Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 018

message: Reasons for excluding extreme minority views (EMV)
EDIT IN PROGRESS
Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. Articles should not be exhaustive dissertations. Articles packed with EMV waste sorely-needed bandwidth and disk space, reduce usability, decrease Wikipedia's reputation as a source of reliable information, greatly increase the difficulty of maintaining reasonable accuracy. Even a valid view that is an EMV can be extremely difficult or impossible to corroborate from multiple credible sources.
Users will have to wade through loads of junk to find anything useful. If EMV are allowed many articles will become extremely long with little useful information.
The mere presence of an EMV in a main article gives the EMV undue weight and, as a practical matter, grossly distorts the presentation of the article or section. People not familiar with the subject could easily be misled into thinking that the EMV is important even if it is held by only one person, e.g., "Albert Einstein, a clerk in the Swiss Patent Office, recently published a paper on what he calls "special relativity". The paper says, among other things, that space and time are not two distinct things." His idea once was an EMV.
If Wikipedia starts allowing EMV, loads of whackos will start adding their pet EMV's as long as they can find at least one published work they can cite. Under Wikipedia reference requirements, sources do not have to be a print work, a web page, or even easily accessible. Even "newsgroup reference" is allowed.
If articles get packed with EMV the overall useability and maintainability of Wikipedia will be severely diminished.
Advocates of EMV frequently have no regard for NPOV requirements and often tend to become abusive, violate WP civility requirements, engage in edit and reversion wars, engage in vandalism, etc.
This was removed from the policy page as it was a substantive addition that had no prior discussion.  FeloniousMonk 00:24, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Even more: the statement that "EMV advocates often are" [..]" lacks balance and demonstrates an agenda, as roughly the same may be said about "Extreme Majority View advocates"! And adding a confusion between Einstein and Minkowski doesn't help either... Harald88 09:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Like undue weight, the lack of criteria and the vagueness seems to serve as a means to allow users to bypass discussion of reasons for inclusion or exclusion of a view and enforce the removal or inclusion of views based entirely on their personal biases. Bensaccount 01:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe it is not so vague in the mind of, and I quote Saxifrage here, "those who have a firm grasp of the policy already". Maybe what is important for "those who have a firm grasp of the policy already" is to make sure that the POV pushers cannot speak of the policy with the same authority as they do. Therefore, it is safer for "those who have a firm grasp of the policy already" that the policy remains vague as it is.  Of course, "those who have a firm grasp of the policy already" are also POV pushers. The difference is that "those who have a firm grasp of the policy already" say that they have the "consensus" on their side, but it is a consensus that excludes so called disruptive editors that do not understand the policy. -Lumière 01:52, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed from article 

message: I can explain my point using this from Jimbo Wales, September 2003, on the mailing list:
::* If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
::* If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
::* If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
We will only consider the three categories that are defined in the last part of each of the three sentences.  The first category corresponds to what I called "an acceptance within a well defined community".  Remember that I said that we should verify such an acceptance using publications. Jimbo Wells went directly to the point: "subtanciated with commonly accepted reference texts". I can easily retract my terminology "acceptance within a ... community". It is the practical and verifiable definition of the category that is important.   The second category corresponds to what I called "existence of prominent adherents". In my proposal, a view is "significant" if it belongs to the first or the second category. The third category contains what remains, the non significant views. Even a view that is "non significant" is acceptable in its own separate article, if it is verifiable.  -Lumière 02:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please stop using my name in support of your project. If you want to know whether your interpretation of something is consistent of mine, ask. If I deign to reply, you will then know. Simply asserting that my view is consistent with yours is misleading.Saxifrage ✎ 04:46, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I see you don't understand. Do. Not. Use. MY. Name. A tonne of bricks will be kinder than I if you persist.Saxifrage ✎ 05:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The short version 

