Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 006

message: ::Harald: your comment was, "a main point for me is to keep the sentences short and uncomplicated, straight to-the-point as well as that the introduction should raise interest; and to let no doubt if what follows is about what should be done or about what should not be done. Another point is that it should be also informative for non-offenders."
::This is a reworking of both the proposals above that might be a starting point for that. It is slightly too long in the examples section, still, so feel free to suggest shortcuts or combine examples to shorten it. But I think it captures it all.
In Wikipedia, one of the most common forms of violating the NPOV policy is to selectively cite some information that supports one view whilst suppressing or trivializing other information that opposes it, and describing sources in a way that gives an undue positive or negative impression of their value. In this manner, one can completely misrepresent the range of views on a subject whilst still complying with Wikipedia:Verifiability.
The main ways that editors can accidentally or deliberately misrepresent a subject are:
* Selective representation [or: biased information selection], eg:
** Explaining why evidence supports one view, but minimizing, trivializing or ignoring other citations that support alternative views or call it into question.
** Under-representing opposing views in order to make a view appear more accepted/rejected than it really is.
** Selecting citations or ignoring important caveats and limitations, to make a source support a view or conclusion which is more extreme than the plain reading of the source seems to intend.
** Concealing or misrepresenting relevant information about sources or their credentials that is needed to judge their value.
* Variable standards, eg: 
** Allowing evidence for one side but rejecting credible opposing evidence as inadequate.
** Minimizing credible sources that oppose one's own belief, whilst including lower quality sources that make one's own belief look good by comparison. 
* Editing as if one given view is "right" and therefore other views either have no substance, or nothing to defend themselves with, and using this as a reason to under-represent it.
** Ignoring an opposing view on the basis those upholding it are claimed to be misinformed.
** Not allowing one view to "speak for itself", or refactoring its "world-view" into the words of its detractors.
** Note that science, religion (or any other system of knowledge), when used to suppress other views rather than to add extra insight into the subject of the article, is also POV suppression.
In summary, credible sources often cover many points of view, and even verified credible sources can be cited in a non-neutral way and used to mislead a reader. So verifiability and proper citation are necessary but not sufficient to ensure NPOV. It is important that information must be not only verifiable and cited, but that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner. This is because neutrality requires much more than simply citing verifiable sources -- it requires using credible sources to accurately represent a broad range of views and to support a balanced overview.
FT2 21:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Selective information suppression (also known as "POV suppression") - version 2

message: It seems to me that some articles are more debate than facts on what the topic really is. There is so much debate within the article that makes it unnecessarily long. I'm of the mind set that an article should tell what something is, not what it is, what it isn't, what people think about it, criticisms, et al. Certainly, some articles should fully feature criticisms, like event articles, but articles about an idea (escatology, theory, et al) should (in my most humble opinion) simply state what that opinion is. As most of these ideas are really just an opinion, or a point of view, to begin with. When there is an article about one's point of view, shouldn't that article simply show that point of view? The countering points of view should have their own articles (and most do anyway), and they can certainly be linked to each other. Just a thought glocks out —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steven Kippel (talk • contribs)  14:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debate 

message: I have killed off the redirect for Neutral point of view, which pointed to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. NPOV should really get it's own article, obviously written using our existing site policies. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV in the main article namespace 

message: I'm having trouble understanding, or finding information clarifying, a NPOV policy. It seems to me that NPOV applies well to general articles, but is unclear on articles which describe as specific point of view.
For example. Cosmology is the study of the origins of the Universe; most people are familiar with the Big Bang theory (or Big Bang cosmology). People are less familiar with Plasma Cosmology, which is considered by relatively few scientists, and considered quite contentious. But I would expect THREE articles:
#Cosmology (a general article) which mainly explains the Big Bang, but to be neutral acknowledges and describes that there are other cosmology therories, and compares them to Big Bang cosmology.
#Big Bang theory (a specific article) which mainly explains the Big Bang, but to be neutral acknowledges that there are other cosmology therories, but not in as much details at the Cosmology article since this is an article on the Big Bang, not on Cosmology in general.
#Plasma cosmology which mainly explains plasma cosmology, but to be neutral, acknowledges that there are other cosmology therories such as the Big Bang, but not in as much details as either the general cosmology article, nor the Big Bang article.
It seems to me that:
#All articles must be neutral in the presentation of their facts.
#General articles must fairly present all points of view, but giving the most space to the most popular/accepted points of view.
#But that articles that describe a specific point of view (eg Big Bang theory, and, Plasma Cosmology), would be written from the "baised point of view" of the subject of the article (in order to describe it). But to be neutral, they would acknowledge different points of view. However, they would not discuss all issues from all points of view, which would go into a more general article, or in an article describing the issue in question.
#*For example, if an article on the Big Bang mentioned (hypothetically of course!) that "Big Bang cosmology suggests the the Moon is made of green cheese because it is full of holes", then there would be no need to discuss, qualify, or counterpoint this issue. If we did, then potentially every statement would become a discussion?
--Iantresman 13:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: All articles, especially those dealing with a specific theory that may constitute at particular point of view in some other debate, should be written such that they don't state things are true, but present the arguments and evidence that can be found "out in the wild". In this way, an article about Plasma cosmology should start by introducing the theory as a competitor to the mainstream theory of X, and its largest proponents are so-and-so. It should then go on to describe the theory as it is claimed by its proponents, being careful not to endorse it.  The reader is then not only acquainted with the topic itself, but with the fact that it is a particular point of view and its context in the larger debate.  — Saxifrage | ☎ 23:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is brilliantly clear and really helped me. Until now things were a bit vague in terms of repesenting mainstream views "as the majority view and thus required by NPOV to be the majority of the article" on a minority view article. Is there any way we can preserve the above comment by Saxifrage on the NPOV page? ant 14:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Right. Now what about the question of antandcharmi, is this indeed not clearly described and if so, wouldn't be be useful to include such comments, especially the clear text above by Saxifrage? Harald88 16:21, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV policy clarification

