Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 26

message: There is a dispute regarding the Criticism section of an article on a top online game. The dispute has nearly led to edit wars on more than one occasion, and has severely disrupted my attempts to improve the article to GA status.
I am posting here for advice, as the dispute concerns two of Wikipedia's core policies: verifiability and NPOV. This dispute also highlights a problem caused by the Verifiability policy, which I have tried to point out several times, namely, systematic bias.
To summarize the locus of the dispute, when I first tried to improve the article to GA status, the Criticism section documented common player criticisms of the game. However, due to criticisms over lack of referencing, someone removed all the player criticisms and the section became a list of press reviews of the game (all of which praised the game).
Soon after the section was overwritten, the article's talk page was flooded with complaints about the new Criticism section, describing it as highly biased, reading like an advertisement, and blatantly violating the NPOV policy. Two comments I remember are "Previously, only the Criticism section documented any negative opinion of the game" and "The press reviews are totally different from what players think of the game".
On the talk page, there was an argument over the Criticism section, with both the new and old Criticism sections having their supporters, and an edit war nearly broke out. I commented "You'll never find those player criticisms in a reliable source" and suggested the Criticism section contain both player criticisms and press reviews to satisfy both verifiability and NPOV. We had a discussion on the talk page, and decided to restore the player criticisms, but referencing a player review from GameFAQs (which documented several of the player criticisms), and rewriting them in paragraph form, instead of a list.
Recently, when the article was put up for peer review, there were several complaints about the Criticism section. Exasperated, I lashed out at them.
"Make up your mind whether you want:
*A Criticism section containing press reviews, thus being reliable, but thus being highly biased and reading like an advertisement, and blatantly violating NPOV, or
*A Criticism section documenting player criticisms, thus being NPOV, but inherently less reliable."
We now have to choose between verifiability and NPOV. As stated earlier, I suggested a middle ground: have the Criticism section contain both press reviews and player criticisms.
However, I need your advice; please provide it. Thanks.
--J.L.W.S. The Special One 08:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tough question. I think this is something of an indicator that the material covered is not, in a classical sense, encyclopedic. On the other hand, modern media coverage is definitely  one of Wikipedia's strengths, and it is inherent in the material that there will be little real critical discussion in scholary sources at least for some time, and often forever. But the player criticism has to come from somewhere, of course (Usenet or online forums, I would suspect). Can you reference those primary sources? --Stephan Schulz 08:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are there no secondary sources that review and summarize player reviews?  If no moderately authoritative source can be found, then information on player reviews has no business being in the article; the section would be original research pure and simple.  The reviews themselves may be verifiable, but any original summary of them (not based on other third-party summaries) would violate Wikipedia policy.  I respect your efforts to find a middle ground, Hildanknight, but users who do not respect WP:NOR need to find another project to contribute to.  -- Visviva 07:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why summarizing primary sources has to be more problematic than summarizing secondary sources here. In both cases one can introduce selection bias or miunderstandings. For deep academic subjects that need a lot of context this is different, as primary sources may be hard to interprete by laymen. But for videogame reviews? If WP:OR forbids summarizing as "original", then we can just as well stop writing Wikipedia...--Stephan Schulz 08:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I think GameFaq and other commercial websites which have thier fingers in the money pie about video gaming produce pretty good summerizations and, probably, we don't really need to do an WP:OR to find pretty good summerizations which we feel are appropriate to an article. Previously published by a reliable source, WP:V. Terryeo 20:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt that gaming magazines or websites are reliable sources in this context. Most of them are buttered up by the industry, and the seperation of editorial content and advertising department is somewhere between weak and non-existent. That's why I expressed my doubts about the subjects suitability for a traditional encyclopedia in principle. But if we want to cover these (and I'm far from opposing this, Wikipedia is usually doing a rather good job!), we need to find a suitable interpretation of our policies for short-lived topic that are not typically subject to serious scholarship and neutral third-party analysis. --Stephan Schulz 21:43, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