message: Harald88, MonkeeSage, Iantresman and Bensaccount what do you think of SlimVirgin's request. Don't worry! A break is not a problem, if it can help. Just tell me whether you feel it will be better for our progress that I take such a break.—Preceding unsigned comment added by -Lumière (talk • contribs) 
:Yes, -Lumière, please stop cluttering up the policy talk pages. I skip over your comments because I do not find them useful. You are not engaging in useful discussion, but you do give the appearance of trying to beat everyone down by your incessant posting. We are not going to change these policies because you say so, no matter how many times you say it. Give it a break!Donald Albury(Talk) 11:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People have participated, read the archives. They've all come to the same conclusion that some here aren't interested in actual discussion, but in furthering their own views and so are completely resistant to reason. Opinions already expressed here by some the project's long-term, credible contributors indicate that they fail to see a problem that needs fixing and that these proposals are not acceptable. The only problem here is that a few are unwilling to accept it. Enough editors have objected over the months to the incessant droning on about this alleged "issue" that any further ignoring of requests to take long-winded, one-sided discussion on this same topic to user talk pages can and will be moved to free up this page for other discussions. FeloniousMonk 20:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My experience is that responding to these kind of discussions doesn't make any difference. The proposers know what they want and don't listen to my opinions. It has been explained that many of the 'clarifications' will just open loop-holes. There is a good reason why we are told to avoid instruction creep. I've also seen editors spend a lot of time and effort tidying-up a policy, only to see most of their work overturned when it comes time to put it into effect. These policies have been around for a while, and IMO don't need 'clarification'. Three or four editors getting together to try to change a policy like this one is just not going to fly. I am not contributing to the discussion because I think the proposed changes are not needed, but I will step in to oppose any such changes if someone actually attempts to insert them in the article.Donald Albury(Talk) 14:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why would users be pre-opposed to any changes which try to clarify the policy, regardless of whether they succeed? My guess is that as Lumiere has aptly noted, it feels safer for those who have a "firm grasp of the policy already" to keep it vague (see above). Lumiere does not need to be suppressed, just more succinct. Bensaccount 15:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone who wants my support for fixing this policy is going to have to do a much better job of convincing me that it is broken. And I don't respond well to hearing the same arguments made over and over and over and...Donald Albury(Talk) 16:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you Donald for such a succinct expression of exactly my position.Saxifrage ✎ 17:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SlimVirgin's request 

