Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 003

message: I have a question regarding the policy that states "We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by only a small minority of people deserved as much attention as a majority view. That may be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties." What if the number of people who hold a position is in dispute? Q0 19:45, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proportion to population 

message: This page really has grown into a bit of a monster. Points are often duplicated, or not presented clearly. The page is very long. I would be very suprised if any new users take the time to read and learn such a piece. We should cut it down and clean it up. Dan100 13:20, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
:Agreed, and I think splitting the article into a main article and a FAQ would be a good way to start.  I do think the artcile would benefit from the addition of a short section on how to raise and cope with a POV dispute, though ---- Charles Stewart 08:56, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Growth and cruft 

message: On several instances (here, there, etc.), I have come across troubling cases where some article content, or some references, contained blatant errors on objective facts. Especially, it contain false assertions on the textual content of the text of laws that were available from authoritative sources on the World Wide Web; in one instance, one "reference" discussed an inexistant article of a law (to be fair, the article existed in the first draft of the law – but the "reference" discussed it as current).
In all cases, what was troubling was that some other contributors had preferred "information" obtained from non-authoritative sources to easily obtainable first-hand information. In some cases, the non-authoritative sources were probably the media; in other cases, publications defending a certain point of view on the question.
The neutral point of view policies of Wikipedia compel us to attribute opinions to those who hold them. However, in the cases that I delineated above, there was absolutely no room for opinion. Whether an official text, duly referenced on official sites, contains or not a certain paragraph or phrase is not a matter of opinion; it is an objective fact that anybody with an Internet connection can check. There is absolutely no room for appreciation or discussion.
In cases where such objective determination is possible, I think that it should be policy that preference should be given to primary sources.
Note, however, that I do not extend this qualification of objectiveness to the interpretations that can be made of legal texts. These, often, need the help of people with legal background; and, also, determining the possible future applications of a law is generally a matter of prospective and supposition. David.Monniaux 20:13, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You raise a good point.  I don't think that was covered yet, so I added a brief paragraph clarifying the objectivity section's application to referencing or quoting sources.   — Cortonin | Talk 22:33, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objective truths... sometimes 

message: It is stated in the NPOV policy that "If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties." Although this text was given in a section that explains the policy regarding representing views in proportion to the population that holds a view, the fact that "experts on the subject" and "concerned parties" was used leads me to believe that both opinions from experts in a field as well as "concerned parties" (who are not necessarily "experts") are to be included in Wikipedia. Am I correct? Q0 18:15, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think many issues don't really have "experts", and for those I think NPOV would simply mean including all the prominent views of concerned parties.  And for the issues that have experts, the experts themselves usually have a strong POV.  For example, most eugenics experts in the early 20th century would have told you that the methods of eugenics were valid, and that eugenics was morally productive.  Obviously this was not the only POV at the time, because there were many other concerned parties with a very different POV which would be important to include.  Experts will almost always promote the field of their expertise, and groups of experts will often have a certain social or political leaning, so the inclusion of other concerned parties should be presented to balance this toward NPOV.   — Cortonin | Talk 20:08, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Experts vs. concerned paries 

message: Isn't a neutral point of view an oxymoron.
It is a point of view in it's self.
--Greyfox
:Read the section of this article titled "What is the neutral point of view?"  In particular, pay attention to paragraphs 2 and 3, which describe how "the neutral point of view is not a point of view at all".  It's a subtle point, and one often not understood.  The neutral point of view is not choosing the most prominent view, nor is it choosing the "correct" view, but it is about characterizing prominent disputes with a careful synergy of the involved views.   — Cortonin | Talk 18:17, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree. The problem is that different people havent a NPOV about having an NPOV. Some people use the NPOV stance merely to exclude things that they either don't agree with or thatcant be absolutely proved. There is numerous references in wikipedia to God, but there is no proof of such an entity existing, but no one seems to object, yet if anyone starts to introduce paranormal POV's into any scientific article such as the Pyramids or SETI then all hell breaks loose and the conventional POV apologists start to scream 'NPOV' before the ink's dry on the page (metaphorically speaking), and it makes me want to scream sometimes and throttle them..............
Lincolnshire Poacher 23:23, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I know this must have been said before. 

message: Always cite your sources, and make sure your sources are reputable, and you won't go far wrong.
Just becuase they are not credible or reputalbe doesn't mean they are wrong. 
Just means no one believes them.
Example in point 2000 years ago any one that thought the earth was round had no proof.
In fact the evidence to most people and wise men of the day was to the contrary. It was flat to them.
:They were well aware that if you went north, the sun was lower at noon, and that the angle was proportional to the distance you went north. They had geometry figured out pretty well. The observations were consistent with the sun being far away and the earth being round. In a small area the observations could also be explained  by assuming the earth was flat and the sun was very close. But if you went a hundred kilometres north or south and made accurate measurements the flat earth theory could not be reconciled with observations. The "wise men of the day" understood basic geometry just as well as the wise men of today.24.64.166.191 06:36, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, look at the stick Immanuel Vilikovsky got for 50 years for 'Worlds in Collision' and 'ages in Chaos, and still does, yet slowly bit by bit, all his main points are approximately correct, even though his detial may be out.
Lincolnshire Poacher 23:26, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logical fallacy 

message: See: Wikipedia:Criticism. Thanks. Hyacinth 05:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism

message: My ID is Uvo, when I found Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is redirected from UVO, I felt too surprise and happy!玉米^ō^麦兜 08:06, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
:I don't know the answer, so I asked the author of this redirection : User_talk:Francis_Schonken#UVO--Theo F 15:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: UVO was meant as a tentative alternative for POV: "POV" can mean "the opposite of NPOV"; or can mean the abbreviation of "point of view", which to some extent is included in wikipedia (while the "NPOV" concept, as explained in NPOV tutorial, "Space and Balance" section means not excluding any reasonable approach to a topic, while "neutrality" is reached by balancing these approaches/viewpoints). So I didn't tell yet what the acronym UVO was meant to mean: UnVerifiable Opinion (so, linking to the idea of wikipedia:verifiability too). That was explained in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view article itself (that's when I created the UVO redirect page); the UVO clarification remained there for several months last year; then someone in the end changed the text of that article, and the explanation went lost. Hope this helped you a bit: no danger using this word/acronym for something else; I don't suppose UVO as an acronym for "opposite of NPOV" will ever catch, but it was worth a try. Maybe best to delete the UVO page though, because it became senseless. Note that my initial remark about the "opposite of NPOV"/"point of view" ambiguity has been handled otherwise and in a way I don't think I have to restate that remark. --Francis Schonken 15:11, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This clarification makes sense, at least to me. It's a pity it didn't catch. Theo F 16:05, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What is the meaning of UVO?