text: There is a proposed addition to Wikipedia:Attribution that would allow some exceptions for cases like this; it would still prohibit citing anonymous posts, but would allow the citation of posts by people (perhaps professional gamers or well-known commentators) whose expertise in the field is well-established.  It's under discussion here: Wikipedia talk:Attribution/popculture.  Perhaps that would help to resolve this issue?  -- Visviva 05:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Literate Engineer is certainly right. The problem I have run into is that it does no good to address the issue or the editor by saying, "that's POV-pushing".  Instead, quoting something like, previously published reliable sources has proven to be more productive. So, if NPOV were written with a little more force in that area, I am agreeing with Literate Engineer and think it would be helpful. Terryeo 18:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, how do we handle fields like video games that have no really reliable (secondary) sources? --Stephan Schulz 18:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really know.  May be that some sub-standards for sources need to be developed the way the notability stub-standards of WP:BIO, WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, etc. were.  I mean, I will always take peer-reviewed scientific journals as the most legitimate source for verifiable information, but those don't exist for video games, or webcomics, or assorted other topics.  So, it might be that specialist fields need a specialist revamping of what constitutes a reliable source.  Or maybe not.  Like I said, I don't know, and I don't really have much to help this particular situation.  The Literate Engineer 16:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dispute - Verifiability or NPOV? 

message: Hi.
It seems (I could be wrong) that according to the assertion on the "undue weight" segment that "tiny minority" views should perhaps "not be represented at all". This seems to suggest that articles devoted to those views are intrinsically biased. While I fail to understand why, the assertion does seem to say that the views that should be included are those that are notable, and thus I think we could add more support to the case for notability becoming official policy here on Wikipedia. 70.101.144.160 20:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An article on some minority idea is not inherently biased, but if it is a legitimate view it belongs integrated into the main article on the subject (modulo space considerations) and, as with everything, there must be good sources on it and it must be presented neutrally. —Centrx→talk • 21:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the answer. 70.101.144.160 06:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

text: 144.160: The International Flat Earth Society is an organization dedicated to an extreme minority view on the topic of world geography. It warrants an article because the organization is notable in press accounts. The views of that organization do not belong in an ordinary article about world geography, because those views are verifiable as patently false. It's all about context and balance. --Loqi T. 22:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  So then how do we define "significant" views on a topic, and how, if at all, does this relate to notability? I'm asking because on the notability page, "significance" is suggested to be essentially the same as "notable". 65.73.219.85 03:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If those books are major in the field and actually discussed the Flat Earth Society, then it could be independently notable; Gardner and Randi are, I think, fairly major. Looking at the page history, it is also clearly something people look for and are interested in, not some obscure group, however novel it may be. —Centrx→talk • 04:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is, it is not vanity, and it appears to be a viable article with legitimate sources. Note that if it were to be merged somewhere, it would be merged to some general article related to pseudoscience or joke/hoax groups, not an article on the planet or geography. —Centrx→talk • 04:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

text: But what makes a book "major" in the field? That X amount of 3rd parties commented in writing on it? Also, is there a notability criterion that views must satisfy to be included together on the same page, which would not just mean they are notable enough to have an article, but notable enough to be considered "significant" views that can be placed together on the same page about a topic? 65.73.219.85 23:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

text: However, what are we to make of this?: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia". Doesn't this seem to suggest that articles devoted to it would be intrinsically biased and therefore should not be here? Or does it seem to be suggesting that the number of people who believe something is the arbiter of inclusion, not amount of published material? Or does this fall to WP:N and other guidelines to interpret? 70.101.147.224 05:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Undue Weight" & Notability 

message: Hi.
I noticed this on the NPOV FAQ:
"Please be clear on one thing: the Wikipedia neutrality policy certainly does not state, or imply, that we must "give equal validity" to minority views. It does state that we must not take a stand on them as encyclopedia writers; but that does not stop us from describing the majority views as such; from fairly explaining the strong arguments against the pseudoscientific theory; from describing the strong moral repugnance that many people feel toward some morally repugnant views; and so forth."
However, what do we mean by "pseudoscience", anyway? Do we mean "pseudoscientific" topics, like UFOs, etc. in which case legitimate scientific methodology can be applied and the hypotheses that result from that would be actual science, or hypotheses that do not conform to scientific methodology yet claim to do so?
Furthermore, he thing suposedly called "pseudoscience" may not be that in actuality, and thus the arguments against it may NOT be "strong". This suggests that all allegedly "pseudoscientific" viewpoints are WRONG, even though Wikipedia cannot check that as a fact, and some allegedly "crank" theories have turned out to be right (not all, certainly, but some). In a truly neutral point-of-view article one can only provide the arguments and facts, it is up to the reader to decide for themselves what the "truth" is regarding a controversial theory. That is the purpose of neutral point-of-view, to let the reader decide for themselves what position to take, and not have Wikipedia force a view on them. 70.101.144.160 22:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the arguments against a theory are not strong, then the mainstream opinion will eventually accept it, and Wikipedia can fairly report that this formerly-considered-pseudoscientific theory is now generally considered legit.  On the other hand, if reliable sources in the relevant field regard a theory as pseudoscientific, or do not give it a place among legitimate theories, it is perfectly correct for Wikipedians to report that fact, and to structure our coverage of the theory accordingly.  Your broader point is well taken, but note that NPOV acts in concert with WP:NOR; we cannot present "facts" directly, but only as they have been reported by reliable sources in the field. -- Visviva 04:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Eventually. This means that we still cannot tout it around as "accepted scientific fact" unless and until they actually do, regardless of the percieved strength of each side's arguments. But the wording is what I was after. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.38.34.192 (talk) 23:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAQ, "equal validity" and "pseudo science" 

