact or claim then possibly gain due weight? Nick Levinson (talk) 16:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

You should probably give us a clear example of what you are talking about, Nick... a LOT will depend on the specifics. Speaking purely in the abstract, I would think that a source that is directly critical of a claim would count as a "report" on the claim (but how much weight to give either the criticism or the original claim would depend on who was criticizing it and what they said). However, a source that criticizes some related fact is not a direct criticism... and I am very hesitant to say that it would go towards giving the original claim much weight. Indeed, who says that the criticized fact actually is related to the original claim?... we are bordering on WP:NOR territory if we are the ones making all the connections. Blueboar (talk) 17:21, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Change to explanation

• [1]:

The current text states that all points of view are included. Notable and verifiable points of view, are sometimes not included in an article due to a lack of weight. The current text is out of step with the rest of NPOV, e.g "Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all". To show some concrete examples, Randell L. Mills has a notable and verifiable opinion on the Schrödinger equation (i.e the article exists because the viewpoint espoused by his company has received significant coverage that satisfies WP:GNG, WP:FRINGE#Notability), but we would not include it since it lacks weight to be mentioned.

My proposed change is to highlight that verifiable does not mean instant inclusion. It also removes the word notable, which has nothing to do with whether we give weight to something or not; something being notable or not does not mean it needs to be mentioned in another article, hence WP:WEIGHT does not mention notability. Another example, Deepak Chopra is notable, and has made many verifiable statements invoking quantum mechanics, but material from him would lack weight in the QM article. Including, in an article, "all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight", is what we aim for and is consistent with WP:WEIGHT, so that should be emphasised instead. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:28, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

• I see the discussion has now moved on, specifically to the use of the word necessarily: [2]. I think the text should make it clear that this does not mean that all points of view are necessarily included, rather it is dependent on the due weight. This is already current policy as shown later in the text, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:28, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • NPOV as you envision it risks being used to squelch minority viewpoints, when it is actually supposed to include them. The trend to say "only notable viewpoints" is actually anti-NPOV, in that it is used to minimize or exclude contrarian viewpoints. NPOV doesn't mean we give everything equal weight, but nor does it give anyone a license to exclude a verifiable viewpoint, rather it obligates us to put it in context. Jclemens (talk) 05:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

What I removed was any mention of notable with regard to viewpoints, so this does not reflect my position. Contrarian viewpoints are not included in mainstream topics unless there are "independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way" (WP:FRINGE), i.e we do not give contrarian viewpoints more weight than the reliable sources give them. That is why I say we do not necessarily include them. This is nothing new, this is current practice. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:42, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if this affects the outcome, but the Mills example seems to equate to WP:FRINGE pretty much. I would not care to see much research from him in Wikipedia. I would hope the final wording would help npov editors to exclude his work. Student7 (talk) 16:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Question on NPOV/FAQ

I've had a question here (Wikipedia_talk:NPOV/FAQ) for two months and thought I'd bring attention to it here. It seems important so a reply at that talk page would be helpful. Thanks. User:Carolmooredc 13:39, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Example scenario

Let's say a book is written by a conservative Muslim who writes a couple of pages about the Baha'i faith. Can that Muslim make an impartial judgement considering conservative Islam widely considers itself to be a final revelation, and any subsequent religions as false/man-made? Would a book written by such a Muslim be considered neutral? Pass a Method talk 15:21, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

We seem to be now missing context here, but I was amazed that the 1913 Edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia could have this material relating to the LDS Church that an LDS member would not object to. We are often dependent on biased sources. Sometimes we have to filter out the bias. And nearly all lengthy sources have some bias, regardless of supposed WP:RS. That, too, needs to be omitted. Student7 (talk) 17:18, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Sources are not required to be neutral. Only Wikipedia editors are. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

scientific community : pseudoscience :: mainstream experts in a field : fringe theories of a field

This analogy seems to be implicit rather than explicit throughout. I have no issue with the policy itself, only the way it is communicated. For example with regard to fringe history like Gavin Menzies, I would cite WP:PSCI in saying that mainstream criticism should be prominent. I would like to provide a short, direct quote from policy to proponents of such a fringe theory, but the best I can do is give the quote "The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such" and then add "oh and by pseudoscience they really mean fringe theores". And if I quote "it should not obfuscate the description of the mainstream views of the scientific community" then I need to tack on "oh and by scientific community they really mean mainstream experts in the field". Some clarity could be gained by mentioning the analogy directly, or by rewording, or by some other means. vzaak (talk) 00:39, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Just a comment

If a neutral point of view for an article requires most intelligent thoughtful people to roughly believe that the article does not strongly favor/suggest a subjective opinion... then a neutral point of view is impossible for many articles. Otherwise society wouldn't have needed so many newspapers to report the same incidents. 135.0.167.2 (talk) 04:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

The first part of the sentence can be answered for some articles. We can subjectively state that the "country is having economic problems of x level." But we can objectively state that a country had y employment rates or z Domestic Products at two different times. Readers may then may draw their own conclusions. That is npov with WP:RS.

This is more difficult for political or religious povs. For political, we can state that State A has this statute, State B has some other statute. Or quote reliable polls.

Religious issues are tougher and do often require the statement of several different positions on the same topic. It is npov because Wikipedia hasn't selected "the truth" for anyone. All opinions, unless truly WP:FRINGE are given, with WP:RS.

Competing newspapers are great. I am conservative. I always look for a liberal newspaper for an article (where applicable) to support my pov. If I can't find one, my pov is in question! I would think liberals would try to find a quote in the WSJ or Fox. How better to be npov? Student7 (talk) 20:57, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Paid editors with ability to write from NPOV

Is it possible for a paid editor (note, not a paid advocacy editor) to write from a neutral point of view? In other words, if a paying client asked for a neutral article to be written about itself, would the editor who accepted that contract be admonished if the article was, in the opinion of most, written from a neutral point of view? (E.g., see Silgan Holdings.) -- I'm not that crazy (talk)

Yes, it is possible. Rare... but possible.

See WP:Conflict of interest for more. Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Are you asking about:

• your very broad opening question? (my answer would be yes, and that it's very common)
• or the specific example you gave? (my answer on that would be the same as Blueboar's - possible but rare)

North8000 (talk) 15:51, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Articles on minority groups which don't include the perspectives of these groups?

I can't see any useful guidance on articles on minority groups, except for minority religious groups. I am not sure, in specific, how to deal with this in the article on autism, which has little or nothing from the voices of autistic people, and is mostly from the voice of medical specialists. Ananiujitha (talk) 18:18, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I wonder whether "useful guidance" could or should be anything more that to edit thoughtfully and wisely. The autism article tells us up front it is about a disorder (rather than a group of people), but I do think it should have more to say about the actual people involved. Asperger syndrome, which also says it is about a disorder, copes better by having a section Society and culture and it refers to Autism rights movement which presents a way in which some autistic people speak for themselves. Of course, for those who cannot or do not engage with other people, any voice they do have will not be heard. Thincat (talk) 13:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree -- and your last sentence is unintentionally a good example of why it's a problem.  :) Autistics & non-autistics have very different non-verbal communication, and because they're used to being around their own kind, most non-autistics believe that if they can't see meaning in someone's actions/sounds/etc. it must be meaningless/non-communicative; as a result, an autistic that doesn't speak or type normally is assumed to "not communicate" or "not interact." Autistics have been trying to correct that misunderstanding for at least 12 years, but with all of the official sites repeating the old assumptions about us & research dominated by strongly anti-autistic groups, few non-auties ever know.

(FWIW I was diagnosed autistic as a temporarily-nonverbal little kid in the 70s & reconfirmed as an adult; a close friend plus my parents & stepmother are all on the spectrum and natively use the same nonverbal communication I do.) —xyzzymage 11:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't personally know any Bantus, but I could probably write an npov article about them, even though they may have no "voice" in my sources. There are plenty of WP:RS around. Most of Wikipedia articles are about places, events, animals, etc. none of which have any "voice" anyway. Sure, if there is a WP:RS written by a victim of condition X, fine. Let's use it. If not, there are plenty of others.

Wikipedia is not Politically correct. It is not not an advocacy group. We are not trying to "help" (or "hurt" either) people with condition X. We are just reporting RS. Wherever they come from. Student7 (talk) 21:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

@ xyzzymage, if what you describe is accurate, I would think it near-certain that coverage of the correct info exists in a few quality wp:ReliableSources somewhere. Although the process breaks down on contentions articles (where the only standard is the unusable wp:weight one of predominance in coverage) I think that on an article like this the editors are likely to go along with putting that information in based on those sources. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:16, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

It's often offensive to describe autistic people as "people with autism," and/or "victims." It's taking an important part of who people are, and setting it against the rest. Imagine if we were referring to extroverted people as "victims." Or men as "people with maleness."

Also, the article is governed by different rs rules, which make it harder to include autistic people's voices. I think the tighter rs rules might make sense in a "medical aspects of autism" article, but not in a general article.

Finally, complaints about "political correctness" almost always seem to be complaints about asking the same respect for marginalized groups that society already grants to dominant groups. Without which npov is meaningless. Ananiujitha (talk) 01:14, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

(added later). Not really. Right or wrong PC is a claim of excessive deference/sensitivity, more than that given to the majority group. North8000 (talk) 17:31, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Something to consider... Giving respect to marginalized groups is all well and good... but respect does not necessarily mean giving them an equal voice. In fact, Wikipedia policy is to not give marginal groups an equal voice, as doing so gives them Undue Weight. Blueboar (talk) 17:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

How is it undue weight to give minorities a voice in articles about the same minorities? It would seem to be the definition of due weight. How can we have respect or neutrality without that? Ananiujitha (talk) 17:29, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia covers what sources say, not what its editors say. Of course, editors have discretion within that framework. I think that to take this any farther in a useful manner, you would need to be more specific on what you propose or what you see as a problem, with that framework in mind. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:02, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

How to reconcile NPOV with inaccurate widely held positions?

In February 2012, National Public Radio revised its ethics handbook instructing journalists to avoid presenting "both sides of the story" (i.e., "he-said-she-said" journalism, or the view from nowhere) when doing so conflicts with the ability to convey accurate information. In many of our articles, political opinions which are grounded more in the need to distinguish a party from its opponents are presented as just as valid as the opposing view, even when they are demonstrably less accurate or demonstrably grounded in incorrect assumptions. How do editors properly handle such situations? EllenCT (talk) 07:33, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

According to the undue weight section of this policy, it is handled by giving weight to viewpoints according to how much attention those viewpoints receive from reliable sources. If all of the reliable sources follow a "he said / she said" format, then it is likely the Wikipedia article will as well. Editors can always use their discretion to omit ridiculous viewpoints. Perhaps you could give an example of what you mean, so I could better understand your concern. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:15, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Or to put it another way, presenting the various opinions on an issue does not mean we have to treat them as being equally valid. Our article on the moon landing may briefly mention the fact that some conspiracy theorists think the landing was all a hoax... but we don't give that conspiracy viewpoint much weight, or present that viewpoint as being "just as valid" as the view that men actually landed on the moon. Blueboar (talk) 16:52, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The moon-landing-hoax example is too easy, though, because we don't have many (if any) editors obsessed with advocating it. Let's try a trickier case. During the 2012 Presidential primaries, all of the major Republican candidates either expressed doubt in the reality of climate change or called it an out-and-out hoax or fraud. The political position of the party on this issue, as expressed by its Presidential candidates, is inconsistent with the current scientific understanding of reality. How do we neutrally cover a political position which is at odds with objective reality? MastCell ^Talk 18:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a little fuzzier because it's actually a lot of different questions. North8000 (talk) 18:26, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, yeah. I did say it's a tricky one. But it seems like a much more concrete example of the challenge posed by the original poster. MastCell ^Talk 18:41, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of examples of "inaccurate widely held position", sometimes called Conventional wisdom. We can easily describe such "wisdom" without giving it undue credibility or veracity, per WP:TRUTH, simply by the appropriate and sympathetic use of attribution, adjectives and sources. --Iantresman (talk) 22:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

And... how much space we devote to describing such "wisdom" will change, depending on the specific article we are talking about. The veiws of politicians probably would merit much if any space in the main Climate change article (nor would I give them much space in the companion Climate change denial article), but the views of politicians would appropriately get a lot of article space in an article on Climate change as a political issue. Blueboar (talk) 15:51, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Clarity

The first sentence is insufficiently clear in its meaning; this can be seen from the recent attempts to change individual words in it, such as "far"/"fair". Therefore I have revised it. Ideally it ought to be two short sentences rather than one long one; but I feel my version is significantly clearer. Harfarhs (talk) 19:51, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't agree. I think it's important to include the provisos right up there at the top of the sentence. The only change I think would improve it is to remove "as far as possible" from the bias clause, so it would read:

Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately and without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.

That's the ideal we should be aiming for, so why not say so?  —SMALLJIM  20:29, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that Harfarhs brought this matter to my talk page because I'm the one who reverted him twice; hopefully, by your or others' objections to his change, he will see why it is important to discuss such matters on the policy page first. Flyer22 (talk) 20:38, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Harafarh's version is "significantly" clearer than Flyer's... (They both seem to say exactly the same thing, and so I could live with either). That said, of the three suggested wordings, I prefer the one that Smalljim has just proposed. Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I assumed that there would have been a great deal of discussion about the addition of the phrase "as far as possible" into the policy, but I think I've traced it back to this edit by an IP in Oct 2007. No discussion at all, apparently. I propose that we remove it since it clogs up the meaning of the sentence to no real purpose and it is so subjective as to be useless.  —SMALLJIM  17:31, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

re. Catholic or Protestant or secular names for New Testament figures

In my view this is a WP:NPOV and WP:IRS issue first and WP:HONORIFIC second, but anyway, please see comment on opposition to MOS:SAINTS and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (clergy). Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:11, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

What if a reliable source is wrong?

I have seen this a number of times on Wikipedia. Sources can be wrong. Even reliable sources, that are generally great, can have mistakes. Writing can be sloppy. To err is human. The issue I have is that when a reliable source contradicts every other source on the subject and even other Wikipedia articles. It seems that the tendency on Wikipedia is to include the incorrect information anyway juxtaposed against the correct information. This is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around. It seems to me that mistakes would make a reliable source somewhat less reliable, right? Especially if their point of view is in the minority. AuburnMagnolia (talk) 05:39, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes... even highly reliable sources can contain factual errors. And if you suspect that a reliable source does contain an error... it is perfectly acceptable to rely on what other sources say instead.

The caveat to this is that (in order to maintain a neutral POV) we should at least consider the possibility that the "error" is not an error at all... but a deliberate disagreement with other sources. In which case, look into why the stand out source says something different, and give it due weight. Blueboar (talk) 16:29, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Reliable sources have a process for correcting their mistakes. That's part of what makes them reliable. If a reputable news outlet is wrong about something, then the correct course of action is to contact them to request a correction. Likewise with reputable academic publishers. It's not so much that reliable sources never make mistakes; it's that they care enough about accuracy to correct them. MastCell ^Talk 19:29, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

It depends on how many reliable sources there are. If it is a topic on which there are only a few experts, and this is one of the experts saying the "wrong" thing, then it would count as a significant minority view, and would be included. If it is a topic for which there are hundreds of experts, and there is only one source saying this "wrong" thing, then it would just be a fringe view and would generally not be mentioned unless it was notable for some other reason. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:16, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Also: Some users disagree and think a view can still be non-fringe even if the vast majority—or even all—of the reliable sources disagree with it. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:35, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

On that last point... Yup... that does happen... and I have also seen users dismissively label anything they personally disagree with as "Fringe"... even when it isn't. We get all kinds here on WP. Blueboar (talk) 22:42, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Reliable & Neutral sources for Wikipedia articles = Zionist sources

Course: Zionist Editing on Wikipedia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52LB2fYhoY

Wikipedia editing courses launched by Zionist groups. Two Israeli groups set up training courses in Wikipedia editing with aims to 'show the other side' over borders and culture.

Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet.

Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in "Zionist editing" for Wikipedia, the online reference site.

Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My I srael) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.

"We don't want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm," says Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council. "We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day."

Wikipedia is one of the world's most popular websites, and its 16m entries are open for anyone to edit, rewrite or even erase. The problem, according to Ayelet Shaked of Israel Sheli, is that online, pro-Israeli activists are vastly outnumbered by pro-Palestinian voices. "We don't want to give this arena to the other side," she said. "But we are so few and they are so many. People in the US and Europe never hear about Israel's side, with all the correct arguments and explanations."

Like others involved with this project, Shaked thinks that her government is "not doing a very good job" of explaining Israel to the world.

And on Wikipedia, they believe that there is much work to do.

Take the page on Israel, for a start: "The map of Israel is portrayed without the Golan heights or Judea and Samaria," said Bennett, referring to the annexed Syrian territory and the West Bank area occupied by Israel in 1967.

Another point of contention is the reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – a status that is constantly altered on Wikipedia.

Other pages subject to constant re-editing include one titled Goods allowed/banned for import into Gaza – which is now being considered for deletion – and a page on the Palestinian territories.

Then there is the problem of what to call certain neighbourhoods. "Is Ariel a city or a settlement?" asks Shaked of the area currently described by Wikipedia as "an Israeli settlement and a city in the central West Bank." That question is the subject of several thousand words of heated debate on a Wikipedia discussion thread.

The idea, says Shaked and her colleauges, is not to storm in, cause havoc and get booted out – the Wikipedia editing community is sensitive, consensus-based and it takes time to build trust.

"We learned what not to do: don't jump into deep waters immediately, don't be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned," says Yisrael Medad, one of the course participants, from Shiloh.

Is that Shiloh in the occupied West Bank? "No," he sighs, patiently. "That's Shiloh in the Binyamin region across the Green Line, or in territories described as disputed."

One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn't want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. "Going public in the past has had a bad effect," she says. "There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground."

In 2008, members of the hawkish pro-Israel watchdog Camera who secretly planned to edit Wikipedia were banned from the site by administrators.

Meanwhile, Yesha is building an information taskforce to engage with new media, by posting to sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and claims to have 12,000 active members, with up to 100 more signing up each month. "It turns out there is quite a thirst for this activity," says Bennett. "The Israeli public is frustrated with the way it is portrayed abroad."

The organisiers of the Wikipedia courses, are already planning a competition to find the "Best Zionist editor", with a prize of a hot-air balloon trip over Israel.

Wikipedia wars

There are frequent flare-ups between competing volunteer editors and obsessives who run Wikipedia. As well as conflicts over editing bias and "astroturfing" PR attempts, articles are occasionally edited to catch out journalists; the Independent recently erroneously published that the Big Chill had started life as the Wanky Balls festival. In 2005 the founding editorial director of USA Today, John Seigenthaler, discovered his Wikipedia entry included the claim that he was involved in the assassination of JFK.

