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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the March Against Monsanto article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

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This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination: keep, 6 August 2013 (UTC), see discussion. keep, 27 May 2013, see discussion.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

Post ANI commentary - where do we go from here?

I made the closure on the recent ANI thread filed by Tryptofish, with his post-posting approval. I had hoped since that time that there would be some improvement in the clashes here, but that does not seem to be the case, both here and on editor Talk pages. I consider myself a friend of a few of the editors on both viewpoints on this page, and because of my closure at ANI feel qualified to comment here regarding the future of this article, which I have never edited. (Full disclosure: I do see an editor here who I have urged sanctions on in the past, but I don't recall any personal interaction.)

As I have commented previously, I believe this overall matter is likely to wind up at ArbCom. As someone who follows the proceedings of that body, and not always with approval, I suggest here as I have elsewhere that the following possibilities be considered first:

• Taking this dispute to the Dispute resolution noticeboard. Frankly, if there are successful cases of resolution there, I am unaware of them.
• An Rfc, though the battle would quite possibly shift or expand to exactly how to word the Rfc and what it would consist of.
• Finding a widely respected member of the community who has unanimous approval of all the principal editors at odds here, most likely an administrator/bureaucrat/past or present ArbCom member/WMF employee, to come in with fresh eyes and do some arbitration, possibly binding. This is a non-standard but potentially highly effective method.

Finally, I must note that I have been looking into some of the Monsanto and related articles. Today I made a deletion of one sentence that has now been reverted twice at the article Glyphosphate which I found interesting. I will continue to look into this matter, but my preliminary sense is there are some issues in Monsanto-related articles that need scrutiny. With cordial concern, Jusdafax 06:48, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

DRN and RfC are rarely useful, and it should be noted that Viriditas has been blocked for three months by an uninvolved administrator for his conduct here. I do believe that, without the poisonous accusations coming from one corner, we may have a better opportunity at coming to a consensus on the issues at hand. Seeing how poorly Arbcom handled the Tea Party movement case, I'd like to think we'd be able to hash this out on our own without significant further intervention. I will again suggest we make some sub-discussions below regarding what the remaining issues are and we can hash them out. I'm certainly willing to treat a lot of this with a clean slate if others are. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:14, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support for the second and third bullet points, especially the third. petrarchan47tc 16:00, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• I do indeed approve of Jusdafax's close and thank him for it, although subsequent events, including a massive display of bad faith towards me on my talk page, a waste-of-time new thread at ANI, and a three month block of Viriditas, seem to show that the problem is not settled. About content RfCs, this talk page already has numerous talk threads, each about a specific issue. I don't think a general RfC about the overall state of the page will generate any light. But if we want to identify specific questions to ask about specific things in the content, that could make for one or more useful RfCs. I suggest looking at the numbered list of unresolved questions at #Let's put up some specific proposed changes, decide on them and move forward, identifying which ones are still, today, matters that remain sources of disagreement, and then opening separate RfCs for each of those if we can't resolve them amongst ourselves. Before the block occurred, I began the early stages of starting what I hope could be a constructive WP:RFC/U about Viriditas. If the troublesome conduct continues after he comes back, I will resume that process. And if that process doesn't resolve things, then I am prepared to be the filing party of an ArbCom case that will scrutinize all parties involved. But let's hope that things will not have to go that far. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• As I was hitting the save button, another idea occurred to me. A variation on Jusdafax's third bullet point would be to ask someone like that to mediate a mediated discussion of the content issues. (That worked very well a year or two ago, for the lead section of WP:V.) That might work better than content RfCs, or might work as a way to construct content RfCs. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:54, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Here is my suggestion for changes (I've copied part of this from my comment at the most recent ANI)

See the changes I made by this comparison of diffs, where I order the issues in a common sense flow, and put the introduction the first section at the top (it was hidden at the bottom of the first section for some reason, and is again), and made other stylistic edits. There was no reason given, but all of my changes were reverted between 4 edits/3 editors. I can't see what the problem was with my version, and would love to hear the reasoning from those who reverted everything. petrarchan47tc 19:56, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

At the bottom of #Changes, just above, I made three comments indicating my objections. I want to admit that there were probably some things that could be restored from what you did, so my apologies if my contribution to the reversions seemed overly sweeping to you. Let me take some of your edits one-by-one:

1. : It seems to me to be more logical to have the response come directly after the things (concerns/positions/issues) that it was responding to. It wasn't a response to the media coverage, and the effect of the edit was to move that aspect of the POV lower on the page.
2. : A lot of things going on here, but you are incorrect about the consensus here about the science, and again, you moved that information lower on the page. Other editors in the discussion above pointed out how questionable it was to add the content about bees.
3. : I've left out some fairly trivial edits about images before this one, but why add that abbreviation?

Given how everything on this page has been contested, you would have done yourself a favor by making a list like this and discussing it in talk before making the edits. You don't have to, of course, but bold edits risk WP:BRD reverts. After all, look at how long I've been asking other editors' opinions about changing a header from "Concerns" to "Positions" without actually making the edit. Just saying. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Dan's attempted list of outstanding issues

I have a rather shocking alternative view on this article - as things stand right now, the article as-is is actually in pretty decent shape. I challenge other editors to attempt to forget all of the heat in these talk pages, and actually read it again. The typical WP editor, with no knowledge of this controversy would IMO see this as a perfectly reasonable small article, and I'd say due to all these eyes on the page, it actually meets WP policy way better than the vast majority of small articles out there. Note however that this way of looking at things doesn't recognise conflicts over what could be in the article but isn't, but that kind of problem is surely better than material in that isn't appropriate. The majority of reverts recently have largely been essentially arguments about wording, or at a slightly more detailed level, whether additional clarifying clauses are appropriate (e.g. "Protesters concerned about GMO effect on environment" - should it have an additional "...especially bees"?)

Inspired by the above discussion, I thought I'd try and compile another, fresh (nearer the bottom...) list of outstanding issues as I see it. I would encourage others to add items to my list, and sign them. The idea here is that we can have the very tightly defined issues at the top, and subsections below to define the problem, and try to thrash out a specific compromise position. This might not work, but I thought it would be worth a try. I have tried to blend this with Tryptofish's list from a week ago. Note that entry zero is a statement of "philosophy" for this page. I've seen many voices on both sides of these arguments say it, so I'm hoping consensus already exists for this. DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. That is well-said, and I too think that the page is in surprisingly good shape (which will probably be something that I will come to regret having said). --Tryptofish (talk) 17:16, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

0. This page is about the protest, and reactions to the protest. It is NOT a forum for science arguments.

The exception would be the GMO controversy section and a sentence in the lead, where material already established from the main controversies article could be deployed - explicitly to counter WP:FORK concerns. I'm thinking in particular of Jytdog's consensus statement from the other article, which has been largely approved by a RfC. DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think any of us disagree with this statement. The FORK issue is important, but the FRINGE one is too just to ensure that this doesn't become something for the worst of it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:00, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support and Oppose, in equal measure. I think that covers it, doesn't it? The problem with general philosophical statements about Misplaced Pages pages is that they run up against conflicting details. I do agree that we should not make this page a WP:POVFORK about the GMO debate in general. But I also feel strongly that we must present the marchers' reasons for the March. We have to do that! And once we do that, we run up against, well, you pick: fringe, POV-fork, POV, balance, whatever. If all we do is report the marchers' reasons, then we have a problematic page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:23, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The marchers views are fringe and so long as we report them in the appropriate way we need not run into any problems. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Obviously A little background is required but no more. We should not be addressing issues here that addressed more fully elsewhere. This is not a soapbox for anti-GM or pro-GM views. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:46, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The opposite would go against WP:FORUM. --Newchildrenofthealmighty (talk) 17:19, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

1. Details surrounding the presentation of the 2 million marchers number, though not the philosophy of what should be in the article.

DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

We agree - I hope - we should recognise the lower (200k) and higher (2M) numbers, and describe their origins. We already do this. Ongoing revisions govern whether we should actively note whether other news outlets "churnalised" the protester's number, or not. I honestly can't bring myself to have a strong opinion. I don't think it matters. I note the final discussion of this below seemed to have come to this conclusion (?) DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• I, too, see this as a minor issue. As long as we present both the high and the low numbers, and don't particularly endorse one over the other in Misplaced Pages's voice, I'm complacent about it. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• We need to make clear that the 2 million figure is the organisers claim. That is what the sources say it is. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• List and attribute. Crowd estimates are very inexact, so there's no issue with offering both. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:17, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support with representing the range going from lowest to highest, as presented by WP:RS, and also present the number according to the organizers. --Newchildrenofthealmighty (talk) 17:21, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

2. What's the source for the list of the marcher's positions? (I'm hopeful I resolved this this evening).

DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I added the primary source for the protesters concerns this evening, per WP:ABOUTSELF. This material is all now directly cited (though the positions of the actual ref numbers may not be ideal), and IMO it's very obvious this is the protester's opinions, not scientific fact. DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I redacted your unsourced personal opinion on a talk page that attacks the subject of the article.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

(comment restored) Never make changes to other people's comments, Canoe - per WP:TPO. You know how rude this is, right? Diff for anyone reading this later:

I think you've misunderstood anyway, there's absolutely no attack there. I 'm trying to make the point that FRINGE isn't relevant here (in my opinion), as the context is clear enough. DanHobley (talk) 06:13, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I read it as an unsourced attack on the article subject. Your opinion is that they either don't believe in science or don't trust it. I don't really care if you wish to leave it. Others may request you redact it as disruptive. When you make POV comments like that I can see why many other editors will go out of their way to simply ignore your input or counter it. If Louis Riel were a BLP subject it would be the same as voicing your opinion on what you believe his ideals are based on. Even though this isn't a BLP article it is all about people. If they came here and saw your comments I can understand why they would just retaliate my slamming Misplaced Pages in the media for being POV on their motivations.--Canoe1967 (talk) 06:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Canoe, attacks on the article subject are permitted on the talk page; that is its purpose. As Dan says you should not remove comments from others except in very specific circumstances. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Dan, I agree with you. So long as it is clear from the context that the marchers' position is fringe we need not go into the subject here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

• Ugh. Dan, now you can see why I have concerns about the general philosophical concept in item zero. I do not think that saying that "this is the protester's opinions, not scientific fact" is an attack that violates WP:BLPGROUP. But I think that what you really should have said was "this is the protesters' opinions, not the opinions of Misplaced Pages or of the majority of mainstream science sources". What should be the underlying issue is actually WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Anyway... I think it's good to use what the marchers themselves have said, as a primary source. I also like the idea of using mainstream news reports (secondary sources) to report things like "many of the marchers said that they believed that...". I think that we need to avoid commentaries from people who may or may not have been associated with the March, particularly in the form of cherrypicked quotes, because that has historically sent this page down the road of battling quotations. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:37, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

3. How much of the marcher's concerns over human health risks should be included? Should the direct quote "cancer, infertility and birth defects" be present? Also, more detail on the other entries?

DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with the rationale for removal, as IMO it's clear this is the protester's position. Primary sources support the factual accuracy. I can't see how more detail on the organiser's objectives (e.g., additional sentence or clause) could really cause any more concerns than what we have, if you're worried about WP:WEIGHT. DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Your opinion again. I always thought talk pages were not for voicing your opinion on the subject? If a protester claims to be marching against "cancer, infertility and birth defects" that they believe can be caused by GMO then we include it as a sourced motivation for the protest. This article isn't called 'motivational basis of the protest' so which science they base their protest on probably doesn't belong. Statements by protesters yes, second guessing the motivation of the statements, no. If a protester states "Dr. Sues says we don't want green ham." then we should be able to include that as a quote. We shouldn't go into the Science of Dr. Suess though. We could mention that Dr. Suess made lots of money by creating Green Eggs and Ham or was critizedd for it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 07:16, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This article is expected to more than make simple statements about the march, it is expected to analyse it while deferring to sources. We aren't a newspaper. We know that the opinion of the marches is not valid because it disagrees with the consensus position, yet for some reason you want to include it anyway without including the scientific perspective. Also, on "... so which science ...", there is only one science. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:04, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

It should only be included if it can be put into context that it is ill-founded, IRWolfie- (talk) 07:57, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Less than now, and this is a big problem with the article. "Covering" their view has become a soapbox/coatrack for promoting their views. Also, paraphrasing their views in neutral terms rather than repeating their talking points is a needed change here. North8000 (talk) 10:28, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This is what I'd be looking for, specifically. It's one of the fringe viewpoints guideline and policy require us to deal with. Thargor Orlando (talk)

This seems to be the issue that will continue to create controversy until it is decided once and for all whether or not it is Misplaced Pages's place to limit and counter the protest's views on what some editors believe is a fringe viewpoint. Assuming that there is no disagreement on whether or not the protesters are holding fringe beliefs when they express concerns re Monsanto's conflict of interest between former employees of Monsanto who work for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, claimed economic losses by small farmers faced with Monsanto's patent rights and "monopoly" of the food supply, and concerns about GMOs harming the environment, we need to decide if it is the mission of WP to step in to limit what we include re the protest's viewpoint on health issues. A comparable article would be the War on women article where there is a sharp disagreement as to whether one even exists. Gandydancer (talk) 15:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Gandy, our guidelines and policies insist on it. To claim GM food causes "cancer, infertility, and birth defects" is a fringe viewpoint, period. It is not supported by the science. That statement alone is what is causing strife, and a simple note after the sentence about the scientific consensus will solve the protests here. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:13, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• If we have reliable sourcing that the marchers themselves have said it, then we can reasonably include it. If it's only some secondary commentator, then leave it out. If it is WP:FRINGE or violates WP:MEDMOS, then we have to do some specific things. First, we present it as a direct quote, in quotation marks, and attribute it clearly to them. Second, we provide on this page, in some fashion, correct information reflecting mainstream science (also reliably sourced, of course). It doesn't mean that we have to have a point-counterpoint over every last issue, but it's a great reason to retain a sentence or two about mainstream scientific consensus in the GMO background section. It's a mistake to try to purge the page of the protesters' views, on the grounds that they are fringe and will mislead our readers, because it's not our job to assume that our readers are unable to read, but we correspondingly should not make this a POV-fork that only reflects the protesters' views. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

We stating what the marchers' concerns are but not in a way that gives them undue weight, prominence, or authority. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:51, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

No undue authority, I agree completely. About weight and prominence, the fact remains that this is the subject of the page. I think that's a significant distinction. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:22, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that it is hard to separate these factors. For example, to have in the lead, the marchers stated, "GM foods give you cancer" is, on the face of it, a neutrally stated factual statement about the motivations of the marchers. However, by giving an extreme fringe claim high prominence within the article, we give it publicity and credibility that it does not merit. I do agree that we should give the marchers' motivations but not in a way that promotes them.

I do not think that giving the mainstream science view along with the marchers' claims is the solution. For example, having something like the marchers stated, "GM foods give you cancer" although this is contrary to the mainstream science view has several problems. It shows a fringe view on apparently equal terms with a mainstream view, it invites arguments and sourcing battles between editors, and it slightly glamourises the marchers position as 'freedom fighters'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:58, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah well, that's what I've just done since (after kicking this issue around a bit) I now think it's fairly clear that this is what WP policy requires, since WP:PSCI states that fringe views "should be clearly described as such". I don't think there is a false equivalence here, since we're showing that one view is a fringe view, the other is scientific consensus. What a reader chooses to favour between these is really beyond our control as editors! Alexbrn 09:03, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

After a few edits back and forth between Alexbrn and myself, I thought we had a version that satisfied Alexbrn's concerns while also satisfying my desire that we avoid too much of a point-counterpoint. Subsequently, User:Gandydancer reverted it, and I would welcome Gandydancer's comments here in this talk section. But, that said, I think that Gandydancer has a valid point. I went back and carefully reread WP:PSCI, and although it does indicate how fringe views should be rebutted, it doesn't actually say that the rebuttal has to come in the next sentence, only that it has to be easily found on the page, and we do already have the GMO background section. I think that this question really gets at exactly where the remaining disagreements about how to write this page exist, and therefore I'd very much like to see further discussion about it, from multiple editors. I can see a rationale for leaving it as is, or for a version that I had tried in one of my edits, where the rebuttal came in a footnote, or for a third way, in which we rewrite it slightly, to more clearly emphasize the attribution, somewhat as I recently did with the Tami Canal statement about anger, frustration, and concern for her children. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:25, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Tryptofish, thank you for your careful consideration of this point. I really should not have to clarify my position on this particular point, but I will do it anyway. In my opinion, Misplaced Pages's position is correct when they say that currently there is no evidence that GMO foods are not safe. On the other hand, my mind remains open since current science has also shown that (surprisingly) sometimes genetic ill effects do not show up in the first generation, and sometimes even show up in the third generation. Furthermore, current science also shows that some chemicals, which apparently are not harmful when exposure is single, turn out to be toxic when in combination with other chemicals, which could apply to GM products as well. And of course, the problem that an industry peer reviewed study can be made to say anything that a manufacturer wants it to say. Even so, none of that should, or does, have any bearing on this article. The article stated that the protest's views are what WP calls fringe and they have been countered with what WP considers the scientific stance. That should be enough. It should not be necessary for WP to hound the protesters and put WARNING!!! signs throughout the article as though readers are too stupid to figure it out on their own. Gandydancer (talk) 19:10, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that trying to neutrally paraphrase their views rather than letting the article become a soapbox. The worst example is allowing their description of the law via it's affect on a non-existent hypothetical situation "even if they are shown to be unsafe". That's like describing the diplomatic immunity law as one which excuses the diplomat "even if they personally murder 1,000 Americans". North8000 (talk) 19:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Specifically about the health claim, I'm going to make a WP:BOLD edit along the lines of the third option that I described in my previous comment. Please see if it helps, and if not, please revert and comment here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I took that one phrase out. I'll be mostly off wiki for over a week. With Tryptofish being an objective expert person "in the middle", I give them my support and if I had a "proxy" I'd give them that too. North8000 (talk) 22:36, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

In anticipation of the predictable reaction to that, no, there is no cabal. And no, I reject the role of speaking for anyone other than myself. But thank you for the compliment. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

And this is a very minor observation, but I think it's kind of ironic that the sentence I rewrote about Canal's motivations has now been removed (but I'm OK with the removal). --Tryptofish (talk) 15:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

4. Is the amount of "the science" in the article appropriate? (in those restricted sections)

DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I think it is, as long as it remains restricted to a minimal statement in the lead, and the single GMO controversy background section. I agree that WP:FORK is a legitimate thing to guard against in this article... but what we have is NPOV. DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

In terms of fringe science, we're basically okay in its current incarnation except for the Concerns section. Once we address that, it appears the article will meet what policy demands. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• I think my answer here is really the same thing as what I just said in the section immediately above. I think that the science consensus information in the GMO background section is essential to keep. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:50, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• We need minimal science in the article. This is not a science article. The science is covered better and more fully elsewhere. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

5. Issues regarding the background on the HR933 signing timeline, which appear to have been largely championed by the currently-blocked Veriditas.

DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I have no opinion. To me, the article looks fine without this information, but wouldn't object if it went in avoiding WP:SYNTH. DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• Actually, I think that Viriditas was partly correct (note!!), and we should not simply blow this issue off. Go back to the earlier discussion for the details, but I think it's very relevant that the protesters said that the signing of HR933 by President Obama was something that played a big role in motivating them to protest. We are going to have to be careful about how we write about the so-called Monsanto Protection Act, because many of the protesters' assumptions are at least partly in disagreement with other source material – but the issue is actually very noteworthy for the purpose of explaining what led to the protest. What Viriditas and I were disagreeing about was his stated plan to make a dedicated section of the page (probably after what is now the Positions section), going into the bill in a lot of detail. Per WP:Summary style, I strongly oppose doing that, because we already have a main page about the legislation, and that page includes the controversies about the bill. What I recommend instead: in the background section of this page, we already have a sub-section about a bill in California. We should expand that a little bit, to cover both the California law and the Obama signing of HR933. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This sounds sensible, Trypofish. As you seem on top of this, I reckon just trying to add it would be fine. That might let us also alter the formatting of the last bullet point of Positions, which has good content but poor format/style. DanHobley (talk) 21:21, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly, that you are referring to taking it out of the Positions section (as opposed to adding it there)? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:26, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Expand the Background Californian bill section, and move background type material out of positions and into the background as appropriate? (but not all of it?) Certainly let's not decrease our total coverage of this issue, just reorganise it. DanHobley (talk) 00:14, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, good. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

6. A facebook post describing the movement's aims was removed, and hasn't been reinstated.

DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

We now use the primary website source for the protester's concerns, so hopefully this has mostly been superseded. Though I wouldn't object to working it in again, per WP:ABOUTSELF.DanHobley (talk) 04:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This one is a guideline option. I think the guideline may be changed to include more links. Some readers like to link to the subject websites. The guideline was written based on one main website. Now many subjects have Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a main peacock site. Twitter is probably the fastest updating and the peacock one the slowest. What we should be including are at least two. The peacock one for extreme detail showing all of their feathers and the faster social one that they are most active on. We have a bad double standard now with one site as the minimum and 8+ as the max. I think talk pages get consensus on the count on a case by case basis. Two should be fine for this article. I assume they post regular updates on Facebook and the main page is just a database. I haven't looked at either.--Canoe1967 (talk) 07:34, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• I'm ambivalent. If you look back at the earlier discussion, I argued for putting it back (again, please note that I agreed with Viriditas about it!), on the grounds that the statement reflects the views of the subject of the page, but I also see that some editors felt that Facebook fails WP:V because we cannot really know who posted the comment. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:04, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

7. The media section still overwhelmingly gives too much information to a false viewpoint

Thargor Orlando (talk) 11:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• Agree The marchers made the ludicrous claim that Monsanto orchestrated a worldwide media blackout. The article should not directly or indirectly support this crazy claim. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• Disagree. It's not overwhelming. That is unhelpful hyperbole. It's one sentence about someone who felt that the media accepted Monsanto's terminology, and two sentences about two persons who felt that there was too little coverage. It's true that there are fringe-y people who believe the conspiracy theory that the media are in league with big business, and those three commentators are probably in that group. They appear to have said it elsewhere. But they don't say it in the quotes that are now on the page. The article, in its present state, does not directly support the crazy claim. Does it indirectly support it? Only if one knows what else the sources have said, and thinks that because Misplaced Pages cited those sources, Misplaced Pages accepts as "true" everything in those sources, even the things Misplaced Pages never quoted or mentioned. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:12, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
  • This is not about crazy claims. This is about a section being balanced rougly 5-to-1 in favor of a false claim. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:14, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I was referring to where Martin called it a crazy claim, OK? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:53, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
• Disagree, per Tryptofish. Also, if protesters were making a claim that a media blackout was organized, that should be in the article!? Certainly more appropriate than the 3rd party discussions we have, which have this innuendo but don't say it. Again, we can trust our readers to understand that's a primary claim, and unsubstantiated. If a 3rd party source exists saying this is nonsense, fine - but if not, it's not for us to editorialize this claim away (i.e., this isn't necessarily a fringe claim without the refs for the opposing view). We already note wideranging coverage did happen. DanHobley (talk) 21:27, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Could one of the disagreers above explain to me what encyclopedic purpose the media section currently serves. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:05, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
    • Yes, I'll do that. First, WP:RGW. We're really not here to set the record straight. You don't need to purge the page of every bit of opinion, held by the protesters, with which reliable sources disagree. Now, that said, I'll admit that it's the least important part of the page, so I don't want to argue that this stuff is a really big deal. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:05, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
  • For the record, I am not arguing that this is a fringe point of view, but rather that we're giving significant undue weight to a false claim. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:14, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
    • And for the record, I'll point out again that it's a total of two sentences, and they don't even contain the false claim. Please consider also: . --Tryptofish (talk) 21:05, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
      • As of this moment, it's two paragraphs. The Livingstone claim which is okay, the Alternet claim that is demonstrably false, the Hartmann claim that is demonstrably false, and the Bachman claim that is demonstrably false. Yes, it's not the biggest issue in the article. It still needs to be solved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thargor Orlando (talk • contribs) 18:45, August 9, 2013 (UTC)
        • Wow, you are right! I went and looked, thinking that there wasn't anything there from Alternet, but there it was, a third paragraph that I somehow didn't previously notice was there. I don't remember who added it (without taking part in the discussion here), and I'm not going to go back and find out. But I am going to remove it right now. It's obviously a false opinion represented as fact, because it plainly contradicts the first paragraph. There is absolutely no place on this page for obvious falsehoods like that. That said, we will have the first paragraph, which I increasingly think we need to make sure that what is here is true, in contrast to some falsehood out on the Web, and the second paragraph. If we agree that the Livingstone claim is OK, then I'd like to live with the Bachman and Hartmann claims that are presented as opinions without repeating the parts that are obviously false. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
          • The Alternet source seems to make the distinction that the mainstream news coverage wasn't live coverage, presumably on a medium such as television, but that seems to me to be too minor a point for us to include here. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
• Abstain I have some sympathy with the complaint (and note how ironic it is that in the just-failed AfD a clamour of voices were arguing that the March had - and has - a great deal of mainstream and in depth media coverage). However, I can live with the text as it stands. I don't think this is a big issue any more. Alexbrn 09:26, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
• Needs slashing The wording on this item/question is not very good. But the second 2/3 of the section should get deleted. It's just talking points of one side, not a description of media coverage. North8000 (talk) 00:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
• Question: Do people think it would make the situation better or worse if there were actually a sentence in this section explicitly acknowledging that the protesters themselves believe there was inadequate coverage? Assuming such a reference exists? (FWIW, the current rewrite of this section looks like an improvement, though I'm having a tough time getting particularly worked up about the detail in this section.) DanHobley (talk) 03:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
  • It might marginally improve it, but the point is more that the claim is demonstrably false. A simple nod that there were complaints about coverage would suffice, but not lines and lines of things we know to be incorrect. It's not that the theory is fringe, but that we're giving much too much weight to this claim. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Dan, I am not quite sure what you are suggesting. There is no point in putting that the marchers were generally disappointed with the media coverage and would have preferred more. This would apply to the organisers of any publicity event and it is not the least bit important or notable. If, on the other hand, you are suggesting that we mention the, plainly crazy, claim by some that there was a worldwide media conspiracy, orchestrated by Monsanto, not to report the march we could mention this but only in the same way that we would mention the moon landing conspiracies or flat earthists' views. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:15, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I suspect it would be easier to respond to Dan's proposal if we actually had such a source to look at. But anyway, I just deleted the title of Hartmann's piece, because it didn't really add to the section (it implied that the "liberal media" might not be so liberal, which is not really an issue about GMOs). With that, this whole discussion comes down to: "Joseph Bachman, writing in the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, questioned what he saw as a lack of mainstream media coverage. Radio host Thom Hartmann compared what he saw as scant coverage of the protests to the greater media attention garnered by small Tea Party rallies." Sure, there are also conspiracy theories out there. But, for what is on the page right now, is this really too much weight? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:18, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

8. Is it a violation of WP:NOR to cite sources that do not mention the March Against Monsanto by name, to support the sentence about scientific consensus in the background section?

--Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• No. Because they are not cited to support a sentence about the March. It's a sentence about the scientific consensus. And it's appropriate to have this one sentence about the scientific consensus, to provide proper context for the views of the protesters. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• No, per Tryptofish again. DanHobley (talk) 21:29, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• No, but we must be wary of starting any mainstream/protestors scientific argument on this pages. I would prefer that we make clear that the protestors' arguments are fringe by our wording rather than by presenting contrary arguments here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:13, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
• No, in fact neutrality requires it. Alexbrn 09:23, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

9. Should we add more quotes from Dave Murphy, at the end of what is now the last bullet point in the Positions section?

--Tryptofish (talk) 18:28, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• No. Doing so would only be cherrypicking quotes to push the protesters' POV. Let's stick, instead, to what the protest itself has announced. (I added points 8 and 9 because they were also some leftover issues from earlier discussions, and I want to make sure we establish consensus about each of them). --Tryptofish (talk) 18:28, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
• No. We are not here to improve the protestors' arguments. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:02, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
• No. That would be to give undue weight (and it's "Dave", not "Dan"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexbrn (talk • contribs) 09:29, August 8, 2013 (UTC)
  • Woops, sorry, fixed! Thanks for pointing it out. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Possible resolution to contentions: Removal for being non-encyclopedic

Greetings! I was randomly selected for the RFC to discuss and decide whether Fringe Science or Undue Weight tags should be retained or eliminated, however I'm overwhelmingly biased against the Monsanto corporation so I will refrain from volunteering an opinion on the tagging, yet after reading through the Talk: page here what is emerging is what appears to be an inescapable awareness that the issue of Monsanto and its behavior globally negates unbiased, dispassionate reporting in an encyclopedia format. So does the reporting of protests and efforts to stop or hinder Monsanto's behavior, there is no possibility of unbiased, dispassionate, WP:NPOV reporting.

Misplaced Pages policy suggests that article entries should be encyclopedic, that they attempt neutrality or give equal weight, that it reports salient facts and does not attempt to right wrongs, save the world, become battle grounds for contentious issues... You know the drill, we all are well aware of various Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. As much as I hate Monsanto, looking at the article here I don't see it being very encyclopedic, it's using Misplaced Pages as a battle ground.

It may be somewhat extreme however how about deleting the article entirely? The march itself is well known, but it's not an historic event, anybody who wants to research the march against Monsanto can easily find better information about it using Google search engine queries, nothing monumental took place during the global protest, and people who want to learn about Monsanto's activities and products as well as opposition to the multinational globally don't need Misplaced Pages to fulfill their searches. Nothing about the march, its organization, or anything about it is even remotely encyclopedic in nature, after all. Damotclese (talk) 00:00, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

It was nominated for deletion yesterday (by me). It was closed keep per SNOW. Thus this is not likely to be a fruitful discussion, IRWolfie- (talk) 00:12, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict w Wolfie...)Strongly oppose discussion on the deletion. An AfD was placed on this article not 24 hours ago, for the second time, and there was a snowball consensus to keep on all sides. Here's the record: . Please, please, please, let's not have that discussion again within 24 hours in yet another venue.

As regards your general thesis, I'm not sure I agree that this is an insurmountable problem. I would contend that a good fraction of editors in this dispute are perfectly able to set aside their personal feelings and edit dispassionately, counting myself amongst them. In fact, this is why I'm here, after the first RfC on this (as I know are several others). If there is a minority here who can't be dispassionate about this (on whichever "side"), then that is their problem to address - by which I mean, step aside personally, and let clearer heads prevail. It's surely totally against the ethos of this site to not cover material because it's hard to do, or because people have strong views. Should we not cover climate change? Holocaust denial? The US government? Political parties? DanHobley (talk) 00:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Damotclese, I missed the deletion discussion, but had I been involved I would have voted to keep. I can see why some users would like the article to be deleted because it has become a soapbox for anti-Monsanto and anti-GM views and a general topic battleground. I agree with DanHobley above though, this is not an insurmountable problem. The article should simple be about the march, written in encyclopedic language. This is not the place for pro/anti gm food or pro/anti Monsanto debate or discussion of scientific topics of any kind. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's true that we're seeing a religious battlefield develop here, yet my primary suggestion for deletion still remains, the article is not very encyclopedic. If we were to crack open a printed encyclopedia prior to the advent of the Internet, we might find footnotes about protests such as this one, but historically encyclopedias would not bother to include anything like this march. As you note, the non-encyclopedic nature of the article is not insurmountable, true. Damotclese (talk) 19:14, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Immerse yourselves: "March Against Monsanto was among the largest global efforts in history". petrarchan47tc

But Petrarchan47, that's one of the problems. :) AlterNet is not a legitimate reference for determining any scientific issue any more than Fox "News" is. AlterNet is highly biased, catering to a progressive political position which, I would agree, cleaves strongly to scientific principles yet is biased nonetheless. That article you reference fails on any number of fatal logic fallacies, not the least of which is the begging the question claim that there were "millions" in the protest, nor the begging the question supposition that the movement is "gaining steam."

Immersion in to the scientific literature is what the other Editors suggested is the most reasonable avenue of contention resolution on this article, not diving in to highly biased blogish web sites that cater to particular political and social world views. No offense intended, please understand. :) I appeal to science and the Scientific Method which AlterNet just aint no part of.

The whole article here is badly un-encyclopedic. The article is strewn with unsupported suppositions. It totally fails to meet even rudimentary High School level reporting of the event leave alone reach what I would consider to be good encyclopedia work. Damotclese (talk) 22:24, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I am working to make this article more encyclopedic. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

"GMOs are safe"

This article is about a protest against Monsanto, their influence, and for the labeling of GMOs, among other things. When this was up for deletion the first time, the seeming consensus at the AfD was that it needed expansion to be a proper article. It was challenging, because media coverage was on the light side in my country, but it was a fun challenge. I immersed myself in all the articles I could find about MAM and went from there. I'm telling you this, because if this article is to be built based on wiki guidelines, it will be built on the literature ABOUT the protest. The articles showed the complaints/concerns were many and varied, though a few easily rose to the surface and those were what I highlighted by adding them to the article. Any seriously helpful editing is probably not going to come from the same group who've been edit warring here for two months - and it's easy to demonize Viriditas, in his absence, as the culprit, but the true problem is that editors here are NOT immersing themselves in the literature about MAM to build the article. Not in the least. Again, the main topic on this talk page is "GMOs are safe" "In fact, we better add this fact to the Lede!".

GMOs being safe is way off topic and is OR done in wiki's voice when added to this page, unless it comes from one of the pieces written about his topic, and in a balanced way resembling media coverage, which is to say, the GMO coverage here would look much more like my early version, since it came directly from RS about this article's topic. I think it's very apparent folks have some adgenda here regarding GMOs and the message surrounding them, and that very obviously the purpose here is not to improve the article based on what RS says about it. That is what's causing all the ridiculous problems here. This should have been a very simple article to build and should not have needed much tendIng to afterward. Yet, three months later people are still insisting on the same off-topic OR being aded to or remaining in the article.

In my opinion, doing the exact same thing but expecting different results is crazy - someone disinterested in GMOs but really in love with wiki and using its guidelines purely should rewrite this article based on RS about the March. This very early version of the article includes a reference list that should be very helpful in this pursuit, should anyone take it on. It is a very good list - and an exhaustive one at that. In one of the main articles about the protest, it mentioned that science had not proven GMOs to be dangerous (or something along those lines) and went on to illustrate protesters take on the GMO issue. That is what I used for the article - the balance struck on the GMO mention was taken from RS and presented based on how it was presented there. That is in keeping with guidelines.

A false balance on the GMO issue has been added and insisted upon exhaustively, daily, at this article that doesn't represent any RS about the topic. In fact it seems to be getting worse instead of better. There are a slew of links to completely unrelated science declaring the safety of GMOs. Adding to this. The balance is further thrown off by what is removed from the article - little unnoticeable things to the average eye, but glaring to one who has researched the RS in the topic of the March. Some of these differences can be seen by comparing the last re-do of mine and the subsequent reversion. I would ask that this be reviewed. For instance, two illuminating images were removed with no reason, some information about the organizer, Tami Camel, was removed, the GMO controversy was swapped as top position in first section instead of the intro paragraph, which is at the bottom of the first section again. I had ordered the first section to reflect the flow of events and the topics as they arose in RS - but the present ordering (a revert of my work) does not represent the balance or flow found in RS. It likely represents an outside view on how this should be presented - and I note that this means the "GMOs are safe!" is declared nearest the top. petrarchan47tc 17:00, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Please, again, look at our policy on neutral points of view and on fringe theories, in which claims about GM foods not being safe or causing cancer and such fall under. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Quick solution for your complaint: ask Alexbrn not to add "claims about cancer and such". Problem solved! petrarchan47tc 17:27, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

To save some time for future readers, the appropriate section of the fringe guidance for this particular case is Misplaced Pages:Fringe_theories#Quotations. What this means for our situation in the Concerns/Positions section isn't totally clear cut, as it comes down to whether this section is clear enough that this quote is an opinion. As noted above, no quote may prove easier to justify. DanHobley (talk) 17:34, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The back and forth here reminds me so much of this exchange between a MAM activist and the confrontational tv host. He tries to push her into sounding wacky, so the movement is more easily discredited (his obvious goal) while she makes claims no more wild than "But let us choose - label GMO food; please do more long-term studies", etc. This is a good reflection of what I learned by studying the topic-related RS, the views were not far out, and frankly I saw no wild claims about health effects, rather a unanimous request for labels, and a great concern for the yet unknown outcome of using GMOs. petrarchan47tc 17:22, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

You may not consider the views "far out," but when talking about the safety of GM food, they are fringe, and we must, per policy, include information that expresses the consensus. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:33, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I would argue that some of the protesters' claims fall under "3. Questionable science" at WP:FRINGE/PS - a substantial following, but some critics allege as pseudoscience. The text advises us to take "a bit more care". Helpful. Also, not to describe as "unambiguously pseudoscience", but this clearly does fall under the broad advice for WP:FRINGE. Some information on the mainstream scientific position is clearly appropriate, but as a community here we need to decide how much. Given other of the protesters' complaints do not fall under fringe, perhaps adding balancing views only to the ones that are would be a good way to go. Only the human health claims seem unambiguously fringe to me. DanHobley (talk) 17:46, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

You'll note that we're not seeking a point/counterpoint on every claim made by the protesters, only the ones that are significantly outside of mainstream scientific consensus. Balancing viewpoints are all we need, and we have it in the early section but not yet under concerns. My personal issues with fringe claims are satisfied once we address the concerns section. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:02, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Since US opinion is not the only opinion in the world, something that US residents sometimes forget, what do you think of the fact that the EU countries limit or ban GMOs? I would hope that you are not suggesting that they believe in what you call fringe science? Gandydancer (talk) 18:13, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The bans certainly aren't based on the scientific consensus, no, but this isn't the place to discuss geopolitics. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Considering the science is done only by industry and are no longer than 90 days, your excitement about the results seems strange.

The statements claiming we need science to counteract protesters' claims are not in keeping with what the administrator I first consulted had to say. DDG said it was not needed (see early talk records) and no one disagreed with him. Now the drum is continuously beaten that we must - and that the scientific consensus is a sure thing, based on a past RfC by jtydog. I am seeing RfCs being abused a lot. Large groups show up and subtly or blatantly support a certain pov. For instance, at BP, where in the talk one will see many of the same editors as here, we had a new person show up when deep discussions about the coverage of the gulf spill where taking place, and start an RfC - it may have been his very first contrib to the page (he never touched the article) which asked if the BP page should mention the gulf spill at all. A ridiculous starting point resulting, after tons of newcomers showed up to vote, in a ridiculous result, which the latest RfC shows no support for. People can call their friends and tip an RfC so fast and easily, I've lost faith in them.

Groupscule made a list of references which bring the 'scientific consensus' into question. But that is another issue - for this article, we do not need to discuss the science of GMOs. It is enough to link to the related articles. This has been agreed to by other admins and editors as well, though we need this to be more clearly stated - we need someone to take the reigns on this. I hope those found abusing this project are topic banned or banned altogether. And soon petrarchan47tc 18:40, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I wrote the comment below before having had a chance to read what you said here. I like DGG, but he was speaking as an editor, not as an administrator. (WP:No big deal and all that.) The most applicable survey of consensus is the RfC I just linked to, below. As for warning about bans, etc., the place to raise that is WP:AN. Just because editors disagree with you does not mean that they are abusing anything. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:52, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I added this question to the numbered list above. Please see: Talk:Genetically modified food controversies#Request for comment on "broad scientific consensus", where the exact same statement and sourcing are being discussed by a large cross-section of the community. The RfC will close in a few more days, and it looks to me like the overwhelming consensus there is that the statement and the sources are valid. The only question that then remains for us here is whether it is somehow WP:OR to take the sentence from Genetically modified food controversies and apply it here at March Against Monsanto. That happens to be the same question behind the now-closed thread at ANI that Viriditas started, and I don't have to remind anyone how that ended. It would be WP:SYNTH if we used those sources to say something about the March itself. But we don't. It's a sentence about the scientific consensus. It isn't synthesis. Should we delete that sentence? No, for the reasons already being discussed in the numbered list above. If we do delete it, then WP:FRINGE, WP:MEDMOS, and WP:POVFORK will all require us to have a sentence refuting the protesters' views every time we state the protesters' views, a never-ending point-counterpoint. Better, and more efficient, to state the facts in the background section. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I think we should revert to my early version and go from there, with new editors who haven't been warring here. This was the extent of the coverage of the GMO issue at the time:

Currently in the US most corn, soybean and cotton are genetically modified crops. Critics say GMOs can lead to serious health problems and cause harm to the environment. Though the US government and many scientists say the technology is safe, health advocates have recently been pushing for mandatory GMO labeling. Source

Any editing done after this point to extend the claims and therefore make the article worthy of fringe warning labels, science, drama, etc., I will not defend. The same group arguing against wild claims seems to be the same the ones adding them. petrarchan47tc 19:52, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

As this line doesn't reflect the scientific consensus, I cannot agree to it. If it said "Critics say GMOs can lead to serious health problems and cause harm to the environment, although the scientific consensus is that genetically modified food is safe" or something similar, I could be okay with it. I'm just one person, though. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:24, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, I don't think you have consensus for that. It would seem to have the effect of putting the page in your preferred version, and it would undo the effects of a lot of discussion since then. Although it's true that there are multiple disagreements, you still have to work with the other editors here. You might want to consider joining in the discussions above about the specific content points. In fact, you might even want to engage with the reply that I gave to you yesterday, where I listed point-by-point some of the concerns that I had about your group of edits. As for your accusations about other editors, you are getting dangerously close to where Viriditas was. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:28, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The crux of the problem is that editors are arguing their views supersede RS, like the AP that I quoted above. And when I say RS, I'm talking about RS for this article specifically - refs that cover MAM, which is much more nuanced that the portrayal here, if you read the actual source material. I disagree that folks found to be highly POV and who display an overly emotional dedication to arguing in circles here (and to any GMO mention on wiki) should have any input whatsoever to this article. petrarchan47tc 20:35, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

And I, in turn, find it concerning that I have to keep repeating the same explanation over and over again, just because a few editors disagree with it. Please see: #8. Is it a violation of WP:NOR to cite sources that do not mention the March Against Monsanto by name, to support the sentence about scientific consensus in the background section?, and my summary here: , in the part where I start by saying "Let's get specific about this claim of WP:OR." --Tryptofish (talk) 20:49, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

...the true problem is that editors here are NOT immersing themselves in the literature about MAM to build the article...