message: Powerful institutions can have a huge effect on how we think, by framing concepts for us. As an example, consider the word "defense" as national governments prefer to use it. Talking about the United States Department of Defense is proper in my view, since that is the official name of that organization. By contrast, I think it's improper to use United States defense contractors as a preferred term, since the word 'defense' in this case carries an unnecessary value judgment. The fact that that terminology originates with public relations specialists should not give it extra legitimacy.
I'd say in such a case, we should favor the term 'military' over 'defense', as it is both more value-neutral, and more accurate. Every nation in the world would like us to think their military activities are all strictly defensive. And what does national defense really mean: fostering international goodwill? schooling children and sheltering homeless? building some bombs?
This is just one example of a POV word. Just because a powerful government would like us to carry their message, doesn't mean we need to play along.
Loqi T. 22:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does anyone actually use the term military contractors irl? --tjstrf Now on editor review! 22:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: * A Google search on "military contractors" and "defense contractors" shows about four times as many instances for 'defense' as for 'military'. The top hit on each list is the same organization: The Federation of American Scientists. It's not surprising that 'defense' occurs more than 'military', since that's the nomenclature of the various government agencies. I'd tend to favor a minority form if it better fits Wikipedia ideals. --Loqi T. 23:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: **Wikipedia "ideals" are to represent things as they are, not as someone thinks they ought to be.  That is the neutral point of view.  The term generally used in English is "defense contractors".  There is critique of the term that should be (and probably is) cited in an appropriate article, but most articles should use the overwhelmingly-common term. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:55, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV hidden in individual words. 

message: What is meant by this distinction in the nutshell?  Am I overlooking something obvious?  Robert A.West (Talk) 05:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Templates and image descriptions, for example. —Centrx→talk • 05:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Doh!  Thanks!  Robert A.West (Talk) 05:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  An example occurs here, the very first paragraph of the article.  Similar catagories (other religions) have no "introduction" on their catagory page.  One editor is insisting on an introduction (which would be hard to reference in that article) while several other editors have thought to remove the introduction.  Thus we can have a brief paragraph and argue which POV it should include or forstalling the situation to subject articles where the POVs can be documented. Terryeo 07:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedic content other than articles 

message: "Disrespecting my religion or treating it like a human invention of some kind, is religious discrimination, inaccurate, or wrong. And what about beliefs I feel are wrong, or against my religion, or outdated, or non-scientific?"  
I'm sorry, but the punctuation in that just seems wrong to me. Shouldn't it be either:
"Disrespecting my religion, or treating it like a human invention of some kind, is religious discrimination, inaccurate, or wrong. And what about beliefs I feel are wrong, or against my religion, or outdated, or non-scientific?"
Or:
"Disrespecting my religion or treating it like a human invention of some kind is religious discrimination, inaccurate, or wrong. And what about beliefs I feel are wrong, or against my religion, or outdated, or non-scientific?"
Is it wrong, or am I just tired? Well Drawn  Charlie 00:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Punctuation 

message: Page Pedra Branca, Singapore has been proposed to move to another page to solve a few problem. However, such move is likely to be controversial because the ownership of the island is disputed between Malaysia and Singapore. Previously, page Pedra Branca, Singapore was Pedra Branca but somebody unilaterally moved it to its current page. Currently its seem only editors from Malaysia and Singapore are involved in the talk page. I feel a third neutral party would give more objective view on the matter. Please offer your neutral opinion at Talk:Pedra Branca, Singapore. __earth (Talk) 13:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tricky NPOV issue 