Editors can remain anonymous when changing content, but conflicts are passed to Wikipedia's arbitration committee. Scientology was a regular source of conflict until the committee blocked editing by the movement.

Critics cite the editing problems as proof of a flawed site that can be edited by almost anybody, but its defenders claim the issues are tiny compared with its scale. Wikipedia now has versions in 271 languages and 379 million users a month.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-editing-zionist-groups — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.215.131.143 (talk) 14:59, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Images and UNDUE weight

They say that "A picture is worth a thousand words". Adding images is a very effective way to highlight information that is presented in the article. Which, of course, means that adding an image to illustrate a particular viewpoint can give extra (and perhaps UNDUE) weight to that viewpoint. Should we include a caution about this? Blueboar (talk) 14:47, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Since nobody answered so far, it looks like it is not a pressing problem. Anyway, I am lazy, so I am asking: do we have a policy about use/misuse of images? Wikipedia:Image use policy 95% deals with copyrights and such.

In your case I'd suggest to consider whether the image itself is a fair depiction of something, rather than a distortion of a neutral view (Margaret Thatcher without dentures (hardly an image of Iron Lady), a drunkard in a puddle in the article "Russian people", etc.) or self-made images with significant distortions and omissions. In the latter case we could have had captions which specifically describe distortions/omissions, but this would constitute original research, unless we put a more momplete/correct image side-by-side.

And there are much more issues to consider. So let me repeat what I started with: is it really a pressing problem? Staszek Lem (talk) 21:20, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Bigfoot researchers scour pictures like this in order to find the bigfoot that is lurking behind the trees.

I brought it up over at WT:OR where I thought (and still think) it belonged. I have seen this flare up from time to time at various pages, the last place it happened being at Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. It would be nice to be able to refer to a policy that said we need to be neutral and follow reliable sources in our choice of images and illustrations. That's not to say that we can only use images and illustrations as they appear in such sources, but if on Bigfoot someone starts to include images of forests like the one posted, well, there's your problem right there. Do we just scare them off or do we have a rationale to point to? jps (talk) 23:49, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I've seen problems with images, too. Graph of the declining economy for the current governor of Puerto Rico, with POV-editors from the major political factions... and a similar battle about a graph of taxation-levels in the united states, a couple months ago, with Occupy-types battling Tea-Party-types for which graph was the "real" summary. There was also some kind of LGBT imagefile that caused a ruckus, which ended up on two noticeboards plus User_talk:Jimbo if memory serves. So I can confirm the problem exists in the wild. And I have no solutions to suggest.  :-)   A mitigating factor is that the battles over image-files *do* seem to be shorter than the battles over prose. (Well... except for the constant battle between the copyright-cops and the must-upload-this-awesome-image-I-just-found-on-the-web folks. *That* battle never seems to end.) Battles over sources are the worst, battles over the prose are the second-worst, battles over the article-title seem to be a bit more damaging than images... but battles over images *do* exist, and are harmful.  :-)   HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 11:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Biased sources

I've boldly removed a section of text which I believe incorrectly represents best practices ([3]). The text in question forbade the removal of "biased" sources, instead instructing editors to "balance" the biased material with other sources. I think this instruction is faulty.

Neutrality isn't achieved by piling up biased sources and "balancing" them into a leaning-tower-of-Pisa. I think most editors with experience in writing neutral articles on controversial topics realize that, and ArbCom has explicitly stated as much: "Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarised sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view." Our policies should not give people advice which is directly counter to best practices (and to ArbCom's interpretation of policy).

Actual NPOV writing on controversial topics begins with identifying the best possible sources and following where they lead. In many cases, this approach necessitates removing biased or polarized sources and replacing them with higher-quality, independent sources. Our policy should reflect best practice. MastCell ^Talk 20:18, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you have confused (A) an editor's belief that wikipedia article text is biased with (B) biased sources. You seem to have read the offending text as being mainly about "B", but I think the text has "A" in mind. In other words suppose there were text that said "This is my personal bullshit (citing the Archangel Neutralimo). Everyone has their own take on the angel's writings, and we should try to write about those writings in a neutral way. If you see me drafting personal bullshit article text based on the angel's writings, please don't remove the section, just revise my article text so it more faithfully represents the angels' views. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

PS And I think the wonderful goal you are shooting for involves WP:UNDUE and WP:WEIGHT issues too. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Mastcell made a statement at Arbcom (telling me that I had policy wrong) which conflicted with this section of the policy. They removed the portion of the policy 20 minutes before making their statement. North8000 (talk) 21:35, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I sympathize with what MastCell's concern, but almost every source is biased... even the most reliable ones. Blueboar (talk) 00:15, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy, the policy snippet specifically refers to "biased material" (emphasis mine)—that is, biased sources. I don't think this has to do with editorial perceptions; I read it as specifically suggesting that biased or polarizing sources be left in the article and somehow "balanced" with other polarized sources. Blueboar, while I agree that on some metaphysical level bias is endemic, on a practical level it is typically straightforward to identify high-quality non-partisan sources and differentiate them from obviously biased sources. MastCell ^Talk 00:38, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Why yes, it is straightforward: if they agree with my POV, the sources are not biased, and if they do not agree with my POV, then they are not the "best" / "serious" / "really reliable" / etc WP:RS and must therefore be deleted from mainspace, along with the sentences they support. Mastcell, have you read WP:CGTW? I mean, I know you wrote it, but that *is* a distinct activity.  :-)   Anyways, you are correct that we shouldn't compose articles in point-counterpoint style. But removing WP:RS sentences, because the *source* that backs the sentence up is "biased" according to some wikipedian's say-so, guarantees forever-intractable edit-warring. WP:NOTEWORTHY seems pretty straightforward to me. See also my comment about "relevant" and "eminent" in the straw poll, a couple sections ago. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 10:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

In writing about "Abortion", two of the best sources would be the Catholic Church and Planned Parenthood (among others). Both are biased. The material (data sometimes) can be entered along with their opinion omitting the polarizing pov remarks that have no encyclopedic value and are are merely "playing to their audience." Both are biased, but both may be reliable to varying degrees. Once bias is removed for some topics, nobody gets a chance to speak! Student7 (talk) 18:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain this "fix" is how a significant number of articles get ruined, actually. It goes from "I think this source is illegitimate" to "Now this is uncited" to "*Delete*" to Wikipedia pages with no information because they're controversial, because everything one could cite is someone's "personal bullshit," and because articles restate rather than just quote people. Personally I don't think wikipedia should ever have used the term unbiased / not-biased because that gets turned into "any opinion that seems unfair is biased" when we should be striving for neutrality where despite the bias all view are well represented. I think neutrality is better of the two and the one Wikipedia would probably favor people using. In fact, even personal bullshit positions should be represented as a(n uncited / yet to be cited) part of neutrality. I mean, isn't Wikipedia is about information? If so, we should strive to represent all information.

But I think that is exactly what we want to do (if I understand you correctly). If a cite is not WP:RS, it shouldn't be there. If the paragraph/article etc. has no reliable information it should be deleted. We can isolate prejudiced sides down to the basic information, so what remains is "factual." I've seen this happen on a number of disputed articles. Editors started off polarized, then realized that neither side was perfectly provable. Both sides were stated. Neither aroused much controversy because they were balanced. I don't mean to suggest that WP:FRINGE material can offset factual material in this way; rather fringe material gets removed. Perpetual motion doesn't exist! There is no "other side." Student7 (talk) 21:10, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Here's the disputed text:

As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased. Instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process. Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage. The sections below offer specific guidance on common problems.

IMO this is all about the Wikipedia article's contents, not about the sources used to construct it (except insofar as using only wildly biased sources would naturally lead to a biased article).

It addresses two (mostly) separate problems:

• If you've got a tone problem, say an article about Widgets that claims they're the most marvelous invention since sliced bread (which has a safety benefit, BTW), then the suggestion that you "rewrite the passage" is preferable to the lazy option of blanking it with an edit summary about WP:PEACOCKing. This is neutrality-through-copyediting.
• If you've got a facts-oriented problem, say an article about Big Foot that gives all sorts of "sourced information" about how Big Foot's existence is practically proven, but nothing about the other side of the story, then you really should consider neutrality-through-expansion rather than neutrality-through-blanking.

In many cases, you'll need to do a bit of everything: re-writing the biased wording, adding the missing facts, and even blanking undue details.

I don't think that this is the clearest statement, but these are the standard practices. Also, WP:BIASED sources are explicitly permitted in articles—and I'm happy about that, because it's cut down on the stream of "We need to ban FOX News" (or NPR, or The New York Times, or...) complaints. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Nobel Peace Prize Nominations

Discussion at the Village Pump

Actually, It is archived and forgotten: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_112#.22Nominated_for_a_Nobel_Peace_Prize.22. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The media and most people think they are notable, but they aren't. Any professor down to and including a community college assistant history prof can nominate someone. The Nobel committee does not comment on them or even release a list of nominees for 50 years. Should there be an explicit policy on this? My feeling is mentions should be shot on sight unless they are reliably sourced to notable nominators. - Richfife (talk) 21:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, for wikipedia purposes it does not matter whether the nomination came from professor's girlfriend pet. Only the amount of media coverage and the impact is what matters, i.e., whether this fact is reasonably encyclopedic. A good example would be a nomination which was widely ridiculed. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:41, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Re: "The media and most people think they are notable, but they aren't" - It seems you are confusing the issues of notability of a person it their domain and the notability in the sense of notoriety. If "most people" think they are notable, then they are "notable for being notable". Staszek Lem (talk) 20:44, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

A comment to an argument from the Village Pump about the 50 year limit: " names of the nominees and other information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later" - this rule applies to the Nobel Committee, not to others, and especially not to wikipedia. This is clearly seen from the corresponding exact quotation from the statute given somewhat below in the ext link. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:36, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Inside that 50-year window (and with a narrow exception) the rule also applies to the nominator. If the person who sends in the nomination can't talk about, and the folks that receive it (the committee) can not talk about it, then any noise in RSs about a nomination are likely buzzing about a rumor. In my view, rumors lack WP:WEIGHT all by themselves. The only way to talk about RS buzzing about a rumor is to show the existence of the rumor is notable, by reporting it as a notable rumor, and explaining why that rumor is important enough to include in an encyclopedia. Out of curiousity, why is this being brought up again at another venue? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:43, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I was surprised to learn that the other nominees were secret. It makes sense for the committee to gag everybody. It doesn't want to be second-guessed.

The reasons for wanting this are most likely political. Unlike (say) the Washington Post and the NY Times which honestly admits they are editorially liberal, the Nobel Prize Committee pretends to be politically neutral, when it is obviously not. "Recently" a politician was selected, reportedly "over" a woman who had "saved thousands of children from the Holocaust." This makes a great report and (now) I have no idea whether it is true or not; whether the passed-over nominee actually existed.

But we do know that the committee rather deliberately waited until the unlikable woman who really discovered DNA, was dead, before awarding the Prize to Crick and Watson. So the selection committee is clearly not beyond chicanery, whether political or not. And no political conservative/tory or whatever has received a prize in the last few decades or more. But we can only report WP:RS and if nominees are "only rumors", that might not be enough. Student7 (talk) 20:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy, where are you getting the information that nominators are not permitted to disclose whom they have nominated for 50 years? I don't see that at the website linked above. Dezastru (talk) 14:12, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

From the process FAQ which reads {{quote|

"Are the nominations made public?

"The statutes of the Nobel Foundation restrict disclosure of information about the nominations, whether publicly or privately, for 50 years. The restriction concerns the nominees and nominators, as well as investigations and opinions related to the award of a prize." (bold added)

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:45, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Here's how I read that: The statutes of the Nobel Foundation restrict members of the Foundation from releasing information concerning those who were nominated and by whom they were nominated, as well as any deliberations of the members of the Foundation concerning the nominations, for 50 years. Dezastru (talk) 19:36, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Well that's probably accurate. The fine print is here, under "secrecy rules". So I might have been mistaken earlier, and maybe my local plumber is allowed to claim that they nominated me and can claim he is a qualified nominator after all. However, there's no way to get verification of either claim from the Nobel committee, so those two statements remain unverifiable assertions on the part of my plumber. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

It may vary by prize.

For the Peace Prize, which has an open nomination system, they say, "The Committee does not itself announce the names of nominees, neither to the media nor to the candidates themselves. In so far as certain names crop up in the advance speculations as to who will be awarded any given year's Prize, this is either sheer guesswork or information put out by the person or persons behind the nomination."

For the science and economics prizes, they invite about three thousand people to submit nominations each year, and those invitations are "confidential forms". None of the pages about the prizes involving "confidential forms" carries this statement about nominators disclosing anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Rumors may be worth mentioning briefly in some articles, but they should be attributed: "Joe Greedy says on his website that he was nominated for The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his invention of wet water" or "Lucifer Lipps says that he nominated the captain of the Titanic for the Nobel Peace Prize". But otherwise, I think they should be avoided. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Due and undue weight - bringing in line with what Jimbo said about prominence of adherents

I just made a short addition,[4] to the sentence following the Jimbo quote in the section on Due weight. The Jimbo quote has, "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents". In order to reflect this, I inserted into sentence following:

... in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources and the eminence of its adherents, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public.

I think this change also makes sense from an editing standpoint. For example, if the Center for Disease Control makes a statement about a disease, this view should be given more weight than the view of a single relatively unknown doctor, even if both views have been equally reported on by the press.

So, soliciting comments, how do people feel about this change? LK (talk) 06:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I like this change. When talking about viewpoints held by the minority/majority, do we consider the viewpoints worldwide? There are a number of examples where the majority in one culture have one viewpoint and the majority in another culture have a different viewpoint. Is the English Wikipedia to have global or "English-speaking" scope? AuburnMagnolia (talk) 00:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Neither... Wikipedia is culturally NEUTRAL in scope. If one culture has a given viewpoint, and another has a different viewpoint, we would weigh them NEUTRALLY... looking into who says what, and assigning them weight exactly the same way that we would assign weight to two different viewpoints within the same culture. We can not predetermine the outcome of that assessment to favor English-speaking over non-English speaking (or vise versa). Every weight assessment is unique. In one article it will be appropriate for us to give more weight to a "non-English speaking" POV (and less weight to an "English-speaking" POV)... while in some other article the reverse will be true. Blueboar (talk) 18:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this. "Prominent" and "eminent" are not synonyms. Eminence implies positive recognition. Prominence is non-judgmental. And what if someone is "eminent" for one thing, but makes a claim about something else? Kary Mullis is an "eminent" biochemist; he won a Nobel prize for it. He's a "prominent" AIDS denialist who says he once spoke to a glowing green raccoon and says that taking LSD in college was more important than any class he ever took. You would not want to give his views extra weight merely because his views outside of his narrow field of expertise happen to stick out like a sore thumb. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Would you be in favor of the change if it stated "eminence (in the relevant field) of its adherents"? As you point out, "prominence of its adherents" could be taken to include people famous for their kooky ideas, which I assume you are against? LK (talk) 05:30, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreeing....I think that when assigning weights, any definition of a metric absolutely MUST be stated to be in the context of the topic at hand. Without that, if Britney Spears managed to comment on competing particle physics theories, her opinion would outweigh all others. North8000 (talk) 12:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but I do have to raise a caveat... context is a tricky thing... in some contexts it is appropriate to give the "prominence" of non-experts some degree of weight. The fact that Britney Spears is a "prominent" pop star would certainly be a factor in an article on Particle physics in pop culture (in that context we would give Britney's comment on particle physics more weight than a comment made by a lesser known pop star) ... or (to give a more realistic example) the views of a "prominent" US Senator should be given a fair amount of weight in an article (or section) on Global Warming in US politics... even though the Senator may not be an "eminent" climatologist. (Or, to view it from another angle, while the Senator is not "eminent" in the context of Climatology... he is "eminent" in the context of US Politics, and thus should be given appropriate weight.) Blueboar (talk) 14:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

As the person who reverted Lawrencekhoo, I believe that we are better off without implementing his suggested proposals if people are going to be interpreting them so differently. We have enough to worry about with people interpreting WP:Due weight differently than what is clearly stated on the policy page already. Not to mention that not every topic has experts for it, at least not experts in the sense that it's their profession. Flyer22 (talk) 16:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Another problem with "eminence" or "prominence," "adherents" and "experts" with regard to this matter is WP:Fringe. Adherents and/or experts can have WP:Fringe views, such as views that are outside of what society generally considers normal. For example, what Wiccans believe should not always be given more weight than what sociologists or religion experts state on that topic. And what about groups such as NAMBLA, who push for adult-child sexual activity? Just how much weight should we give them? Not much, from what I know; it's them against what the vast majority of researchers and the general society say, but they have their own research and consider themselves experts on those matters. Flyer22 (talk) 17:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

How much weight to give "adherents" depends on the specific topic of the article. In an article about a specific fringe theory (and especially in an article about a fringe organization) it is appropriate to give the views of its adherents a lot more weight than we would give them in other articles... because those views are directly relevant to the topic of the article. And... within that article about a fringe theory, we also need to weigh the views of various adherents against each other... giving more weight to prominent adherents, and less-to-no weight to non-prominent adherents. It's kind of difficult to write a neutral and balanced article about the rise of the Nazi Party in pre-war Germany, without mentioning what the Nazis believed. Blueboar (talk) 19:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. And like I stated, I don't see Lawrencekhoo's proposals as a good addition, per the responses above on that matter (including mine). Flyer22 (talk) 19:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I kind of liked "as opposed to the general public," The general public is generally misinformed considerably by what tv station s/he watches which often "pushes" a pov, which may turn out to be "incorrect", "misinformed", or just merely pov-pushing. But in for a penny, in for a pound. Without the one, why add the other?

And while we are on the topic (per WhatamIdoing), double Nobel Prize-winner Linus Pauling "pushed" vitamin C as a sort of a cure-all, prevent-all. And him a biologist! This suggestion is pretty much dismissed by the medical community. I concede that this may be eminently more sensible that conversing with "glowing green things", however!  :) Student7 (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

This is fast devolving in to "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Pauling received Nobel prizes in chemistry and peace, not medicine, and fringe is fringe is fringe. — Robert Greer (talk) 23:00, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

These are the sorts of discussions that I'm sure would consistently arise due to different interpretations of Lawrencekhoo's proposal (either proposal)...if it were implemented. Flyer22 (talk) 23:18, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The way I'm reading this, is that people don't disagree with the principle per se, they're just afraid that people may wiki-lawyer it to mean something it doesn't. Well, this is true of all policy, so I'm not seeing any substantive arguments against. LK (talk) 05:48, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are generally straightforward/clear, despite the occasional (or more than occasional) person misinterpreting them. Your proposals are not too clear in meaning, and we don't need any more misuse of WP:Neutral than we already have. Flyer22 (talk) 00:45, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Straw poll

I think it's time to call for a straw poll to clarify consensus. Who agrees or disagrees with the following addition? (Please note in comments if you would agree to a modified version.)