Oh I expect that some of the Editors do examine the extant literature, but that they pick-and-choose which sources they're willing to accept as factual. As was noted, fixing the article so that it is encyclopedic is not an insurmountable task, but it may take decades. :) Damotclese (talk) 19:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Petrarchan please do not claim my last edit was original research, it came from a reliable source. You claimed it was cherry picking, however you removed the information from the New York Times because it wasn't about an article specifically created about the march. So I picked a source that was specifically about the march and how ludicrous it is to say 2 million people marched. The source I stated also mentioned how the 2 million number came into being and the AP backed off the number later. After all the other articles had copied the AP article. I also don't like the assumption you make that people are not immersing themselves in the literature about MAM to build the article. I have search for hours and hours. 90% of the search results are from RS are just the AP article as originally created. I do have a list of sources with numbers of each of the marches that had numbers attached to them. I think it would be good to attach those to the article as well so readers can get a sense of how many location were included along with the number at each location, which is not WP:OR becuase they are all cited. VViking_TalkEdits 22:45, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Obvious nonsense

"In post-march coverage, Alternet printed, "While March Against Monsanto was among the largest global efforts in history with 400 simultaneous events in 60 countries around the globe, no major corporate media outlets in the US covered the live event. CNN ran a followup short on the event on May 28, and mainstream coverage has trickled in here and there, but has been sparse."Worldwide Movement Against Monsanto Gaining Steam

To call this nonsense, to literally argue that Alternet didn't have an idea what they were doing, but some Misplaced Pages editor knows the score, is rather odd. And disturbing. I am wondering if there is one person here who has studied the available material about the March Against Monsanto. They wouldn't argue with this Alternet quotation, if they had, I assure you. It was a giant march, and it was not covered well by mainstream media. The idea of corporate controlled media has been called a "meme" on this talk page. Which is ridiculous*. I need to ask why folks are so interested in spending time editing this page when they have not studied the topic. The result is vandalism, folks. petrarchan47tc 22:58, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Let me draw your attention to #7. The media section still overwhelmingly gives too much information to a false viewpoint. No it isn't vandalism. It's a disagreement about POV, but not vandalism. I assure you that I am reading the material, including the first paragraph of the Media coverage section of this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what you're calling a "false viewpoint", but where are the refs proving these claims? And when I say material, I am not speaking of the Misplaced Pages article based on the material, i'm speaking of source material. petrarchan47tc 23:06, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The words "false viewpoint" come from the header of that discussion section; they are not my words. You should follow the link and read what is there. Yes, I do understand that you were talking about the source material. So let me draw your attention to the source material in the first paragraph of the Media coverage section of the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:13, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I do hope you aren't insinuating that this minuscule list of media outlets - sans context such as, what percentage of media this represents, the amount and type of coverage, etc - this list that essentially constitutes OR (if indeed it is trying to 'say something' that is not found already said in RS, ie "lotsa coverage fer that MAM thing") - refutes Alternet and Thomm fricking Hartmann. And yes, that first para that you now point me to was indeed created as OR refutation of the Thom Hartmann claim, which for whatever reason has been under heavy attack since the very begining of the article. A thorough review of the edit history will show that the first paragraph, which is just weird, was created in a struggle to remove uncomfortable claims, to prove them wrong blatantly using OR whilst claiming to be the ones who are really here to follow guidelines and build a proper article. A review of the history will show that no one ever tried to remove Monsanto's rebuttle. I put it in there. There is only one "side" being attacked here, no matter how convoluted and spun the retelling of this story gets. At some pont, an intelligent truly NPOV lover of the wiki will do a review of this whole situation, and all will be seen. petrarchan47tc 23:29, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not insinuating anything. Please feel free to raise any issues you want at the appropriate notice board, but please stop casting aspersions on other editors here. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I am AGF, so I do wonder why you would point me to an example of OR/SYNTH. How am I to respond? Now I go to a noticeboard? Why isn't this upsetting to anyone but me? This is obviously against the guidelines, yet we are editing on account of it. I cannot imagine another article where this is acceptable. And every editor here is responsible for letting this slide, which is confusing to me. I know that the editors here understand basic wiki guidelines, and this paragraph has no business being on wikipedia. I am wondering why am I the only person who sees this. petrarchan47tc 01:23, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

• Is there something I'm missing here? Why would we presume an activist news service is reliable exactly? Particularly about something so demonstrably false? (i.e this statement stands in contrast to the fact that the event is notable purely based on the media coverage). IRWolfie- (talk) 00:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
• Is this first paragraph of the media section the best example of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH ever, or second best? We have already been over this, the event wasn't much covered by mainstream media and Alternet is considered RS, in a case where we have little to go on, it is fine. We quote directly from Monsanto press releases and industry as well, where appropriate. petrarchan47tc 01:15, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Sources are never declared de-facto reliable. Reliability is case by case. I'm still not sure what you are basing calling it reliable on. It is a news service with a set agenda, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:18, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

'GMO controversy' section.

I have removed a comment about lobbying and slightly rewritten this section. I believe that it now gives an encyclopedic and balanced description of the background to the march without promoting any anti/pro views on Monsanto or GM foods. What do others think? Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:07, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Although it is well sourced, but somewhat out of date, I have removed the poll data because it is not about the march, it is an argument supporting the marchers' position. What exactly was it supposed to balance? Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:31, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, what exactly is your poll result supposed to balance? It is just promoting the marchers' POV, which is not the job of an encyclopedia. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:37, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

2012 is not out of date. Since we have stepped away from a need to use protest-related sites for the scientific position, it is also reasonable to use a poll to show that 9 out of 10 Americans question it. Gandydancer (talk) 12:43, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The quoted poll was 2010. We cannot try to balance a general scientific consensus with a poll of the public. Firstly they are about two different subjects, the scientific consensus is about the safety of the foods but the poll was about labelling.

I have no strong opinion either way on labelling but this article is not the place to discuss the subject. All we need to say is that the marchers want labelling of GM food and some others do not. It is not our job to decide who is right, or to present evidence for either side here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:20, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree Martin. However, if in this article we include sites to contradict their position, sites where the protest is not mentioned, we must also include information that supports their concerns in a similar manner--thus the poll is reasonable. My preference would be to remove any information that is not directly related to the march. Gandydancer (talk) 13:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Which sites are you referring to? Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:47, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Given that we should deal with the overall controversy, beyond the March itself, according to WP:Summary style, I have low enthusiasm for including the poll. It looks to me like the poll was added sort of as a way to balance the other edits that Martin made. To the degree that those edits might have needed to be balanced, a better approach would be to try to fix them, instead of to get into making other compensatory edits to balance them. And I do think that some of Martin's edits were a mistake in this instance, and so I have revised them. In particular, I was quite puzzled by the removal of the quotation marks (gosh, do I sound like Viriditas now?), because we have discussed those quotes numerous times before and the consensus was to leave them as direct quotes. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:37, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not aware of any consensus. The quotes serve no useful purpose and only make the writing less encyclopedic. There are no issues of plagiarism (the quotes are far too short) or of attribution (both views are clearly attributed. Quotations like this encourage 'quote wars' instead of a proper encyclopedic writing style. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

A while back, you removed a lot of quotes, and the now-blocked editor made a big deal about it. I commented that I felt that most of your edits then were helpful, but that I would prefer to restore direct quotes from the people who were behind the protest. Subsequent discussion seemed to indicate that there was at least some consensus, including no objection from you at that time, for putting those quotes back as direct quotes. The drama on my user talk page about supposed plagiarism was about one of those two quotes. Taking those things together, I would have preferred that if you now wanted to de-quote those quotes, you would have discussed it here in talk before, rather than after, doing it, as we are doing for so much else. I am optimistic that the battles over quote wars are going to quiet down now, so I think the best way not to reignite them is to not make new changes that could reignite them. There is nothing un-encyclopedic about having quotations in an article, whereas it's a little dicey to have passages as long as those presented without quote marks, with one unchanged from the source, and the other only changed from "can" to "could". Really, these two direct quotes should not be a big deal to you, so I don't see any reason to tone them down. Let's leave the quotes, and, in "return", let's leave out the poll. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:41, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Can you at least explain to me the encyclopedic purpose of having direct quotes. There is no possibility of misunderstanding if we paraphrase or even use the exact words in our text. The use of a few words of normal English cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called plagiarism. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:28, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I can explain that. As I just said above, there "is nothing un-encyclopedic about having quotations in an article". It's an article about the March Against Monsanto. People have said things about the March Against Monsanto. We report some of the things that they have said. Maybe there's a slight difference in tone, compared to some old-fashioned print encyclopedias, but that is because we are not an old-fashioned print encyclopedia, and we report a wider variety of topics than anything that has previously been produced in print. This article is about a present-day controversy. We sometimes quote what people said during the controversy. Previously, I agreed with some of your edits about quotes, but I do not see the issue as extending so far that, every time a quote appears, we have to run from it squealing "eek! eek! it's a quote! I'm so scared! save me!". These particular quotes are not going to set off a quote war unless editors on both "sides" decide to make it a war. I didn't say that you plagiarized, but I said that "it's a little dicey", and that's what it is, no more, no less. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:51, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

One of the problems that I have with this section is over-footnoting. There is no need to have five footnotes, with one of them (currently 12) broken down into bullet points, as citations to bang home the point that GMOs are fine. It takes up an excessive portion of the article and is overkill. Coretheapple (talk) 17:00, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

This is likely an artifact of the broader conflict in place. I tend to agree with you that we should be able to boil it down to one specific source that asserts this. A Reason.TV link I provided earlier does this, and has the added benefit of tying the consensus in with the March. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:10, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it's also in violation of the footnoting guideline I believe. I'll have to look that up. This is part of a larger imbalance problem in the article as discussed below, and I've tagged it for that. Coretheapple (talk) 17:14, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I've cut it down to two, which is more than enough to establish that GMOs are as safe as a daisy in springtime. Coretheapple (talk) 17:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

California Proposition 37 and the Farmer Assurance Provision section

At the moment this reads like a promotional campaign by the marchers. We do need to say why the marchers were marching and what they were marching for but not in language that gives their fringe views credibility and authority. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:44, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

It would help if you would make specific suggestions about what to change in the wording. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Let us start at the beginning then:

The combined total spent by food industry advocacy groups on the campaign to defeat Proposition 37 was $45 million.

This should be removed. There was a fair and legal vote. How much each side spent on their cause in not relevant to the march. The statement is intended to make a vague accusation against one side of the debate.

Canal credits Proposition 37 with "opening her eyes" to GMOs for the first time.

Another unnecessary quote in a badly worded and biased sentence. We should have something along the lines, 'Canal had said that Proposition 37 led to her interest in GM foods'. Simple facts without emotive words phrases like "opening her eyes" and "credits". Either that or remove the sentence completely. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:36, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with either of those. The first is a statement of fact, and it was very widely reported in connection with these protests. It's clearly part of the background to the protests. The second reports what motivated Canal, and it's properly attributed. We cannot purge this page of the reasons for the March. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I changed the wording about Ms. Canal and Proposition 37, as proposed by Martin, but, upon consideration, am reverting it back, because it is an accurate quote as to what she said. (Does anyone question that she said that?) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:47, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

No, I do not in any way question that fact that she said that but I do question WP giving her a soapbox to promote her views. We need to state her motives in neutral and encyclopedic language. The use of the word 'credits' is not even a quotation it is in the voice of WP. Words like 'credits' suggest support for the stated view, why not just 'stated' or 'said'. The use of "opening her eyes" suggests that the revealed facts were true and that they had been kept secret. Please, have a read of a printed encyclopedia like Chambers or Britannica. You well not see the kind of language used in the article there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin Hogbin (talk • contribs) 17:16, August 10, 2013 (UTC)

@Martin Hogbin

I agreed with User:Martin Hogbin about the removal of unencyclopedic anti-BP content from the BP article. There were and are anti-BP POV-pushers who insisted that any removal of anti-BP was a "whitewash", but I thought that they were trying to "black-wash" the company, in particular by the addition of negative material that was already in its own articles. I disagree about the removal of some of these quotes from this article. This article is not Monsanto but is about the protests, and should explain the protests with a neutral POV so that the reader can form an opinion. This article can present the views and motivations of the protesters as long as it does not promote fringe science. Undue weight differs when writing about a company than when writing about opposition to a company. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I second this. DanHobley (talk) 17:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

It is not just the content but the language used. We should not be staging a quote war, as in X says "GM foods are bad" Y says "GM foods are good" we should be neutrally stating the views and motivations of both parties once. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:17, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Martin, I'm going to third what Robert said. He's right. I'm all in favor of WP:BLPGROUP, but not to the point of, in effect, watering down the subject of the page. I think I can see how you might see some of the language as being aggressive and confrontational, and it's not entirely unreasonable to wish that we could make our language here more, well, civil. And I'm in favor of doing that when we write in Misplaced Pages's voice. But this is an article about a controversy that was very confrontational at times, and, however good your intentions are (and I am convinced that they are good), it's a mistake to try to make the reliably sourced quotes "nicer". --Tryptofish (talk) 18:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree that edit wars over quotes are bad, because they are edit wars. I am not sure what is meant by the staging of quote wars. I agree that there should be no more quotes than are needed to present the point of view of the protesters. However, we should focus more on the views of the protesters than of opponents of the protest, because this article is about the protests, not about genetically modified food or Monsanto. I agree with User:Tryptofish, because this article is about the protests, and the protests are controversial, and we need to be careful to present their views and motives neutrally. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:30, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I think "quote wars" refers to having one quote from one "side" followed by a quote from the other "side", over and over again. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. If so, I agree that we should not stage quote wars, and should not try to provide an equal number of quotes to both sides. This article is about the protests, not about people who disagree with the protest, or a company or products that the protesters disagree with. The protesters are entitled to reasonable but not excessive explanation, including in their own words. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Please see below. There is absolutely no entitlement for any group to have their own words in WP see WP:soap unsigned

Encyclopedic Style

I am not demanding the removal of all quotations, just that we try to write in an encyclopedic style. This is not the same as that of a news source or an essay. We are here to give the plain facts. Where there is a dispute amongst reliable sources as to what the fact are we must adopt a WP:NPOV but that does not apply to scientific topics, were we should present information in the light of the mainstream scientific opinion where there is one. I am no expert on GE but I can see from the articles in WP that, although there are issues and concerns, currently licensed and available GM foods are not considered to present unacceptable risks to humans or the environment. Anyone who wants to challenge this view should go the the main GM articles rather than trying to sneak their opinions through a back-door soapbox here.

The marchers have absolutely no right to have their words repeated here. We do have the duty to state the views of the marchers clearly and accurately but in the language and context of our choice, as writers of an encyclopedia. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Canoe1967

• This article doesn't need to be balanced with every point made by the protest. We have pro-life and pro-choice articles that each have their own POVs stressed without countering. If Monsanto has a POV then create Monsanto March Against Protesters.

Their POV can be stressed there.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

(And that's all I have to say!) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of policy. The failure to understand WP:NPOV is so basic that beyond this statement, I am left speechless. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:55, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Is that a rant or is it something helpful to the article? If not then expect it removed as a rant.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:13, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that IRWolfie, an editor with whom I've probably never agreed, is entitled to have his say and that the comment should not be removed. I followed this conversation a while back and have totally lost the thread of things. Can someone sum up the issues outstanding? They would be helpful not just for me but for anyone else passing by. Coretheapple (talk) 03:33, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey, Canoe1967 - stop deleting other people's comments, no matter how strongly you feel about them. This is a flagrant violation of the guidelines (per WP:TPO) - and this is the second time you've done it in the past week. The guideline reads: "Never (bold in source) edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page." Please restore the comment. DanHobley (talk) 05:18, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Basically this article and talk page are both full of personal opinions about the subject. It is a content and source war about inclusion/exclusion of those opinions. Few seem to care about our readers.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:43, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Coretheapple: The most recent précis of what's outstanding in terms of specific points can be found above at Talk:March Against Monsanto#Dan's attempted list of outstanding issues. A slightly broader interpretation can be read under Talk:March Against Monsanto#This may not be as hard as people think. However, in one sentence, the crux of it is that 1. there are major misgivings over the extent to which including the arguably (see above, repeatedly) dubious opinions of the protesters is inherently in need of framing statements to eliminate concerns of POV/FRINGE, how much of this there might need to be, and 2. there is a fairly entrenched battleground mentality, shading repeatedly into some pretty disrespectful statements and actions, from a number of editors. I hope those are fair statements. DanHobley (talk) 04:59, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

It is an article about a protest. POV/FRINGE should be expected from the protesters. We don't go to Christian articles and balance them with the views of atheists, history, and science.--Canoe1967 (talk) 05:10, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the links and comments above. Coretheapple (talk) 15:29, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes we do AIRcorn (talk) 05:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking of Evangelicalism or Catholic Church. I don't think either article has POV that tries to debunk their beliefs.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:44, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

These are articles which are not related to science, so this does not make sense. Aircorn's examples are where religions make statements about science, and the mainstream scientific position is given clearly there. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:28, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Canoe, strangely I agree with most if what you say. Of course we should expect fringe views from the protesters and we should state them in the article, but in an encyclopedic manner and in a way in which WP does not appear to be promoting or supporting those views and indeed in a way in which those views are taken to be plainly contrary to mainstream science. If that is done correctly there is no need for a detailed scientific refutation of the the marchers' views in the article.

There are valid concerns about GM food and crops and these are discussed properly at Genetically modified food controversies. Anyone who disagrees with the arguments put at that page should argue their case there. The point is that the marchers did not go around with banners saying "We must be wary of horizontal gene transfer" they wend round spreading overblown opinions like "GM foods are poisoning our children" and accusing Monsanto of organising a worldwide media blackout. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:00, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps I should clarify while this is a fundamental failure to understand WP:NPOV. Every article is expected to be written from the neutral point of view. No wikipedia page is expected to give a POV. The pro/anti abortion articles are expected to conform to NPOV. What you have described is a POV fork (WP:POVFORK): "A POV fork is an attempt to evade the neutrality policy by creating a new article about a subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts." Seriously, sit down and read WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:46, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Evangelicalism or Catholic Church. I don't think either article has POV that tries to debunk their beliefs.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:47, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is essentially irrelevant here because it only applies when different viewpoints are expressed in reliable sources. The marchers stated views (GM foods are poison etc) are not supported by any reliable sources and are therefore WP:FRINGE and thus we have no requirement to represent them here. We have a duty to tell our readers what the motivation of the marchers was but from a mainstream science viewpoint. We have absolutely no obligation to give fringe views a fair hearing or to show the marchers own words, indeed we must not do that in any way that would give them the authority of WP.

I might add that neither is this the right place to debunk their views. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

This article is not about the controversy of their views though. This article is about the march. If a group of Christians march against the government we don't include NPOV about their religion. We include the religious reasons for the march. The religion de-bunking should go in articles about the religion. The de-bunking of this march's views are de-bunked in other articles. To de-bunk them again here is simply a WP:COATRACK but inverted. Instead of this article covering the POV of the subject it is being forced to NPOV of other articles. This article is not about the debate. It is about the march and the debate is hanging coats all over it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that Canoe1967 has a valid point. Even assuming that the marchers against Monsanto are totally espousing a fringe viewpoint, I don't think it is necessary to provide balance to their views every step of the way, as long as the article does state the scientific consensus in a prominent way. Coretheapple (talk) 16:02, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I also broadly agree, although following CtA I also feel some framing comments on the science are necessary (though probably not throughout the text). I strongly disagree with Martin (above) that we have no requirement to represent the fringe viewpoints at all in the article, on the basis that they are fringe. Especially given that these kinds of fringe views are widely held, and thus notable in their own right. DanHobley (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

• 2006 Islamist demonstration outside the Embassy of Denmark in London found one. In this article we don't go into the NPOV between freedom of speech and religious insults. We just have an article about the views and the protesters.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:59, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that's a good analogy. Even articles that are about fringe movements, like 9/11 conspiracy theories, don't go into extravagant rebuttals. There is a criticism section, and a reference to them in the lead section. But there is no effort to make the entire article NPOV, in the sense of making it even-Steven between the accepted view of 9/11 and the conspiracy theories. Coretheapple (talk) 18:05, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

As I have said before, we should include the marchers' reasons and motives for for the march; that is not what I meant by 'no requirement to represent the fringe viewpoints'. However we must not promote those fringe viewpoints here, either directly by saying things like, 'GM foods may be extremely harmful to health', or indirectly by giving excessive prominence to the marchers emotive wording of their fringe views. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:12, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

We don't want to state anyone's opinions as fact. However, I do think that we have to state their opinions, and be careful not to censor the article out of a view that we are promoting their positions. If there is any particular, specific wording that you find objectionable, please do specify. Coretheapple (talk) 18:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how we can be promoting their views simply by inclusion. We include material. We don't voice an opinion on whether we promote it. Some don't like IE9 but we have an article about it that lists all its features in detail. We aren't listing all of the claims that Firefox may be a better browser. Those issues go in controversy or comparison articles. If one article on a browser is 10x the size of the other then expand the smaller one. Article size and content are not promotional of either browser.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:40, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion, quoting the marchers' emotive words in the article does promote their views unduly. For example, just having, ' X said, "GM foods are poisoning our children"' in the article is unencyclopedic and gives undue weight to a fringe view. The use of "double quotation marks" in particular draws the eye to the words and the use of 'children' is purely emotive; we presume the marchers believe that GM food will harm adults too. I think we should word this more along the lines of 'X believed that GM foods were seriously harmful to health'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Removal of Comments?