message: This seems an important principle for WP:NPOV. It explains exactly what we are doing when people argue over what views to present and whether a article under or over representing a viewpoint:
:NPOV does not mean that one view is reported and another ignored or ridiculed. It means that (allowing for fair use of space) each view is represented fairly and to the best of its proponents ability, ie "best foot forward", and that enough information is then given to allow an uninformed reader to judge why some views are viewed as they are, and their strengths, weaknesses and respective criticisms. 
:Possible addition to "Why should Wikipedia be unbiased?":
:There are many reasons for this but perhaps one of the important ones is, many times theories are re-studied or reviewed again in later times, or new light is shed on them. So it is often important not to understate less preferred views or disputed theories while that information could still be interesting to someone.
Is something like this in WP:NPOV? Should it be? It seems at one short stroke to explain exactly what wikipedia is trying to achieve on articles where there are hotly debated different points of view, the difference between stating and advocating, and why even views that are not preferred by some get their proponents view included. FT2 16:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Important principle?

message: I have seen many articles on Wikipedia that stick strictly to the official story as spilled out by government-controlled media, and will not allow popular alternative theories to find their place in the article (the word conspiracy theory is not accurate, unless there is no actual conspiracy involved.  When the official story is talking about something totally unbelievable, I think it is poor form to suggest that the alternative, far more believable theory is a conspiracy).  So why is this?  Most encyclopaedias will list popular conspiracy theories, or alternatives, that do not agree with the official version of events.
For example, when I first started editing the Peter Falconio disappearance article, I saw something which was titled "Conspiracy theories" and suggested that the notion that Joanne Lees killed her boyfriend was a conspiracy!  How is that a conspiracy?  It could very easily be true, and was widely believed to be true until 2 years ago as the most popular explanation for what had happened in the case (until they found Bradley John Murdoch).  On top of that, that article had listed that the judge had ordered the jury to dismiss the conspiracy theories and pay them no attention.  They were not conspiracy theories.  They were defence theories as to what may have alternatively happened.  They *HAVE* to be considered by the jury when making their decision.
This is a case in point in a trial in progress where the neutral point of view policy was not adhered to by sticking to the official story.  The official story, of course, was that Bradley John Murdoch killed Peter Falconio as a random attack because he wanted to rape Joanne Lees, who he didn't know.  That he had sat waiting in ambush by the side of the road for 2 hours, on a stretch of the road where on average 5 cars go past per day, in perhaps the most remote area of the country, and then hoped for a car to come, and to stop, and then hope that there was a woman on board to rape her.  And that he did this for a laugh, then allowed her to escape, yet in 5 hours of searching for her, failing to fire a shot, had no footprints in the area, and did not use his car to run her over, and she survived - yet in the same 5 hours was somehow unable to get her ties off, which she could have taken off when by herself in about 5 minutes.  
Now, in that case, the official story is absolute nonsense.  Since the trial began, the official story has been ridiculed in 98% of newspapers and reports that have been following the trial.  And yet, it was pushed as the official story, and any alternative was suggested on Wikipedia as a conspiracy theory, with suggestions that we should ignore it as nonsense!
In completed trials, there are many examples where the official story is nonsense.  The backpacker murders was a case where 32 people went missing yet only 8 bodies were found, each with a different MO, as if they were each killed by different people - with no similarity between any two of them.  Police were looking for 8 killers.  Yet we ended up nicely wrapping it all up saying that Ivan Milat did it and that he was a serial killer and he only killed 8 people and the other 24 had nothing to do with him.  What absolute nonsense!  To fail to put in to an article like that about the facts of the different MOs, the other suspects, and the alternative (far more believable) theories doesn't conform to the neutral point of view, in my opinion.
This kind of thing seems to be prolific in wikipedia, yet in most published encyclopaedias, things like this would not exist.  Most published encyclopaedias would include all alternative theories, at least all notable alternative theories.  If a theory is only pushed by 1 person, they might not include it.  But if it is pushed by 98% of the population, I dare say that they would.
Why is Wikipedia failing to conform to NPOV with these kinds of cases?  Zordrac 05:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is a process, not a finished product, so it is not uncommon for esoteric articles to be far from neutral. It sounds as if (with no investigation by myself, however) that those articles require NPOVing. There's a bunch of dispute resolution process and lots of policies and guidelines to help editors shape articles into an acceptable form that meets Wikipedia standards. Have you had difficulty in applying those in these cases?  — Saxifrage | ☎ 06:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official stories are not neutral 

message: How can an article like "Criticism of christianity" have a neutral point of view?
The article is suppose to be about arguements put forth by critics attacking the teaching of christianity. Surely such arguements must bias against christianity? Surely such arguement are the point of view of the critic(s).
For example: An arguement that says the teachings of Christianity are anti-homosexual in nature. Is this a neutral point of view?
Ohanian 05:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed; I proposed to change the scope of the scientific junk yard list to that of a list (kind of extended index) about scientific theories (physics theories would even be better). After I debunked the claim that then the list would be "too long", I got silence. BTW, I didn't notice what you write here above somewhere indicated in a policy. Harald88 17:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism and NPOV