message: I came across this page while reading a warning on an article about economics that said "The neutrality of this article may have been compromised by the use of weasel-words". After reading about weasel-words I decided to follow the link about neutrality. But to my surprise, at the very beginning of this article about neutrality there is this sentence: It has "wide acceptance" among editors and "is considered" a standard that all users should follow. I may not have been bothered that much by the weasel-words "wide acceptance" a few days ago,but now since I just read the article about them I cannot stop short of asking "how wide is in fact wide acceptance".The other one "is considered" bothers me as well because I ask myself "is considered" by whom?By the deciding factors at wikipedia?Who are they?What is their area of expertise?What about their own neutrality with regard to the definition of neutrality? So I would encourage the authors of this sentence to be specific, for example by replacing "wide acceptance" with "the majority of editors" and it would help to state how was it possible to determine that the "majority of editors" expressed that opinion, perhaps by searching the keyword neutrality in connection with the editor's expressed approval of this policy to implement this definition of neutrality etc. If the sentence stays the way it is now, it seems odd to me that the people who successfully convinced me that weasel-words are to be reagarded with skepticism make use of weasel-words just in an article about neutrality.Dan 18 November 2006 ()
:An excellent question. What you are referring to is the policy tag, correct? That could use a bit of improvement. Try going to Template talk:policy if you want to propose an alternative wording, because I'm positive it's protected from non-admin edits. 
:Actually though, this particular policy is not derived from the consensus of a wide body of editors (though it does have consensus), it's a project mandate and is pretty much the policy equivalent of an axiom. I wouldn't mind some sort of  that explained this more clearly. --tjstrf talk 23:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've always found the weasel word template highly annoying. Why should this be the first thing every reader has to read? Can't we just use individual tags, like ? Also, what's this "corepolicy" thing? It's a redlink now. — Sebastian (talk) 23:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Weasel words in policy description tag?

message: The reason for my question is the article Beneš decrees.
And more specifically this link: * Ethnic cleansing in post World War II Czechoslovakia: the presidential decrees of Edward Benes, 1945-1948 Available as MS Word for Windows file.
It takes a strong stand against the Benez decrees. My question would be, does this link, which is very much to the point, but also seems not to comply with NPOV have to obey the NPOV policy and therefore be excluded from listing in the "external links" section of the article, or is it permissible to add possibly POV links in the "external links" section? --Stor stark7 Talk 15:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar with the specific context, but in general while NPOV certainly applies to the description of external links, the sites linked to need not themselves be neutral.  Indeed often the value of an "external links" section is to provide examples of the various major points of view on a particular issue.  But by that same token, the links for an article should not put undue weight on any one point of view; WP:EL touches on this point.  -- Visviva 15:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Should NPOV policy also apply to the use of external links?

message: Here is the issue in a nutshell: After lurking (and occasionally making small edits) on an article over the past year, another editor decided to slap a NPOV tag onto an article even though the article was named an FA nine months ago and said editor made no challenge or even comment during the FAC process. Additionally, the article in question has had no substantial changes since it was named an FA and the few changes there have been have actually improved the article further. The claimed reason for the tagging was a perceived bias due to an opinion by the main article contributer (me) made at a different website over six years ago and nothing specifically pointed out in the FA itself. Am I wrong for immediately removing the tag without waiting for an imaginary consensus to form on a talk page that receives no more than one comment every 3 months? Here's the article in question. Thanks! --Jayzel 02:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you're fine. It's the duty of the tagger to explain what they mean by the tags if others have considered the article to be good (which it obviously has been if it's FA quality). Do keep in mind that adding tags is not technically blatant vandalism in most situations, so it still counts as edit warring if you repeatedly remove them. --tjstrf talk 08:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the feedback. Luckily, an edit war didn't ensue upon my removing the tag! Regards, --Jayzel 20:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Humdinger of a question 

message: There's some debate on WP:EL about whether disallowing links to your own site can be forbidden - whether it is a policy or a guideline.  I've been looking for it in the policies, and I was surprised to not find it anywhere.  Is linking to your own site a violation of NPOV?  Is it forbidden in another policy that I missed?  Shouldn't something like this be mentioned in this policy?  Or is the guideline COI considered to be enough?  --Milo H Minderbinder 18:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this policy forbid adding links to your own site/content? 