Am I to understand that one of the editors of this talk page has been known to remove comments? Even if they are rants, removal of rants makes it hard to deal with the user conduct issue of ranting. Going through an article history to find removed comments is tedious. I may be mistaken, but I thought that the only talk page comments that were supposed to be removed were those that had to be actually backed out by oversight or revision deletion because they were grossly offensive, libelous, or otherwise blatantly improper (as opposed to merely improper). Robert McClenon (talk) 18:31, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Then I suggest you take a look at the history of this page toot sweet. I was shocked. Roxy the dog (talk) 18:50, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, one comment was removed and was promptly reinstated. I think it would be better to deal with the ramifications thereof with the user directly. Coretheapple (talk) 19:01, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

See WP:TPO. I considered the comment off-topic as well as a little trollish, bite, POV, NPA, etc.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:31, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

And you were rebuked because you utterly misjudged the comment which you removed here: . When I say you fundamentally misunderstand NPOV, that is not a rant, it is pointing something out; you have not read WP:NPOV or WP:FRINGE and appear disinclined to do so. Yet, here you are continuing to refer to my comment it as "a little trollish, bite, POV, NPA". It was on topic because it was directly related to what you had just posted. It was not "bite" which refers to newcomers, you are not a newcomer. It is not POV, because it does not espouse a POV, it is a comment about your understanding of NPOV. It is not an NPA, because saying someone doesn't understand NPOV isn't a personal attack. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:38, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Please, take it to this user's talk page, or someplace else, or better still, let it rest. This is for discussion of the March Against Monsanto article, not your disputes with other editors. Just to be clear, your comment was a rant, and it was uncalled-for. However, I reinstated it because talk page guidelines are broad, not because your comment was proper. Coretheapple (talk) 18:06, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Positions

Just wanted to point out that "positions" of the protesters has less content than Monsanto/industry response, which is imbalanced it seems. The positions sections could really use expansion, as could the intro to the "background" section. petrarchan47tc 18:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

There is definitely more from Monsanto than is necessary. This is an article about a movement and why so many hundreds of thousands of people are engaged in this activity. There is no need to be even-Steven and tit for tat, or to create an "equal time" situation like they used to do on TV. Coretheapple (talk) 19:06, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The media response section should also go before the Monsanto section. Chrono order is march, live coverage, reaction to coverage. And where did that extreme POV Hawaii statement come from? "Genetically modified crops are the most tested and regulated crops, and the scientific consensus about their safety is overwhelming." My bold. How did we get from broad consensus to overwhelming? This is just her opinion and I don't know if she can cite sources or not. We need to cite sources, so should she. She sounds like a PR person. Are we including their hyped up spin phrases now?--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

It's a trip, isn't it? What has happened to this article is all in the records. But i bet it isn't too hard to guess where that POV stuff came from...21:07, 11 August 2013 (UTC) petrarchan47tc 21:08, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Case in point - check out this recent edit to the page:

The Washington State Wire criticized the 2 million number that was oft quoted in news articles. They didn't say they did an exhaustive search and maybe 1.9 million people marched in Timbuktu. Since there would have been an average of 4587 people per location if there were actually 436 locations. The largest list of locations the State Wire could find was a list of 250 locations meaning the number of people per location jumps to 8000. Portland seems to be the high mark of the number of participants with organizers claiming 10,000 and the Oregonian citing 2000-3000 people. The Associated Press started with reporting the 2 million number, in a second iteration the AP went with Organizers say two million people marched in protest against seed giant Monsanto…”. Finally in a third version they played it safe and didn't even mention a number. source

Keep in mind, we have quoted the biggest media in the world for the number used in the article, which is in accordance with my understanding of RS. "Washington State Wire blog" deserves an entire paragraph for its questioning of the numbers? We have already stated "according to protesters", so all of this effort, which has gone on since May 28th, to question and knock down this number is against the guidelines for RS, a huge red light that a certain POV is still governing some edits here, and most importantly, continues to divert the editors here from getting this article written. We have spent 3 or 4 months arguing about how to apply the most basic Wiki guidelines to this article, but we have not been able to get past these minor issues to expand on what the protest was all about: the protesters had much to say with regard to Monsanto's pull in DC, concerns about bee population decline, and other things. I am not saying the arguing here was meant to keep other issues from being discussed/expanded, but it is certainly a result! petrarchan47tc 21:19, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

We don't just parrot the biggest newspaper. We look at the ones most reliable for the claims, and that involves using common sense as well. If a number sounds completely crazy, and illogical, and some of the sources say that everyone just parroted the AP number, which was later revised anyway, then its important to note that. I think we should be mentioning some of the analysis. That WSW source provides an in depth analysis of the number claims, and also what occurred at the AP. Clearly this is more appropriate to use than merely just parroting the claims of the organisers and leaving it at that. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:13, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

RfC for number of participants and proper use of RS

I've moved these comments from the "positions" section to make the new topic more clear. petrarchan47tc 22:56, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

This really isn't an RfC, and my moved comment was made in direct response to the section that it was in. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

• So it appears that this talk page is now two different talk pages. One is where editors discuss content before making changes that might not have consensus. The other is sections of the page such as this one, where editors who have POV disputes with other editors ignore discussion elsewhere on the talk page, and pat themselves on the back after making edits that clearly go against consensus. I've reverted all of it; please feel free to discuss. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:08, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Trypto, please support your recent edit using the source from CVT to counter claims from major media sources, thank you. If you are unable to cite proper grounds using the guidelines, I would suggest your self-revert. If this is not an option, an RfC is in order. I am so sick of this nonsense.22:50, 11 August 2013 (UTC) petrarchan47tc

Note: I hadn't noticed Trypto reverted much more than the numbers, including my careful work to include a simple introduction to the protest origins, details about its founder, etc. This is vandalism, pure and simple, and to say i need consensus for simply following the guidelines about how to build an article is disgusting. petrarchan47tc 23:01, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Someone disagreeing with you is not vandalism (WP:NOT VANDALISM) and please do not refer to it as vandalism. You made substantial edits, and they were reverted. You clearly need consensus for bold edits (per WP:BOLD). That is how collaboration works. You believe you were following the guidelines, others do not. Sometimes people disagree, but poisoning the well doesn't help. If you continue to refer to the good faith actions of other editors as vandalism or the act of needing consensus after being reverted as disgusting, I will take the issue to ANI, but I'd prefer if you just stopped doing it. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:13, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Observations: 1. "Vandalism" is manifestly not an appropriate description of TF's edit. Tryptofish has been a notably moderate voice here. 2. Your preferred version of the lead is not more neutral; it actively excludes lower estimates, and info that most of the protests were in the US. These problems (information removed, rather than altered) appear to extend to all of their substantive reverted changes. 3. Editors clearly have differing interpretations of the guidelines. TF is totally right when he emphasises the need to discuss here. 4. Per the numbers specifically, of all the issues in this article, this I thought we at least had some kind of consensus on! 5. I am gradually more and more of the opinion that some sort of community intervention is necessary here. This manifestly isn't working. (NB- this is not a specific criticism of you, Petrarchan. More of a general observation.) DanHobley (talk) 23:41, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

• As I have told Petrarchan at my user talk, WP:AIV is that-a-way, and lotsa luck with that. I said at my talk that I would give a more detailed reply here, and here it is. First of all, I would welcome having more eyes on this page, and an RfC about specific questions about content is something I would be quite happy to see, assuming the editors who are complaining about me would actually pay attention to the consensus that might emerge from it. I'm very serious about what I said above: if Petrarchan is going to disregard discussion elsewhere on this talk page, and just keep opening up new talk sections as sort of mini-POV-forks within this talk page, then they have no reason to claim that they have consensus for anything. Now, let's take a look at the specifics:
  • One of the things that the edits I reverted did was to systematically take every part of the page that included information representing mainstream views, and move them lower on the page. It doesn't even make sense: why have the things Canal did with the social media come before the information about what she was reacting to, the issue of whether or not GMOs are safe? And it's pure WP:IDHT to say that I didn't explain that. Take a look at #Post ANI commentary - where do we go from here?, at my comment at the end of that, just before the next section begins. I said the same thing there, explained it as best I could, and Petrarchan never replied or even acknowledged that I said it, but they went right ahead and made the same edits again.
  • Take a look at: (1) #3. How much of the marcher's concerns over human health risks should be included? Should the direct quote "cancer, infertility and birth defects" be present? Also, more detail on the other entries?, (2) #7. The media section still overwhelmingly gives too much information to a false viewpoint, (3) #8. Is it a violation of WP:NOR to cite sources that do not mention the March Against Monsanto by name, to support the sentence about scientific consensus in the background section?, and (4) my comments within #"GMOs are safe". The edits today ignored all of those discussions, even though Petrarchan never bothered to discuss those things in the first three of those, and appears not to be hearing what I said in the fourth.
  • I think that I have been consistently civil to Petrarchan, although that has definitely not been reciprocated. It's not my job to explain every single line of their edits here in talk. We have WP:BRD for a reason, and I'd say that my revert was the R of that – except that I had already discussed it even before the most recent edits took place! Petrarchan would do well to follow the advice that I gave, quite politely, at #Post ANI commentary - where do we go from here?. Make a list of everything in your edits that you feel is justified and should not have been reverted, and present it here in talk and find out whether or not you have consensus. Making that list is not my job.
• --Tryptofish (talk) 01:02, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't have time to keep up with nine different questions or long lists that I'm expected to respond to and I've never worked on an article where editors were expected to do so. You seem to think that it is OK for you to take over this talk page and run it according to your expectations, but it is not working for me. Gandydancer (talk) 01:37, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, there are some problems with what you are saying there. I am sympathetic to how difficult it can be to follow all of the discussion points on this talk page. However, the reason that there are so many things being discussed is that there are so many specific issues about the content of the page about which editors disagree. Other editors have conscientiously taken part in the numbered list of questions – started by another editor, not by me – so it is possible to do so if one so chooses. I'm not asking anyone to consider themselves required to take part in those discussions, but I think that it is entirely reasonable to say, that if someone is going to make edits to the page that are directly related to those discussion points, they would be well-advised to make themselves aware of those discussions and to demonstrate respect for what other editors are saying. If you or anyone else do not have time to follow those discussions, that's fine – but if you make an edit unaware of those discussions, you really cannot complain that you had no reason to know that someone else might object. I never said that you need to make a list in talk of your edits. I said to Petrarchan in #Post ANI commentary - where do we go from here?: "Given how everything on this page has been contested, you would have done yourself a favor by making a list like this and discussing it in talk before making the edits. You don't have to, of course, but bold edits risk WP:BRD reverts. After all, look at how long I've been asking other editors' opinions about changing a header from "Concerns" to "Positions" without actually making the edit. Just saying." If you think that that is "taking over" the page, then you are incorrect. Just above, I noted that they did not follow that advice, so I repeated it, but more firmly. Again, that is not taking over this page. Therefore, your comment about what I supposedly think is OK really is inappropriate. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:49, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I do not consider it appropriate for an editor to arrive at a page and list every problem that s/he sees and expect all of the editors to make yes/no etc. comments and to refer back to the list before making edits to the article. That is all I have to say here. Gandydancer (talk) 15:25, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, neither do I, and you would know that if you had taken the time to read what I said. It appears that you are making negative comments about me without knowing the facts. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

The same group doing the exact same things isn't going to end the warring and nonsense at this article. There is nothing difficult about building an article based on related, reliable sources in context and with due weight as evidenced in RS. There is no reason so many editors need to spend so much time at this article - it is a simple story, and the guidelines for applying RS are simple too. I can't fight this group anymore, and I don't know how Viriditas lasted so long. I am now arguing that this article be turned over to ArbCom. petrarchan47tc 01:57, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I actually sort of agree with you that ArbCom is eventually going to have to deal with this dispute. They will examine the conduct of all parties, on all "sides". They will do so only after the community exhausts all other avenues of dispute resolution, and only if someone makes a formal request at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests, so a comment on this talk page that it should be turned over to them will not result in them doing anything. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:07, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Arbcom do not resolve content disputes and I do not think that anyone has acted terribly badly here.

My main complains are 'quote wars' (meaning too many direct quotations from the marchers and Monsanto) and unencyclopedic language, which gives undue credibility to fringe views. If we removed this I do not think there would be any need to overstate the mainstream view. I have a suggestion below. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:59, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

A suggestion

Would anyone object if I were to go through the article and tone down the language and try to make it more encyclopedic. This should also remove the need for excessive mainstream science in the article too.

I am not going to edit war anything so we could list all reversions for future discussion and, if necessary, an RfC. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:59, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to know how to answer your question, because I think it's pretty likely that someone, somewhere, is likely to object. I think you can see that although you are concerned that direct quotes from the protesters come across as unencyclopedic, other editors have disagreed with you about that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:09, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

It is not just direct quotes it is language in general.

Earlier I removed some direct quotes and you reverted. If that continued to be the pattern that would give us a topic for further discussion or an RfC. Arbcom are not going to resolve this dispute for us. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, I agree that ArbCom isn't going to resolve what language to use on the page. As long as you understand that editors, and it's not just me, have objected to too much watering down of the pro-March perspectives on the page, you don't need anyone's permission to make the edits you want (notwithstanding the claims made elsewhere in this talk that I said otherwise), but it seems to me that you started this section of the talk page in order to get feedback, and I gave you feedback. To be clear: I do not want to see a watering down of reliably sourced information about what the protesters have said that they believe (and that is also contrary to claims about me made elsewhere on this talk page). --Tryptofish (talk) 18:34, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by, 'watering down of the pro-March perspectives'. If you mean we should give them some kind of voice on this page then I disagree and, if it were the consensus to give the marchers a voice here, I would support clearly stating mainstream view more positively and frequently within the article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that's the crux of the problem here, which is the attempt to be even-Steven and quote the anti-protester point of view "frequently" in the article. I don't believe that NPOV requires that, as long as the Monsanto point of view is prominently mentioned. Otherwise, articles on non-standard interpretations of events, ranging from 9/11 conspiracy theories to even more fringey subjects, would be twice the length than they are now. Coretheapple (talk) 18:52, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Core, I said that I would want be even-Steven, as you call it, only if editors insisted in giving the marchers' a voice in WP. By giving them a voice I mean promoting their views or stating them in a favourable way. We should tell our readers what the marchers' motives were; we should not try to sell them to our readers. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:26, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I agree with that, in principle. That is more or less the approach I've been trying to take on this page. I just don't agree that presenting their views or motives, properly attributed, constitutes selling those views to our readers. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

People are given a voice in Misplaced Pages all the time. Sometimes lengthy quotations are used. I don't see anything remotely similar to that in this article, and if there were such things, so what? It doesn't change the general principle that we should not be even-Steven in articles like this. It isn't necessary, and it doesn't violate NPOV as best as I can ascertain. Clearly, this being about a bunch of activists marching, we want to learn why they are marching. It isn't necessary to continually smack them upside the head and point out what utter fools they are, that they are contradicted by science. Yes, we want to say what the scientific consensus is. :We have that. Nobody (to my knowledge) wants to take it out. But if we keep saturating the article with "on the other hands," it turns this into an article about the controversy and not an article about the march. Coretheapple (talk) 22:17, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

It is good to see that we are coming to some kind of agreement.

I am making the essential distinction between 'stating views' and giving people a voice, by which I mean 'promoting views'. As an example the Socialism article starts, 'Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy'. This is a simple statement of what socialist believe. A promotional version of the same might be, 'Socialism gives everyone equal ownership of the means of production and provides co-operative management of the economy for the overall benefit of society'. Not a great change but one is strictly factual and the other is promotion, simply by the use of different language. One is encyclopedic; one is not. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree that making language neutral is not objectionable. My concern is with tit-for-tat, "equal time" placement of views. Coretheapple (talk) 15:10, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

When I said "watering down of the pro-March perspectives", I was thinking about things such as taking a quote from one of them, and changing it into a slightly softer paraphrase. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I just went through the entire page, looking for things that might be there now, where there could be concerns about encyclopedicity. I'm honestly not seeing much, but of course, other editors may disagree. The only thing that leaps out at me is the last paragraph of the Media coverage section, about the Alternet piece. I had previously deleted it, but another editor reverted me (and it's back because I put it back myself, because otherwise I would be reverting a revert of my own edit), so I'll leave it to other editors to decide what if anything to do with it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:52, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

You do not see anything wrong with:

Canal was not only angry about the failure of Proposition 37 and frustrated with trying to find reasonably priced healthy food, but she was also concerned about the health of her children.? Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:08, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Not in the least, unless we don't have a reliable source indicating that she felt that way. I can readily see how some readers and editors might feel differently about the issues than she does, but that does not make it contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia to report that she feels that way. Indeed, once we have an article about this subject, it is the obligation of an encyclopedia to report that the principal person behind the subject feels this way. Please rest assured that if you take that out, I will revert you. (Editors who accuse me of being anti-March, please take note.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:16, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I do not think we are under any particular obligation to report that Canal was angry or frustrated, this is hardly information of encyclopedic interest, but that is not my main objection.

What do you think, 'reasonably priced healthy food' is referring to? Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:19, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a mind reader, but I would guess that she considers organic food more expensive than non-organic, as it sometimes is in the US. (That does not mean that I consider organic food to be more healthful, but we aren't writing a page about what I believe.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:23, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

By the way, Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, not truth is quite applicable here: we don't remove verifiable content simply because we disagree with it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:28, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Surely she means non-GM food, otherwise the whole thing makes no sense? Why would she start a march against Monsanto because should could not buy organic food? Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:31, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, probably. Where I am in the US, one pretty much would have to buy organic if one wants to avoid GMOs. And I'll anticipate the objection that GMO crops can actually make food production less expensive: right now, in the US, it is very common for food sellers to charge extra for products labeled as GMO-free. That's probably got more to do with capitalism in the marketplace than with the real costs of food production, but if Canal doesn't agree with me, then my opinion about her opinions does not matter. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:36, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

But, having said all that, I'll also say thank you, Martin, for discussing the issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Note that the statement I am referring to is not a direct quotation. We use 'healthy food' when it is clear from the context that we mean 'non-GM' food. This equates the two in our readers minds and suggest that WP agrees. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:58, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, if you had said that earlier I would have agreed with you earlier! I just changed it from "healthy" to "non-GMO". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

That is a start but we also have, 'she was also concerned about the health of her children'. What important and encyclopedic fact is that telling us? That a mother is concerned about the health of her children? There cannot be many mothers who are not concerned about the health of their children.

The point being made is that Canal believes that GM food are harmful to health. Her mention of concern for her children is an appeal to her audience based on the emotive value of children. This is not the way an encyclopedia should be written. We could possibly interpret her words more sympathetically to mean that she believed that there might be long-term health risks in consuming GM foods but this is moving towards OR, although I would fight that point

So I think we should say 'because she believed that there were potential (long term) health risks in consuming GM foods'. Because such risks are not generally supported by the mainstream scientific opinion, I think that we must say 'she believed that' rather then 'she was concerned about'. By using encyclopedic language like this throughout the article we reduce the need for continual repetition of the mainstream view on the subject and make the article more about the march itself and less adversarial in tone. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:56, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm very open to possibilities, but I think there are problems with that exact wording. It says that she "believed" something that is actually not what she believes. Maybe there's an approach based on "she was concerned" about "what she believed to be...". I understand your point, that she is expressing concern about her children's health, in spite of the fact that mainstream science says that there are no significant health concerns about GMO foods. But, as long as we are attributing her views to her, it's OK for her views to be incorrect in the opinions of some editors here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that Martin basically has a "tone" issue and frankly I don't think that's terribly unreasonable. We can tone down some of these statements. However, what I don't like about this article is far more substantive. We're making it into a coatrack for a back and forth between Monsanto and its critics, with a striving for equal time. This is about a grassroots movement, and stating what the organizers thereof say is perfectly acceptable and there is no need to provide a countervailing view from Monsanto on every major or minor point. The article is far too "even-Steven" at this point. Coretheapple (talk) 15:34, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems that we agree to a considerable degree. To try to make clear exactly what I am saying let me use the specific example above. If we have in the article, as it was, 'Canal said that she was not only angry about the failure of Proposition 37 and frustrated with trying to find reasonably priced health food, but she was also concerned about the health of her children', I think we need to balance this wording, which promotes an anti-GM view, with something promoting the mainstream view like, 'The currently accepted scientific consensus is that there are no health issues resulting from the consumption of GM food'.