... in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources and the eminence (in the relevant field) of its adherents, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public.

• Agree as proposer. Without this, people may just count the number of sources reporting a view, rather than also considering the reliability of the person espousing the view (e.g. there may be as many articles on Jenny McCarthy's and the CDC's views on Autism and vaccinations, but we should not treat them equally.) --LK (talk) 05:11, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
• Concern - What concerns me is that the proposed addition omits is any reference to article context... and context impacts what is and is not considered a "relevant field". For example, in the context of our article on the various Moon landing conspiracy theories a particular fringe theorist could well be considered "eminent" in a relevant field (the field of "moon landing conspiracy"). However, in the context of our Apollo program article, that same theorist would not in any way be considered "eminent" in a relevant field. Blueboar (talk) 17:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

addendum... thinking on it further... is there anyone who would be considered "eminent in the relevant field" for our article on Big Foot? What about Pokemon? Blueboar (talk) 19:43, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

This is the key flaw. Bigfoot-proponent-editors will only consider eminent experts on Bigfoot as "relevant". They will battle to remove all sentences backed up by anybody not published in the Journal Of Bigfoot Believers. And of course, simultaneously, bigfoot-debunking-editors will only consider eminent debunkers of Bigfoot as "relevant". They will simultaneously battle to remove all sentences backed up by anybody not in the Journal Of Bigfoot Debunkers. Similarly with deists versus atheists, repubs versus dems, and every single discretionary-sanctions article. We already have enough battleground articles, where people try to war away the wikiReliable Sources they disagree with. This addition will expand those wars exponentially. We cannot let wikipedian editors be in charge of deciding which sources are "reliable" about a given topic; either the publisher is a fact-checked editorial publication, or a refereed academic publication, or it isn't. WP:SPS is a *positive* exception, which allows attributed sentences to relevant experts to *count* as wikiReliable... adding the idea that "eminence" in the "relevant" field can trump otherwise perfectly wikiReliable Sources, is a *negative* exception which can only lead to deleting sourced material. Bad. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 10:39, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• Agree. Though Blueboar has made a valid point IMO. I think, overall, the language is improved. Is it "perfect?" Maybe just "better." Even more than Blueboar, what about public opinion type subject. Next year, for example, trying to "measure" how good Obamacare is. There is the public perception which can't be completely ignored, and the weight of RS which may say that babies have a higher/lower survival which may be connected to Obamacare. So we have a supposed "political perception", measured, as always, very promptly by polls, and the reality, which dribbles in much more slowly, which measures actual facts and (a long time later) is able to statistically prove that one factor caused another. Student7 (talk) 15:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
• Disagree. Three problems:

1. The obvious one mentioned by others about the use of the concept of "eminence". It's not the same as "prominence", the concept used by Jimbo.
2. We shouldn't pay any attention to the presumed status of the people advancing the viewpoints anyway. To determine due weight we just analyse the relative prevalence of the viewpoints in the reliable sources that contain them. In difficult cases we also consider the relative reliability of the sources, along the lines of the categorisation in WP:IRS and WP:GEVAL. To also consider the status of the proponents as a weighting factor would be a major change – it seems always to have been avoided in the wording of the policy; for good reason, I think.
3. This isn't the right place for such a change either. LK wants to make the sentence in question reflect a Jimbo quote just above. But the sentence has nothing to do with Jimbo's three bullet points just above it. It was added in 2008 by User:Raymond Arritt in this edit, following the first few postings of this discussion. As that discussion shows, its placing here is coincidental. Today, after the addition of the footnote to the first sentence of the section, evidently for clarification, by WhatamIdoing in this edit in Nov '12, this sentence just reiterates what is stated there.

So if there should be any addition at all (though I don't think there should) it can't be tucked away down here, but must appear where the statement that it amends first appears: in the first sentence of the section.

It seems that the only point of this sentence now is to act as a reminder to those who haven't been reading carefully. As an alternative proposal, I suggest we remove it and upgrade WhatamIdoing's footnote to the first sentence into the main text.

 —SMALLJIM  17:34, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with reminding readers who haven't been reading carefully (it's an important enough point that a reminder seems worthwhile). My concern that the proposed addition changes the meaning of that reminder. Blueboar (talk) 18:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

OK. Of course, we can't remind readers of something that they haven't been told yet!  —SMALLJIM  17:48, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

What is your issue with eminence vs prominence? According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate, an eminent person is someone who is prominent, so they are effectively synonyms. The reason why I think LK's suggestion is good is that it avoids the situation where editors simply "count up sources" in journals to determine consensus. That's a very bad idea. Why? Researchers, companies, professional organizations, etc. are often trying to push a particular viewpoint. They will commission dozens of studies all showing the same thing and get them all published. That doesn't mean that the viewpoint is any more mainstream, but there are sure a lot of "reliable, secondary" sources showing that viewpoint. If we just count up all the studies, it will look like there is lots of support for that point of view, when there isn't, really. If we are allowed to give more weight to what the eminent and/or prominent sources say, we'll be better off. It is important to make this clear in the policy so the editors have the best guidance possible. AuburnMagnolia (talk) 03:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the definitions are worth arguing about here – this small-scale discussion has already shown that there's no agreement about the exact meaning of "eminent", and we shouldn't use ambiguous terms in our policies.

Regarding your concern about "counting up sources", we do already give greater weight to the more reliable sources (what you call "the eminent and/or prominent sources") per the Identifying reliable sources guideline which says the better sources are peer-reviewed, come from a reputable publisher, are written by authors regarded as "authoritative" in the relevant context, etc. But that's not at all the same as LK's proposal of boosting just one element: "the eminence (in the relevant field) of its adherents" to the level of policy.

This policy has to provide help for the whole range of possible disputes, so even though a certain form of wording might be useful in a particular field (such as medicine, which I think is your area of interest), if it would be useless or detrimental in another (Blueboar's Bigfoot and Pokémon examples, perhaps), we must reject it here, though we could consider if it would be beneficial in one of the supporting guidelines. The recent discussion of Yobol's proposal at WT:MEDRS seems to be an example of this.  —SMALLJIM  17:48, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

• Agree per WP:UCS. jps (talk) 22:16, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

*Oppose We don't need to make room for more subjectivity in our policies. This interprets weight for editors. Weight is not that simplistic while adding these words is exclusive. (Littleolive oil (talk) 23:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC))

• Agree as common sense, though I would replace eminence with expertise. Using "expertise" addresses the concerns about introducing new terminology, since Wikipedia already distinguishes experts from non-experts per WP:SPS. If 50% of the relevant sources advance a particular viewpoint, but no expert sources do, then treating that viewpoint as if it were on par with the viewpoint of experts is a disservice to the reader. vzaak 23:52, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose editors deciding which WP:RS are "relevant" and "eminent/expert" per my reply to Blueboar's concern above. This change would institutionalize WP:CHERRYPICKING as policy. See also WP:The_Truth#See also. We've got enough battleground-articles already without adding this wrinkle.   — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 10:39, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
• Disagree eminence is the wrong word, and there is no single word that fits. The general concept is to apply the rule about relative weight with common sense, which means that each case may need to be discussed individually. DGG ( talk ) 20:47, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

What happens when WP:BALANCE and WP:BALASPS contradict?

Recently, Binksternet and I engaged in an edit war on the Syngenta article. We ended up reporting each other on the Edit War board. But this post isn't about the event; instead, I believe that we uncovered a possible conflict between the WP:BALANCE and WP:BALASPS guidelines. Based on the guidelines I honestly believe we both had at least some justification for our edits.

Essentially, the argument revolves around what to do when a critical side of a discussion, while public, is all but ignored by media. (Or, to put it another way, it revolves around what to do when media unanimously chooses to air only one viewpoint in a conflict.) In this example, scientist Tyrone Hayes made allegations in interviews with The New Yorker and Democracy Now that Syngenta had threatened, harassed, and attempted to intimidate/squelch his research. Notably, neither The New Yorker, Democracy Now, or any of the dozens of (in my opinion) fringe and activist sites that rehashed the allegations allowed Syngenta to respond, or attempted in any way to verify any of Hayes' allegations. (The fact Hayes' own employer had found the allegations "not credible" also wasn't mentioned on Democracy Now.) As a result of this media blackout, Syngenta distributed a press release along with copies of letters it sent to Hayes, his employer, and Democracy Now refuting the allegations and requesting public retractions. However, only two sites - Forbes.com and one other whose name I've forgotten - covered that release, and Binksterest discounted those two as potentially COI or dubious. In summary, reputable mass media only covered Hayes' side of things, and chose to ignore, and silence, Syngenta. This left the primary source (press release and letters) as the only citable representation of Syngenta's viewpoint in the Syngenta article.

This situation seems to have caused a conflict between the WP:BALANCE and WP:BALASPS guidelines. WP:BALANCE states that "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence". WP:BALASPS states that "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with weight appropriate to its significance to the subject". The first guideline would support Binksternet in removing Syngenta's response from the Syngenta article. But WP:BALASPS would support my inclusion of Syngenta' response, to avoid giving Hayes "undue weight" and allow Syngenta's response "weight appropriate to its significance". To further support my viewpoint, I believe that airing Hayes' allegations in the Syngenta article, and in the media in general, without airing Syngenta's response is both irresponsible and the epitome of bias.

Am I right that, in this situation, the two guidelines are in conflict, and if so, what should have been done? Do the guidelines need revised/clarified? What should happen with the Syngenta article? Jtrevor99 (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

You ought to be more honest about the Forbes piece which was discounted by your friend Jytdog, not by me. I was willing to host the views as long as counter views were aired. Of course you know that the source was indeed Forbes but the writer was Jon Entine who has been identified as being paid by Syngenta to spin the company's public relations. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) gained access to a lot of Syngenta's papers because of a lawsuit making the communications public. The CMD published a piece called "Syngenta's Paid Third Party Pundits Spin the 'News' on Atrazine", which named several paid PR agents for Syngenta, but not Jon Entine. Tom Philpott of Mother Jones looked further into the papers and concluded that Entine had a conflict of interest,[5] because a book he wrote in defense of Syngenta's product atrazine was paid for by Syngenta. Rachel Aviv writing for the New Yorker also found Entine to have a conflict of interest because of his monetary connection to agribusiness chemical companies.[6] Note that Jon Entine used to be active on Wikipedia as Runjonrun, editing his own biography and other articles such as the one about his organization NGOWatch.

Regarding the main question on the table, I think that an organization's own announcements should not be used to settle a controversy. Instead, WP:SECONDARY sources should be used, as they have analyzed the significance of the primary sources and have determined a balance. Announcements by an organization should be used sparingly and when the issue is not controversial. Binksternet (talk) 23:36, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the Syngenta changelog itself notes that you called the Forbes article into question. Meanwhile, I honestly didn't remember that Jytdog questioned it as well; if I had, I would have stated that you both did. Either way, please do not continue that discussion here - it belongs on the talk page where we're already discussing this. Reopening it here just distracts, and detracts, from the question I've posted, and inhibits the neutral response I'm hoping outsiders will provide. Keep in mind too that I'm posting this conversation out of legitimate interest to modify my actions in future if necessary; I hope you will be willing to consider the same. That said, your second paragraph IS conducive to the conversation; while I disagree with your opinion for several reasons in this situation, I'll wait for others' comments first. Jtrevor99 (talk) 00:40, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

So we've got this mutual personalized finger pointing between the scientist and the company reminiscent of anti-science tobacco pushback, climate pushback, and a long list of other pushbacks from corporations meanwhile the article states in wikivoice that the scientist's "research showed that the Syngenta-produced chemical atrazine was responsible for abnormal development of reproductive organs in frogs". I'm not well versed in that literature, but has the scientific community in general accepted those findings, or is the wider scientific jury still out? Meanwhile, is the question whether the company's primary materials RS for the companies' position? Seems like a self-statement about one's own views to me, so I'd have to say "yes"... but only to the extent the company says those things, and not to their validity. Meanwhile, the article needs tweaking to inform reader not just that Hayes' reported research findings between frog biology and atrazine but whether those findings have been as widely accepted as the wikivoice in the present version suggests? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:44, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

In short, the jury's still out on atrazine safety. You'll want to hear Binksternet's side of this as well, of course, but here's my take. Several scientists have gone on record stating that Hayes' results are unreproducible, and that Hayes himself has had trouble reproducing them. There are also questions about Hayes' methodology, such as whether he exposed the frogs to atrazine at levels far higher than could occur in nature. Hayes also has refused to share his raw data with anyone, including other scientists, so that they can examine it. Finally, Syngenta repeatedly claims 6,000 studies (actually 6,611 at last count) that have concluded no health or environmental danger exists when atrazine is used appropriately; the EPA agreed with Syngenta. On the flip side, Binksternet has told me that several scientists have reproduced Hayes' results (though I haven't seen this yet), that roughly half of the 6,611 studies are questionable due to being funded directly or indirectly by Syngenta, and that the EU did not agree that there was no danger.

To add to the drama, Berkeley (Hayes' employer) has censured Hayes for past unverifiable claims against Syngenta, and numerous examples of Hayes' physical threats aimed against specific Syngenta personnel are available in the public record. This, and the desire to present an unbiased article, has been the motivating factor behind my behavior in this debate: I believe Hayes is guilty of the very things he is claiming against Syngenta, while Syngenta is not.

Four other quick things. First, I'm not sure what you mean by "RS" (sorry, I'm new). Second, Binksternet does have a good point in the above that he did not delete every reference to Syngenta's response that I tried to post--just some. Third, I did try to come up with a counterpoint on Hayes' atrazine research but that proved contentious - it was part of the edit war and did not survive in the present copy. Fourth, you're absolutely right that the Syngenta press release / letters are a self-statement about one's own views; I won't try to debate that. I WILL argue, however, that Hayes' comments in Democracy Now and The New Yorker fit in the exact same category. Jtrevor99 (talk) 15:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

(A) Your first paragraph (staring "in short") would be better addressed at the relevant article talk pages.

(B) RS = WP:RELIABLE SOURCE... since you're new, you should read that twice, and then start over the next day; everything you say in the article must be supported by an RS

(C) When you equate one's own selfpub statements about one's own views with that of the journalists and editors at Democracy Now, I think it's somewhat apparent that you're new and are equating your own opinion of the editorial slant of that news outlet with what wikipedia calls a WP:RELIABLE SOURCE. But just because you hear something on that radio program, or read something in New Yorker doesn't mean it is automatically RS. Each thing has to go thru the RS analysis. Whether you like the slant different outlets adopt doesn't count, and we're all prone to like/dislike things according to Confirmation bias. Better to understand the RS policy and talk each dispute thru with references to the content in that policy.

Hope that helps NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:44, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that does help. I agree the first paragraph is better fit for the article talk page but wanted to try to answer your (perhaps rhetorical?) question on the subject. I'll defer further comment till others (including Binksternet) have weighed in. Jtrevor99 (talk) 18:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

As a general rule, this kind of (real-world) dispute results in an article with a formulation along the lines of, "Willy Whistleblower says X, and Widgets Inc. denies the allegations". You can expand the sentences as needed to describe the dispute. Which one of those gets the most attention depends on which one gets the most real-world media (and other source) attention. If, for example, everyone's all excited about the former employee's allegations, then those get more space (and vice versa).

In the meantime, it's a good idea to remember that WP:There is no deadline. However this plays out in the real world, it will eventually end up in Wikipedia that way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I like that summation, but see WP:RECENTISM. Quality of any given RS doesn't really depend on a lot of other editors, all wanting to sell copy, saying the same thing. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 05:46, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: revision of section on Impartial Tone

Current version:

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone.

Proposed revision:

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone. To avoid lending the impression that Wikipedia takes a particular position on a controversial matter, in describing controversies, do not use long quotations when a shorter paraphrase can convey the same information.

New version would be:

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. To avoid lending the impression that Wikipedia takes a particular position on a controversial matter, in describing controversies, do not use long quotations when a shorter paraphrase can convey the same information.

The current version of WP:IMPARTIAL is a little unclear. Some editors seem to interpret it as meaning that the use of quotations should generally be avoided in Wikipedia articles.

As I read it, however, the section's actual intent is to discourage the use of overly long quotations when a shorter rephrasing can convey the same information. (The language was introduced in 2008 by Lawrencekhoo, who at the time, commenting on the use of a quotation from a newspaper editorial, wrote that "Editorials do not have to use NPV language, but we at Wikipedia must do so WP:NPV. Therefore, we should not quote extensively, as this will 1) introduce POV language into the article, and 2) make it seem that wikipedia advocates the poition of the person quoted. See WP:QUOTE".[7] At the time that that post was made, the WP:QUOTE essay said: "while quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia, try not to overuse them. Too many quotes take away from the encyclopedic feel of Wikipedia. Also, editors should avoid long quotations if they can keep them short. Long quotations not only add to the length of many articles that are already too long, but they also crowd the actual article and remove attention from other information" and "when editing an article, a contributor should try to avoid quotations when ... a summary of a quote would be better. This may be due to lack of importance, lengthy articles, etc. On lengthy articles, editors should strive to keep long quotations to a minimum, opting to paraphrase and work smaller portions of quotes into articles".[8])

So why not just say that explicitly in the policy statement? There are times when someone's point of view is most effectively conveyed through the use of a direct quote, especially on controversial matters, where editors have to take extra care to ensure that any attempt to restate what was meant does not alter the original intent of the speaker or writer in a non-neutral way. We shouldn't be removing quotations needlessly when the quotations are clear and relatively succinct. Dezastru (talk) 23:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I have two concerns, first, it may make sense to replace a quote with an equally long paraphrase if the quote is especially incendiary. Second, I would remove the word "long" from "do not use long quotations when a shorter paraphrase can convey the same information." It's unclear how long a quotation must be to be a 'long quotation'. If a shorter paraphrase conveys the same information we should use the paraphrase. LK (talk) 11:31, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Lawrence (LK), sure, quotations should not be cherry-picked to find the most outrageous statement that has been made on a topic. But, on the other hand, we should not be enshrining at the policy level the practice of paraphrasing in order to remove what an editor feels is "especially incendiary language." A paraphrase should never change the meaning of the original statement. There are times that a speaker/writer intends their statement to be polemical, and the precise language that they have used in the statement is an important part of the story. In such situations, the best way to describe the message in a Wikipedia article may be with a direct quote, not a paraphrase. Dezastru (talk) 16:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I tend to disagree. An actual quote often conveys the quoted person's intentions more clearly than any paraphrase, a paraphrase runs the risk of distortion of the quotee's intent. Of course, so does cherry-picking quotes or taking them out of context -- indeed sometimes the only way to accurately convey the intention is either to paraphrase carefully or include a quote much too long for a Wikipedia article. But I don't think the text should so heavily favor paraphrases over quotes. Perhaps:

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. To avoid lending the impression that Wikipedia takes a particular position on a controversial matter, in describing controversies, do not use quotations, particularly long quotations, in such a way as to imply endorsement or WP:UNDUE weight to one side or faction in a controversy. Quotations should be balanced in length and prominence. Careful paraphrases may allow a position to be expressed in less space than any actual quote could achieve.