message: This policy has an example encouraging "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band".  Why are we encouraging this when it's clearly a WP:PEACOCK sentence?  —Wknight94 (talk) 15:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would not be WP:PEACOCK if reliable survey results showing that fact are included. Crum375 15:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:PEACOCK doesn't relate to verifiability - it relates to wording.  WP:PEACOCK implies that you should just show that Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band - i.e. with the facts - without the need for the actual throwaway sentence, "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band".  Instead, say "Polls by Time and Newsweek Magazine determined that most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band".  That's the way I interpret WP:PEACOCK anyway.  I'm not sure we should be encouraging throwaway sentences in an official policy while discouraging them in a style guideline.  —Wknight94 (talk) 16:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If we have a reliable source showing that "most Americans believe X was the greatest author" (say), I don't see that as violating the WP:PEACOCK guideline as long as we supply the direct reference (e.g. poll results). I think that WP:PEACOCK becomes an issue only without such a direct reference to a poll, or when using words such as "X was an important author" (where 'important' is vague and could mean anything - maybe he was only important to his mother and some friends). Crum375 19:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps.  —Wknight94 (talk) 19:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:PEACOCK violation here 

message: Please see discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#The_first_sentence - it effects the first sentence of this page too. --Tango 00:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First sentence 

message: Having read WP:NPOV and related pages through again, I see that it is expected that use of the  tag is accompanied by a reasonably full explanation on the talk page of the article. I was wondering is there any concensus that such tags can be removed if no explanation is given (or it is only a very basic ie. "I disagree" comment is made without citing problem areas and explaining the discrepancy)? There is a huge backlog of tags which undermine articles. Many seem to just be added when someone reads the topic which does not support their own POV on the subject. Thanks. WJBscribe 02:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV tags 

message: Hi.
One thing mentioned here is that only "significant" views should be represented. But what makes a view "significant"? Could this potentially be related to notability? 74.38.34.192 23:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is indirectly related, since the main criteria are the quality and quantity of published articles. I think articles that are published by mainstream reputable peer-reviewed publications carry more 'significance' than those published elsewhere or that are not peer-reviewed. Articles that get frequently cited by others are also more 'significant'. Also, since as a tertiary publication we strive to rely on secondary ones, we can rely on secondary publications to actually prioritize the 'significance'. For example, a mainsteam textbook surveying the field can present all views and suggest their relative preponderance or significance. At the end of the day it is up to the WP editors, working collectively, to reach a consensus as to the actual significance of the various views based on these (and other) criteria. Crum375 00:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So could these criteria potentially aid in the development of a good WP:N guideline? 70.101.147.91 09:31, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any response? What "other criteria" are you referring to, anyway? 74.38.35.171 21:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Significant" views 

message: There's a discussion at Talk:Taylor Allderdice High School#RFC over whether a school newspaper is a reliable source and how information sourced from it should be represented, if at all?  Thoughts welcome to build a consensus. Hiding Talk 16:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  School newspaper: reliable source? 

message: Deepak Chopra says perception and point of view is woven into the percieverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Berniethomas68 07:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Point of View]] and [[perception]]

message: "...representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias"
lol. truly.
Even when 100% factual, documented proof is added to "articles" like Global Warming, Ray Nagin, Evolution, they are editied out because some left wing Admins can't comprehend this fact: Consensus <> Truth. Facts = truth.
12.145.177.110 21:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  So Amusing 

message: Here's a proposed new section to the NPOV page, to insert probably just after the "Reasoning behind NPOV" section.  In a way, it may avoid some of the heat in the objections about objectivism.
Please give comments: should/may I add this to the main NPOV page?
Steved2 20:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the approach, but I think the text given is to long and a bit preachy. Loose the examples and the education theory (which is POV ;-). and rewrite the rest for better flow. The first paragraph is rather good, but does not need all the rest to prop it up. Indeed, just gettting rid of all but that paragraph would be a good first approach. --Stephan Schulz 12:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Hmm, I don't like it that as soon as I read your remarks I could see what you mean! so I'll go away an brood.  I suppose that although you can indeed say that the education theory is POV, my thought here was to suggest that multiple POVs all lead to the same "NPOV" policy, and so make the overall NPOV page less POV in a way. -- Steved2 14:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think this should go into an essay on NPOV rationale. Perhaps some core concepts should be added to NPOV policy itself per consensus. Crum375 14:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV = Alternative reasoning supporting NPOV