If on the other hand we state the same concerns of Canal in more encyclopedic language, as in, 'Canal proposed the march because she was angry with the failure of Proposition 37 and frustrated with trying to find reasonably priced non-GM food, which she believed was harmful to health', I would see no need for any counter argument. So my suggestion is to express the marchers motives fully, but in non-promotional language which also indicates we are talking about their beliefs rather than accepted facts and remove much of the counter argument, although we should briefly describe the response from Monsanto, in equally encyclopedic terms. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:02, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, like I said, I don't see fixing the tone as a problem. However, I do think that this unnecessary balance thing needs to be rectified by an editor with more background on this than I. Last time I was here I recall making some edits and immediately being reverted by Viritidas, who apparently viewed me as some kind of hostile entity. Coretheapple (talk) 17:11, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Something about tone occurs to me, and I want to point it out. We have some direct quotes from our sources, where Canal et al. say things that have an assertive tone that contradicts mainstream science, but those quotes do reflect the positions of the subjects of this page. Sometimes, we paraphrase those quotes, instead of presenting the quotes directly. When we paraphrase, we are writing in Misplaced Pages's voice. When we write in Misplaced Pages's voice, we need to reflect mainstream sources rather than fringe (or whatever word one wants to use) views. But that can lead to a problem of WP:OR: if we change a strongly-worded direct quote to a moderately-worded paraphrase, we end up replacing what the subjects of the page have said in reliable sources, with something that is different from what they actually said. That's why, increasingly, I am becoming uncomfortable with paraphrasing what the protesters have said. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

What to attribute to Canal

(edit conflict) I removed the disputed information because the source actually does not state that she expressed concern about finding non-GM food. And, the "children" statement is redundant because we just included her concerns re her "family" (she's a single mom). I replaced it with concerns about honey bees. Gandydancer (talk) 17:17, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted. Please see the discussion between myself and Tryptofish above. If we are going to add Canal blaming Monsanto for killing all the bees we need to add some balancing statement, which would be very much against the current consensus. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:27, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Your edit summary says "Monsanto alone is not responsible for these insecticides." The fact that other firms are involved is immaterial. This is a march against Monsanto, and it doesn't seem to be in dispute that Monsanto is involved in the controversial bee-killing compound. Coretheapple (talk) 18:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I thought you were beginning to want to avoid the adversarial wording here. If we add Canal's somewhat irrational blaming of Monsanto for the use of neonicotinoid insecticides we must balance it with statements saying that Monsanto were not the originators of the compounds, neither are they the only company supplying them (if indeed they do supply them), neither are they responsible for their licensing or use by farmers, who have a free choice in the matter. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm in accord with you on tone, and I don't see a tone problem here. The article needs less tit-for-tat, not more. Coretheapple (talk) 20:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't know how you would think that I can figure out which conversation above you are talking about. Quit dramatizing this--she did not blame Monsanto for killing all the bees. She expressed concern. Hundreds of researchers have as well, and the EU and some other countries have put a 2-year ban on them. Gandydancer (talk) 18:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

You may have noticed that this article is called the 'March against Monsanto' not the 'Random thoughts of Canal'. If you look up neonicotinoid you will see that Monsanto are not mentioned. Please remove this irrelevant edit and restore the current consensus wording. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

• "which some studies have linked to a recent severe decline in honey bee population". That's a scientific claim, and would need a standard scientific source. Do people seriously think "cityweekly" is reliable for that sort of claim? Do people think that is neutral considering the cause is not yet known? IRWolfie- (talk) 20:53, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

• If Gandydancer is concerned that my wording did not accurately reflect the source, I'd be happy to be corrected about that (because, unlike some other people, I don't insult other editors who want to discuss getting the content right). But I think it's a very bad idea to add something about honeybees, because, as other editors have just said, it leads us down the path of having a never-ending point-counterpoint. The bulk of source material about the March that I have seen reflects concerns about things other than bees (although if we find something about it being a stated concern during the March, we really ought to add it, instead, in the Positions section). So, let's get our account of what Canal said about food and family right, rather than trying to add a counterpoint in that section. But that said, I think Martin's rationale that there are other companies besides Monsanto is a badly flawed one, and deserves some push-back. That's the kind of thing that gives ammunition to the on-Wiki conspiracy theories about editors working for Monsanto. Anyway, I think we have to be precise about direct quotes, attributed, versus paraphrases, in Misplaced Pages's voice, and I thought that it was an accurate paraphrase. I'm confused by the concern that Canal did not say that, about "non-GMO foods". It seems to me that it's very much what she said she was concerned about: she wants to feed her family GMO-free foods, and she said she was concerned about the costs of being able to do so. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

  Well you know, there is a great deal of concern about the bee population, and that feeds into the March Against Monsanto. Just a few weeks ago I saw a major theatrical documentary on bees in which the Monsanto insecticide was mentioned. The title was "More than Honey." So it does seem to be a significant source of concern. I think that, concerning tone, there are limits to what we can do. Since this is an article about a grassroots, naturally there is or should be a large quantity of material about why the people are engaged in this activity. An analogous situation is the Tea Party. Again, we don't harp on giving the opposing point of view in that article either. Coretheapple (talk) 21:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

  That's helpful, thanks. Can we find sourcing that would support putting something about bees into the Positions section? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

  Answering my own question, yes there is! Here: . It's a news story from a TV station, covering the day of the March, and emphasizing the position that the marchers were concerned about the bees. I think we should make it a short entry in the Positions section of the page. OK? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

  Yes, and just to respond to a point that was raised earlier, we do not need a peer-reviewed source in a situation like this. We are writing about a protest, and news stories are sufficient as sourcing for any aspect of this article. Coretheapple (talk) 21:49, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Trytofish, unless she was looking for seed corn, sugar beets, etc. she was not going to farmer's markets looking for non-GMO food--that besides the fact that she would not know for sure if they were in a loaf of bread or jar of jam she might buy anyway, since it is not on the label. People go to farmer's markets to find fresh organic food produced by local farmers for several reasons, including the belief that buying American is better than buying from foreign producers and that transporting food for thousands of miles adds to needless increases in greenhouse gases. These issues all enter into the protester's basic problems with what some consider a takeover of our democracy by mega corporations. There used to be hundreds of small seed companies, most of them have now been bought out by Monsanto. It seems that some editors want to dwell only on the fact that science disputes the idea that GM foods are harmful (I tend to agree with the scientific stance), because we can then call them a bunch of fools, but the Monsanto problem goes far beyond that. Gandydancer (talk) 22:17, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, thanks, I understand better now. I increasingly think it gets difficult for us to try to say what she was thinking. I went and looked again at the two sources at the end of that sentence. The first source, from the Salt Lake City News, goes into a lot of detail about Canal said were her motivations, and I think that the sentence probably paraphrases that pretty well. The second source, from the NY Daily News, does not really have anything to do with that sentence. It's mostly about celebrities criticizing Monsanto and GMOs and not really about them commenting on the March, and a brief part about Canal at the end doesn't amount to much. So – let me make a "modest proposal": let's just delete that sentence entirely. I don't want to do that without discussion, because I don't want it to be seen as removing the protesters' point of view. But it summarizes three things: the failure of Prop 37 (about which the section already has the first paragraph), the cost of buying the food she wanted (already covered in the quote directly before), and the concerns about her children (covered in the following sentence, where she is quoted about cereals) – and all three things are already discussed in the section. This one sentence is really just a summary sentence, and it's redundant with everything else in that section. Given how difficult we are finding it to paraphrase successfully, why not just delete it? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Is there any interest in deleting that sentence, or have we moved on? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:23, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

No. Quite frankly newspapers have never been acceptable for medical or scientific claims. There is nothing new there, consult the standard wikiprojects and ask them, IRWolfie- (talk) 22:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I hope I'm reading your indent correctly: I think you are saying "no" about that source about the bees. I agree with you with respect to saying in Misplaced Pages's voice that GMOs kill bees. However, please take a look at the edit I made to the positions section, where the opinion is attributed to a protester. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, IRWolfie- (talk) 10:42, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

It is now. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Bees

I think we can take it that everyone here is 'pro-bee'. It is also true that Canal did make a statement about bees in connection with the march against Monsanto. The problem is how, if at all, should we include her statement in this article. In my opinion the statement is somewhat misguided, for the reasons listed below, and therefore cannot be stated here without context or comment.

• There is no clear evidence that neonicatinoids are connected to the decline in bee population although precautionary measures have been taken in the EU and likely soon will be in the US.

• These compounds generally have beneficial ecological characteristics.

• Monsanto were not the originators of the suspected compounds

• I have not seen evidence that Monsanto are one of the major manufacturers or distributors of these insecticides

• The main pressure to continue their use is coming from the farmers rather than the manufacturers.

All the above points are, to some degree, debatable but overall it is hard to see any logical rationale for linking Monsanto to the decline in bee population and thus Canal's words must be regarded as fringe and unfair. This fact must be clearly indicated in the article if we are to include her quotation. We are under no obligation to report every word that Canal said in relation to the march and, in my opinion, the simplest solution would be to omit this comment. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

So it is now all down to GM crops killing the bees. Who cares, so long as it is Monsanto's fault. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:45, 14 August 2013 (UTC) You can read what Misplaced Pages says about the subject here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:54, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I've been on airplanes all day today, so I'll come back to discuss this more tomorrow, but I figure that I'll let you know that I intend to discuss it some more. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm back, and I'm now ready to disagree with you. Every one of your bullet points seems to me to be scientifically and logically correct. And as I've said earlier, it doesn't add much to dwell on what Canal said about it before the March, because it really wasn't a major part of what I see her being quoted as saying. But it was a part of the marchers' positions, and I was disappointed that you reverted my addition of what marchers, not Canal herself, said during the March. All of the science that you quote is true, but it has ZERO bearing on whether or not the marchers said what they said, and there was a secondary source that placed a primary emphasis on bees in their coverage of the march that was in Utah. Looking back, what I did wrong in my edit was that I didn't provide a balancing link to where Misplaced Pages tells the mainstream view about GMOs and bees. But you just made it easy for me by providing the link to the colony collapse page. I'm going to make a new edit now, to try to put that, as well, in balance. But I see no good reason to try to leave out what the marchers said. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:05, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• Time article. I can't get a copy.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:57, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

That is exactly the kind of source that I feared editors would try to add to this article. Monsanto is not mentioned at all. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:38, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I can't access the Time article either, but aren't we again falling into the trap of treating this as an article about the controversy and not an an article about the march? Coretheapple (talk) 23:47, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Not at all, but we must present a balanced view based on mainstream science. We must not state directly or indirectly that Monsanto are in any way responsible for the decline of the bee population when there is no justification for this.

We could state that the marchers blamed Monsanto for killing the bees but, if we do, we are obliged to state the generally accepted fact that there is no justification for this claim. I would be willing to word something on that basis but the problem would then be that other editors would find crazy claims published by unreliable sources and add them to the article. We have an article on Colony_collapse_disorder and Monsanto is not mentioned. The marchers' claim is so absurd that it is easier just to ignore it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:36, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The issue with the decline of bees is that no one knows why the bee populations are declining. Some have argued that from the precautionary principle neonicotinoids should be banned (this is being done in Europe afaik for a trial period). I haven't looked at the specifics of this Times article, but these sorts of popular press articles aren't what you use for science coverage on wikipedia. This goes off the topic of the march, IRWolfie- (talk) 10:03, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

But that gets us back to the central problem, which is a tendency to treat this article as about a controversy, when it is about a movement caused by that controversy. The end result has been a tendency to cut back on material that is necessary concerning the march, its motivation, out of a misguided effort to treat this as an article about the underlying controversy. (My edit summary said "movement," when I meant "controversy") Coretheapple (talk) 17:39, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Core, that has been said again and again on these talk pages, but it has been ignored. @ Canoe, the CCD article (unlike this one which about a march) is largely about science. The opinion that you are proposing re Roundup will not be acceptable for that article unless you can produce several peer reviewed studies to back it up. We can discuss it at that talk page. Gandydancer (talk) 17:50, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

How do we know that the Time article doesn't mention the march? This bee professor seems to think Monsanto could be the cause. He may be in the Time article as well. If that is the case then we could finally include his input in the CCD article where many editors seem to be trying to keep him out. He is also notable enough for his own article, I would think.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:00, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

So it is not neonicotinoids or GM crops now but Roundup. This gives me the the strong impression that some people are motivated more by a dislike of Monsanto that by reality. Just think of everything that Monsanto does, or maybe even does not do, and then use it to blame Monsanto for some random bad thing. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:24, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

There is a whole list of possible causes in the CCD article. Sources have Roundup as one of many. To not list it as a possible cause is not fair to our readers. I am not sure what you mean by 'random' bad thing. This discussion should actually be happening in the CCD talk as well as Prof. Ingram's article when someone creates it. I would except my previous article creations seem to be put in AfD within hours of creation which I find rather frustrating. I may bring it up at the bug science projects.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's go with an article written about the March and use what it says about bees, refencing Harvard: from City Weekly article about Canal: "The company’s use of neonicotinoid pesticides on its crops has been challenged by numerous studies—including researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health—who argue that the pesticides imperil bee populations, which, in the long term, could jeopardize the global food supply." This could be used to flush out the minuscule mention of bees in the "issues" section. I am assuming that good deal of protesters supported this as an issue, given so many marchers are pictured in bee costumes. Right now the mention minimizes the issue by saying one protester thought we should fight for bees since he lives in the bee state, or something like that. Also, someone keeps removing the image showing protesters in bee costumes, replacing it with a very poor quality, grey, grainy image, which is against guidelines and verging on vandalism, IMO. petrarchan47tc 17:24, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Go to RSN, they will confirm that "cityweekly" isn't reliable for making scientific claims of this sort, which is what you appear to be proposing if you want to make claims about "numerous studies", IRWolfie- (talk) 19:11, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion to everyone who went from here to comment at RSN is that you are less likely to get help from uninvolved editors if the discussion from here just gets transposed to there. Anyway, I did add back some bee material, if anyone wants to take a look at the Positions section where I added it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

You additions seem fine to me. They talk of claimed problems and link to a section of an article where these claims shown not to be supported by any peer reviewed research. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:53, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! That's exactly the approach that I want to aim for. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• If we had an award for Facepalm of the Year, I would give it to this edit summary: , which I have reverted. It now appears that if there is not enough information on the page about what the protesters have said, some editors complain that we are trying to make the protesters look bad. And if someone adds what the protesters have said, directly quoted and reliably sourced, some editors complain that we are trying to make the protesters look bad. I want to make something very, very clear: the reason that sentence was added to the page was to present more content about the March itself, reflecting reliably sourced material about the March itself, in order that the page not be slanted towards criticism of the marchers or of their beliefs. The idea that it was motivated by a desire to make the marchers look "loony" is entirely a figment of the reverting editor's imagination. If anyone believes that the marcher who said that sounded wrong in any way, please take it up with that marcher, not here. Wow!!! --Tryptofish (talk) 15:46, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Media coverage paragraph

But I would have no objection to anyone taking a look at the last paragraph of the Media coverage section. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

No problem, I have deleted it. There is no reason that we should state what Alternet, a 'progressive/liberal activist news service', thinks. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:50, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep, it is a political activist news service, I would not consider any of such generally reliable no matter the political sides they represent. IRWolfie- (talk)

Thanks for that! I agree entirely. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:12, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

You agree! But what is important are the guidelines:

Biased or opinionated sources

Misplaced Pages articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs.

Sometimes "non-neutral" sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. Editors should also consider whether the bias makes it appropriate to use in-text attribution to the source, as in "According to the opinion columnist Maureen Dowd..." or "According to the opera critic Tom Sutcliffe..."

Let's go with guidelines not the opinions of Wiki editors. Seems like there is a lack of building the article but a focus on tearing it apart. petrarchan47tc 00:37, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

WP policy requires us to present a neutral point of view. Giving the opinion of one political activist source does not do this. The conspiracy theory suggested by the source is on a par with the moon landing conspiracy theories (I am perfectly willing to discuss and justify that comment with anyone) and therefore so must not be repeated in WP without independent authoritative reliable sources. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:25, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

We don't just stick in activist sources for no reason at all. The onus is on you to provide a justification. Just because we can use unreliable biased sources doesn't mean we should. I like how it is exaggerating the attendance figures even further by claiming over 2 million people attended. A source claiming " mainstream coverage has trickled in here and there, but has been sparse" flies in the face of the fact that this article has been kept at AfD purely because of the amount of mainstream coverage. This is what leaves me confused, the very sources you guys want to include say there wasn't significant coverage in mainstream sources, IRWolfie- (talk) 10:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

That is a misrepresentation of why your last AfD failed. MAM was both a large global event and barely covered by corporate media. But I get the feeling you have a certain position on this and other "anti Monsanto" issues that isn't swayed by facts. petrarchan47tc 17:28, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

"barely covered by corporate media". Perhaps you might want to read the keep comments at the AfD. They claim "significant attention and coverage", a "well-reported international event", and they say WP:GNG has been met (i.e significant coverage in reliable sources). Yet here you are saying it has not received much attention in reliable sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:24, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The passage relates to the "live" coverage of the event by the media--or lack thereof, to be precise. That would seem to be significant as it appears to be incongruent in light of the globalized scope and other characteristics of the event.

There is nothing unduly self-promotional or the like in the passage, which is purely factual and easily checked. In light of that, it would seem to me that those labeling it an "activist source" are claiming the source is unreliable because they don't like it, and should bear the burden of seeking to have it disqualified. There appears to be nothing prima facie "unreliable" about it.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 11:39, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Ubikwit, actually the coverage was pretty scanty. AP ran a story that a few outlets picked up on and a very few covered it on their own, but all in all the march rec'd little attention. Gandydancer (talk) 12:46, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I undertand that, and was under the impression that the significance of the following passage was primarily to be found in the portion I've bolded as it relates to the portion I've italicized

In post-march coverage, Alternet printed, "While March Against Monsanto was among the largest global efforts in history with 400 simultaneous events in 60 countries around the globe, no major corporate media outlets in the US covered the live event. CNN ran a followup short on the event on May 28, and mainstream coverage has trickled in here and there, but has been sparse."

--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 14:34, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I see it now--I was not reading as closely as I should. Thanks for pointing it out. Gandydancer (talk) 15:06, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that what the Alternet source does is add only the issue of live coverage. There are plenty of news events that get coverage in the mainstream news media, but that do not get live coverage. It's unclear to me that there is really a reason for Misplaced Pages to give weight to the opinion that coverage of the March was so important that it needed to be live while the March was ongoing. On the other hand, maybe a compromise approach would be to have a short sentence or part of a sentence, focusing only on the "live" point, without making a big issue of the claim that the non-live coverage was so unfair. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:37, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that the edit Martin just made accomplishes just that. Thanks. Now the Alternet source is back in there, and the text communicates the point that there was no live coverage, but it does so without becoming a talking point for a POV. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:49, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I have posted a query to WP:RS/N#In March against Monsanto. Alexbrn 11:48, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

By all means go ahead with that but there really is no need. If all we want to do is state the degree of media coverage, we should just do so, I am sure there are plenty of sources we could used.

The problem with the disputed quote is that it appears to support the crazy conspiracy theory that Monsanto somehow censored media coverage. That is a different thing altogether. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:27, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks for doing that. I think it's very helpful to ask for additional opinions about content here, using the mechanisms that Misplaced Pages has in place, and we should be doing more of that. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:30, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune

I have removed a sentence on this local newspaper. The march was a global affair and the opinion of one local newspaper on the level of media coverage is WP:undue weight. There must be many opinions on Monsanto and GM crops expressed around the world, some for, some against. Why pick this particular one? Only because it seems to support a crazy conspiracy theory. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:24, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Please see the edit summary of my subsequent edit, in which I added it back in shorter form as part of another sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:12, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

A sentence in the Background

A few days ago, there was a lot of disagreement in this talk about the sentence in the California Prop. 37 section that says: "Canal said that she was not only angry about the failure of Proposition 37 and frustrated with trying to find reasonably priced non-GMO food, but she was also concerned about the health of her children." I suggested here that we might want to simply delete that sentence, and I explained that everything in the sentence repeats content that is already covered in the same section. I also said that I wouldn't want to do the deletion without discussion, because it might be seen as deleting content about Canal's views. The issue seems to have gotten lost in subsequent discussion, so I'm re-raising it here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

User:Gandydancer, I don't know whether or not you read what I said here, but thank you for making the edit. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

One encyclopedic section now.

The 'Positions' section now reads in a neutral encyclopedic manner, fully stating the marchers' motives. Now we need to write the rest like this. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:42, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I disagree.

There is actually a good case to be made that, for the article to ultimately be in good, encyclopedic shape, we need to get that section out of a bullet-point format, and into regular paragraphs of text. After all, the Monsanto and industry response section is written in normal paragraphs, and a well-balanced page would really need to do so for the marchers' positions as well, especially since the March is the main subject of the page. Viriditas said that before his block, and at the time I agreed with him. Robert subsequently pointed out in talk that we need to have more sources to properly expand the bullet points into paragraph text, and that, too, is a valid point. That's a good reason why I disagree with you about where you reverted my adding of a sentence about what a marcher said about the bees, because we can now at least start down the path of making the Positions section better by improving some of the bullet points from one sentence each, to two. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:56, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I was referring to the content rather than the presentation style. I would be quite happy to rewrite it in plain prose if no one objects.

If we expand the points we are then faced with a problem though. We have to make sure that we expand in a proper way giving the correct weight to the mainstream scientific position for every point. This would bring us back to a confrontational style of writing, which many people are trying to avoid. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:29, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone object if I rewrite the 'Positions' section in plain prose with no change to content?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin Hogbin (talk • contribs) 20:55, August 15, 2013 (UTC)

• If you convert it from bullet points to paragraphs, I support, but if you, in effect, remove the marchers' views, then I'll end up opposing. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
• What Tryptofish said. Alexbrn 21:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

No problem that is exactly what I was proposing. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:52, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I have done it. It is pretty well just the original words with all the original refs made into sentences. What do you think? Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:24, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I've made some copyedits, not particularly major. I'm pleased to see that we now have a very reasonable balance, in terms of weight on the page, between the positions of the marchers and the industry response. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:06, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Questioning the "scientific consensus"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am afraid that Misplaced Pages is pushing a line that may be out of step with global consensus - which is that there is no consensus. From the Canadian paper The Globe and Mail, "many industry experts believe genetically modified crops negatively affect our health".