What do you feel about that version? DES ^(talk) 16:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

DES, I completely agree with you that sometimes using a quotation is preferable to paraphrasing because a quotation will more faithfully convey the quoted person's intentions than any paraphrase. I also agree that the text should not favor paraphrases over quotes so heavily. There are a couple of problems with the text you propose, however. Doesn't the second sentence seem tautological (kind of like saying, "red chairs are red")? The phrase "imply endorsement or WP:UNDUE weight to one side or faction in a controversy" is just saying the same thing as "take a particular position on a controversial matter." Perhaps the dependent clause needs to be deleted—which would leave, eg, "In describing controversies, do not use quotations, particularly long quotations, in such a way as to imply endorsement or WP:UNDUE weight to one side or faction." Or maybe the main clause would need to be changed to state more specifically how not to use quotations. The second problem involves the third sentence. Quotations should be balanced in length and prominence—balanced compared to what? Dezastru (talk) 16:59, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

You have a point, Dezastru. The second sentence was in essence saying "be particularly careful that use of quotations does not compromise NPOV", or that was my intent, at least. Let me try again:

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. To avoid lending the impression that Wikipedia takes a particular position on a controversial matter, be particularly careful in the use of quotations. The use of extensive quotes from a particular speaker or point of view may seem to imply endorsement of that view by Wikipedia. Do not use quotations, particularly long quotations, in such a way as to imply endorsement or give WP:UNDUE weight to one side or faction in a controversy. Quotations should be balanced in length and prominence, so that the most prominent or widely held views generally have the largest number or length of quotations, and WP:FRINGE views might not be represented by any quotations. Careful paraphrases may allow a position to be expressed in less space than any actual quote could achieve. However, iconic, well known, or particularly vivid quotes are often better if not paraphrased. Quotations should be representative of the author's views or of the statement from which they are taken, they should never be used out of context so as to distort the speaker's or writer's views.

Now what do you all think? DES ^(talk) 19:44, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that's fine, but it's about 3 times longer than the current one. I think we're running into WP:CREEP here. Any way to cut it down to just a few sentences? LK (talk) 05:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

DES, I think the line that says "Quotations should be balanced in length and prominence, so that the most prominent or widely held views generally have the largest number or length of quotations, and WP:FRINGE views might not be represented by any quotations" should come out. While I understand the intent behind it, I can envision situations in which it could be misapplied. How about the following, which is a bit shorter that the last suggestion, but captures most of the same principles:

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. When describing controversies, be especially careful in the use of quotations. Avoid quoting extensively from any individual speaker or point of view, which might lend the impression that Wikipedia endorses a particular position. Careful paraphrasing may help maintain an impartial tone by allowing a position to be expressed in less space than a direct quotation would require; however, iconic, well-known, or particularly vivid quotes are often better left unparaphrased. Quotations should be representative of the author's or speaker's views and should never be used out of context so as to distort the original meaning.

(Thanks for working on this, by the way.) Dezastru (talk) 21:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful if this recent edit by me was considered in this debate. It is not necessarily the extent of the quote that matters, a short quote (in the example I have given -- one word) can be used to present a biased POV. -- PBS (talk) 20:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Given my example, I think the last proposed paragraph can be paired down to

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. When describing controversies, be especially careful in the use of quotations.

That is all that is needed in policy the rest is more suitable for guidance. -- PBS (talk) 20:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

No one has argued that quotations can only be misused if they are long. The issue being addressed is how to avoid misapplication of existing rules for use of quotations. The existing language seems to have been intended to fix a problem that primarily involved imbalance of tone due to use of long quotations or extensive use of quotations from a single point of view. The remedies we have been proposing would help remove some of the ambiguity in the language of the rules. Shortening the language so that it says only "When describing controversies, be especially careful in the use of quotations", without giving any explanation of what 'being careful' means, wouldn't really help. It would take us back to the situation that Lawrence was originally trying to fix. Dezastru (talk) 17:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

If there are no further objectons or comments, I will change the language to the version I proposed on 20 February. Dezastru (talk) 23:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I do not know how you come to the conclusion that you have a consensus for change given the comments that have been made. -- PBS (talk) 13:08, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments on the proposal

Well I don't know. With this apparently uncontroversial change, you'd be overturning longstanding policy. For at least 5 years Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Impartial tone has recommended that we should not quote from the participants in a heated dispute: you want to change it to allow quotes from those participants. A few concerns that come immediately to mind are:

1. Won't the process of deciding whether a particular quote is "iconic" or "particularly vivid", or if it is truly "representative of the author's views" cause a lot of drama?
2. If side A is allowed to have a quote, then side B will naturally want one too; leading to side A demanding a riposte, and so on...
3. What about translations of quotes in other languages - there's lots of potential for disagreement over exact meanings.

Since this proposal would affect our most hotly-disputed articles, I think it should be exposed to a far wider range of editors than it has been so far. I suggest you raise it at WP:VPP.  —SMALLJIM  00:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• No change needed. Before changing a core policy, there should be an explanation of what the problem is: what dispute in what article shows there is a problem with the current wording? There are many battles where one group defends the subject of an article, and another attacks it. To mention one example, here is a case where participants would love to insert something like the following in an article on person X: 'Professor Y of Impressive University wrote, "X is an incompetent fraud who also opposes LGBT rights"'. The problem is, it turns out that X and Y have been at each other's throats for years, and there is no way editors can "neutrally" quote what they say about each other—secondary sources are needed to sum up X. If the dispute between X and Y is notable, it may be fine to quote each of them, but otherwise Y's views need to be expressed neutrally, if at all. Johnuniq (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Continuing this discussion at the Village Pump. Dezastru (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Procedural comment This is not how things are done. You sould have posted an invitation for people to join the discussion in the corresponding talk page, Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. Now the discussion is broken into two parts, making it difficult to keep track of arguments. I suggest to cut and paste the Village Pump section to the place where it IMO belongs. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support PBS "pared" version. I believe in letting BLP subjects have their say; often, this involves quotes, some of which can be controversial. Putting a muzzle on the subject the moment you deem what he says to be 'too controversial' does not seem NPOV to me. Failing to allow his opponent to respond would be just as wrong. Now, I can understand that the policy might try to disallow quotes from being chosen solely for being inflammatory, as opposed to being noted by external sources or providing a good overview of an issue, but I trust the users to make a better decision on their own more than I trust people here to put all that into a policy that won't be misused. Wnt (talk) 17:18, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• Definitely believe some more needs to be said about this. I coincidentally just raised a similar issue in an overly dramatic way at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Ban_lead_quotations where quotations are referred to as 'facts'. It just seems too easy for people to avoid anything approaching NPOV (not to mention creating OR) by cherrypicking a quotation from some person or some piece of work or some process (e.g. legal). And quotations in leads do seem particularly exasperating - it's as if editors are lulled into thinking (or in some cases may want to give the impression) that because it's a quote it's been substantiated/authorized and doesn't need to be covered properly in the body in a balanced way like anything else. So I do like DES's informal summary "be particularly careful that use of quotations does not compromise NPOV" whenever there are multiple viewpoints (especially if controversial, though I imagine different people differ in what they perceive as a controversy). Sighola6 (talk) 22:21, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Logical contradiction

The sentence "we consider a viewpoint's prevalence among reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public" is illogical. The opposite of reliable sources is questionable sources, and the opposite of general public is experts in that area. You can't logically contrast sources to people. How about changing the sentence to "we consider a viewpoint's prevalence among scholars or experts (reported by reliable sources), not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public". Darx9url (talk) 06:49, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not illogical: "We consider a viewpoint's prevalence among publications, not its prevalence among people" is perfectly logical. And "reliable source" is correctly contrasted with "you, the people you know, and/or what you believe that the general public believes". Editors and the general public are indeed "questionable sources" as far as Wikipedia is concerned.

But see the definition of "source" for content policies at WP:SOURCES: a "source" includes experts (and also people whom you might consider to be the opposite of an expert, but who have nonetheless managed to get reputable publishers to publish their views). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

ASSERT

Can someone review WP:ASSERT? I'm not sure if it's part of NPOV policy or not, but there is some things in there that are either unclear or compromise the spirt of NPOV. The way it is worded, one could take any sourced item and state it in wikivoice as fact, so long as no one can find a disputing source, regardless of the clear opinionated nature of the content. Even if all the editors agree it's an opinion and there is disagreement to accuracy, ASSERT states only sources are relevant saying "In-text attribution to sources should be used where reliable sources disagree, not where editors disagree." I understand the intent, but it leaves a big hole. If you have sources that present a particular bias (which is fine) but no source directly refutes the argument, editors could claim ASSERT says they are to state it in Wikivoice as fact. Several sources say X, no one refutes X, X is fact. Following that, the argument is that X need not even be correct - just undisputed. I don't think that is the spirit of the policy. If something is an opinion or clearly subjective judgement, we should attribute it as described in NPOV. It seems ASSERT is acting to define what a "fact" and "opinion" are for the purposes of Wikipedia. Also, while looking at the definition, I wonder if we could use a clearer word than "serious" when defining a fact, as it has several meanings and I don't think we intend important or weighty. Morphh ^(talk) 06:34, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I would rather read that "there are 54 kilocalories of energy in a teaspoon of cement," rather than read "In 2012, Wallace Carlson, in his UCLA dissertation, reported that in 100 tests, there averaged ..54 etc." I don't know the right answer but I want it positively worded as if "we" knew. :I agree this goes downhill for the softer sciences. Is "Goldwater was found to be crazy" "better than" "In 1964, 450 psychiatrists declared that Goldwater was crazy"? I would prefer the latter for statements we know are going to be controversial.

We allow contrary opinions. "Minimalists doubt the historicity of the Bible." "Maximalists state that much of the Bible has been found to be based on accurate history." There is room for "schools of thought" here. But we frequently have to attribute. Student7 (talk) 22:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, if there has only been one study, a PhD dissertation, that addressed a question, I'ld rather that was noted in text, rather than leaving it in Wikipedia's voice. I think it's obvious that WP:ASSERT is for facts about which there is no serious dispute if the issue was brought up among those knowledgeable in the field, but the way it's worded now suggests that any statement about which there has been no serious recorded dispute should be stated as fact. LK (talk) 07:07, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Just a quick reply to Student7, the first example might be best addressed by saying "It is estimated (or Wallace Carlson estimated) that there are 54 kilocalories..." and the second is already phrased as an opinion "was found to be" where a statement of fact would just state "Goldwater was crazy". This is where NPOV gives us some allowance in how we attribute, where the current text of ASSERT does not. Morphh ^(talk) 02:33, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I see your attempt got reverted. I've made a post on that talk page to bring more discussion and hopefully come to an agreement about rewording so that the section doesn't counter or subvert the spirit of NPOV. Morphh ^(talk) 21:52, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

The text of Wikipedia articles should not assert opinions avoid asserting opinions as fact in Wikipedia's voice, but should assert facts. When a statement is a fact (a piece of information that is accepted as true and about which there is no serious earnest dispute), it should normally be asserted without in-text attribution prefixing it with "(Source) says that ...", and when a statement is an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective) it should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. to the source that offered the opinion using inline-text attribution. In-text attribution to sources should be used where reliable sources disagree, not where editors disagree. Note that inline citations used to attribute content are a different matter: adding a footnoted citation to a fact or an opinion for verification is always good practice. The text in the article, however, should mention the source only if the matter being described is an opinion, not a fact.

Paragraph 1: I pulled some of the rewording directly from NPOV and the articles on fact and opinion. NPOV directly links to the articles on fact and opinion, but ASSERT was redefining those terms to something different. This attempts to bring the text in closer line with the text and spirit of NPOV. The last sentence just seemed to repeat what was already stated. Morphh ^(talk) 00:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

More broadly, the style of writing in Wikipedia is to state facts and only facts. Even while facts — like “Mars is a planet” and “Plato was a philosopher” — are verifiable through reliable sources, in the text of Wikipedia articles, best practice is that such verified facts should be plainly asserted without in-text attribution to a source so as not to confuse facts with opinions. Where an author might want to mention opinions, the author should state the facts about that opinion by attributing the opinion to someone. (E.g. from a featured article: "Shen Kuo wrote that it was preferable to use the twenty-four-point rose instead of the old eight compass cardinal points.") When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about notable competing opinions without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. Another good practice is to explain the factual reasons behind the documented opinions, and to make it clear who holds them and why there is any disagreement or controversy.

Pragraph 2: No issues with the current text, but the second sentence seems awkward to me. Morphh ^(talk) 01:33, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Inline attribution of a reliably sourced fact on the grounds that it is just the "opinion" of the sources is a misapplication of Wikipedia policy and would have the negative consequence of allowing any contrarian to insist on an inline qualifier for material about which there is no serious dispute. Such an editorial philosophy, if taken to extremes, would require all material in Wikipedia to have an inline qualifier, even if only one Wikipedia editor insisted on it. This is not only poor writing, it is also editorially unsound as it is generally not possible to list every person who accepts any given fact. Additionally, presenting a "fact" as an "opinion" is Presenting a fact as an opinion can needlessly attributing attrbute uncontroversial statements, and so creating and create the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none.

Paragraph 3: I would place the last sentence of paragraph 3 within paragraph 1. Most of this paragraph repeats what is already stated, including that reliable sources should be used and not editor opinion, but it does so in a way that could subvert the spirit of NPOV if the source is clearly opinionated in nature. Morphh ^(talk) 01:33, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

The text of Wikipedia articles should avoid asserting opinions as fact in Wikipedia's voice, but should assert facts. When a statement is a fact (a piece of information that is accepted as true and about which there is no earnest dispute), it should normally be asserted without in-text attribution, and when a statement is an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective) it should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. In-text attribution should be used where reliable sources disagree, not where editors disagree. Presenting a fact as an opinion can needlessly attribute uncontroversial statements and create the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none. Note that inline citations used to attribute content are a different matter: adding a footnoted citation to a fact or an opinion for verification is always good practice.

More broadly, the style of writing in Wikipedia is to state facts and only facts. Even while facts — like “Mars is a planet” and “Plato was a philosopher” — are verifiable through reliable sources, in the text of Wikipedia articles, best practice is that such verified facts should be plainly asserted without in-text attribution to a source so as not to confuse facts with opinions. Where an author might want to mention opinions, the author should state the facts about that opinion by attributing the opinion to someone. (e.g. from a featured article: "Shen Kuo wrote that it was preferable to use the twenty-four-point rose instead of the old eight compass cardinal points.") When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about notable competing opinions without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. Another good practice is to explain the factual reasons behind the documented opinions, and to make it clear who holds them and why there is any disagreement or controversy.

Suggested ASSERT content with additional wikilinks. Morphh ^(talk) 01:33, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

If no one has any specific objections or improvements, then I'll update ASSERT with the content suggested above. Morphh ^(talk) 14:45, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

One thing that jumps out right away is that you need to make it clear that the type of attribution you're talking about is in-text attribution, not the normal referencing sort of attribution dealt with by WP:A, for instance. See also WP:INTEXT. The second sentences in both of your paragraphs ignore this distinction, giving the impression that facts don't need to be attributed at all. While that is the case for really obvious facts like "Mars is a planet", it's definitely not the general impression that we want to give – see WP:ONUS.
As part of an FAQ we need to provide a very clear explanation here, and while I agree with you that there's a technical problem with the current wording, I don't think your version is better, yet.  —SMALLJIM  22:48, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Good point - I've added clarification of "in text" in several places and wikilinked the first instance. I also added additional information to the Note regarding attributing content with citations so as to help further clarify the distinction. Morphh ^(talk) 17:32, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Morphh, but I can't really afford the time to give this the consideration it needs at present. You've fixed the main problem, though I think the whole thing is still too verbose and vague (not really your fault). Ideally it should be rewritten from scratch: what it needs to say would be better said in one short concise paragraph. Does anyone else have any comments?  —SMALLJIM  12:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks SMALLJIM, I tried to avoid changing more than I thought was necessary to fix the problems, but you're correct that it could be more clear and succinct. I figured the more changes I made, the more opposition I would encounter. I don't want to divert from updating the text with necessary changes, but for the sake of presenting something shorter and what I might ultimately like to see, here is a crack at it. In the current text (and my prior suggestion), the last two sentences of the second paragraph don't seem to clarify this topic, but just rehash WEIGHT. The second sentence in the second paragraph is confusing and just repeats what has already been stated, as does the third sentence. The opinion example in the second paragraph might be better left by just following the in-text attribution wikilink. If we removed the redundant and off topic content and reword it slightly to be more concise, it might look something like this:

The text of Wikipedia articles should avoid asserting opinions as fact in Wikipedia's voice, but should assert facts. When a statement is a fact (a piece of information that is accepted as true and about which there is no earnest dispute), like “Mars is a planet” and “Plato was a philosopher”, it should normally be asserted without in-text attribution. This is done to avoid confusing facts with opinions and needlessly qualifying uncontroversial statements, which could create an appearance of doubt or disagreement among reliable sources where there is none. When a statement is an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. In this way, we assert the fact of an opinion by describing who holds the view. A simple formulation is to assert facts, including facts about opinions—but don't assert opinions themselves. Note that inline citations used to attribute content are a different matter: adding a footnoted citation to a fact or an opinion for verification is always good practice.

We could probably remove the last "note" sentence as well if we feel the prior text makes clear what type of attribution is being described. Morphh ^(talk) 15:02, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Possible re-write for consideration

Morphh, per your msg on my talk page, can I offer this quick and scrappy re-write? Examples of opinions are needed, and I know it's got more paragraphs than before instead of fewer :) Make of it what you will:

Assert facts, not opinions

What is the difference between asserting a fact and asserting an opinion?

The text of Wikipedia articles should assert facts, but must not assert opinions as fact.

