Misplaced Pages talk:Neutral point of view

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WT:NPOV

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UNDUE

At least once a day and usually more often, I see UNDUE cited by editors to justify removing material they simply don't like. Because they don't like it (or, often, because they've never heard of it), it jumps out at them as UNDUE, but that's simply a result of their own POV or lack of knowledge. I'm not sure what we can do about this, but it's so prevalent, and such a misuse of this policy, that it's worth raising to see whether we can tweak the wording to reduce the chances of it being abused in this way. SlimVirgin 01:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I don't want to turn this into a rehash of any specific content dispute, but would it be possible to give 1 or 2 examples of the problem you're seeing? It might be useful in terms of deciding what, if any, policy changes would address the issue. MastCell 17:38, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with SlimVirgin. This is not using policies in the spirit of how they were meant or perhaps someone is under the impression that their view is more in the majority than it actually is (systematic bias). Quoting from the text (emphasis added):

The "support" in this case is generally tribes and communities secluded from the rest of the world. In this case it is simply a fact for them and to be quite frank they really don't care as it makes no impact on their lives one way or another. I think we can agree that everybody who reads it is educated enough not to hold a different view so there's not any real problem there. Anybody who continually tries to "push" a view that the earth is not flat would just antagonise me as that is NOT the information I am looking for in an article on the flat earth.

But then we get to the more contentious articles. I think the "allowed" should be changed to "should" first of all. Then the second paragraph I quoted is ambiguous and contradictory. It's simply not possible to properly deal with an article if someone feels they have to continually state that it is the minority view. More than that it's quite easy, as I already said, for someone to thik their view is more prevalant than it actually is.

Then there's the problem of how to deal with articles of a scientific nature. Some think that only the scientific opinion is valid, I disagree. Some issues are as much in the public realm as they are in the scientific and if the public opinion varies much from the scientific one an article should state so or it can't be claimed as expressing a neutral view. More than that is the issue of what happens if the public lose faith completely in the scientists. Should everybody continue to insist that the scientific view is the only relevant one? That's not neutral, it's bias. Unfortunately the nature of wikipedia makes it unable to be unbiased. The US is NOT the world and consequently the opinion of the US scientists or groups of scientists for that matter is not the only opinion that exists. If scientists start setting up conditions to exclude other scientists and only include themselves somebody has to play the referee and the only one that makes sense is public opinion. Biofase | stalk 19:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The section n Pseudoscience has been part of policy since the day this became policy. It was spun off to a sub-policy for a while, but recently remerged as part of a reworking of the sub-policy. Much of it is still identical to then. So, yes, science is privileged; otherwise, we would not be writing anything that could reasonably be called an encyclopedia. Britannica does not present evolution as a lie by Satan, and neither do we. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:29, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Peh. Translated from User:SlimVirgin-speak to normal language: She's upset that her ideas of what undue weight means contradict with the vast majority of other editors, including the Arbitration Committee's rulings on pseudoscience and the paranormal, so she sticks her fingers in her ears and claims nobody but her understands what undue weights means, and the problem couldn't possibly be her so she wants to change policy to reflect her rather skewed ideas. See, for instance, her complaints over on Talk:Ian Stevenson where she claimed that the term "pseudoscience" is "meaningless" and that only "ignorant" people use it... despite the fact that plenty of reliable sources use it and ArbCom specifically stated outright that the term is appropriate when cited. Nothing to see here except an editor grasping at straws to try to push her already soundly rejected views onto the project. DreamGuy (talk) 00:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

This is not an inappropriate venue for criticising or attacking another edtior, Dreamguy; I highly recommend you redact your comments and stick to the editorial content and provisions of the policy this talk page is related to. Dreadstar † 02:00, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Nah, attacking people seems to be the norm around here and AGF is only pushed onto the noobs so "established" editers can continue pushing their warped views without criticism. Absolutely no good faith was shown to me when I started so I'm no longer assuming, if someone wants it they have to prove to me that they deserve it. And if someone attacks me I will attack back, afterall in every normal place I have been before it's the instigator that's wrong and not the people simply defending themselves. I suggest wikipedia falls in with the rest of reality. Biofase | stalk 15:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