From Fox: GMOs have only been on the market since 1995, but they’ve recently sparked a national debate over the potential impact they could have on the environment – and our health. Dr. Michael Wald, of Integrated Medicine of Mount Kisco in New York, said more research needs to be done in order to prove that genetically engineered foods are safe to eat. “The studies that have been done on different animals – and also reports from farmers – seem to suggest health issues, including intestinal problems, inflammation of the colon…and problems with the kidneys, the liver, the lungs,” Wald said.

From AgWeek " Most studies show GMO foods are safe for human consumption, though it is widely acknowledged that the long-term health effects are unknown." (Our reader is given the idea there is no question and that the protesters are quite full of it).

There is a further problem that should bother any scientist working on this article, when we quote consensus, is it coming from truly independent scientists, or should we specify to the reader where these studies originated? From Food Science News: "Anyone who buys GM seeds is required to sign a technology stewardship agreement that says, in part, that they cannot perform research on the seed. Without express permission from the biotech patent-holder, scientists and farmers risk facing lawsuits for conducting any studies. “Any study you want to do with these engineered crops, you need to get the company’s permission,” Hansen said. “Could you imagine if tobacco research was only done when the tobacco companies had the final say?”

From US News (Opinion) Potential harms to human health have been identified by the World Health Organization as including direct health effects (toxicity), tendencies to provoke allergic reaction (allergenicity), specific components with toxic properties, the stability of the inserted gene, nutritional impact and any unintended effects that could result from genetic modification. Harm to the environment has already been documented with the development of "superweeds" that are resistant to the herbicides embedded in the GM crops. Several incidents involving contamination of non-GM crops have also occurred, which were further exacerbated by the fact that these GM seeds are not labeled or segregated in the food supply chain.

From the American Academy of Environmental Medicine: Natural breeding processes have been safely utilized for the past several thousand years. In contrast, "GE crop technology abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used commercially for 10 years."3 Despite these differences, safety assessment of GM foods has been based on the idea of "substantial equivalence" such that "if a new food is found to be substantially equivalent in composition and nutritional characteristics to an existing food, it can be regarded as safe as the conventional food."4 However, several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill's Criteria in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility.5 The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.

From Grist regulation of the safety of GM food is virtually nil, and research is scant and largely industry-funded. In a 2010 paper PDF in the journal Food Policy, researchers looked at all the papers on the health and nutritional effects of GM foods published in English between 1996 and 2009. Of the 94 studies they identified — not a large number, given the surge of GMOs into our diets over that period — 80 delivered “favorable” conclusions about the novel foods, while 10 had “negative” views and two were neutral. That sounds at first glance like a positive near-consensus around GMOs. But then the researchers dug deeper and looked for industry ties. In 44 of the 94 total papers, one or more of the researchers had a financial or professional tie to the agrichemical industry. Of those 44, 43 had “positive” conclusions and one turned out “negative.” Meanwhile, 37 of the studies were done by independent researchers. Of those, 27 came back positive, eight came back “negative,” and two were “neutral.” In other words, near-complete consensus reigns among industry-linked scientists as to the safety of GM foods. But among independent scientists, the issue is much more contested.

This calls Misplaced Pages's GMO "scientific consensus" into question, and highlights a need for more context about the science. Our readers deserve this. petrarchan47tc 21:55, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• As has already been explained to you and should be bloody well self evident, newspapers are not reliable for controversial science since they have a history of misrepresentation on nearly every science topic. If you were to judge climate change from cherry picked newspapers you'd think we weren't experiencing global warming, or if you were to read about vaccines you'd think we were all about to drop dead, if you were to read about diets you'd rush out to try the latest one etc etc. Go look at some science articles on wikipedia and tell me how many newspaper articles you see in the good ones. And picking the Anti-water flouridation, anti-vaccination AAEM is a complete joke (or did you not read about them before cherry picking what they say?). The largest general society of scientists in the world, the AAAS, says the consensus is that it's safe, that's good enough for wikipedia. If you want to know what the WHO thinks, get it from the horses mouth: : "GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous use of risk assessments based on the Codex principles and, where appropriate, including post market monitoring, should form the basis for evaluating the safety of GM foods." Do you seriously learn what you "know" about science through newspapers? IRWolfie- (talk) 22:24, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The AAAS statement is not "good enough for wikipedia", especially when higher-quality peer-reviewed sources are available. As Michele Simon has written, that statement you continue to quote comes from the AAAS Board of Directors, acting in response to a political issue. It cannot be construed as a referendum of the world's scientists. For you to continue representing it as such is (a) original research, (b) incorrect, and (c) dishonest, given information you have seen to the contrary. It's very hard for me to assume your good faith under these circumstances. groupuscule (talk) 02:14, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I can't see what good it's going to do to bring the "scientific consensus" argument to this talk page about a protest and I'd like to see the author of it collapse this discussion. While most people are not aware that chemical-related industry does its own research and then governmental agencies base their policies on that research, this is not the place to conduct an argument about the chemicals that are legally being introduced into our bodies and into the environment. As has been said time and again, lets stick to a discussion about the protest and leave the "scientific consensus" arguments for other articles. Gandydancer (talk) 23:12, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I second all of Gandy's comments (with proviso that some summary statement is probably necessary). DanHobley (talk) 01:14, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

It's fine if people don't want to have the "scientific consensus" discussion here, but then at the same time we should not include a questionable statement about scientific consensus within the article. The "scientific consensus" claim is heavily contested at Talk:Genetically modified food controversies, so it's not appropriate to include it here without discussion. Considers how strenuously some editors have objected to sources that don't explicitly address the March. Why, then, do these editors feel comfortable including the "broad scientific consensus" sources, which were mostly crafted for political reasons in advance of California's Proposition 37 vote? (I have presented a lengthy argument that these sources do not support the claim being made.) How can IRWolfie reject petrachan's sources as unscientific, when they themselves favor these (non-peer reviewed) institutional statements over literature reviews published in scientific journals? How can they promote an undated, authorless section of the WHO website (which, from context, seems not to be more recent than 2007) as more reliable than recent journalistic sources? The double standards are clear. groupuscule (talk) 02:14, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Of course the WHO is more reliable than newspapers. Newspapers are garbage for science reporting, and that is hardly new or a startling revelation. Newspapers are not reliable for controversial statements about science. To draw a comparison, see Scientific opinion on climate change where institutional statements are exactly what they note. The AAS institutions represent tens of thousands of scientists. And Petrar herself picked an institution in here list, it just happens to be one with no scientific respectability at all and is anti-vax anti-flouridation and promotes bogus science. And can you please stop promoting your unqualified original research, it was rejected then and its rejected now, cheers. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:08, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

@IRWolfie, I would suggest you stop trashing sources and focus on article improvement. IMHO your own opinion is reflected far too much in this field. An RS is an RS. Your opinion of those RS is not valid, nor improving the articles. Focusing on one field related to your opinions will have you labeled as an SPA very quickly. This may cause your input to be ignored altogether. We go with what RS states, not your opinion of RS.--Canoe1967 (talk) 13:54, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

IRWolfie is not trashing sources and he has just as much right to his opinion as you do. I will say again, this discussion belongs on the GMO controversy page, not here on this protest movement page. It is hard for me to understand why editors do not seem to understand that just because they do not agree with the present position of every major body of science that speaks to the question of whether or not GMOs adversely affect health, they, un-named Misplaced Pages editors, should have the authority to adjust WP articles to suit their beliefs. Gandydancer (talk) 14:28, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree. This discussion is out-of-order here, and after the RfC on the GMO Controversy page attempts to replay that discussion in other forums begins to feel a bit disruptive. Alexbrn 14:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I have ten thousand more edits than you Canoe, nearly all unrelated to this topic area. Are you seriously going to argue I am a SPA? A cursory glance at my contributions would make it obvious that I'm not a SPA. And no "An RS is an RS" is not true. Reliability is and always has been dependent on the context, see Misplaced Pages:RS#Context_matters, see WP:MEDRS etc etc, read WP:NEWSORG "For information about academic topics, scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports. News reports may be acceptable depending on the context ... Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Misplaced Pages article will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.". Basically, go to WT:RS and tell them "an RS is an RS" and tell me how far you get, because it is just not the case. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:10, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with numerous editors above who have expressed the view that this talk thread is simply rehashing earlier talk threads in the hope of getting a different result, even though there is no new information and no change of consensus. That said, I will stipulate to the fact that the scientific consensus is not the same thing as the political consensus, the cultural consensus, or the societal consensus; indeed, science may be finding itself at odds with all of those. But Misplaced Pages is within days of having an editorial consensus about what we should report as the scientific consensus, at Talk:Genetically modified food controversies#Request for comment on "broad scientific consensus". Someone said above that the discussion there is very contested. That is only true to the extent that a small number of editors who do not have consensus feel strongly that the consensus is wrong. But the overall direction of the discussion there is unmistakable to an objective observer. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:27, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

If there is more than one consensus then why is only the un-quantified scientific consensus included in our articles. The EU seems to have a legal consensus, the above trashed newspaper polls seem to have a social consensus, and the Vatican may even have a religious consensus. To only include one consensus is POV. This reminds me of the scientists arguing with the romanticists. Love cannot exist because we can't measure it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:40, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Wow. Just wow, IRWolfie- (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Or, to put it another way than IRWolfie did, I'm very much in favor of this page reflecting the fact that the protesters and others express the views that they express, but we should not present those views as being science. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

That is my view too. This is simply not the place to discuss the controversy itself. Those who want to argue the toss should do so at Genetically_modified_food_controversies where there are probably people who actually know something about the subject. Our 'scientific consensus' should be based on what is written there. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:00, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Why is scientific consensus even mentioned in this article then? If we wish to include that consensus then the others should be included as well. Anything else would be POV of science and not the protestors.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:07, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

You must be joking. When it comes to questions of scientific questions, the scientific consensus is what matters. If you want to consult the religious or social consensus about health issues that's your own issue, but there is no reason why it would have weight in a scientific question. This is a serious encyclopaedia, and serious encyclopaedias aim to summarise and respect the scientific consensus on scientific questions, IRWolfie- (talk) 18:15, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

The compass points to ending this discussion thread. There's no need for endless debate. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:41, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm off the grid right now Tryptofish, but strongly concur with both your last two comments. DanHobley (talk) 04:40, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

More Monsanto censorship

Why are we edit warring of the media coverage now? If mainstream press is claimed to be censored by Monsanto then we should reflect that here. Not be guilty of the some whitewashing and censorship.--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:56, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

There is a section where this was discussed, use it. Stop opening new sections willy nilly on an already bloated talk page, IRWolfie- (talk) 11:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

The opening post of this thread asserts that editors are acting on Monsanto's behalf to censor what Misplaced Pages says. If that assertion is made again by Canoe1967 on this talk page without evidence, I will bring that editor to WP:ANI. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:02, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Canoe, you make a rather strange assertion, that the mainstream press is claimed to be censored by Monsanto. There have indeed been such claims, but only local TV stations and newspapers. On the other hand there is absolutely no evidence that any censorship has actually occurred and it is very hard to see how such censorship could be possible, thus any mention of it would require solid evidence.

So, yes, there are sources that claim there was Monsanto conspiracy to suppress media coverage but that does not mean that we should mention them here. It would be akin to saying in the Moon article that some sources had claimed that there was WWII bomber on the moon. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:31, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

If mainstream media didn't cover it well and a smaller media outlet reports this as a blatant lack of coverage then that is noteworthy. If we don't include it here then we are just as guilty as mainstream media for trying to censor and/or whitewash Misplaced Pages. This article is about a protest. Protests like media and Misplaced Pages attention. If there is an obvious lack of attention in Misplaced Pages then we could be considered as part of the problem and not part of the solution. I am not saying that editors are acting on Monsanto's behalf but readers may see this differently if we don't provide them with complete coverage. This may have been discussed on the talk page before but I didn't see mention of a talk page consensus in the edit summary. We could take it to RfC or other drama boards but they will probably end up as endless discussion going nowhere as they have before.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:38, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

There actually is no agreement as to whether mainstream media did or did not cover the march well. In the AfD discussion the claim was made that the march was notable because it was well covered yet those same editors want to say here that it was poorly covered. I have absolutely no problem in sayinq that the march was well or poorly covered (whichever we decide is correct) but I strongly object to the insinuation that there was a Monsanto conspiracy. At the moment we refer to a 'concern'. What on Earth is that meant to mean? Either it is utterly meaningless waffle or it is an insinuation of something sinister. Either way we cannot say it if our aim is to write a serious encyclopedia. Please will someone remove this nonsense. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:54, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Aren't you simply conflating the time frames of the coverage being addressed in the various statements?--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 19:08, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I really do not know, but it is far from clear to me what the news coverage was. However I a have no strong objection to stating exactly how strong, or weak, the media coverage was at various times, although I find it hard to see any encyclopedic value in this information. What I strongly object to is giving any credibility whatsoever to the conspiracy theory that Monsanto orchestrated a worldwide media blackout. 20:04, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• Link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6. There are more.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:24, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Hands up, anybody who thinks canoe's links are reliable and suitable sources for our use? Roxy the dog (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

These sources are utterly unreliable, and Canoe should know better. I always find the sources people show give a little insight into the garbage they read. For example, the first source has an article saying you can get rid of cancer by not eating refined sugar. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:16, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• Monsanto COI edit 1. I will keep looking.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

What on earth does this have to do with this article? This is a discussion talk page for article content ... IRWolfie- (talk) 23:16, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Those refs are entirely unreliable. I am excited about the sugar thing though. Heh. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:38, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

If we put references to those links in we should also put in these: Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4 Link5. Those links took a minute to find. The internet is awash with claims and opinions about Monsanto. Let us stick to facts. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:28, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Those don't mention the march. You could try including them but someone will probably just revert them.--Canoe1967 (talk) 09:37, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I do not want to include either, that is my point. I am happy to include verified facts about the march but we cannot include opinions expressed by every local news source, blog, web site, or YouTube post about it. That is not the function of Misplaced Pages. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The local news covered it better than mainstream though. Most mainstream news just runs all the snippets they can in short time blocks and then just repeat the same every 15 min to 1/2 hour. They aren't in depth anymore.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Can we first be clear what we are talking about

Canoe, what you are asking us all to is to add to Misplaced Pages text that says that there was a conspiracy by Monsanto to prevent media reporting of this march. Is that correct?

Your links say, 'Corporate Media Blackout of Anti-Monsanto Protests Exposed', 'Media Coverage Blackout Over Anti-Monsanto Protests', 'A Total Censorship Blackout by Corporate Media News on the March Against Monsanto as Millions March Worldwide'.

Regarding Roxy's poll my hands stay firmly down. This is moon landing conspiracy material. The links are not the least bit reliable. Since when was YouTube an reliable source? Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:57, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

This site should be reliable. It was win two webby awards for news. How can anyone expect the major news sites to actually report that they failed to cover the story adequately. YouTube is a fine source if it isn't a copyright violation and published by the true authors. In the case above it is.Monsanto accused of having propaganda accounts on the internet. Monsanto accused of dirty tricks. Corporate censorship of any independent studies.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:49, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I tried to follow the links. There may be something wrong with them, but I didn't see any confirmation that we should state that Monsanto was censoring the media. I think that the argument that Monsanto has been suppressing coverage of the protests is nonsense. Of course Monsanto is doing what any corporation does, and that is spinning the news, but I see no evidence that they are censoring it. The fact that they are providing their own spin is simply a matter of the corporate response. The arguments about censorship or a conspiracy are wasting our time. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:23, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, what on earth does this have to do with this article? IRWolfie- (talk) 00:50, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• I have taken this off-topic witch hunt to ANI: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Canoe1967_-_GMO. IRWolfie- (talk) 01:02, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Bringing this back around

As one of the chief complainants(?) regarding the media section, I'm happy to see some progress made during my absence. With this said, we should be able to handle the criticism section without using outlets like Alternet (which isn't really good for our purposes here). I'm also not seeing how Alternet's claim is at all true, and why we should include it. I understand the use of Hartmann's opinion, but the Alternet claim is treated as fact, the text lifted directly, and is contradicted by the sentence before it. At this point, I think the section would be in good shape by removing the Alternet claim completely. Thargor Orlando (talk) 01:15, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

We are writing an encyclopedia and we should aim to give our readers the straight facts, as supported by reliable sources. It is not our job to allude to or hint at things. There is therefore no place here for vague and unsubstantiated claims or assertions by local media sources.

As Wolfie has said above, it is true for all news topics that news media generally tend to report events more when their political stances are in line with the aims of the events. A right wing news source is more likely to give coverage to a right wing march for example. There is nothing notable or unexpected about this; it has applied since there have been news sources and is likely to continue as long as they they exist. Although it should not be in this article any more than all other article about politically sensitive events, I would be happy to give a general statement about news coverage here if it would lay this issue to rest. I am thing of something along the lines of, 'Generally speaking news coverage was better in local environmental sources than in national right-wing US news sources'. I do not think this should really be in the article but, if it prevents the degradation of WP by the inclusion if crazy theories, it would be a worthwhile compromise for me.

If anyone wants to say more than that they must make clear exactly what they are suggesting happened. We cannot print every claim, rumour, or conspiracy theory that we can find in any source be about Monsanto or the march here. This is not how WP works.

So, what is it that is actually claimed. Is anyone saying that Monsanto somehow orchestrated a worldwide media conspiracy to censor reporting of the march, or is it something else? Please make your claim here so that it can be openly discussed. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Caneo, you seem a little reticent to say why you want a media section and what you want it to say. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:51, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Are you referring to my mention that the media section should go before the industry response section? That one may need a re-name if others than Monsanto responded. A reactions section would cover industry and governments. The media section should be kept separate because it is journalistic material and not official reactions.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:51, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The current wording of what that section cites to Alternet was pretty much written by Martin, and it says: "No major corporate media outlets in the US covered the live event. CNN ran a followup short on the event on May 28, and there was sparse mainstream coverage after the event." I'm open to wording it differently, but I think that it was pretty reasonable. As discussed recently, Alternet's point is largely about live coverage, so I think the first sentence, about no live coverage in the US, is factually true. I don't think anyone would question the truthfulness of the statement about CNN. Maybe the last part of the second sentence, about "sparse" is questionable. And maybe there is a due weight issue about the whole thing. But I really don't want to scrub this page of everything that is from the marchers' point of view. How about this: change the two sentences to a single sentence, slightly rewritten from the first sentence: "No major corporate media outlets in the US covered the event live.". Then go right to what Hartmann said. Would that remove anything objectionable? --Tryptofish (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to reduce the wording further than the already bare bones representation of what the sources say.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 15:10, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine with me, too. It was just an idea, not something I'm enthusiastic about. I, too, see the current wording as being quite succinct, and I'm unenthusiastic about attempts to scrub the page further. I suppose a case can be made that this talk section, just like the talk section immediately below it, reopens discussions that really need not be reopened. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:50, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

It's actually the direct text from Alternet, a source I still see no justification for using in any form. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:46, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a personal opinion that isn't helping expand the article.--Canoe1967 (talk) 13:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the Alternet source is a personal opinion that doesn't help expand the article, which is why I'm in favor of its removal. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:06, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The fact that you don't like Alternet or what the article being cited says does not undermine its status as a reliable source for the content cited in this context. --Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 14:24, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Whether I like Alternet or not has no bearing on whether it's a reliable source, which it is not for our purposes here. That's the sole reason I'd prefer its removal. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The claim that is is not reliable for the cited content in this context is baseless, and no one at RS/N has adopted such a position, particularly among uninvolved editors/admins.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 14:44, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The brief discussion on RS/N pointed (obviously enough) to Alternet being a reliable source for Alternet's view. The question we really need to answer is: is inclusion of this material neutral (i.e. is it a significant view, the inclusion of which does not bias the article)? Alexbrn 14:48, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Alternet's "view," in this case, is not being presented as an opinion, but rather reported fact. Even as an opinion, it's couched in highly partisan/ideological language ("corporate media") of questionable truth, never mind questionable relevance. I've continually been in favor at this point of giving Thom Hartmann's claim some space, even though it's factually wrong, because he's actually a voice of note. Alternet doesn't even reach that point. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:55, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that the facticity of the statement is not being questioned, only the publication making the statement and the political slant ("corporate media"). It would be easy to represent the material in an attributed manner. As far as I'm concerned, it is a noteworthy aspect of this event that it was not covered by the larger media outlets. If there is doubt regarding the power of corporate advertising money to influence the media, there are many studies available examining that phenomena, and it doesn't delve into conspiracy theory.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 15:08, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Thargor, you previously wanted to delete Hartmann. I agree with Ubikwit. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:12, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I just reworded what the page says, a bit. Please check if that helps. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

As it's still using Alternet, I'm opposed, but it's better than it was. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:01, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

How is it now? I have changed a word. I think the media section is pointless but at least it no longer implies a conspiracy theory, it just states some rather unimportant facts. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:13, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem for me is more the use of a source we should avoid. Otherwise, it's okay but not great. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Thargor, I agree with you about the use of sources here generally. There seem to be the view that anything mentioned about this subject in a local newspaper, a local TV station, blog, forum or ejournal must be added to the article. The media section now is only pointless, at least it does not try to promote a crazy conspiracy. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Yipee! That's an improvement! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

"At this point." I've come around on it that it should be noted for some time now. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:00, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Should we even have a media section

I know many articles do have media sections but, as far as I can see the only consensus reached on the subject here would be to have something along the lines, 'There was some coverage in the media'. Hardly something of great encyclopedic value. I do not see any consensus for anything more that that, especially local media reports claiming or alluding to a conspiracy theory. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:08, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I think our readers would doubt our integrity if we didn't include a media section in a media event. I don't see a consensus that the media coverage was only one sentence. The small media commented that the big media was lacking greatly. That in itself is notable. We may have few sources that actually covered it properly but they are sources and they need to be included to show the notability of the event.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:35, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I did not say that there was consensus that the media coverage was only one sentence, I was pointing out that only one sentence in the current section has a consensus.