• When a statement is a fact (a piece of information that is accepted as true and which cannot be seriously disputed), it should be asserted using Wikipedia's own voice without in-text attribution, thus: "Mars is a planet" or "Plato was a philosopher". We do not write: "According to the Daily Telegraph, the capital of France is Paris" because that creates the impression of doubt or disagreement where there is none. It is good practice, however, to include an inline citation to a reliable source to allow the reader to verify any facts that are not widely known.

• When a statement is an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it should always be attributed in the text to the person or group who holds the opinion, and it is important to remember that opinions only held by tiny minorities should not be included, per WP:WEIGHT. Thus: "Prominent scientist John Smith wrote that the Earth is flat" or "example 2". We do not write: "example 3". In every case opinions should be backed up with an inline citation to a reliable source that verifies both the opinion and who holds it.

A simple formulation is to assert facts, including facts about opinions, but don't assert opinions themselves.

This is obviously not intended to be perfect, but I hope it helps,  —SMALLJIM  18:37, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I like it. It has a little more, but it's simpler and directly presents examples for each, which might be best for an FAQ. Possible tweaks.. statements compared to NPOV. This says "must not assert", NPOV says "should not assert" - just wonder if we should use the same language as NPOV. Another absolute - "should always be" might just be better left as "should be". Perhaps strike "In every case " and just say "Opinions should be backed up..." Maybe it's better to use stronger language here - not sure, but figured I would point it out. I question the "and it is important ... WEIGHT" inclusion as I think it side tracks from the point of this FAQ. WEIGHT can speak for itself because there are cases in ancillary articles where tiny minority views are expressed and we don't want to confuse the issues. If we want to include something, then perhaps it might be better to do so in the last sentence "Opinions should be included based on weight and backed up with an ..." For the additional examples, we could probably reuse the example from NPOV which is, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil." Morphh ^(talk) 20:46, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Assert facts, not opinions

What is the difference between asserting a fact and asserting an opinion?

The text of Wikipedia articles should assert facts, but must not assert opinions as fact.

• When a statement is a fact (a piece of information that is accepted as true and which cannot be seriously disputed), it should be asserted using Wikipedia's own voice without in-text attribution, thus: "Mars is a planet" or "Plato was a philosopher". We do not write: "According to the Daily Telegraph, the capital of France is Paris" because that creates the impression of doubt or disagreement where there is none. It is good practice, however, to include an inline citation to a reliable source to allow the reader to verify any facts that are not widely known.

• When a statement is an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it should be attributed in the text to the person or group who holds the opinion, thus: "John Rawls says that, to reach fair decisions, parties must consider matters as if behind a veil of ignorance." or "Genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil.". We do not write: "Genocide is an evil action". Opinions should be included based on weight and backed up with an inline citation to a reliable source that verifies both the opinion and who holds it.

A simple formulation is to assert facts, including facts about opinions, but don't assert opinions themselves.

That all sounds good to me. The "must/should" wording issue is one that's been thrashed out hereabouts in the past: not sure if there's been a consensus, but to follow the present policy wording can't be wrong. Agree with you about the weight given to WP:WEIGHT :) though we don't want to give any impression that opinions should always be included, so perhaps "The inclusion of opinions in articles is subject to the provisions of WP:WEIGHT, and they should be backed up with ..." would be better. Maybe a link to WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV would be helpful here, too.  —SMALLJIM  19:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

That rewording sounds good to me. Morphh ^(talk) 14:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Smalljim, I presented the revised text below. I tried to make that latest suggestion a bit more concise, thinking that "in articles" should be assumed and "subject to the provisions of weight" seemed to be the same as just saying "subject to weight". I added attributepov (aka substantiate) as a replacement word for verifies. I'm not sure if that changes the meaning though. Tweak below as needed. Morphh ^(talk) 02:08, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I changed "substantiates" back to "verifies". I was concerned that it changed the meaning, but we can discuss if you think it works. Instead, I wikilinked WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV to "people and groups" though maybe we can figure another way to work it in better. Morphh ^(talk) 02:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• To help think about this I'm posting the original here so it's a bit more convenient to compare. The original is on the FAQ page under

FAQ#Assert facts, not opinions and says

This is the current text

What is the difference between asserting a fact and asserting an opinion?

The text of Wikipedia articles should not assert opinions but should assert facts. When a statement is a fact (a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute) it should be asserted without prefixing it with "(Source) says that ...", and when a statement is an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute) it should be attributed to the source that offered the opinion using inline-text attribution. In-text attribution to sources should be used where reliable sources disagree, not where editors disagree. Note that citations are a different matter: adding a footnoted citation to a fact or an opinion is always good practice. The text in the article, however, should mention the source only if the matter being described is an opinion, not a fact.

More broadly, the style of writing in Wikipedia is to state facts and only facts. Even while facts — like “Mars is a planet” and “Plato was a philosopher” — are verifiable through reliable sources, in the text of Wikipedia articles, best practice is that such verified facts should be plainly asserted without attribution to a source so as not to confuse facts with opinions. Where an author might want to mention opinions, the author should state the facts about that opinion by attributing the opinion to someone. (E.g. from a featured article: "Shen Kuo wrote that it was preferable to use the twenty-four-point rose instead of the old eight compass cardinal points.") When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about notable competing opinions without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. Another good practice is to explain the factual reasons behind the documented opinions, and to make it clear who holds them and why there is any disagreement or controversy.

Inline attribution of a reliably sourced fact on the grounds that it is just the "opinion" of the sources is a misapplication of Wikipedia policy and would have the negative consequence of allowing any contrarian to insist on an inline qualifier for material about which there is no serious dispute. Such an editorial philosophy, if taken to extremes, would require all material in Wikipedia to have an inline qualifier, even if only one Wikipedia editor insisted on it. This is not only poor writing, it is also editorially unsound as it is generally not possible to list every person who accepts any given fact. Additionally, presenting a "fact" as an "opinion" is needlessly attributing uncontroversial statements, and so creating the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none.

This is the proposed text — as of 21:00, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

What is the difference between asserting a fact and asserting an opinion?

The text of Wikipedia articles should assert facts, but must not assert opinions as fact.

• When a statement is a fact (e.g. information that is accepted as true and about which there is no serious dispute), it should be asserted using Wikipedia's own voice without in-text attribution. Thus we write: "Mars is a planet" or "Plato was a philosopher". We do not write: "According to the Daily Telegraph, the capital of France is Paris" because doing so would create the impression of doubt or disagreement where there is none. It is good practice, however, to include an inline citation to a reliable source to allow the reader to verify any fact that is not widely known.

• When a statement is an opinion (e.g. a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it should be attributed in the text to the person or group who holds the opinion. Thus we might write: "Charles Darwin says that human beings evolved through natural selection." or "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre.". We do not write: "John Doe is the best baseball player". The inclusion of opinions is subject to weight policy, and they should be backed up with an inline citation to a reliable source that verifies both the opinion and who holds it.

A simple formulation is to assert facts, including facts about opinions, but don't assert opinions themselves.

I don't have an opinion (yet anyway) about the proposal. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:21, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I was agreeing with nearly everyone until we got to discussing quotes. I definitely would not like to see "more quotes." Paraphrasing is better, unless the quote is particularly pithy, "No taxes without representation," "Don't give up the ship," "Monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic," that sort of classic phraseology. What we get is unwanted diatribe to deliberately bias the reader against the speaker, or to brainwash the unlettered audience.

While the very short version given above was nice (KISS), I suppose we have to go on about it in order to turn off Wikilawyers, looking for a loophole in a short version. "It says nothing about ....." Student7 (talk) 20:51, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Student7, are you speaking of the ASSERT material above or the IMPARTIAL material below? The IMPARTIAL material below is the text with regard to quotations, which moved to the Village Pump. This content is about ASSERT and how you deal with a fact & opinion - nothing about quotations. So I think you posted to the wrong section. Morphh ^(talk) 21:41, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I thought ASSERT above (and even further above), but if it looks lost, and confuses the thread, I'll scratch through it. Student7 (talk) 22:06, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Student7, it appeared like your first paragraph was about IMPARTIAL and your second about ASSERT. But, I think I understand a bit more and I think you may be confused on which is the proposed text. The quoted text above was not the proposal, but what ASSERT currently states - that which we seek to change. It was added by NewsAndEventsGuy so that you could more easily compare it to proposals that were listed prior. To try and make this a little clearer, I'll box the current text in a red background color so it's more apparent and I'll place the proposed text below it in blue. Morphh ^(talk) 01:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I generally like the directions the proposed changes are taking quite a bit. The most recently suggested version is more concise and easier to follow, for the most part, than the existing version. I think a few additional changes might be helpful:

What is the difference between asserting a fact and asserting an opinion?

The text of Wikipedia articles should assert facts, but must not never assert opinions as fact.

• When a statement is a fact (a piece of information that is accepted as true and which cannot be seriously disputed), it should be asserted using Wikipedia's own voice without in-text attribution, thus: . Thus we write, "Mars is a planet" or "Plato was a philosopher". We do not write: "According to the Daily Telegraph, the capital of France is Paris", because that creates doing so would create the impression of doubt or disagreement where there is none. It is good practice, however, to include an inline citation to a reliable source to allow the reader to verify any facts that are fact that is not widely known.

• When a statement is describes an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it the opinion should be attributed in the text to the person or group who holds the opinion, thus: it. Thus we might write: "John Rawls says that, to reach fair decisions, parties must consider matters as if behind a veil of ignorance." or "Genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil.". We do not write: "Genocide is an evil action". The inclusion of statements describing opinions is subject to weight policy, and they any such statement should be backed up with an inline citation to a reliable source that verifies both the opinion and who holds it.

A simple formulation is to assert facts, including statements describing facts about opinions, in Wikipedia's own voice but don't assert opinions themselves.

Dezastru (talk) 15:17, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Dezastru - I updated the text with the changes that I could easily agree with, which were all of the suggestions in the fact paragraph and one in the opinion paragraph. Let's discuss the others, starting with the first sentence, then jumping to the last (simple formulation), and then discussing the opinion paragraph.

1. The first sentence stating "must not" was already pushing the bounds of difference from NPOV, which states "should not" and uses the headline "Avoid stating opinions as facts". I have concern with using such strong language as "must never" when this is meant to help explain NPOV, not conflict with it or send a different message.
2. I would not change the simple formulation (last sentence) as it has long standing use, is directly quoted in NPOV (Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Common_objections_and_clarifications), and is arguably less simple.
3. For the changes on the opinion paragraph, I have a few so I'll break them down separately:

• "is" -> "describes": I'm considering the difference and what we're trying to explain. Using one of Student7's examples above "Goldwater was found to be crazy" is a statement that "describes" an opinion - while not providing proper in-text attribution for who holds it, it's a statement of fact about an opinion. "Goldwater was crazy" is a statement that "is" an opinion, but stated as fact in Wikivoice, thus violating our first declaration of the section. Both should have in-text attribution, but I think that FAQ is focusing on the second instance - not asserting opinions as fact. I think "is" would be the proper term here and it should give equal direction as it states how to describe opinions with in-text attribution.
• "it" -> "the opinion": I would prefer symmetry with the prior paragraph - so if it makes sense there, then maybe we should make a similar change to the fact paragraph.
• I could agree with the "statements describing opinions" change in the last sentence of the opinion paragraph (vs the opening sentence), because that's what we should be including, but I'm not sure it adds anything. Similarly "any such statement" - it seems to have the same meaning to me with or without those additional words. If it doesn't change the meaning, then I'd go for brevity. Morphh ^(talk) 17:37, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I see your points about introducing "describes". My concern is that the existing version has a line that pretty much explains what is meant by 'stating facts about opinions': "Where an author might want to mention opinions, the author should state the facts about that opinion by attributing the opinion to someone". That line has been taken out for the proposed version, so when the phrase shows up in the final line of the proposed version as "A simple formulation is to assert facts, including facts about opinions," it could be confusing. (It was kind of confusing to me even the first few times I read it in the existing version.) Is there a way to adjust the proposal to further reduce the chance of that kind of confusion? Dezastru (talk) 20:38, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Dezastru, while still trying to keep it concise, perhaps we could insert it in the second sentence - maybe with an added link to WP:IMPARTIAL or some other pertinent text. Perhaps something like "Thus, describing an opinion, we might write:" or "Thus we describe opinions such as writing:". Morphh ^(talk) 13:56, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Operative change #1, definition of "fact"

As I write, we use the following definitions

OLD TEXT Fact - a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute

PROPOSED Fact - information that is accepted as true and which cannot be seriously disputed

There is a world of difference between those. For example, the "proposed" language excludes pretty much all of science. For example, there was a time when it was taken as a fact that the continents have always been where they are. It was taken as fact under the current definition of fact (generally accepted, and not being seriously disputed). Obviously, the proposed definition would have excluded the possibility that we would amass tons of data on which to based the study of plate tectonics. So I think the old language is preferable, from a philosophy-of-science perspective. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:05, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

PS Actually, I like the "accepted as true" part of the proposal and think that part should be added to the current definition "about which there is no serious dispute" NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your PS, as it was important to better reflect the definition of fact (as that's what NPOV does) and not redefine it for the purposes of ASSERT. Part of the initial issue was that something could be stated as fact just because it was undisputed, regardless if it was considered true or subjective. To be honest, I didn't see much difference between "about which there is no serious dispute" and "which cannot be seriously disputed", but I can understand the point and have no issue restoring that wording. Perhaps User:Smalljim can give some insight into that change. Morphh ^(talk) 18:16, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy for you to decide the exact wording - as I said my re-working was only a quick scrappy one. Two points though, before I leave you to it. (1.) You need to ensure that the wording still accurately reflects what you started this re-write for – I know how easy it is to get sidetracked. (2.) On re-reading it, I'm not sure about using genocide as a good example of something that's "a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective". Wouldn't the "greatest baseball player" example be more like the type of problem this FAQ is meant to assist with? Good luck, and don't expend too much more effort before you put the change up, because it's quite likely to be reverted by someone else for some reason you haven't even considered!  —SMALLJIM  18:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Good thoughts - I do prefer your wording and I actually think it better addresses the meaning. To NewsAndEventsGuy's example, I disagree that we should have stated such science as fact, but as the current majority theory. "About which there is no serious dispute" opens up the argument for "undisputed opinions", where as "which cannot be seriously disputed" brings us closer to the facts of observable science. As for the genocide example, the baseball one might be a better fit - I'll look at rewording. I was just pulling from assert in NPOV. Morphh ^(talk) 19:00, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

While you are considering a different example than the one about genocide, I think it would also be helpful to find a different example than the one mentioning Rawls. It's just a bit pretentious and it detracts from the passage because it invites taking a moment or two to ponder just what it was that Rawls was getting at (for most readers, I would imagine). The reason the Mars, Plato, and Paris examples are so strong is that they are, by contrast, very simple, clear, and concise – no additional thought is required to process what those examples mean, so the reader's focus remains fully engaged on what the passage is saying about NPOV rules. Dezastru (talk) 20:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

What the heck is a "serious dispute", anyway? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

That was one of my initial concerns as well, since seriously (or serious) has several common meanings. I had opted for the word "earnest" in my original rewrite, but the term "serious" does have long standing, so I can go either way (or if you can think of a better term). Morphh ^(talk) 18:36, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

A 'serious dispute' is a dispute made by a sober, sane person (or group of people) in good faith, not in jest or as a sensationalistic act. I think you are reading too much into this phrasing. The problem with an 'earnest dispute', although it is close in meaning, is that earnest in that phrasing could refer to how the dispute is received (which is what we want to say) or to how strongly the person advancing the dispute makes an appeal (which is not what we want to say). A person who is regarded by all observers as being clearly insane could be very sincere and fervent in making a dispute (thus "an earnest dispute"), but few would regard the dispute as being worthy of any serious attention or consideration. Dezastru (talk) 20:19, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any significant difference between "information that is accepted as true and cannot be seriously disputed" and "information about which there is no serious dispute" in this context. The examples provided, mentioning Mars and Plato, help to make very clear the point that is being conveyed. So I don't think it makes that much of a difference which version is used. Still, I don't see the argument that the proposed version is excluding science. Wikipedia is based on existing reliable (generally "mainstream") sources, and the term "cannot be seriously disputed" refers to information that is held by nearly all reliable sources to be clearly evident or well-demonstrated at the time the Wikipedia passage is being written. That does not mean that some scientists might not be studying the information under the hypothesis that it might not be true, or that there is absolute certainty that most mainstream reliable sources will continue to have the same understanding of the information as is held today (hey, maybe one day it will turn out that Mars is not really a planet after all! at which point, we would write, "Mars is not a planet").

The phrase "a piece of information" should still be changed to just "information", however, as the latter is cleaner. Dezastru (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

With a small substitution "Mars is a planet" illustrates my point. Not so along ago, had we used "Pluto is a planet" as an example fact of something that can not - no how, no way, never ever ever - "can not" be seriously disputed, that would have been intellectually arrogant and dishonest... and embarrassing, because as subsequent events show, that statement on its face is false. The statement was recently "seriously disputed", and Pluto is no longer considered to be a "planet" but a different type of astronomical body known in common parlance as "dwarf planet". To say that something can not (never) be seriously disputed is to preclude the possibility that our kids will be smarter than we are. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:36, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I think I agree with NewsAndEventsGuy. A mainstay function of WP:ASSERT was to guarantee that claims which are not disputed by any significant number of reliable sources are not insulated through the use of ascription, rather than stated directly in Wikivoice. An archetypal example would be like those concerning plate tectonics, which N&EG just mentioned. These are claims concerning which it is possible to have a serious dispute (indeed, there has been), but they are not currently seriously disputed. For example, there are a few biologists today who believe in creationism. And before Darwin, many more did. That doesn't rise to the level of a "serious dispute" however, because the ideas of that few today and those many in the past are rejected by the vast majority of today's biologists. Using "cannot be seriously disputed" rather than "is not seriously disputed" would mean that these cases are categorized differently, which is exactly what we don't want. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:02, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it's even more complicated than that. There is a lot in psychology about which there is a serious dispute, but within the profession, there is a widely accepted position and a generally rejected minority. Outside the experts, the prevalence of these views may well be reversed (see also, creationism, people who believe that taking vitamins will prevent cancer, etc.).

For example, we've seen a number of transgendered editors express honest surprise that transsexual people aren't considered biologically intersexed people. This is a fact: there are agreed-upon definitions and criteria for what counts as being biologically intersexed, and "I feel like the opposite of my assigned gender, and there's probably some as-yet unidentified neurological difference that causes this" isn't one of them. The mainstream definition is supported by all the intersex groups as well as by mainstream experts (e.g., typical psych and medical textbooks).

