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FAQ as Policy

Consensus from the above discussions appear to show that a FAQ, including this one, should not be Misplaced Pages Policy. Consensus also seems to be that since this FAQ was considered Policy for so long and that it contained material considered Policy, that this FAQ should remain policy until all the Policy content was moved to WP:NPOV or other Policy pages. Most, if not all of this content has been moved, and what remains does not appear to be Policy material. But, in order to alleviate any concerns that material from this FAQ might still be Policy, I propose that while we downgrade this FAQ from being Policy, we also keep the door open to moving any content from the current version to Policy without dispute. Any new content added to this FAQ should not be considered Policy, but instead any new Policy material should be placed on another, more appropriate WP Policy page. Any objections? Dreadstar † 20:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Alrighty, this proposal has been up for ten days without any further objections. In keeping with the above consensus, and since this proposal covers any future requests to move material from the current version to another, appropriate Policy page without dispute, then I think it's very safe to 'downgrade' this from Policy to juat a FAQ. I'll go ahead and do that shortly if there are no further objections. Thanks! Dreadstar † 03:06, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Um, no. This was always policy ever since it was spun off from the NPOV article since 2006. And read the archived discussion in 2006 at Talk:NPOV on the spin off; it was only allowed to be spun off on the condition that it remain policy or else it was to be folded back in. Odd nature (talk) 15:45, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The history of the spin-out of this FAQ from NPOV Policy was discussed at WP:NPOV/FAQ#Why is this FAQ a policy?, and followed up by a discussion at WP:NPOV/FAQ:Is a FAQ a Policy, which led to discussions on what to move to the actual NPOV Policy page Material to be transferred to a Policy page, and finalized by moving the Policy material from the FAQ to the actual Policy page, FAQ as Policy. Dreadstar ☥ 16:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Hang on a sec - are you saying there should not be a FAQ for this policy? I'm unclear on what the reasoning is. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 16:12, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I was part of the original discussion to spin this off and party to the original compromise. And that compromise called for the content spun out of the NPOV policy to the FAQ to remain policy or to be rolled back into NPOV. This stood since 2006 and Dreadstar's unitlateral demotion of this page. Dreadstar, if you want to make such sweeping changes to part of the project's core policy, you're going to need the broad consensus of the community. Until you have that, please stop acting unilaterally to degrade this policy. FeloniousMonk (talk) 16:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I did not 'unilaterally' do anything, as I've indicated above and in my edit summaries, there were discussions that led to consensus that a FAQ shouldn't be a Policy and that the Policy material be moved to an actual Policy page instead of remaining on a FAQ page. Please do not mischaracterize my actions. Dreadstar ☥ 16:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

It *was* on a policy page - the same NPOV page there is a heated discussion going on right now about the gutting of. Not seeing that because someone has removed content from the policy page without consensus, that suddenly the FAQ, which no longer reflects the policy due precisely to that gutting, should *also* be removed. IOW, you didn't move the FAQ contents back to the policy page; you're just talking about removing the FAQ. Or did I miss something here? KillerChihuahuaAdvice 16:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, with consensus a year ago, material deemed as Policy was moved from this FAQ to the NPOV policy page,

• FAQ Religion section moved to NPOV Religion section,
• FAQ Giving 'equal validity' section moved to NPOV Giving 'equal validity' section
• FAQ Making necessary assumptions section moved to NPOV Making necessary assumptions section
• FAQ Pseudoscience section moved to NPOV Pseudoscience section

After the Policy material was moved, then the FAQ was 'downgraded' from a Policy to a FAQ, . (If I missed any content of concern, please let me know.) Any 'suddenness' was in restoring the FAQ's policy status and older material from a year ago just because the NPOV policy page is under dispute. One of the main purposes of putting policy on a Policy page is as I described it previously:

"One of the problems with a FAQ being a policy is exactly why this page appears to be "longstanding policy," as Nathan points out below: "Inevitably a FAQ is going to draw less attention and scrutiny than the main policy, which has an impact on the level of consensus a FAQ can enjoy". We do not want pages with "less attention and scrutiny" to be Policy. If the material in this FAQ is policy, then you should have no trouble moving it into a highly trafficked Policy page like WP:NPOV. If NPOV policy is too long, then it's certainly inappropriate to move actual Policy off onto a FAQ. "Longstanding" is never an excuse for inappropriateness."

Dreadstar ☥ 17:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Dreadstar's assessment of the 2009 discussion. The present issue appears to have arisen when two of the key provisions that were moved by consensus back to the policy page last year, WP:GEVAL, WP:MNA (plus "Fringe theories and pseudoscience") were removed from the policy page about a week ago. Though, they've since been replaced, with no present consensus to again remove these from the WP:NPOV page. So long as these important provisions remain part of the policy, consistent with last year's carefully arrived-at consensus on this page, and also in the absence of a broad community consensus to remove them from the NPOV page, there's simply no need for this page to regain its earlier policy status. And lacking a new consensus for this page to regain policy status, the carefully worked-out consensus of roughly a year ago still controls the status of this page. I hope Odd nature and FeloniousMonk find this is a satisfactory explanation. ... Kenosis (talk) 22:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Ok, that makes sense. Thanks much for the detailed explanation, Dreadstar. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 03:24, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Wording of "Anglo-american bias"

"The Anglo-American focus is in part a reflection of there being so many U.S. and European Anglophone people working on the project, which in turn is a reflection of the fact that so many of them have access to the Internet."