message: Harald88, MonkeeSage, Iantresman and Bensaccount what do you think of SlimVirgin's request. Don't worry! A break is not a problem, if it can help. Just tell me whether you feel it will be better for our progress that I take such a break.-Lumière
:Yes, -Lumière, please stop cluttering up the policy talk pages. I skip over your comments because I do not find them useful. You are not engaging in useful discussion, but you do give the appearance of trying to beat everyone down by your incessant posting. We are not going to change these policies because you say so, no matter how many times you say it. Give it a break!Donald Albury(Talk) 11:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People have participated, read the archives. They've all come to the same conclusion that some here aren't interested in actual discussion, but in furthering their own views and so are completely resistant to reason. Opinions already expressed here by some the project's long-term, credible contributors indicate that they fail to see a problem that needs fixing and that these proposals are not acceptable. The only problem here is that a few are unwilling to accept it. Enough editors have objected over the months to the incessant droning on about this alleged "issue" that any further ignoring of requests to take long-winded, one-sided discussion on this same topic to user talk pages can and will be moved to free up this page for other discussions. FeloniousMonk 20:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My experience is that responding to these kind of discussions doesn't make any difference. The proposers know what they want and don't listen to my opinions. It has been explained that many of the 'clarifications' will just open loop-holes. There is a good reason why we are told to avoid instruction creep. I've also seen editors spend a lot of time and effort tidying-up a policy, only to see most of their work overturned when it comes time to put it into effect. These policies have been around for a while, and IMO don't need 'clarification'. Three or four editors getting together to try to change a policy like this one is just not going to fly. I am not contributing to the discussion because I think the proposed changes are not needed, but I will step in to oppose any such changes if someone actually attempts to insert them in the article.Donald Albury(Talk) 14:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So since I suggested a clarification of the Undue weight policy, where is/are your suggestion to it? Please give ANY example, real or made up, where clarification of a policy introduces loop-holes, rather than removes them? Please indicate where "instruction creep" forms part of policy? Making changes without discussion and forming consensus is against Wiki policy. No one said that the existing policy is broken, only that it can be improved. --Iantresman 23:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Why would users be pre-opposed to any changes which try to clarify the policy, regardless of whether they succeed? My guess is that as Lumiere has aptly noted, it feels safer for those who have a "firm grasp of the policy already" to keep it vague (see above). Lumiere does not need to be suppressed, just more succinct. Bensaccount 15:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone who wants my support for fixing this policy is going to have to do a much better job of convincing me that it is broken. And I don't respond well to hearing the same arguments made over and over and over and...Donald Albury(Talk) 16:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you Donald for such a succinct expression of exactly my position.Saxifrage ✎ 17:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconding this approach --Francis Schonken 21:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is not that the policy is broken, but that some users find it unclear. When your screen door breaks you need to fix it. Unfortunately, this is not a screen door. Bensaccount 00:29, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Not really. The only reason for these discussions is Lumière's relentless posting in these pages, despite comments by countless editors to leave it alone. You may want to refer to your RfC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/-Lumière. ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 00:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Circular reasoning is not very convincing.Saxifrage ✎ 01:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Users find the policy unclear. Your solution is telling them to shut up. But this only works until another user comes and asks the same question. Bensaccount 01:29, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take it to Lumiere's talk page and stop trying to continue this fruitless project here.Saxifrage ✎ 01:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: It's not a grudge. The reason for not defining those words is because Wikipedia policy runs on common meanings of words, not technically-defined meanings. Further, defining them in an technical way would make the definitions policy, not clarify the existing policy. Since the definitions were not and never have been a matter of policy this would be a change of the policy itself (not just its wording), and changes to core policy require the overwhelming support of the entire community.Saxifrage ✎ 17:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Saxifrage and everyone else who insists discussion stop; you are forfeiting your voice on this issue. Now cease arguing about Undue weight. Bensaccount 19:14, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Laughing at such a statement would be impolite, so I won't.Saxifrage ✎ 19:22, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want the issue dropped you can't keep arguing your side. Bensaccount 19:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So long as people keep trying to argue that the policy needs to be changed in this particular way, I will argue against it. Your absurd statement that you somehow own the policy because you want to talk about changing it is definitely you continuing your argument and very much reason for me to continue to oppose.Saxifrage ✎ 19:33, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you try and enforce silence, it can not be everyone else but you. Bensaccount 19:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SlimVirgin's request 

message: Per numerous requests from the community to either drop the issue or take it to his personal talk pages and his constant refusal to abide by the wishes of the community, this discussion has been moved to User_talk:-Lumi%C3%A8re#Discussion about the Undue weight section of Neutral point of view FeloniousMonk 21:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am part of the community, and I do not object to Lumière's attempt to engage in discussion on its proper page, so your statement is false. Wiki policy, that "Our policies keep changing, and their interpretation as well. Hence it is common on Wikipedia for policy itself to be debated on talk pages," , so I assume that moving the discussion is against Wiki policy. --Iantresman 23:44, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: FM didn't say that the community was unanimous; he said (rightly) that many members of the community have asked (over some considerable time) that the handful of editors who have been tirelessly nagging the rest of us to change one of our central policies in order to let them edit in a way that is currently not allowed should give up and go and do something constructive, or at least witter about it among themselves on their own Talk pages. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 17:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right.  Jkelly 18:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please stop creating sections dedicated to disrupting discussion; this thread ends here. Bensaccount 19:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disrupting discussion