But this is also a fact: A few experts and quite a few trans people do not accept this definition as true.

So how would you present this? It can be disputed (in fact, any definition can be contested, because definitions are fundamentally arbitrary). It is accepted as true by most people, but not by thousands of others. I don't want editors to have to decide whether this definition is "true". I don't think we help readers by presenting the mainstream definition as being "a fact about an opinion", and I'm worried that this change might require us to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:55, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I've changed the proposed text back to "about which there is no serious dispute" until or unless we agree on something else, since that currently seems to have a stronger consensus and history. NPOV avoids defining the term and just links to fact, so I'm sure we'll run into disagreements in trying to define it, particularly when the fact article doesn't include lack of dispute as a description. My concern with the current wording was that it might imply that an undisputed opinion is a fact. If something is an opinion, a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective, then the absence of a serious dispute at the time of writing doesn't make it a fact. So I think the intent with the rewording was to avoid that false conclusion - that assert is redefining what a fact is. Morphh ^(talk) 23:45, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

@Morph, who said "My concern with the current wording was that it might imply that an undisputed opinion is a fact." I thought we were going to include the bit that a fact is something that is "generally accepted as true" or some such wording, which would obviate that specific worry about JoSchmo's opinions. After all, if no one even knows Jo, much less Jo's opinions, there is no way those opinions could be "seriously disputed" and thus confused with this definition of "Fact". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:36, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Correct, and I did maintain that in the definition and I agree that including that does mitigate the concern. I was just voicing why I think it was reworded like that (additional mitigation - perhaps too much) in case anyone thought of a wording that better addressed the issues brought up in this thread. My line of thought was pondering a statement that would be commonly considered to be subjective, but yet is still considered by over 99% to be true and of which there is no serious dispute, such as "Genocide is an evil act", which we have listed in NPOV as an opinion. In that case, we probably have sources that dispute it, but that was my line of thought. Morphh ^(talk) 00:58, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Even though this may be so huge and complex that you have probably temporarily lost 90% of participants, I think that you are doing immensely useful and important work in this thread. North8000 (talk) 23:52, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The three cases are:

1. The metrics of a correct answer are agreed on, and the answer is overwhelmingly considered to be known. (like at least 99% of reasonably people with good access to information agree) E.g., "Did the US land a man on the moon?" (all would agree what "land a man on the moon" means) "Who won the 2010 Super Bowl?" (all would agree what "win the Super Bowl" means).
2. The metrics of a correct answer are agreed upon, but the answer is not agreed upon or known: E.g., "Where did Amelia Earhart's final flight end?" Another way to say this is that if full information were available, all reasonable parties would certainly agree.
3. The metrics of a correct answer are not agreed upon, so, of course, neither is the answer. Example: "Is Obama a good or bad president?" Even the definition / criteria of "is a good or bad president" is not agreed upon.

I think that we should understand that we are talking about #1. North8000 (talk) 23:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Now take my example, and tell me which category that falls into. On the one hand, we have Big Textbook saying that the structure and function of nerves is totally irrelevant to the definition of "biologically intersexed": if all of your genetics, hormones, and anatomy are male (or all female), then you are not intersexed, no matter what's going on with your brain. On the other hand, we have Minority Expert saying that nerves are biological, too, and therefore if you've got the genetics, hormones, and anatomy of a male (or female), but a central nervous system that makes you identify as a woman (or man), then you are "biologically intersexed".

So: in your system, is it a fact that trans people are not intersexed, or is that just an opinion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

That must be where fact and opinion intersects........ (ha ha?) No really, sounds like a battle to define a label (option 3 I think). If we have tangible RSs defining a label one way, and others defining it another way, one reasonable way forward is to report the different ways the various perspectives define the label. What are words, after all, but symbols? If enough people agreed, we could decide that "pizza" really means the decorative things we use to cover the lugnuts on our cars' wheels and "frisbee" is what you eat with pepperoni. Seems the answer to your question lies in a thorough study of RSs and WP:FOC in the discussions at the appropriate venues. You might end up framing the quesiton, "Have the RSs conclusively decided on a definition for 'biologically intersexed'?" thus the question becomes more like Case 1, at least among reasonable wikipedia editors. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 07:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I also think the issue of gender identity is a clear example that weighs against defining "opinion" as including any claim which is commonly considered to be subjective. I think in almost all cases we treat the gender identity of a person as fact. E.g., at Margaret Thatcher, we say that she was "the only woman to have held the office" in direct Wikivoice, and we don't ascribe that claim to the Times or anyone else. And gender identity is commonly considered to be subjective; that's actually exactly how it is defined in our article on gender identity: "Gender identity is a person's private sense, and subjective experience, of their own gender". --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:10, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

That sentence doesn't describe her gender identity, it describes her sex. If she described herself differently than her sex, then we would include that as her (and others) opinion regarding her gender. Example RuPaul. If at some point Thatcher had a sex change or was a hermaphrodite, then we would have to reframe the statements. Example Chaz Bono, Jenna Talackova It's a matter of making sure we're clear on what is being described to the average reader. It's a tricky one, but in the end, we need to keep in mind that ASSERT is an FAQ to help the reader better understand NPOV - if we find ourselves thinking NPOV says one thing and ASSERT says something else, then we probably need to reword ASSERT. It should provide useful examples of application, not confuse or add policy. Morphh ^(talk) 13:19, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

If we find ourselves with skin cancer we should probably have a biopsy also -- which is my way of asking are we just chewing the fat over arch-principles or is there a claim that there is a tangible between NPOV and ASSERT? If so, then in 20 words or less can someone tell us what NPOV says and in another 20 words or less explain what ASSERT says differently NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:42, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Currently or in the proposed text? For the proposed text, I think we're just chewing the fat - perhaps a better wording will fall out, but I think the proposed text does a much better job of reflecting and providing examples of application for NPOV. The current ASSERT text has several issues that I think conflict with the spirit and text of NPOV, which is outlined in the beginning of this discussion. So I certainly think the proposed text is fixing something if that is your inquiry. But if we're fixing anything by discussing the nuances of the proposed text, I can't say. My point was that we don't veer too far off the path from our guiding policy as we evaluate wording. (i.e. Atethnekos's comment of weighing against defining opinion as something "commonly considered to be subjective", which is the exact wording linked to by NPOV for this policy). At this point, I think we have a consensus on "information that is accepted as true and about which there is no serious dispute" so any further discussion would be with regard to altering that if we think of something that better reflects the definition as referenced in NPOV. Morphh ^(talk) 14:14, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Even if it were describing her sex, sex is also commonly considered to be subjective. That is the view of many established experts on sex, including Christine Overall and Bobby Noble (academic). "commonly considered to be subjective" is the wording now used at the article opinion. That definition was not in the article when WP:ASF took form. WP:ASF first started to link the word "opinion" to opinion on January 24 2007 [9]. On January 24 2007, opinion said nothing about subjectivity at all [10]; it defined opinion as "a person's ideas and thoughts towards something. It is an assessment, judgment or evaluation of something. An opinion is not a fact, because opinions are either not falsifiable, or the opinion has not been proven or verified." People can change articles to whatever they want, that doesn't mean that the policies which were previously linked to them then change meaning. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:14, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Sexual anatomy is commonly considered subjective? I think this is getting too meta. :) We need not go back 7 years or 5 years when it was included - ASSERT is now an FAQ for NPOV and should reflect what the policy currently states. It's there to help explain the application of the policy, and should be careful not to redefine it. I recently added e.g. before the definitions in the proposed text so as to indicate that we're providing a brief understanding of fact and opinion, not asserting a definition. That way if there is a unique situation, it can be more easily addressed by consensus on the article talk. Morphh ^(talk) 19:58, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that classification of sexual anatomy is subjective is a common, established view. A question you hear posed is: "How large does a clitoral-penile homologue have to be, before it is no longer a clitoris and is instead a penis?" That question, whenever it is actually of practical significance (as in, during a debate on what to write down on a birth certificate), is usually answered by physicians, and the physicians have no objective standard for determining the answer (see e.g., [11]).

I guess, what I think the core problem with the proposal is that is removes an important lesson that ASSERT is trying to impart: That WP:NPOV should not have "the negative consequence of allowing any contrarian to insist on an inline qualifier for material about which there is no serious dispute." Take the various claims at B.B. King that some of King's music is blues. No reliable source disputes this claim. On the current wording of ASSERT, we can just say: "B.B. King plays blues." Take a contrarian who comes around and says something such as, "We can't say that, it's just an opinion, because it's commonly regarded as subjective (e.g., 'Defining the blues is a subjective task at bottom' [12]) We have to ascribe the view, not report it in Wikivoice." What ASSERT now makes clear to that person is that that is wrong: The claim is reliably source (it passes WP:V), and no reliable source disagrees with it, so it should just be asserted as a "fact", directly in Wikivoice. And ASSERT makes it clear why what that person's view is wrong: Because it creates the appearance of a controversy where there is none. Changing the proposal to remove this lesson, I think is a mistake, because no where else is it taught in policy. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:50, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

While I disagree with your conclusion and how the examples apply, perhaps we could use a different brief explanation than "commonly considered to be subjective" to avoid confusion. What about something like "opinion, (e.g. a matter which is subject to dispute, a judgment, viewpoint, or interpretation of fact)"? The proposal does include the why we don't do in-text attribution of a fact "... because doing so would create the impression of doubt or disagreement where there is none". We need to be careful because NPOV policy doesn't define a fact or opinion (outside of linking to the articles), and the FAQ is not the place to set policy defining it as something notably different. The FAQ definitions should be a reference to help the reader understand the examples and application. Morphh ^(talk) 00:05, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The case you present is not very helpful for this discussion about improving ASSERT. Most of us probably are not familiar enough with the literature on intersex conditions to be able to speak intelligently and with confidence on the subject. (And incidentally, the term "intersex" is strongly preferred over "intersexed"; "transgender" is increasingly preferred over "transgendered". These are adjectives, not past-participle forms of verbs; cp "maled", "femaled".) As you have described the case, there is a dispute over how to define intersex, so whether under the existing version or the proposed version of ASSERT, the definition of intersex would need to be attributed in text, with mention of competing definitions according to WEIGHT.

The cases of how to treat evolution vs creation, how intersex is defined, or whether global climate change is in large measure due to combustion of fossil fuels and other human activities involve debates over competence and authority: Is one party more competent than the other(s) on the subject, such that the former's views should prevail? ASSERT is not intended to solve those debates; the purpose of ASSERT is to explain how the Wikipedia text should be written once the editors have reached a consensus on the questions posed in the debates.

For the present discussion on how to word the sections of ASSERT on fact and opinion, it would be far more useful to consider examples of article topics in which there are clearly no good-faith disputes from any competent parties familiar with the subjects. Dezastru (talk) 14:48, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I was just thinking that a good way to deal with nuance of definition in this case would be to just put (e.g. ...) before the definition. That way we're giving a brief understanding of fact and opinion, not asserting a definition. We do not want to redefine what a fact and opinion are here, just help the user understand what they are so the examples make sense. As NPOV does, we link to the articles. Morphh ^(talk) 15:39, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the question which of my three categories "it" falls into, my answer is that the described situation is a complex blend of assertions and asserted definitions, and so there is no overall answer. Yes, I know that's how most real life situations are. So a whole lot of things would not get the special status afforded to "#1" items, or only small components of them would qualify. North8000 (talk) 15:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

To comment on an earlier comment, we know who won the 1995 Superbowl. That is an objective fact. We can report an WP:RS source who reports a poll saying that "Bush is considered a better/worse president than Roosevelt" (it doesn't matter here which ones!). This is subjective "fact", (and subject to change by the next poll).

We need to extract ourselves from the jargon of insiders which is often constructed so there is only one answer on otherwise objective matter. On "intersexed," we can instead report genetic x vs y observations. That may result in an objective conclusion. We can also report a "poll" of folks who think otherwise (or who consider psychological factors which may not be quantifiable). But the latter is subjective (and therefore subject to change. x/y observations are not subject to change).

Wikipedia should not be forced into someone else's grammar where it merely obfuscates the answer or predicts it. "Anti-choice" or "pro-abortion," to take two examples. Student7 (talk) 18:18, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

North, if almost nothing except basic mathematics and very simple questions of history fall into category #1, then the definition isn't very useful to us. We need something that will let us report what textbooks say about the definition of intersexed as being accurate information, not as if it's merely an opinion held by some people. We need to be able to report that whales are mammals even though the swim in the sea, and that snails aren't fish, even though some EU laws declared them to be "fish, land-based". If "this English word means what the dictionary (or other competent source) says the word means" doesn't fall into the category of "fact", then we're not going to get anywhere. In fact, if the definition of fact isn't what competent sources normally claim it to mean, then we can't even usefully have a conversation about this.

Student7, "extracting ourselves from the jargon of insiders" is a noble-sounding idea, but it's not very useful. That way lies people saying that they are cancer survivors because they had a pre-cancerous spot on their skin, or calling themselves "biologically intersexed" because it gets a more sympathetic social response than "transsexual" (which it apparently does). Definitions for some things are really crucial, because you can't meaningfully determine an article's subject if you don't. You don't want Cancer to be about cancer, pre-cancer, non-cancerous conditions that look similar, and non-cancerous conditions that have similar symptoms, plus hypochondria, malingering, and fraud. You want that article to be about the thing itself, and to not be about the other things (except in passing, since one useful way of defining something is to contrast it with related things, e.g., [malignant] cancer vs [benign] neoplasia). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Consensus?

Text under discussion:

What is the difference between asserting a fact and asserting an opinion?

The text of Wikipedia articles should assert facts, but not assert opinions as fact.

• When a statement is a fact (e.g. information that is accepted as true and about which there is no serious dispute), it should be asserted using Wikipedia's own voice without in-text attribution. Thus we write: "Mars is a planet" or "Plato was a philosopher". We do not write: "According to the Daily Telegraph, the capital of France is Paris" because doing so would create the impression of doubt or disagreement where there is none. It is good practice, however, to include an inline citation to a reliable source to allow the reader to verify any fact that is not widely known.

• When a statement is an opinion (e.g. a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it should be attributed in the text to the person or group who holds the opinion. Thus we might write: "Charles Darwin says that human beings evolved through natural selection." or "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre.". We do not write: "John Doe is the best baseball player". The inclusion of opinions is subject to weight policy, and they should be backed up with an inline citation to a reliable source that verifies both the opinion and who holds it.

A simple formulation is to assert facts, including facts about opinions, but don't assert opinions themselves.

Morphh, everyone else involved: Was there actually consensus for the change (https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ&diff=next&oldid=600656392)? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 17:06, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I think there is a general agreement that the proposed text is better, though I know you had some objections. There was some final discussion on possible wording of the "definition" (which was updated based on part of that discussion - some of it a problem in definition we had with the existing text), but that died down and the primary end point is that it shouldn't be a definition (in the sense that it defines it for NPOV) - they're examples meant to help the reader understand the topic. If there are gray areas on NPOV, which there always are, they should be discussed on the article talk and gain consensus. I'm open to other wording; I presented alternate wording in our prior discussion. The text is not locked, nor perfect - let's discuss a revision for making it better or if there is some compromise text that can be achieved. Morphh ^(talk) 20:40, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I thought User:NewsAndEventsGuy and User:WhatamIdoing agreed with me; or, at least, I don't think my position is significantly different than theirs.

If you still want to discuss, yes, I'm fine with that. For example, with what exactly did you disagree with above, when you said that you disagreed with my conclusion? For the B.B. King example, I think I had two premises: The claim that B.B. King plays some blues music should not be considered as an example of an opinion for the purposes of WP:YESPOV. And, that claim is something which is commonly considered to be subjective. Which I think validly gives the conclusion that a matter which is commonly considered to be subjective should not be considered as an example of an opinion for the purposes of WP:YESPOV, unless specifically quantified (semiformal: x is not a Y. x is a Z. Therefore: Not all Zs are Ys.) --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 22:02, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I do not agree that human evolution is a good example of an opinion. On the rest of the changes... some might be improvements, some not. But that particular example is a disaster. If you want a clearer example, try something like "John Boehner believes that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 harmed Americans". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, That example was pulled from WP:INTEXT. We were trying to use quotes that already exist in policy so as not to go through such a debate, but I personally don't care which example we use so long as it's concise, neutral and can convey the point simply. Morphh ^(talk) 01:12, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Specifically, that example was pulled from something explicitly marked as a bad example at INTEXT. It's not a good choice. Try the one with the green checkmark instead of the ones with the red Xs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:03, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I had the one with the green checkmark in there first, but someone suggested changing it (perhaps because it was wordy - can't recall). See Dezastru post above from 20:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC). Again, I'm fine with whatever. We can even make something new up. Just thought it would be easier to copy. Morphh ^(talk) 03:33, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Litmus test, my primary area of editing interest is global warming and climate change. Seems to me that under the new text the statement "Earth's climate system is warming" is both

• Fact, because "there is no serious dispute" (beyond data-free blogs of various stripes, and yes, I can provide RSs that say it is an established scientific fact)
• Opinion, because despite the former being true, the statement is still considered by many to be highly subjective

So I think there's some fine tuning that is still needed, but I haven't puzzled over what to suggest. First interested to see others reactions so far. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:31, 16 April 2014 (UTC) PS Forgot to say that the rest of the revision is OK with me, though it may need further tweaking in light of what i just said.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:33, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Atethnekos, I think B.B. King playing the blues is both "information that is accepted as true and about which there is no serious dispute", thus I consider it a fact. It also follows that suggesting otherwise "would create the impression of doubt or disagreement where there is none". While the blues may be subjective, I also don't see that B.B. King playing the blues is "commonly considered to be subjective". So I don't see the conflict which you propose, nor would I expect any such challenge on the article talk page to gain any ground. I would ask you to look at NPOV (WP:YESPOV) and see what the policy directs. The FAQ should work to best reflect and give examples to the policy. This is why I thought it important to include e.g. (for the sake of example) in front of the definition to indicate we're just trying to help the reader understand the policy, not trying to define what a fact is or what an opinion is (as NPOV leaves it open). While not an great solution, an alternative option would be to just delete the definitions. We're going to have those issues that fall into that grey area that NewsAndEventsGuy mentions and I'm trying to think if any of the base definitions of an opinion would work better "a judgment", "viewpoint", or "interpretation of fact" to resolve the conflict. I'm open to those changes if you think it helps or alternative language, but I think we may just be running into the quandary that is present in NPOV, which at some point may require editorial judgement and discussion. It seems we're trying to define these terms as policy, when we shouldn't / don't need too, and come up with some wording where a fact is not really a fact and an opinion is not really an opinion depending on subjective judgements - I just don't see that working, but I'm open to suggestions. Morphh ^(talk) 01:12, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Concerning Darwin: How that example is imported from WP:INTEXT does seem odd. WP:INTEXT uses that as an example of what we should not do, and the change treats it as an example of what we should do.