Encyclopedias do not contain crazy speculation by local media. We should remove it from here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:49, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that is called a BLP attack. You may wish to rephrase it if you expect a response.--Canoe1967 (talk) 13:19, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Que??? Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm OK with having a media coverage section for the time being. Part of what makes this discussion difficult is that we are talking about events that are still rather recent. In this recent context, I think the content we have is alright. Maybe a year from now it will appear trivial and be deleted. Or maybe a year from now it will look much more significant than it does today, and will be expanded. I really believe we are spending too much effort worrying about Alternet. The brief content is just not that big a deal. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

What do you think that the media section should contain? Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

What it contains now. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:18, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Should we also have comments like, 'the only thing that’s truly being poisoned is the biotech debate by such rhetoric. I’m also willing to bet that organizers are being as truthful about the number of marchers as they are about the science on genetically modified foods.' from or 'Today was the March Against Monsanto. There was an event in Seattle. I didn’t go. I think the entire thing is misguided' from? I think not. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:57, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest that you propose expanding the Response section to include that, except that I'm afraid that you would actually take me up on it. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:18, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

No, I really do not want to include those quotes. I am trying to show that we cannot include everything from any media source in this article. I think this must be obvious. Why then do we include just two local newspaper/TV quotes? Who chose them and why? Apart from the conspiracy theory, the media do not have that much to say. As might be expected some commentators supported the marchers, some opposed them. Why are we putting this in an encyclopedia? Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:51, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Above the section break, you said, "The media section now is only pointless, at least it does not try to promote a crazy conspiracy", and I facetiously said that was an improvement. As long as it was promoting a fringe view, I was interested in working to fix it. Now, as you say, it just presents a bit of content that is of questionable significance, but without actually misrepresenting the sourced facts. The reason we do include that stuff is, in a practical sense, because other editors objected to removing it, and their objections had about as much validity under policies and guidelines as the arguments from editors including you, that the material should be removed. You have presented reasonable arguments for removing it, others have reasonable arguments that it ought to be here, and, on balance, there is no absolutely right answer. We can remove it, and then there will be another dispute about it – just as there would be if, instead, someone tried to expand the conspiracy theories. For now, it's a reasonable consensus. Check back in several months or a year, and maybe the consensus will be that it's too trivial to retain. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:08, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. There are no policies or guidelines that tell us to include wild conspiracy theory claims by local media. Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with including it as long as its attributed and in the way it is now . IRWolfie- (talk) 01:11, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not going to fight over it now. In its present state it does not degrade WP by giving credibility to a crazy and completely unsupported conspiracy theory. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:00, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Scientific consensus - case closed

The idea of officially closing a talk page section is new to me. Seems weird and rude, but whatever. An important part, Trypto, that you did not highlight from the closing statement was this : "I also looked over the report by groupuscule, and while there was consensus that their concerns did not affect the accuracy of the proposed statement, it may be helpful to refer to to some of the literature reviews to represent alternative views on the matter with respect to due weight." Due weight isn't an option, it's a ground rule for an encyclopedia. Please don't ignore this. petrarchan47tc 09:59, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

it may be helpful. That's an option. Stop misrepresenting basic sentences. Now stop starting irrelevant sections. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:06, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

That section never should have been closed. An RfC for one article doesn't cover all articles. ArbCom would be needed for that.--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:36, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

ARBCOM does not make content decisions. Read policy. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:47, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I too do not like the arbitrary closing of discussions and also find in rude and contrary to the basic WP principle of civil discussion.

That being said however I think we should not be discussing what the scientific consensus on GM foods is here. We have an article on that very subject, which is where this discussion should take place. This article is about a specific event and it is not a place to discuss general controversies about GE. Of course, we need to give a little background and say what motivated the marchers but editors must stop using it as a WP:coatrack on which to hang anything they can find on the internet about GE. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:39, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the same about the coatrack but the opposite. If sources in this article don't specifically mention the march then they should be excluded. Otherwise it coatracks the opposite and strokes Monsanto.--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:49, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I would be very happy to work with you, Canoe, to remove all extraneous content from this article. We should give the marchers' motivations and Monsanto's response once only. We should also briefly state the mainstream position on the subject, as it is described in the relevant WP article.

I mentioned that the sections were out of order and that seems to have been ignored. The media coverage should go before the Monsanto response. Monsanto responded after the coverage, not before.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:00, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure why we even have a media coverage section. What exactly is it that you want to get across to our readers? Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:05, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Do you suggest we remove media coverage from all of our articles then? I think the subjects of BLP articles would be very happy with that.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

No, but I do question the purpose of a media section for this article. What exactly do you want it to say. There is only a consensus to say that there was some media coverage. It is not our job to include every comment on the march made by every local media source. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:29, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

We aren't including all 5,000 local reports. We just need to include the media reaction to a media event. If the smaller media found it was notable that the larger media didn't cover it well then that is notable in itself. I can see if it were a case like David S. Rohde but that isn't the case here.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:55, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I support Tryptofish's efforts and actions. The impact is just for this article. Let's move on. North8000 (talk) 12:42, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

30% of the sources by my count don't even mention the march. Some go back to 2004, I think. We could start by removing those sources.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:12, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

1. If Petra and Martin think that I was rude, that was not my intention, and I don't really believe that I was. It would be easy to find much more dramatic examples of rudeness on this talk page. Overall, I think I have been one of the least rude editors in this talk. But I'm delighted to see Petra and Martin agreeing about something!
2. Is it too much to ask that editors be careful about signing their comments on this talk page? I find it difficult, sometimes, to figure out who is saying what.
3. In that section, numerous editors were complaining that the discussion was unhelpful and ought to be closed, because it was just reopening the same thing over and over again. (Perhaps the same can be said about this talk section, as well.) There were a lot of complaints asking that the section be closed.
4. In that section, let's note something that I said there: "That said, I will stipulate to the fact that the scientific consensus is not the same thing as the political consensus, the cultural consensus, or the societal consensus; indeed, science may be finding itself at odds with all of those." I don't think it's unreasonable to cover the science in terms of science, and the other things in terms of what they are.
5. In that section, let's look at what Petra presented the question as being. The header is: "Questioning the "scientific consensus"". That sounds to me like a discussion about how this page should write about the scientific consensus. Petra concluded the opening post by saying: "This calls Misplaced Pages's GMO "scientific consensus" into question, and highlights a need for more context about the science. Our readers deserve this." That, too, is about the science, rather than about such other things as politics, culture, society, etc.
6. Taking those things together, I felt that it was reasonable to conclude that the consensus at the other page applied to the the question raised by Petra here, and that discussions here would best be served by moving on. Nothing I did stopped anyone from opening this new talk thread. (And nothing I see in this new talk thread really does us any good with respect to improving the content of this page.)
7. The RfC closure at the other page does, indeed, refer to: "while there was consensus that their concerns did not affect the accuracy of the proposed statement, it may be helpful to refer to to some of the literature reviews to represent alternative views on the matter with respect to due weight." I read that as saying that (1) there was no impact on how we summarize the mainstream science consensus, and (2) we should give WP:DUE to alternative views from outside mainstream science. If someone has good ideas about presenting those alternative views on this page, instead of complaining about being mistreated, then let's discuss those ideas. But if anyone wants to claim that the scientific consensus is other than what this page currently says it is, well, that's just POV-pushing on behalf of WP:FRINGE science. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:46, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

This is one of those rare cases where mainstream science is POV though. This is an inherent POV caused by Monsanto's legal contracts that don't allow studies without their approval. Science has its hands tied because of this. Any study done on a Monsanto protected product can never be NPOV until they do away with those contracts.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Read the guidelines. Misplaced Pages:FRINGE#Identifying_fringe_theories. We give most weight to the mainstream scientific point of view. That is what we do. WP:DUE is the most basic element of wikipedia. We are not here to right great wrongs. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree, and if there is some doubt about what the mainstream scientific point of view is, the place to address that is (yes you have seen it before) here.

Not according to Scientific American: "... their user agreements have explicitly forbidden the use of the seeds for any independent research." Contract. I don't know if the contract has been doctored or how RS the site is. If the studies are only done by Monsanto then they must have a lot of scientists to get a broad consensus.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:40, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

In no way does that address what I said, IRWolfie- (talk) 12:53, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Canoe, if you want to try to argue that point this is not the place to do so, This is. It is not a difficult concept that I am trying to get across; this article is about a march, the Genetically modified food controversies article is about controversies about GM food crops. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:59, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Then why do we have a GMO controversy section here? The two are intertwined. The march is just another spin off controversy article since the main one is too large and bloated with non-controversial material.--Canoe1967 (talk) 13:13, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The mainstream science is not POV. It reflects the mainstream of scholarly thought. There are dissenting views about it, but WP:RGW makes it very clear that we do not rebuke the mainstream in Misplaced Pages's voice. We have the sentence about the scientific consensus on this page. The very next sentence cites the Epoch Times as noting that there are dissents. There it is: we have the mainstream view, sourced, and the dissenting view, sourced. And, because this is WP:Summary style, with a link to the main page, we don't need to expand it any more than that. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:17, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and I am not sure what the "Epoch Times" was doing here anyway (now removed), since this isn't summarizing the main article but introducing novel information via a new source. Which is a big no-no. Alexbrn 08:34, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Until the list of completely unrelated "GMOs are safe" links are removed, your argument does not hold water. We can't have those links without due weight given to the side of the subject of this article - namely folks who question GMO safety. petrarchan47tc 10:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:SYNC is Misplaced Pages's guidance, and it's pretty straightforward. In a summary section we summarize the detailed article. We certainly do not misrepresent it by including stuff it doesn't contain; that might look like trying to sneak in material which the consensus on the detailed article had rejected! Alexbrn 10:47, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The "list of completely unrelated links" exist to combat the fringe points of view put forward by the protesters. It's one sentence and we move on from it, and is more than appropriate and, in fact, required by our WP:NPOV policies. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:05, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Fine, there is no stopping you all from adding this list to wikipedia, but I am saying that since this article is about folks who question this consensus, and who have some scientists and others behind them in this questioning, it makes no sense for anyone to argue for the removal of this information and refs, which give a fuller picture of the article's subject. petrarchan47tc 23:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm somewhat inclined to agree with Petrarchan about this latest point. I don't think that it was SYNTH simply because it wasn't in another article, and I meant what I said above about how we should include something from the people who dissent from the mainstream view. However, the wording from the Epoch Times that got removed did seem to make it sound like there are more doctors and scientists than there actually were. I tend to think that there might be a better way of putting back a bit more of the protesters' side of the argument, and I'd be in favor of doing that, but I think the best approach would be to frame it in terms other than the scientific and medical, more like the non-acceptance of the science by the (non-scientist) public. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

California Proposition 37 and the Farmer Assurance Provision

I have started editing this section to make it more in line with the section heading. So far I have just moved one paragraph. The other two paragraphs do not really belong in this section as they are about the marchers' motives and opinions. They are also written in an unencyclopedic tone which promotes the marchers' POV. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:20, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Dude. This article is about the protesters' POV - please rest from your copious contributions to his page until you can comprehend this basic premise. petrarchan47tc 10:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

No it is not, it is about the march. Of course, it should clearly state the protesters' POV and motives; that is what an encyclopedia does. It should not promote the protesters' POV, there is a difference. An encyclopedia exists to tell us facts not opinions. Stating that the protesters had a particular viewpoint is a simple fact. Expressing that viewpoint in a manner that promotes it or shows it in a specially favourable light is expressing an opinion. WP does not express its own opinions.

Of course it should also state Monsanto's response but not promote it. Finally, it should make clear what the mainstream science view is on GM foods, but only once. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:48, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I was very surprised to see my simple, and I though non-contentious, logical reorganisation reverted. Hardlythe spirit of cooperation. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:37, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

POV != COI

Maybe the arguments about COI editing have played down both here and on the drama boards. However, I would like to make one observation. There is a large difference between POV editing and COI editing, and some of the claims here may have missed that distinction. Editors always have POVs, and on controversial topics they typically have differing POVs, and achieving a neutral POV is difficult although necessary. While arguing on a talk page that an editor has a POV is focusing on the contributor rather than the content, but is likely to happen when the editing gets hot, and allegations of POV editing are best ignored or downplayed. Unless the allegations of POV editing become personal attacks ("you fascistic pusher of a fascist POV", for instance), they do not normally rise to the level of requiring warnings, let alone blocks. However, the allegation of COI is a sword that cuts both ways. The allegation of COI by an editor who does not declare that COI is itself an attack on the editor's integrity, because an editor who edits with a COI that is not disclosed is deceiving the Misplaced Pages community. If the allegation is true, the COI editor may warrant a block. If the allegation is baseless, the editor who made that accusation may warrant a block. The argument that WP:COI is not clear is one that I consider groundless; the policy is clear. COI doesn't cover "mere" POV editing. An allegation that anti-march or pro-GMO editors are doing POV editing is merely a focus on the contributor, not useful, but not toxic. An allegation that anti-march or pro-GMO editors are doing COI editing really is an allegation that they are paid by Monsanto or otherwise have a concealed corrupting agenda. If anyone doesn't know the difference, they shouldn't make accusations. The allegation of POV editing is common in editing contentious articles, and is best ignored. The allegation of COI editing is a two-edged sword, and any editor making that claim should be aware that, depending on its truth or falsehood, one of the editors is likely to be sanctioned. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:18, 23 August 2013 (UTC) As Tryptofish has said, drop any allegations of COI editing, or take them to WP:COIN POV != COI. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:18, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Can we please not have more sections that are not about the article, IRWolfie- (talk) 14:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

While I have some quibbles on the fine points, I agree with Robert McClenon is saying which to drop such allegations. Which means I also agree with IRWolfie's comment which is to stick to article work here. North8000 (talk) 14:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

POV concerns

I've been away for a while so I'm having trouble picking up the thread of the discussion here. I have concerns about this article that I and others have expressed previously, and remain. Right now, there is too much of an effort to make this into a kind of mini-GMO controversy article, with every claim of the protesters either watered down or rebutted. This article is about a notable protest movement. If you go to similar articles such as Occupy movement, you will find that very little if any space is devoted to the substantial Wall Street and conservative position that the Occupy protesters are wacky fringe cranks. Far too much attention is devoted to debunking these Monsanto protesters. It skews the article and it is not necessary. The "fringe" argument doesn't hold water because this is not an article about the GMO controversy, but about the protest. Overall, this makes the article far too slanted toward Monsanto's POV. Coretheapple (talk) 23:01, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Arguably, you are fortunate in what you missed. Part of the problem is how to reconcile the concern that you just raised, which is a very valid one, with the fact that much of the subject matter deals with claims about science. In that way, this page is different from one that deals with economic issues. I'd be very receptive to expanding the Positions part of the page, for example. I think that it's easier to address these issues specifically, so it would be very helpful to name specific things on the page that you would like to change. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:01, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

What a sensible comment. One good example of the push to make this into a GMO controversy article (one which makes sure to reiterate: GMOs are SAFE FOR SURE), is in this edit where Trypto pushes the "GMO controversy" section to the top of the article, obliterating the introduction to the section and to the topic itself. I have asked him about this and was told to get consensus here first... for an introductory paragraph i am told i need consensus. The problem is, the editor on the talk page from whom i needed permission was one who had just sought to have this and a related page (Organic Consumers Association, who head the "Millions Against Monsanto" movement) deleted from the pedia. petrarchan47tc 23:48, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

As I said at the time, one of the problems was that your edits made it so that Canal was responding to things that had not yet been introduced to the page. It just seems to me to make much better sense to start with background, then go to what Canal and the other protesters were responding to. I wasn't "pushing" it to the top of the page, I was reverting your "push" of it down lower on the page. As I also said at the time, you do not have to get consensus first, but if you make an edit that is obviously, based upon discussion that anyone can read on this talk page, going to be disputed, then you should not be shocked if someone disputes it. A good way to avoid getting reverted is to discuss it first. I'm not sure who you are referring to as the editor from whom you "needed permission", but I didn't start any AfDs, and I remember !voting "keep" at the one I think you are referring to. As for needing "permission", discussing things, when there are disagreements, on article talk pages is how Misplaced Pages works, of course. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:12, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict, havent read the post immediately above this one) Thanks, Petrarchan. Trypto, I understand that particular concern, but right now we have the "even-Steven" situation that I mentioned a while back. Let's see if we can focus this article more on the protesters and what they're doing and why, and less on replicating the GMO article. Reading this article I almost get the sense of Misplaced Pages acting as a kind of nanny, taking the reader by the hand and explaining that this is all hogwash and pseudoscience, and it just skews the whole thing. Coretheapple (talk) 00:14, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Re your 00:12, I don;t know what to say as I haven't been following that discussion. I hope we can look at the big picture and fix the POV situation. Coretheapple (talk) 00:16, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Here's another example of what I'm talking about: Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories. That's an article about completely spurious conspiracy theories that have sprung up concerning the Newtown school shootings. There is simply no need to intersperse either that article or this one with finger-wagging about what bad ideas they are. Coretheapple (talk) 16:56, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

To centralize discussion, the difference between Occupy and the March is that Occupy was a subjective demonstration with debatable topics, while much of the March deals with settled science that has a consensus position. Per policy, we must address fringe viewpoints when introduced into the article, thus the occasional points about the consensus. As for the Monsanto information, as I said below, a paragraph on who Monsanto is and what Monsanto does is appropriate about an article protesting Monsanto. Monsanto's response to a protest about Monsanto is also worthy of note, and does not create a POV/unbalanced situation, especially when the voice of the protest is by far the preeminent point. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:46, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

They certainly should be addressed, certainly not ignored completely. I'm not advocating that. But you have here two sections, "Monsanto and industry response" and "GMO controversy" that address the issue you raise. That's one section too many. Coretheapple (talk) 17:54, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

One section is the background, which is obvious. There needs to be background on the GMO controversy in order to understand the reasons for the protest, and that section needs to, per policy, note the scientific consensus. The "Monsanto and industry response" is also obvious, as their response belongs in a proper place in the article with other responses to the protest, as the protest is directly about them. I don't see a significant need to expand it further (although I'd prefer we restore the Hawaii piece if only because the assertion from the Hawaii spokesperson is arguably the best industry response that asserts their position available), but I don't see any justification for saying it's "one section too many." I do think we've struck a good balance here. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:20, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Well I've done some editors and reorganizing to try to alleviate some of these concerns. For instance, I've moved the previous stand-alone Monsanto section to become part of the GMO section. We don't need to reinvent the wheel on Monsanto. I moved the CEO comment to that area. Then I integrated the Monsanto/industry response with the media section. That ties it in better to the march. We had some windiness here and there as well as an unecessary quote from some Hawaiian person saying that GMOs are safe, which we already established further above. I still am not happy with the space devoted to the industry position, but this helps I think a bit. Coretheapple (talk) 18:27, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I liked the combination edit on that, and I don't love the CEO comment there, but I can live with it. I did change back the industry/Monsanto response, though, because it doesn't make any sense to have the two together. One is the media, the other is the industry, they shouldn't be considered the same. Otherwise, though, no real issues with the changes, although I think we need to talk images further. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) re the "broad scientific consensus" language, I'm not seeing it in the two footnotes that remain. Admittedly I took out a bunch. We need to allow one or two footnotes that specifically say that there is a broad scientific consensus, yadda yadda, or we're engaging in synthesis. Any suggestions? Meanwhile, I'll go back to the sources I took out. Coretheapple (talk) 18:37, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I perused the sources that I removed earlier. They really shouldn't have been there in the first place, as they were primary sources requiring interpretation. I left two, but the second was a primary source too, somewhat hazy and requiring interpretation, so I removed. I left the AAAS one, which is written in plain language not requiring interpretation, and summed up what it said. We really need a reliable secondary source to say that there is a broad scientific consensus. We can't make that interpetation by putting on our thinking caps and analyzing the sources. That is beyond our pay scale, especially since we aren't paid! Coretheapple (talk) 18:50, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• I see that my edit on the scientific consensus bit has been reverted. Well, I now have a serious problem with both the factual accuracy of this article as well as its POV, and have so tagged. I found this article in International Business Times that squarely addresses the issue, and it says: “'There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat,' Pamela Ronald, a Univeristy of California at Davis professor, wrote for Scientific American in 2011. But the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has warned of 'serious health risks' indicated by animal studies measuring the effects of GM foods." Based on this, I think that we have a dispute in the scientific community and that Misplaced Pages should not be taking sides. Any thoughts on this? Coretheapple (talk) 19:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I can explain. First, I want to point out a minor side-issue. One of your recent edits took out the phrase "according to the Associated Press". Personally, I'm long past caring about it, but I want to note that the phrase was in there because Viriditas argued that it was plagiarism of the source if we didn't say it. I just want to make you aware of that; draw your own conclusions.