I don't think latter part is a good formulation. It seems to imply that English-speaking people have a better access to the Internet than others. But this is not true: according to statistics, French- and German-speakers have an equally good access to the Internet. The wording should be changed to something like which in turn is a reflection of the fact that so many English-speakers like to edit the English Misplaced Pages. Offliner (talk) 13:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

WikiLaurent has removed it; good call. KillerChihuahuaAdvice 03:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

No such thing as objectivity

For the thinking behind this change, please see WT:NPOV#Fundamental problem: "neutral".--Kotniski (talk) 07:20, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The edit was not more objective. You added your own personal opinion to the page. QuackGuru (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I restored the well written text. Personal opinions of NPOV should not be part of FAQ. QuackGuru (talk) 16:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have restored another personal opinion. I don't know what "well-written text" you are referring to, but when you find it, perhaps we can try. Meanwhile let's remove the point altogether for now; it's not necessary and it's embarrassing to have that text on a major FAQ.--Kotniski (talk) 18:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I restored to the version that before you added your personal opinion to the FAQ page. It smacks WP:POINT your deletion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It's your repeated reverts of anything I do that are becoming POINTy. Maybe it was my personal opinion, but no-one's yet argued against it despite being linked to the discussion, so apparently no-one disagrees. And the text you restored was even worse than someone's opinion; it was someone's personal disingenuous, patronizing nonsense. We don't particularly need either, but we certainly shouldn't have that text that you put back.--Kotniski (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

No, it smacks WP:POINT your deletion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've explained my thinking at the thread I linked to above. Please respond to it if you have some objection. If you don't see why the text you restored was hideously bad, I'll explain it when I come back tomorrow. Meanwhile goodnight.--Kotniski (talk) 18:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You've made it clear you don't like the current NPOV policy or this FAQ page without any logical explantion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

All right, here's the section in dispute:

• Everybody with any philosophical sophistication knows that. So how can we take the "neutrality" policy seriously? Neutrality, lack of bias, isn't possible.

• This is probably the most common objection to the neutrality policy. It also reflects the most common misunderstanding of the policy. The misunderstanding is that the policy would have said something about the possibility of objectivity. It simply does not. In particular, the policy does not say that there even is such a thing as objectivity in a philosophical sense, a "view from nowhere" (in Thomas Nagel's phrase)—such that articles written from that point of view are consequently objectively true. That is not the policy and it is not our aim! Rather, we employ a different understanding of "neutral" and "unbiased" than many might be used to. The policy is simply that we should characterize disputes rather than engage in them. To say this is not to say anything contentious, from a philosophical point of view; indeed, this is something that philosophers are doing all the time. Sophisticated relativists will immediately recognize that the policy is perfectly consistent with their relativism.

• If there is anything possibly contentious about the policy along these lines, it is the implication that it is possible to characterize disputes fairly, so that all the major participants will be able to look at the resulting text, agreeing that their views are presented sympathetically and as completely as possible (within the context of the discussion). It is an empirical question, not a philosophical one, whether this is possible; and that such a thing is indeed possible is evident simply by observing that such texts are written daily by the most capable academics, encyclopedists, textbook writers, and others. Neutrality does not compel us to introduce inaccuracy when something can be directly verified. Neutrality dictates that there can be multiple prominent interpretations to the meaning or validity of a work, but often the contents can be objectively verified, especially in the case of modern documents.

Surely we can see that what this "answer" is doing is simply playing with words (ha, we don't call the view from nowhere "objective", we call it "neutral" or "unbiased", which apparently means the impossible suddenly becomes possible just through a simple name change), and denigrating objectors (the reason you don't accept this policy is that you're not clever enough to understand it - the first line of defence for any dodgy theological dogma; then the tone of the start of the second paragraph continues to patronize). This "answer" to a perfectly reasonable objection says nothing of value, and I hope it won't be restored again until someone rewrites in a saatisfactory manner.--Kotniski (talk) 11:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The text is telling the editor to think and strive to edit from an objective view. You can't force editors to rewrite it. I didn't see any text that was better than what was in FAQ. If no specific proposal is better than what was in FAQ it should stay in the page. You can ask the village pump or start a RFC to get different opinions. Please don't mass delete text again. See Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines#Content changes. QuackGuru (talk) 18:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

You don't seem to have any arguments - I don't udnerstand why you're restoring this text if you can't defend it from the criticism I've presented. This isn't a policy or guideline, and we don't need an answer to this objection if we have no answer. If you think the text is telling the editor to "think and try to edit from an objecgtive view", then let's say that. PLEASE don't restore the philosophically dishonest text again unless you can defend it.--Kotniski (talk) 03:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be best to explain both schools of thought. QuackGuru (talk) 05:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I trimmed the most disputed part of the text. QuackGuru (talk) 05:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Improper addition to the FAQ

QuackGuru recently added this to the FAQ

Requiring an inline qualifier for widespread consensus of reliable sources on the grounds that it is "opinion" would allow a contrarian reader to insist on an inline qualifier for material about which there is no serious dispute, using the argument that the material is an "opinion". This would mean, in the end, that all material in Misplaced Pages would require an inline qualifier, even if only one Misplaced Pages editor insisted on it, which is not the goal of ASF. Presenting a "fact" as an "opinion" is needlessly attributing uncontroversial statements, and so creating the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none.

There is no consensus for this addition, and QuackGuru knows this, as this has been disputed many times, with many editors. There is no reasonable situation where "all material in Misplaced Pages would require an inline qualifier". When this bold edit was reverted, QuackGuru editwarred it back in again, something he has been blocked for in the past. QuackGuru, please realize that you have reverted to your tendentious editing style. DigitalC (talk) 03:02, 16 May 2010 (UTC)