B.B. King and blues: So you think that defining blues as inclusive of some of B.B. King's music is not commonly considered to be subjective. I just don't see this. I did give the cite above, which said that defining blues is subjective. Do you have something which contradicts that? And, intuitively, I really think that's right: Most blues fans when asked to justify their judgement that something is blues will give the cliché: "I know it when I hear it". Take "The Thrill Is Gone". So we rightly say that that is blues. Do you really think that any source for that description made that judgement by some objective standard? Don't you think that it is more likely that any such person simply listened to it and then instinctively responded, "That's blues", and wrote that impression into her description? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 03:04, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Atethnekos & WhatamIdoing, The Darwin example in INTEXT was showing two viewpoints (opinions) but giving equal validity, which is what it was saying not to do since the first is a majority view and the second a fringe view. We used it in a different way to just show a single viewpoint / opinion, so it's not the same thing. They said it was a viewpoint and we use it as a viewpoint, but I get the contentious nature of the subject - as I said, I don't care if we change it. If people want to debate that natural selection is undisputed fact, ok, I just wanted a simple example and was trying to draw on ones we already use. As for the blues Atethnekos, I think you're overanalyzing it. Elvis Presley was Rock, Michael Jackson was Pop, B.B. King was Blues. We don't have to get into the subjective nature of what makes music a particular style to say that Michael Jackson is considered the King of Pop or that he was a pop artist - IMO, it's an accepted truth. Again, I'm not married to "commonly considered subjective" if another defining term regarding judgement, viewpoint is preferable. Morphh ^(talk) 03:27, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Natural selection is a "fact". Like all facts, it might be wrong (see, e.g., all previous models of the atom) but, even if it is someday demonstrate to be wrong, it is not an "opinion". "Fact" is not a synonym for "truth". WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

You're taking my statement out of context. I was obviously referencing the quote regarding human evolution, but this is an unnecessary discussion. Morphh ^(talk) 16:37, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused then. Didn't you just say ("We used it in a different way to just show a single viewpoint / opinion")—and this is what the change suggests as well—that Darwin's viewpoint that "humans evolved through natural selection" is an opinion?

INLINE called it a viewpoint and used in-text attribution (making the statement a fact by attributing it to Darwin). His view was considered an opinion regarding origins - that humans evolved through natural selection vs the other viewpoint that humans were created by a God. I'm not religious and don't believe in creation, but it seems to me to be a debatable point. The example was showing an INLINE attribution to make an opinion a fact, but apparently "humans evolved through natural selection" is a fact and there is no creationism debate. Anyway, I don't care to debate it - it doesn't matter to me, we've all agreed that it should change. We just need to select a new example. Morphh ^(talk) 18:54, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

See below: "view" or "viewpoint" has never meant "opinion"; this seems to be why you made this interpretation. Opinions are a proper subset of viewpoints. No policy or guideline in a state reached by consensus has ever called anything like "humans evolved through natural selection" an opinion. It's always been considered a fact for policy. They've called it a view, yes, but that's just a great example for showing that "view" and "opinion" are not synonymous in policy. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 00:34, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Blues: Well, yes, I agree that we shouldn't have to get into the nature of musical genre judgement, whether it is subjective or objective. But I think that's true for every judgement—musical genre judgements are just a counter-example to the doctrine of using subjective-ness of a claim to determine whether it is an opinion or not. As a wider thought: Aren't opinions and facts supposed to be mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive categories? So if any proposition "that is accepted as true and about which there is no serious dispute" is an example of a fact, then why not just use the negation of that as an example of an opinion? The negation would be: "any proposition that is not accepted as true or about which there is serious dispute". --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:28, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Morphh, it's a very necessary discussion. We cannot use that example. Natural selection is what we call "a fact". You have given it as an example of an opinion. In doing that, you're going to completely confuse some readers of that FAQ. We need a different example, and we need it as soon as possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:41, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I conceded it from the first comment. No one is trying to keep it! Let's pick something. Morphh ^(talk) 18:54, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

So what about something simple like:

John Smith says Wikipedia is the greatest resource for human knowledge.

Or maybe something like this would be apt, though perhaps we can trim it.

According to Henry Ford, the secret of success lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle".

Atethnekos, That wouldn't work - "any proposition that is not accepted as true" would be perceived to be false, which is not the case or definition of an opinion. Several of us have also brought up the use of the term "serious" and interpretation of "weighty" as a definition and I wouldn't want to double down on what constitutes a serious dispute, essentially turning what is a fact/opinion into a debate of WP:WEIGHT. Here is our lede for opinion (reference for YESPOV) "In general, an opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement about matters commonly considered to be subjective, i.e. based on that which is less than absolutely certain, and is the result of emotion or interpretation of facts. What distinguishes fact from opinion is that facts are verifiable, i.e. can be objectively proven to have occurred." Our example should be an concise summary of this. What about if we left off "judgement" from my last suggestion and just went with:

When a statement is an opinion (e.g. a matter which is subject to dispute, a viewpoint, or interpretation of fact), ...

Since NPOV uses the term viewpoint to describe policy regarding opinions, including that would seem uncontroversial and "interpretation of fact" seems to include what you suggested. It's directly pulled from what NPOV links for this policy. Morphh ^(talk) 22:11, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

You think that "viewpoint" and "opinion" are synonymous in policy. That's not right at all. "Viewpoint" (or just plain "view") in this usage has always referred to any proposition from a source. That humans evolved through natural selection is a viewpoint. But it's a fact, not an opinion. WP:YESPOV divides up the set of viewpoints into subsets of "facts" and "opinions". They are terms of art for the purposes of policy, not terms defined as they would be by the procedures of article writing. Indeed, that content in the article opinion has no sources given to back it up, and it is at least not neutral. You would never find a preponderance of reliable sources that define "opinion" in that way. The very first definition of "opinion" which the Oxford English Dictionary lists is simply: "a view held about a particular issue". Any belief at all fits that definition, whether that belief is true, false, subjective, objective, or none of the above.

YLet's call that opinion* for clarity. So we say that the opinion* of Brahe was the Tychonic system, and the opinion* of Galileo was heliocentrism. Brahe's opinion* was false, Galileo's opinion* was true. Is Galileo's opinion* considered an "opinion" for the purposes of NPOV? Of course not, it's a fact. Why? Not because it doesn't fit the meaning of opinion* (since it does), but because our reliable sources overwhelmingly affirm that viewpoint. Were I rightly to improve the opinion article to reflect this, would then the meaning of "opinion" in WP:NPOV change? Of course not, because it's meaning has nothing to do with how the article defines it. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 00:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to get into Evolution as fact and theory debate or that half the population has a different viewpoint (opinion) on origins, or that INLINE describes it as a "majority view" - it's a disputed topic, which I concede would be a poor example here. I can't say I agree with your interpretation of definition. Perhaps it's something to bring forward as clarification in the NPOV policy - to define it, maybe include as a footnote. While I find it a weakened example of such a commonly accept concept, I'd compromise and agree to remove "a viewpoint" and just say this: Morphh ^(talk) 01:19, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

"When a statement is an opinion (e.g. a matter which is subject to dispute or an interpretation of fact), ...

@NewsAndEventsGuy:, @Smalljim:, @Dezastru:, @North8000: perhaps you can offer your thoughts up to this point and if any of the recent suggestions would improve the FAQ. Morphh ^(talk) 01:31, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I like the Henry Ford line. I think people will immediately understand that "the secret to success" is an opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Great - for the sake of brevity, perhaps we could trim off "and see things from that person's angle" and just have it say "According to Henry Ford, the secret of success lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view". I wouldn't do that in the normal quote, but since it's just an example, I think it would be fine. As a point of review, here is the full quote I was working from "If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own". Morphh ^(talk) 03:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Since Morphh has asked me about this, I've boldly removed the Darwin example because everyone here agrees it is not a good one. Regarding the rest of the opinion bullet, I think it's more confusing than it should be because the "do this" and "don't do this" examples don't match. It would be much clearer, IMO, if it said:

Thus we do not write: "John Doe is the best baseball player", but we can write something like: "In the 1999 edition of Baseball Year, Fred Smith said that John Doe is the greatest baseball player."

HTH.  —SMALLJIM  12:48, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

No objection here - sounds good. Morphh ^(talk) 18:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Ford and baseball: Sounds great.

Interpretation: Why would you think that "an interpretation of a fact" cannot also be a fact? Start with the fact that Schliemann and Calvert excavated various remains near Tevfikiye. Their interpretation of this fact was that Troy was a real place. So then the proposition, "Troy was a real place", is an opinion? Well, no it's a fact—all of the relevant reliable sources agree that Troy existed. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Just reporting that I have to trust ya'll to figure it out. I'm out of time to continue work on this personally. Thanks for your efforts. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Atethnekos, we might say it's a derivative fact, since they probably excavated there based on existing evidence. But in many cases opinions become facts after additional evidence supports the truth and accuracy of the opinion. They may have said it was the lost city of Atlantis and it would still be an opinion until further evidence supported that conclusion to a point where we would consider it a fact. So it is the additional evidence that turned the opinion (that interpretation of excavated fact) into an actual fact, at which point I think it ceases to be an opinion (interpretation) and just becomes fact. This could be true of many of the opinion definitions - you argued a viewpoint could be a fact, as well as something disputed, or they could become facts once more evidence is gained. It can be easy for us to get too into the philosophical weeds here. I think we just need something simple that is easily referenced as a commonly excepted definition. Here are various definitions pulled from external sources that could perhaps help in finding a better phrase:

Merriam-Webster:

1. a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter
2. belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge

Student dictionary

1. a judgment about a person or thing <a high opinion of themselves>
2. a belief based on experience and on seeing certain facts that falls short of positive knowledge

• Synonym Study: OPINION, BELIEF, CONVICTION mean something that one thinks is true. OPINION suggests a judgment that may not be shared by all <heard more than one opinion on that issue>. BELIEF suggests a view that one has come to accept fully in one's own mind <a basic belief in a supreme being>. CONVICTION suggests a firm unchangeable belief <a conviction that all life is valuable>.

American Heritage:

1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof

Oxford Dictionary:

1. A view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge

Cambridge:

1. a thought or belief about something or someone
2. the thoughts or beliefs that a group of people have
3. a judgment about someone or something

Dictionary.com (tertiary source):

1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.
3. judgment or belief not founded on certainty or proof
4. the prevailing or popular feeling or view: public opinion

• Synonym Study: 1. Opinion, sentiment, view are terms for one's conclusion about something. An opinion is a belief or judgment that falls short of absolute conviction, certainty, or positive knowledge; it is a conclusion that certain facts, ideas, etc., are probably true or likely to prove so: political opinions; an opinion about art; In my opinion this is true. Sentiment (usually pl.) refers to a rather fixed conviction, usually based on feeling or emotion rather than reasoning: These are my sentiments. View is an estimate of something, an intellectual judgment, a critical survey based on a mental examination, particularly of a public matter: views on governmental planning.

thefreedictionary.com (tertiary source):

1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof

• Synonyms: opinion, view, sentiment, feeling, belief, conviction, persuasion - These nouns signify something a person believes or accepts as being sound or true. Opinion is applicable to a judgment based on grounds insufficient to rule out the possibility of dispute:

1. judgment or belief not founded on certainty or proof
2. a belief or judgment based on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.

Some terms that I picked out that might provide an alternate wording "judgment or belief not founded on certainty or proof", "judgment that may not be shared by all", "thoughts or beliefs that a group of people have". Synonym phrasing "something that one thinks is true", "estimate of something", "intellectual judgment". Perhaps something can be crafted from one of these. The terms belief and judgement are a very common description across the various dictionaries. Morphh ^(talk) 00:06, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Creation story/myth/narrative

A few articles about creation myths are titled "example creation narrative" (with example being the culture or religion from which it originates, like Genesis creation narrative). Others are titled "example creation myth" (like Japanese creation myth. Still others are titled "example creation story". The problem I see here is that by referring to some articles as narratives and others as myths, we are giving greater credibility to some religions than others, something that we obviously want to avoid in order to be neutral. In my opinion, all articles of this type should be titled either "myth", "narrative" or "story", for consistency and equal credibility. What do others think? Bringing this up at WTalk:Wikipedia:Article Titles resulted in a weak consensus to make the titles consistent, but there was general agreement it belonged here. So here it is. Rwenonah (talk) 19:46, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Not sure it belongs here - this talk is about improving the NPOV policy page. I would think WP:RFC might be the best place to discuss it, though it looks like this may have been discussed already. Morphh ^(talk) 02:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

You can try a WP:Proposed move for a couple. If you haven't been through that dispute before, the problem is that most native English speakers believe that the definition of myth is something like "story that has been scientifically proven to be a pack of lies", whereas the title is using the term in its technical sense (approximately "story that tells us something very important about what it means to be human").

That said, NPOV is about individual articles, seen in isolation. It is not evaluated by comparing it to the choices made in other articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

What to do when a large percentage of info about a subject comes from lawsuit judgments?

Re: Yank Barry. The situation is that he's very quiet about what he's up to (except for the very positive seeming things) and as such his activities only reach the public sphere when he's sued. Which seems to happen quite a bit. If we just stick to that, it feels like the article is unbalanced. Thoughts? - Richfife (talk) 19:11, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Two thoughts:

• That no matter how it feels to you, the prohibition against using court documents for information about WP:BLPs is absolute.
• That it'd be surprising if some of this didn't turn up in newspaper stories about the lawsuits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Due weight and undue weight

I was recently involved in a discussion over differences in "due weight" between various types of opinion articles in peer reviewed journals that were all addressing the same topic. The Wikipedia editors seemed to be unclear about how to apply NPOV policy when summarizing the different opinions. It was suggested that a hierarchy exists in Wikipedia policy based on a perceived difference in "weight" that depends on who represents the journal and who does not. For instance: Opinions expressed in an editorial, or comments by a science journalist, should be viewed as reliable sources because they 'are' the journal, while comments in published letters to the editor should not be considered reliable sources because they 'are not' the journal. I could not find a clear guideline to illuminate me on this and came across a number of similar discussions in IRS archives with no clear consensus. So I wonder if it wouldn't be wise to have a specific guideline on this issue to help editors decide. Personally I believe there should not be a difference in "weight". What these articles have in common is that none of them are peer-reviewed and they have all been selected by the journal's editorial staff to be included in the (scientific) debate. If Wikipedia editors make their own selection based on a perceived hierarchy this seems to be in violation of NPOV rather than applying it, especially in cases where the editor or journalist expresses their personal opinions about the authors of letters, or groups they represent, which might introduce an unbalanced account of opinions or even straw man tactics into a Wikipedia article. (NB I am not referring to discussions about fringe science or controversial world views here) Saflieni (talk) 23:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

It's more complicated than that, but I'm of your anti-hierarchy idea. However, that has to be tempered with the reality that some journals will ask a true quack to write something, just to "be fair" (or to give the quacks enough rope so they can hang themselves). In one case, a journal literally ran every letter they received on a subject, with authors ranging from major figures in the field to internet activists to non-scholarly people who had a personal interest in the subject. It can even be hard to differentiate between letters to the editor and true op-eds, especially since some older publications have called short peer-reviewed articles "correspondence". As as result, I'm not sure that there is a one-size-fits-all answer. Your best approach is probably to take the question to WP:NPOVN, which is where you can find some editors who specialize in helping with complicated questions like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't mean allowing them as a source for factual claims but merely as a source for 'who said what'. I was thinking along the lines of upgrading this advice in WP:NPOVFAQ: "When a statement is an opinion (e.g. a matter which is subject to dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it should be attributed in the text to the person or group who holds the opinion." This should be enough to prevent endless discussions and disputes about whether letters in reliable sources are admissable at all. Saflieni (talk) 16:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

NEUTRALITY?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Ain't no NEUTRALITY on Wikipedia. ESPECIALLY in the technology area, if one&#151;for example&#151;condescends to slam a Microsoft "solution" that is forty years behind the times, every jackass and his brother "corrects" it. THAT IS NOT NEUTRALITY; THAT IS FRANK INCOMPETENCE, PROMULGATED BY MORONS WHO LACK THE MATURITY TO KEEP THEIR IGNORANT MOUTHS SHUT.

And when a knowledgeable AUTHORITY posts a legitimately supported piece that explains why this is better or worse than that, some joker of an ancient-AOL-style-Sysop, or, worse yet, some reboot of a mIRC dildoid with a "Boot user" button, bitches about it being NOT NEUTRAL. NO NEUTRALITY TO BE HAD. THE WIKIPEDIA PROJECT HAS FAILED--MISERABLY. AND THEY WANT **MONEY** FROM **ME** ? ? ?

BruceDavidWilner 13.v.2014

Those bastards! If I were you, I would never post on Wikipedia again... and don't give them one single cent! That'll show em! Blueboar (talk) 22:48, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

At wikipedia (which claims to be an encyclopedia), all the complementary and alternative medicine articles like Naturopathy, Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Osteopathy etc. are attack pieces, calling all complementary and alternative medicine pseudoscientific etc. When I discussed this on a Talk Page here, I was told that all complementary and alternative medicine articles should be written, not from the perspective of its advocates/practitioners, but from the perspective of 'researchers and scientists'. This I feel, however, is not how an encyclopedia should be written. I reported the matter on the NPOV noticeboard here and to an admin here. I also saw how some people, disturbed by wikipedia's policy have started online petitions (see this), probably to be submitted to Jimmy/Jimbo Wales. Any comments?—Khabboos (talk) 15:32, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I believe another wiki, citizendium, has addressed that issue by making a couple of specialists in that field editors of that article, who can control what others (called authors) post about that article. I believe Larry Page its founder was a one-time co-founder of wikipedia with Jimmy Wales. I'm not saying we should follow their example, but we sure can do something to set right the wikipedia complementary and alternative medicine articles.—Khabboos (talk) 15:44, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Citizendium is a massive failure for what it set out to do and Jimbo's reply to the petition was spot on:

No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful.

Wikipedia's policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals - that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately.

What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.

--NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

'Lunatic charlatans'? Do you know that one needs to be a 'qualified, licensed doctor' to practice these in most countries? If the 'work' is not published in respectable scientific journals, are we going to let all the wikipedia complementary and alternative medicine articles be attack pieces?—Khabboos (talk) 15:57, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Are you saying that governmental regulatory bodies state only a licensed M.D. can practice homeopathy, naturopathy, etc. I very much doubt that (for example, Naturopathy#Regulation). Remember that a license to practice alternative medicine does not make you an M.D. And if the "work" is not published in accepted journals, yes, we are going to note that prominently. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:12, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, most doctors don't do research. Wikipedia medical articles are based on summaries of research papers, not the views of the local G.P. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

At Naturopathy#Regulation it is mentioned that one becomes and MD(Naturopathy) in some countries and and ND/NMD in others, so aren't they doctors? If complementary and alternative medicines are helping people (and there are millions who vouch for it), but the 'work' is not published in respectable scientific journals, are we going to let all the wikipedia complementary and alternative medicine articles be attack pieces?—Khabboos (talk) 16:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

They can call themselves whatever they want; if they don't publish in accepted journals then their views on the science behind the practice is about as valuable as mine. Your "attack pieces" are in fact articles which don't print the claims of practitioners unquestioningly. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:39, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

It may seem at first like our article on homeopathy is just a load of so-called scientific nonsense based on research by so-called scientists, but we've been careful to include the opposing view for balance. The truth is definitely in there, although the actual amount of truth is significantly less than one pixel. It shouldn't be considered any less effective because of that though. Formerip (talk) 16:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

If wikipedia claims to be an encyclopedia, it should just explain what something is, like how the Encyclopedia Britannica does. Even the wiki, citizendium has achieved more balanced articles, but the wikipedia complementary and alternative medicine articles are attack pieces.—Khabboos (talk) 16:40, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Your vaunted Britannica has three paragraphs on homeopathy and includes this: "In the 20th century, however, homeopathy has been viewed with little favour and has been criticized for focusing on the symptoms rather than on the underlying causes of disease." --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:48, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Citizendium on homeothapy. Doesn't look like they just explain what something "is" either. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Responding to Do you know that one needs to be a 'qualified, licensed doctor' to practice these in most countries? That appears to be false. Take California for example.[13] In fact here is information from the Council for Homeopathic Certification: [14] As you can see only a few jurisdictions license homeopaths at all, and the title of "doctor" is not recognized - it is purely one assumed by the practitioner. --MelanieN (talk) 17:00, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

@Melanie, if you observe properly, I said "most", not "all". Even in the US, most states need a license to practice in - California being an exception, where one can practice as a Naturopathic Doctor legally using the title/qualification if one has done the Naturopathy course, as well as practice without a license, as long as one doesn't claim to be a doctor.

@Neil, Britannica has 3 paragraphs describing homeopathy and only one sentence criticizing it (the sentence you mentioned), but the comp. and alt.med. articles here are such that almost all the statements are criticized (esp. Homeopathy). In the citizendium article on Chiropractic, all the 'criticism' has been put at the bottom. Can we do something like that at wikipedia?—Khabboos (talk) 14:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

@Khabboos: Please provide a reference for "most countries". And really, we don't care if they can be called Doctor of Foo (some after 10-20 weeks of study). They're still not medical scientists. As to your Citizendium point, perhaps you should go back and re-read the article. See the second section, the one called "Conflict with conventional medicine"? And even if Citizendium did do as you suggest, here at Wikipedia we don't hide the fact that certain topics are considered fringe by the scientific community. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:41, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Then maybe we should have a disclaimer or note at the top of each complementary and alternative medicine article, stating that this is how scientists view it and not its practitioners.—Khabboos (talk) 14:46, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a disclaimer at the top of every article stating this is how reliable sources view the topic and not its fans. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:49, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Suits me - at least we won't have so many people coming here (to wikipedia) and complaining.—Khabboos (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Khabboos, but "most" is simply not correct. California is NOT an exception. Did you even read the thing I posted from the Council for Homeopathic Certification? "In the dozen or so states that license naturopathic physicians (ND or NMD), homeopathy is included within their scope of practice. Only three states in the U.S. (Connecticut, Arizona, and Nevada) have a state licensing board that licenses medical doctors to practice homeopathy." Most state governments do not license homeopathy or grant recognition to its practitioners, and you should stop claiming they do. --MelanieN (talk) 15:33, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

@Melanie, In the (US) states where licensing is not a must, one can practice as a Naturopathic Doctor legally using the title/qualification if one has done the Naturopathy course, as well as practice without a license, as long as one doesn't claim to be a doctor (ditto with Homeopathy). I agree with Neil's suggestion that, "Maybe we should have a disclaimer at the top of every (complementary and alternative medicine) article stating this is how reliable sources view the topic and not its fans."—Khabboos (talk) 15:39, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

That is not what I suggested. My suggestion (which was very much tongue-in-cheek and will never be accepted) was to put a disclaimer on every Wikipedia article as complementary and alternative medicine articles are nothing special in this regard. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:59, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

The other articles seem to be O.K. Complementary and alternative medicine has survived all these years only because there is clinical evidence that it works and if there is enough funding, I'm sure the research will also prove the claims of its practitioners. For the moment, just to avoid people coming here (to wikipedia) and complaining about the complementary and alternative medicine articles, we need a disclaimer at the top of those (comp. and alt. med.) articles.—Khabboos (talk) 13:28, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

We have one general disclaimer, which is linked at the bottom of all articles. Otherwise we don't use them.

As far as research goes, most methods have been researched and found wanting. It's not for lack of research that these methods are considered worthless or sometimes dangerous. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which is the highest body which researches and promotes alternative medicine in the USA (its employees and beneficiaries have a vested interest in proving that it works), has failed to prove such effects:

• "A 2012 study published in the Skeptical Inquirer examined the grants and awards funded by NCCAM from 2000 to 2011, which totaled $1.3 billion. The study found no discoveries in complementary and alternative medicine that would justify the existence of this center. The authors argued that, after 20 years and an expenditure of $20 billion, the failure of NCCAM is evidenced by the lack of publications and the failure to report clinical trials in peer-reviewed, medical journals. They recommended that NCCAM be defunded or abolished, and the concept of funding alternative medicine be discontinued." Mielczarek, E., Engler, B. 2012. Measuring Mythology: Startling Concepts in NCCAM Grants. Skeptical Inquirer 36(1)(January/February):35-43, 2012.

Its popularity is not because of actual effectiveness, but usually because of perceived effectiveness (people believe what practitioners tell them). Here's a good quote about another reason why it's popular:

• "[CAM] is popular. An analysis of the reasons why this is so points towards the therapeutic relationship as a key factor. Providers of CAM tend to build better therapeutic relationships than mainstream healthcare professionals. In turn, this implies that much of the popularity of CAM is a poignant criticism of the failure of mainstream healthcare. We should consider it seriously with a view of improving our service to patients."[15]

Worthless cures have existed for thousands of years, so effectiveness is not the only reason why a method is chosen to work. If people like it or think it works, they'll still use it.

• Richard Dawkins, an English evolutionary biologist and author, in an essay in his book A Devil's Chaplain (2003) (chapter 4.4), has defined alternative medicine as a "set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests."

The brilliant comedian and skeptic Tim Minchin has managed to succinctly sum up the mainstream scientific and skeptical POV about alternative medicine:

• "By definition, Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call 'alternative medicine' that's been proved to work? Medicine."

That quote is from his popular beat poem, Storm. It's well worth watching because it's both brilliant and funny. It's about Tim's meeting with a hippie named Storm. The poem is about critical thinking: Storm

Cancer researcher Andrew J. Vickers has stated:

• "Contrary to much popular and scientific writing, many alternative cancer treatments have been investigated in good-quality clinical trials, and they have been shown to be ineffective. In this article, clinical trial data on a number of alternative cancer cures including Livingston-Wheeler, Di Bella Multitherapy, antineoplastons, vitamin C, hydrazine sulfate, Laetrile, and psychotherapy are reviewed. The label 'unproven' is inappropriate for such therapies; it is time to assert that many alternative cancer therapies have been 'disproven'." (emphasis added)

Brangifer (talk) 15:38, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

• This discussion should be closed and hatted. This is not the place to argue about the merits or lack of merits of alternative medicine. We have our standards, we apply them. We are not going to add any additional notices at the top of the page explaining them. Nothing more to say, let's go build an encyclopedia. --MelanieN (talk) 15:44, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

@Melanie, I was waiting for an admin to turn up here and advise us (I have e-mailed some of them). If this (wikipedia) is an encyclopedia, it should say what the proponents say with some criticism at the bottom.

@BullRangifer, I have personally benefited from and have seen others benefit from Homeopathy, Naturopathy, chiropractic maneuvers, hypnotherapy (I've used Steve G. Jones cassettes to project myself astrally and see many places worldwide, without a visa, ticket or anyone asking for my passport), Reiki and so on - there is not enough +ve research for it, only clinical evidence - but that doesn't mean we at wikipedia attack them all as bull-shit (and if we do, we should at least have a notice at the top of such articles).—Khabboos (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

What you're asking for will never, ever happen. One of the core principals of Wikipedia is not to portray unscientific codswallop as plausible. Time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:25, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Name of policy

I find the name of this policy confuses some editors and wonder if there could be a better choice. While it is clear that it refers to neutral presentation of reliable sources, many editors who do not read beyond the title believe that it means articles should be neutral to the subject. A typical request is that when we write about a fringe group that we provide equal weight to their position. Many editors actually link to this policy when demanding "neutrality." Any suggestions? TFD (talk) 21:17, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Good points. Newbies often interpret this in a way which unwittingly promotes false balance. The policy refers primarily to the neutrality of editors, not blah articles which contain no opinions or POV. Editors must edit in a neutral manner, reproducing faithfully the opinions, POV, and spirit of the sources, regardless of whether they agree with them or not. If the balance of mainstream RS tends in one direction, then the article will tend in that direction, with minority opinions only getting passing mention. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:45, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

People (longtime editors in addition to WP:Newbies) misinterpreting the WP:Neutral policy is exactly why I have this section about the matter on my user page. I'm not sure that we should change the title of the WP:Neutral policy, though, or what would be the best alternative to its current title. And speaking of titles... BullRangifer (Brangifer), since no one has objected to your changing the section title Giving "equal validity" to Giving "equal validity" can create a "false balance", I suggest that the redirects for that section go ahead and be redirected to the new title. A bot will do it eventually, but one of us should go ahead and do it now. I held off on changing them because I was waiting to see if anyone would object to your title change. One suggestion that I have about that new title, though? That you take "false balance" out of quotation marks (or scare quotes); it's false balance when people give "equal validity" under the circumstances mentioned there, plain and simple, so I don't see why "false balance" needs to be in quotation marks. Flyer22 (talk) 01:17, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Brangifer, I know that I already thanked you via WP:Echo hours ago for removing the quotation marks, but thanks again. I waited before commenting here on the talk page about it because I wanted to see if you were going to state something about your latest, again relatively small and unlikely to be contested, edits to the policy page. Flyer22 (talk) 05:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Balancing aspects section

As for WP:NPOV#Balancing aspects it's not so much the title I had a problem with as the content that appeared to rely on a somewhat elusive and undefined "significance to the subject". I updated, and added some examples: [16] OK? --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:30, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I reverted. Like the top of the page states: "This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus." In comparison to your tempered editing approach at Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, significant changes to a policy page without discussion are far less tolerated.

What has brought you to this page today? Stumble across it? Followed anyone to it? Flyer22 (talk) 16:42, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

(ec) The page is on my watchlist for over 10 years, and the discussion above reminded me of this recent example:

• Here is an editor using an argument that complies to "significance to the subject" but not to "significance in the overall body of reliable sources": It is the absolute reason for his notability to which I replied this is not what the sources appear to say and clarified by examples. (I didn't want to use that example in the policy while it is extracted from a contentious page)

What are your opinions about the content of what I proposed? I also read https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=User:Flyer22&curid=11230502&diff=616164474&oldid=616078534#Main_type_of_editing_style, the link you provided above. This was the issue I tried to address, at least I see a common ground there. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:55, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I prefer that we keep it simple, like Brangifer did with this edit, and not make substantial changes without agreement from multiple editors on this talk page to proceed with them. Flyer22 (talk) 05:17, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, replace "its significance to the subject" by "the weight of that aspect in the body of reliable sources on the subject" then, without adding examples. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:53, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Information that are UNDUE but might become DUE after a while

Many times I am tempted to post on article's talk pages various piece of information about new technologies that might not quite not be WP:DUE today, but there is a good chance that it they will become DUE after a few years or decades. For example, someone invents a new type of brick. That might not be exactly DUE for adding into the Brick article or any other Wikipedia article today. But still, it's good to know that information - so it doesn't hurt to mention it on the talk page - Talk:Brick. Later, someone might invent something similar that will become popular and will meet the WP:DUE or even the WP:N criteria. And then, it will be good to know that a similar invention was made before. It will spare the time to search for the history of similar inventions (call this informational archeology if you like). Sometimes we can reasonably anticipate or assume that a piece of information might become DUE or Notable and therefore it will be useful for the encyclopedia in the future.

So my question is: Have you meet situations when a particular information didn't deserve to be added into a Wikipedia article, but later it was ok to add it? —  Ark25  (talk) 22:30, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

There is quite a lot of background, with WT:Talk page guidelines#Adding external links to talk pages being the start that I recall. A recent issue is this edit in which Ark25 added a "Controversies" section to an otherwise empty BLP talk page. The current article is 32 words, and the talk page addition is vastly UNDUE as it asserts that criminal charges accusing the BLP subject of conflicts of interest were filed in September 2013, with a link to a Romanian-language source. That is not a suitable use of a talk page—editors should not search the web for tidbits to post on talk pages. We don't post stuff like "politician X was charged with Y in 2013" unless sources show the significance, with information on what has happened since (were the charges dropped?). That applies to articles and talk pages. Johnuniq (talk) 23:41, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Question about multiple sources

I was directed here from another conversation on WP:V; they said that WP:WEIGHT was the policy in question.

Say there's one source that is reliable for verification but can't prove that a given fact is sufficiently notable for inclusion (say a primary source). Say there's another source that can indicate that the fact is notable but can't confirm verifiability for some reason (say circular referencing; an otherwise reliable newspaper or magazine article that cites Wikipedia).

Is the fact suitable for inclusion if both sources are cited or must there be at least one source that can prove both verifiability and notablity? Do we get to say, "Well this source shows it's verifiable and the other source show's it's notable, so it's verifiable and notable" or must we find at least one source that does both these things?

This issue looks like it's going to come up over at talk:Oathkeeper. One of our sources is currently up for RSN and I'm concerned someone might try to swap policies. The fact in question is a single line stating which chapters the episode was based on. It's supported by several sources that can do verifiability or weight (or arguably both) of these things, but some editors have argued that none of those sources do both. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:27, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

And with good reason, unfortunately. Several of the sources have come from fansites, fan forums and outright falsified sources. It has already been argued at the "Oathkeeper" article that the only real places where the disputed information is coming from are these unqualified sources that have - at best - a biased view.

The driving force behind Darkfrog's effort is to add the following statement:

"Content from this episode is also found in A Storm of Swords chapters 61, 68, 71, and 72 (Sansa V, Sansa VI, Daenerys VI, Jaime IX)."

Darkfrog24 has argued that the primary source of the novel is sufficient for inclusion of the above statement. A RfC concluded that it was not, and that arguments concerning its noteworthiness were weak indeed. DF24 has since argued that the concluding admin suggested all that was required for inclusion and sourcing to the book was a secondary source supporting these statements had to be provided, which is a significant misreading of the concluding remarks. DF24 has forged on anyway, despite a sizable consensus (at noticeboards, at the second RfC, and at the discussion page where for four months of the rest of us have been unable to enjoy that consensus) against inclusion of this information.

With all due respect to the regulars on this talk page, I think that Darkfrog24 is using your time and energy to forum-shop support she has not been able to find elsewhere. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 02:42, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

If by "fansite," you mean the web site written by Antonsson and Garcia, who also literally wrote the book about the series (co-written with series creator George Martin), published articles about the show, and worked as consultants on the show, then WP:SPS should set your concerns to rest.

"Argued that the concluding admin said..."? Jack, FormerIP did say exactly that! [17] Exact words: "I was also asked to confirm that the close only addresses the question of using primary sources in combination to make comparisons, which I'm happy to do. If secondary sources can be found from which similar information can be drawn without the need for original research, then that may be fine." (No one was actually trying to use the primary source to make comparisons, but that's another matter.)

The consensus was "more sources are required." You personally have demanded, and very rudely, that I find more sources. You have recently stated that sourcing was your only objection to this material. You don't get to claim that I'm working against consensus by doing exactly what the other participants say they want.

Jack, I was directed here from a previous discussion that Doniago and I were both in. That's not forum shopping; that's this-is-where-I-was-advised-to-go. But yes, WP:NPOV regulars, this is a hornet's nest and if you don't want to get involved, I'd understand. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

RNPOV addition

I want to add the following to WP:RNPOV: "Theology is theology and historical criticism is a scholarly-scientific approach. They both have the right to be rendered inside Wikipedia, theology does not trump historical criticism and historical criticism does not trump theology. In matters of theology, we have agreed to disagree. In matters of historical criticism scholarship we speak of mainstream, majority view and scholarly consensus. Theology aims at establishing subjective truths to be affirmed by a community of faith. Historical criticism aims at establishing objective facts about holy books and about religions." Is it ok? Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:07, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

This doesn't seem a policy statement Tgeorgescu. Seems irrelevant. Wifione ^Message 11:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Another reason for avoiding significant criticism and controversy sections

The policy seems to suggest that criticism or controversy sections are only problematic when they could give the impression that a person or idea is well-respected or widely accepted, and that all criticisms thereof are fringe. However, such sections can also be a bad thing if they tend to create the opposite impression: by listing so many criticisms of different aspects of an idea in one place, including fringe criticisms, they may leave the reader with the false impression that it has been completely discredited, or that its flaws are so numerous that no reasonable person could support it. They may also act as a criticism magnet (or even sometimes a WP:COATRACK magnet), encouraging editors who don't like the subject of the article to pile on as many criticisms as they can find citations for (possibly leading other editors to overreact by pruning criticisms too aggressively). Putting the criticisms in context, in appropriate sections, could assist the reader to more objectively assess the weight and significance of the criticisms, and their credibility in the context of other facts/claims/statements cited in the same section, and assist editors to more objectively assess whether an excessive number of fringe or minor criticisms were being added. Of course this is partly also a problem that stems from the idea of listing only criticisms, but omitting counter-arguments to those criticisms, which is a problem that is orthogonal to article structure. But I think the (intuitively obvious) possibility of criticism sections lending undue negative weight to an article should be explicitly mentioned - ironically, to create more balance in this policy page!--greenrd (talk) 04:40, 10 October 2014 (UTC)