Now, to your question about why I put that language back. I actually liked a lot of the edits you made, but not this particular point, and I feel quite strongly about it. It's been discussed to death. First, please see: Talk:Genetically modified food controversies#Request for comment on "broad scientific consensus". This was an RfC with very broad community participation, and you can read the closing statement there, that concluded that the sources do support the language in that sentence. It's been analyzed and re-analyzed, and you really need to go through that entire discussion and be able to demonstrate that the consensus was wrong, and I doubt that anyone can responsibly do that. Of course, that was at another page, but there has been a lot of discussion here as well, including about whether that RfC does or does not translate to this page. See, above, #4. Is the amount of "the science" in the article appropriate? (in those restricted sections) about some general aspects, #8. Is it a violation of WP:NOR to cite sources that do not mention the March Against Monsanto by name, to support the sentence about scientific consensus in the background section? specifically about that sourcing, #"GMOs are safe", and #Questioning the "scientific consensus". I don't particularly care about the removal of some of the sources, but I also don't think that their removal really did any good, since it kind of sounded like there was a POV concern that one "side" was getting "too many" sources, which strikes me as kind of a pissing match. But it's a solid fact that there is a consensus in mainstream science, albeit one that has WP:FRINGE dissenters. (As for the tags at the top of the page, I'll just note that, previously, there was an awful lot of complaining when similar tags were placed, based upon concerns about the POV perhaps going the other way.) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:46, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

For reasons I don't understand, all of the comments below were added to this talk while I was writing the comment above, and yet I did not get an edit conflict. That explains why some of what I said is redundant with what was already said below. Sorry. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The GMO stuff is addressed below. As far as that AP attribution is concerned, I couldn't disagree more. I don't understand how he can say that. If that's the kind of thing you've been arguing about on this page, I can see why there's been gridlock. Coretheapple (talk) 19:59, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you. I have often felt like my head is going to explode. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:02, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The GMO Controversy section is a summary of a main article (Genetically modified food controversies), and - as specified by WP:SYNC - needs to mirror it. Which it does. If you want to challenge the content here you must first get it changed in the main article, and then we can sync it here. Until then, we must follow what the main article says. I have removed the tags as they are spurious. Alexbrn 19:29, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

We can point to numerous studies that show the safety of the food, which is why the statement exists in the article. We also have this expert opinion that synthesizes the claims, and this which ties the consensus in with the March. This is not in dispute in science. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:34, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I see that the "parent" article has a recently concluded RfC allowing this language, so I won't re-fight that battle here. However, given the limited size and scope of this article I think that we need a good secondary source making that point. Coretheapple (talk) 19:37, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

There's no harm in adding either of the links I've provided. One is from an explicitly scientific publication, the other is explicitly related to the topic of the article. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I've added the Scientific American article, while removing the AMA link. That is a primary source requiring interpretation. Better to have two plain-language sources. Coretheapple (talk) 19:43, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The AMA document is a secondary source; on its first page it describes how it is based on existing literature (those would be the primary sources). Alexbrn 19:48, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Whatever. Two footnotes is enough for this article on that statement. Coretheapple (talk) 19:54, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I must say that I am bothered by the RfC in the parent article. At first blush it seems to be countenancing synthesis, and puts Misplaced Pages in the position of taking a stance on an issue that is not fully settled. However, I think that in this article editors have to step back from that scientific controversy and deal solely with the march. I'm still concerned about the Monsanto POV being overrepresented but I think that this version is improved, though more work is needed. Coretheapple (talk) 19:47, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

In this article, when we encounter the fringe viewpoint that GM foods are unsafe, we're required by guideline and policy to address it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:54, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

No, absolutely incorrect. If there is advocacy of the fringe POV, in Misplaced Pages's voice, that needs to be corrected. But just because protesters are advocating a position that you feel to be fringe, there is nothing in the content guideline requiring that it be shot down every time it rears its ugly head. I am not so sure that the anti-GMO position is really all that "fringe," but even assuming it is, we're not writing about the position per se. If it was, I'd be jumping up and down about the "scientific consensus" stuff, and as you can see I am not. Coretheapple (talk) 20:21, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

It is policy: "The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such. An explanation of how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories should be prominently included. This helps us to describe differing views fairly. This also applies to other fringe subjects ... " (my bolding) This applies, for example, to claims about GMOs causing birth defects. Alexbrn 20:30, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Except that this article is about a protest, not a fringe subject. If this article were Alternate views of genetically modified foods, it would be different. Since this article can't seem to make up its mind as to whether it is about a protest or a reinvention of the GMO wheel, we get this unnecessary tit-for-tat stuff that skews the article. Coretheapple (talk) 20:39, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

In the course of covering the protest, the protestors' sometimes fringe views are relayed. These must be presented in line with policy. I thought this had been settled weeks ago - surely nobody is proposing that claims about (e.g.) GMOs causing cancer should be allowed to stand without opposition? Alexbrn 20:45, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

They are not stated without opposition. We say unequivocally, and repeately, and prominently, and in Misplaced Pages's voice, that GMO foods are as safe as the lint from a baby's bottom. That point cannot be made more clear. Saying after every protester's claim "but the scientific consensus disputes this" is absolutely unnecessary. Indeed, at the moment we make the "clean as a whistle, safe as tap water" point more than is needed. Coretheapple (talk) 20:50, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Core, perhaps it may help with respect to the concern that you express to note that there is a difference between the scientific consensus, and the consensus outside of science, in politics, society, culture, etc. Specifically within science, we really are dealing with mainstream consensus and fringe dissent. But outside science, it's quite the other way around, which is why I keep trying to suggest that we not focus overly on the science, on this page, but instead present the protesters' perspective more in terms of non-science perspectives. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I understand that, which is why I had no problem with the "scientific consensus" language as that apparently was decided, erronenously or not, in an article on the scientific controversy. But here we have an article on a march, a protest movement, with far too much focusing on the opposition. We say what the scientific consensus supposedly is, we make that point. If we say that too much, we make the article out of balance, too much of a pro-Monsanto slant. The "even-Steven" element, this misguided attempt to "counteract the fringe POV," is what occasions this concern. I'm aware of the differences between a political and a scientific issue; I don't think that's a significant distinction, one that requires a continual effort to rebut the opposition to GMOs that underlines this protest movement.Coretheapple (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Re the point raised above about WP:FRINGE supposedly "requiring" a constant rebuttal, I just don't see it. The fringe policy does not really apply to this article at all, except to the extent that it can be viewed as promulgating or promoting a fringe theory. We have to guard against Misplaced Pages taking any kind of position, in its voice, promoting the anti-GMO POV. But the article does not do that. If it did, the remedy would be to rewrite the offending sections, not to make this a tit-for-tat situation, with the heroic forces of science staring down the fringe crackpots. Coretheapple (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

It is original research to rebut arguments made by a group with material that does not specifically refer to that group. We do not know for example whether the health concerns mentioned by the group are the same as those addressed in scientific papers, and should not assume that the safety of consuming GMO products is the major motivation for the March. TFD (talk) 20:24, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

That's a very good point. I hadn't thought of that. We need to explore this aspect of the situation. Coretheapple (talk) 20:28, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

YES petrarchan47tc 18:31, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

About constant rebuttal of fringe, I think that past discussions have shown that there is no need for "constant" rebuttal, in the sense of a point-counterpoint everywhere the fringe views appear, but rather, that the rebuttal needs to be easy for readers to find, somewhere on the page. About original research, it isn't original research to rebut arguments made by a group with material that does not specifically refer to that group. It's original research to rebut arguments made by a group with material that does not specifically refer to that argument. It would also be original research to present as criticism of a group, material that does not specifically refer to that group. The sources do clearly indicate that food safety was a major concern of the group – just read what we quote Tami Canal as saying. But we probably underplay the non-food concerns, such as environmental and economic, because we've been too embroiled in debating the science stuff, so I'll say – again! – that we ought to refocus in that direction. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be greatly helpful to expand the non-food concerns regarding GMOs, yes. Coretheapple (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

TFD, we have a source that does so directly if we need it. The consensus at the time was the route we've taken taking NOR/SYNTH into mind. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

"I think it would be greatly helpful to expand the non-food concerns regarding GMOs" Which has been exactly my point all along...but as you can see, I never got very far with it and finally just gave up on even trying to edit this article. Gandydancer (talk) 22:17, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

You should definitely be bold and reinsert, and if there's an objection it can be discussed. That must've been while I was away. Coretheapple (talk) 13:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thargor Orlando, of course you need it. See "synthesis": "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." In this case the March says one thing, scientists say something else and the synthesis is that the March is saying something with which scientists disagree. And if no sources exist then the comparison would be insignificant. You should be aware for example that none of the foods currently produced by GMO are healthy - cottonseed oil and high fructose corn syrup are not in the food pyramid - so we need to be clear about what the March is claiming. TFD (talk) 03:12, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

TFD, we've had this discussion, it's likely in the archives, you can see how it went. Your claim here is kind of strange in the broader context of these articles, but, again, we have a source we can use that links the consensus directly to the March if that's what you require for this to meet your needs. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I'm actually not opposed to a statement of scientific views on GMOs. I think we need that. But I do agree that this article needs to be focused on the march and grassroots movement, and that this article should not host a debate on the virtues and disadvantages of GMOs. I removed the "overemphasis" tag in the interests of comity but I am starting to think that that was unwise, as there definitely is an overemphasis and a continuing good-faith disagreement on that issue. If someone wants to reinstate it I certainly wouldn't object. Coretheapple (talk) 13:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The only place a "debate" really exists is in the necessary background section (which is why TFD's claim is odd, but, again, easily solvable if it's that big an issue). The bulk of the article is about the March and the positions they hold, with a small amount of nods to the scientific consensus as required by guideline and policy. I don't think anyone is going to outright object to increasing information about the March and the movement as long as it doesn't increase the amount of fringe science in the article (which was the most significant point of contention, and the most guilty party is in the middle of a multi-month block for his attacks on other editors here). Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:46, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Can you please tell me what guideline and what policy that is? TFD (talk) 14:25, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV in tandem with WP:FRINGE. Again, please read back in the archives so we don't have to do this all over again. Or, conversely, add the link provided above that ties in the March with the consensus. I certainly won't be reverting you. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thargor, I think that we need to draw a distinction between promulgating fringe viewpoints and reporting the views of the marchers, why they oppose stuff, etc. It would be the very same if this was an article on people opposing vaccination. I realize that Misplaced Pages, with justification, takes a dim view of promoting fringe viewpoints. However, when opposition develops to certain things that are established in science, I think that reporting that opposition in articles does not promote fringe views. I think that our readers are intelligent enough that if we state clearly in the article at one location what the scientific view is, it is not necessary to repeat the scientific view constantly throughout the article.

At this point what troubles me is the GMO controversy section, as I feel that it is too long given the length of the article. I think this proportionality issue would fade away if the article was built up more to provide the views of the anti-GMO people. I know that there are substantial views that have nothing to do with the scientific consensus on safety, and those are not given proper emphasis. I understand that some editors have looked into that aspect, and I would encourage them to not be discouraged and to build up that area within this article. Coretheapple (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The GMO controversy section is currently one paragraph. The information in that paragraph is all relevant to the March in terms of labeling GMOs, and also addresses the scientific consensus of safety. It links to the main article, and I might actually agree that it's *too* heavy on the labeling stuff, but I don't know what I'd excise either. I don't know why you believe that the single paragraph summarizing the background issues in play would be too much. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

It's a really short article. More on the protesters' views would make it proportional, so I'm hoping those who have done work on that would not be discouraged and would expand what is here. Coretheapple (talk) 17:39, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

You'll have my backing on it for what you can find as long as we're not dealing with too much unanswered fringe science. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:17, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Of course, to the extent that their complaints are directed at a commercial enterprise, such as Monsanto, we do report their position, without question. I'm not suggesting that they can make all kinds of charges against Monsanto without the latter being given an opportunity to respond. So yes, there would be an expansion of the reply aspect somewhat. Coretheapple (talk) 15:46, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thargor Orlando, WP:FRINGE is about fringe theories, not groups that may hold some views that may be fringe. For example, in articles about various religions we do not use astronomy and biology textbooks to rebut theories about the age of the universe, the sun stopping in its orbit, the existence of heaven, transubstantiation, resurrection of the dead, the existence of demons and giants etc. We can of course use reliable sources about specific religious groups that criticize them for their views. And NPOV "means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic (my bolding)". The topic here is March on Monsanto, not the dangers of GMO. TFD (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

TFD, the idea that genetically modified food is unsafe is a fringe theory not supported by science. The background of the topic is genetically modified food, so it makes sense to work within that topic. To repeat myself again, we have an available source that contrasts the March with the consensus if we need it. Feel free to add it if you're feeling strongly about it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:17, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

At this point, amid all the discussions of policy, it's getting difficult for me to figure out what we are talking about in terms of what to possibly change on the page. As best as I can tell, it's about the concerns of some editors that the GMO controversy section is too long and gives too little weight to the protesters' perspective, per WP:UNDUE. Am I right about that? If the issue is that it's too long, what, specifically, does anyone want to delete? If it's about adding instead of subtracting, I'll repeat my earlier suggestion of moving away from the debate about science and health, and focusing instead on adding material about the environment, economics, and so forth. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The sentence, "There is a broad scientific consensus, however, that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than does conventional food.". Neither source mentions March Against Monsanto and one was written before the March was set up. The whole section is POV anyway because while the March had various reasons for opposing GMO, including environmental damage and contamination of crops, this section implies that it is the health concern alone that is important. TFD (talk) 21:58, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thargor Orlando, read what I said at Talk:Genetically modified food controversies on the RfC ""There is broad scientific consensus that food on the market derived from GM crops pose no greater risk than conventional food." "Statement is accurate ...In fact cooking oil, one of the major GMO products, does not even have GMO molecules in it. Nor is there any theoretical reason why GMO would be more harmful than non-GMO." So no need to lecture me on the science. But this article is not about GMO food controversies. TFD (talk) 22:09, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The section you're complaining about is about GMO food controversies, however. The main article is Genetically modified food controversies, the section summarizes it as necessary background. Regardless, again, we have a source, linked above in this section, that ties the consensus in with the March. The only person opposed to its use is blocked for at least the next two months, so if you think we need to have that explicit tie-in, I don't think anyone will stand in your way. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:11, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Image

I'm apparently not seeing something about the image that, according to the edit summary, is creating a lot of white space. I don't see that white space on the computer I'm using today (the one I typically use), nor on the one I was using two days ago (while traveling). Thargor, maybe you could describe here what the layout problem is, on your display. I'd really prefer to keep the image, in that we ought to be showing that sort of thing on this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:27, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

You beat me here. The issue is about 8 lines of whitespace between the "media coverage" and "Monsanto and industry response." I'd rather not lose images we can use, either, but I also don't think the value is worth the formatting. I'm not sure of the answer, as I have a massive display and it's pretty significant. Thargor Orlando (talk) 00:29, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

That's really odd, because I don't see the same 8 lines of whitespace. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the width of various screen displays, especially since the "clear" made it worse. I'm going to try an alternative approach now, so if it doesn't work, just revert me, no problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

That worked! It did push the CEO image into the references, but that's not really a big deal. Thargor Orlando (talk) 00:45, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

And I've been reverted on it, so I'm going to leave you two to figure it out. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:55, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Just add more sourced text that was deleted.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:56, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't that depend on what the text is? My reading of the image size guidelines is that one should avoid making images too big, as opposed to too small. Anyway, it looks OK on my computer either way. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:09, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

haha, You two should change your usernames to Laurel and Hardy. I've been trying to figure out which image you mean for ages. --Roxy the dog (talk) 01:14, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:ImageSize. " In general, do not define the size of an image unless there is a good reason to do so."--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:21, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, Stan, it's the Swedish image in the Positions section. Thargor finds it's so big that it spills into the sections below, or, if we put a "clear" tag in, to prevent spillover, then there's a huge amount of white space below it. Canoe objects to specifying a pixel size. I'm tired and about to log off. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:24, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I have a piano that needs moving up some stairs.--Roxy the dog (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

There are basically three choices if images don't fit. Whitespace, add more text, or create a gallery. Forcing image sizes is not recommended.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:52, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of images, do we need one of Monsanto's CEO? I removed it a while back and was reverted by Viriditas. Coretheapple (talk) 17:15, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I've never understood why it's there. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:27, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

If I remove it will anyone object? It's not a pressing issue so I'll leave it open for now. However, I think that this exacerbates the POV issue by enlarging the Monsanto section. It's like having a photo of the president of Merrill Lynch in an article about the Occupy movement. Coretheapple (talk) 17:35, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the only person who objected is now blocked for a while, so I don't think you'll get much pushback. The Monsanto section is quite small and provides necessary background for readers, I don't think it pushes a POV in either direction. Can you explain why you disagree? Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:37, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary at all. As I mentioned in the previous section, there seems to be a tendency to view this as an article about the GMO controversy rather than one about the movement. Note the examples I cited in the previous section. I'd rather we discuss it there and not here, if you don't mind. Coretheapple (talk) 17:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm loathe to rerun a largely dormant debate, but the article has to address some of the fringe viewpoints per policy. A paragraph on who Monsanto is and what Monsanto does is appropriate about an article protesting Monsanto. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:43, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

A fourth option is to remove the image, Canoe. I don't know why you're insisting on a poorly-formatted article at this point. This cannot be acceptable (leads to image of current page) Thargor Orlando (talk)

There are basically three choices if images don't fit. Whitespace, add more text, or create a gallery. Forcing image sizes is not recommended.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:52, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

A fifth option is also to move images around, a sixth to force the image size as it's "good reason to do so" when it's breaking browser formatting. If we see further issues with it that can be shown, we can make further adjustments. This is an incredibly stupid thing to be fighting over. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:52, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't see all that white space when I view the page. Also I am opposed to removing any image other than the Monsanto CEO. The other images show the demonstrations and removing them would exacerbates the imbalance issue. Coretheapple (talk) 17:39, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Then we should just go back to what Tryptofish did. I'm just going to do it, I think massive whitespace on a screen is "good reason to do so," to use Canoe's logic. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:42, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we need to remove any. Just create a gallery at the bottom of the march section. The Utah one with the organizer should also be the lead image.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:46, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The most recent image change has now created really bizarre indentation issues. Can someone please explain what was wrong with the initial Tryptofish fix that didn't impact anyone else's screens? Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:21, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll just repeat that I don't care. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the image issues. Is it a browser thing? Coretheapple (talk) 20:30, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand either, but I'm guessing it has to do with the dimensions of people's viewing devices. A lot of white space on some monitors, no such white space on others. By the way, I like the cropped image that Canoe provided. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Many Misplaced Pages articles do not look right on tablets. We can't necessarily adjust every article to fit some kind of common denominator. Doing so may result in alteration of the layout so as to over- or under-emphasize certain images. If an article is OK in Internet Explorer and Firefox, that is sufficient. Coretheapple (talk) 20:45, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Why has the lead photo been removed and replaced by a somewhat chubby, confused-looking woman with no signs or marchers to be seen? Gandydancer (talk) 21:50, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

This is true. I hadn't noticed that. We should switch the position of the photos. Coretheapple (talk) 22:17, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. When she has her own article we can use that photo--this one is about the march. Gandydancer (talk) 22:19, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

She is the founder and it is an image of her on the march. Thus the best image for the lead.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I guess so. It makes sense to have the photo of Canal in the Cal 37 section, where we quote her the most. (And please, no more comments about what she looks like.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

That's where I put it, in that section, as that is where she is discussed. The lead photo is of the actual protest. Coretheapple (talk) 22:24, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Canoe, I think it's a big mistake to put a picture of this woman as the lead photo. While she originated it, the article is about the movement, not her. We should use this picture, but where she is mentioned. Coretheapple (talk) 22:28, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

If it wasn't for her the march would not have happened. That is the most appropriate image for the lead in this case. She is first mentioned in the lead.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:30, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the others, it belongs in her section. The image of her is not a good representation of the March. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:33, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

It looks really strange, and is undue emphasis. The other lead photo, of the protest, is a bit too small but I can't seem to make it bigger. Coretheapple (talk) 22:34, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I made it a little bigger though not quite so large as it was previously... Gandydancer (talk) 23:29, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Marchers--200,000 or 2 million?

Other than the one source listed, do we have a lot of RS that reports the smaller number? The way it is written, On May 25, 2013, an estimated 200,000 to 2 million (according to the organizers) makes it sound like the organizers are either telling porkies or are off somewhere in dreamland. I am aware of the blog post that said that 2 million was not possible and I am aware that several editors here believe the same, but as often happens here, we do need to go with sources. I believe that unless we have good RS that says otherwise, it would be best to just say "2 million according to the organizers".Gandydancer (talk) 23:24, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The sources give that range, so it seems logical to do the same. Thargor Orlando (talk) 23:38, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, I agree if the sources actually do say that, however our article says only " CTV News reported the total number of participants to be 200,000; while the New York Times reported "hundreds of thousands" of protesters.

I am not sure why you cannot pull up the NYT article, the link is still active and I just clicked on it and the article came up. You also mentioned that you are aware of the blog post, which if it is the one from the Washington Wire is a reliable source. It also explains the AP changing its claim throughout the different revisions. If we are just quoting the Marchers even if we say that is what the marchers are claiming we are not being accurate to what the true numbers probably are, which is much lower than 2 million. We could also create a "not a list" of the of locations which have Reliably Sourced information on the number of marchers. I have a list of 50 such locations, with an addition 25 or so that are self reported from the marches at the specific locations. VViking_TalkEdits 00:55, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that there are a range of estimates, as that always seems to happens with demonstrations and crowds. We should report the entire range of numbers. Coretheapple (talk) 18:16, 25 August 2013 (UTC)