Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 009

message: Has anyone else noticed this template being used when inappropriate? I am speaking specifically of people who place the template on articles because their proposed edits (usually highly POV, as in Abortion; or completely unsupported by any references, as in Bigfoot) are unable to gain consensus or support. I have seen this on a number of articles which I have on my watchlist precisely because they are vandal magnets and troll magnets, and it may be that my perception is skewed, but it looks like this template is being used to violate WP:Point more often. Would it be in order to add some kind of section on when not to place the template on the NPOV page? KillerChihuahua?!? 03:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Overuse of template

message: Does quantifying the holders of an opinion always matter? It might be informative, sometimes. For example: if you're presenting results from a survey (backed by statistical measurements) or writing about a cultural topic (that deals with how people feel about different issues). At other times, presenting an opinion primarily with its quantification (e.g "most people believe..") becomes simply a biased appeal to popularity, or conversely, an appeal to unpopularity.
Furthermore, NPOV policy officialy recommends you to use vague, dubiously informative and unscientific,  quantifications for the popularity of opinions, for example: "Some people believe..", "Most people believe..", etc. You might say these vague quantifications are better than nothing. However, an important question should not be overlooked: Is this a responsible recommendation for an official policy of an encyclopedia? --80.230.233.101 18:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be focusing on that from the original formulation at the top, but as it is applied, "most people believe" and it's ilk violate another of Wikipedia's most important policies WP:V. They need to be specifically cited to authoritative and important sources to meet that policy. I would agree facts are more important than views and the policy should reflect that. Where it doesn't, it needs to be fixed. So that's good, but again, you're repeatedly criticizing without knowing how these things are applied. Criticism can be helpful, but your's is coming accross as just figuring out as many things as you can to gripe about. That may not be your intent, but it is what it is. - Taxman Talk 19:16, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're continuously using the argument that "things aren't like this in practice", but I'm not focusing on how things are in practice (I am aware that "in practice", people are primarily applying common sense and their concept of "fairness", and it differs from article to article). I'm focusing on that this policy, as it is right now, is in a desperate need of thorough scrutinizing and heavy modification. And if the reason this hasn't happened already is Jimbo's (aka the "GodKing") ego. Then I think this project has a real problem. And no, I don't like forks. --80.230.233.101 20:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that's not the reason the policy's not been scrapped. It's because it works pretty well. Your below proposal is unworkable. It would involve giving exactly as much space to ridiculous theories like flat earth as there is to verifiable scientific evidence that the earth is not flat. Your court analagy is useless because we are not a court. A court is specifically set up to decide a case and thus requires even time for each. That is not workable here. - Taxman Talk 17:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  See formulation below --80.230.233.101 09:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV displays a peculiar preoccupation with the quantification of viewpoints