With respect, this is a project page and it therefore seems inappropriate to name and criticize specific editors in such a fashion. If you feel you have a valid complaint about another contributor there are several more appropriate venues to discuss it. Please do consider redacting the personal portion of those comments so that discussion can more productively focus on the topic at hand. Thanks, Doc Tropics 15:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Never said this was appropriate. My comment is meant more as a criticism against the way things are usually done. I would like for DreamGuy to rather substantiate his ideas than to throw around wild unsubstantiated accusations. Simply removing stuff will not solve anything and only protects the people that made the comments. There's the old adage you can't unring a bell. SlimVirgin raised a valid issue I think and I don't see anyone besides me really trying to address it. Shoemaker's Holiday similarly discussed another tangent rather than the real issue. But while he brought it up I see no reason not to comment on it as a perfect example: No Britannica does not "present evolution as a lie by Satan" but I haven't seen anybody here suggesting we should. What I do see is that real and professional encyclopedias like Britannica and Encarta don't have a need to call creationism pseudoscience but here it is labeled as such in the second paragraph. Can anybody else see the simple fact that while wikipedia claims to be an encyclopedia "its" policies do not reflect those of a real one? Biofase | stalk 16:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Btw. this is called neutral point of view and not neutral scientific point of view. ONLY a policy that is itself non-neutral would demand scientific "consensus" to be the deciding factor while public opinion that is much more widespread is thrown to the wayside or not mentioned at all. Biofase | stalk 16:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems quite proper that science articles (and all related science-type topics) are governed by mainstream scientific consensus because quite frankly, only the opinions of scientists count on these matters; other people may have opinions, but they are not informed opinions. If Creationism supporters refered to the topic strictly as a religous belief, there would be no need to label it psuedoscience. Only because the supporters insist on claiming it is scientific does it become necessary to clarify the subject as psuedoscience. This is entirely proper because Creationism is not only unsupported by evidence, it fails to define itself in terms that admit the possibility of scientific treatment. Possibly Creationism isn't the best example of Undue Weight issues, because I'll willing agree that I have seen the problem SV describes in other areas. Doc Tropics 17:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Copyediting

Hi folx, I've done a bit of copyediting and clean-up to the top of the 'Explanation of...' section. I've divided my edits into groups to make it easier to digest (or revert) them. For the most part, I've tried hard not to change the underlying meaning of any sentence or paragraph, but in a few cases I felt the meaning was pretty unclear, so to write more clearly required me to extend the ideas a bit. I hope my changes will be well received by the many who are sure to audit them. :)

The most significant change I made was to modify the definition from "conflicting perspectives ... should be presented fairly" into "must be presented fairly". I think that's only fair. I replaced one or two (but not nearly all) other 'shoulds' with 'musts'. Also, I clarified (extended?) the concept of undue weight by explicitly pointing out that perjorative mentions imply a preference, and reinserted mention of the idea that NPOV does not mean "NO Point of View".

In any case, I think this article is becoming a rather difficult read after many years of tweaking. I think it needs quite a bit more copyediting, but I'm not so confident in my editing that I want to spend 4 or 5 more hours before I've "tested the waters", as it were. But if nobody vociferously disclaims my work so far, I plan (hope) to come back in a day or two and go over the entire article with an eye on simplifying sentence structure and generally making this article easier to read (as I feel policy pages, in particular, should be as clear and simple as possible (but not simpler, of course!)). I look forward to feedback. Eaglizard (talk) 08:56, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I have not looked in detail at the wording of this section for a long time, and I agree that it is very repetitive and could do with pruning. For example one specific thing I noticed when looking at your differences. "The neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor opposes its subject: it does not endorse or discourage specific viewpoints. " Better writing would couple "endorse and oppose" and "sympathizes and discourage" together. --PBS (talk) 09:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

PBS, I took a stab at it. I hope I understood you correctly. If not, just revert it. Brangifer (talk) 14:05, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Not really "endorse/oppose" "~~sympathizes~~encourage/discourage" are opposites. The initial wording mixed the two and the current version is not much clearer. --PBS (talk) 16:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, I think. Eaglizard (talk) 18:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:NPOV#Achieving neutrality

Ok, I'm proceeding with more copyedits and such, and the section on article naming has me a bit baffled. In particular, almost the entire second paragraph seems obscure. I've detailed my questions here,

"This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue."

My first thought was that this sentence really needs an example or two, but I honestly couldn't think of any good ones. Suggestions?

"A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. "

What does that mean? How does a neutral title 'contextualize' the topic? Also, WP:NC seems to say that titles should reflect the most common usage and be "optimized for readers", so doesn't that trump the need for neutrality, at least sometimes?

"The article might cover the same material but with less emotive words, or might cover broader material which helps ensure a neutral view (for example, renaming "Criticisms of drugs" to "Societal views on drugs")."

Baffling. Might cover what same material? Isn't covering broader material and renaming articles as suggested precisely what WP:SYN tells us not to do?

"Neutral titles encourage multiple viewpoints and responsible article writing."

They do? In way, exactly?

If anyone can help clarify what's being said here, maybe it can be edited into something better.

I've also copyedited the sections on Article structure and Undue weight; please check my work there to make sure you agree with it. :) Eaglizard (talk) 19:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

How do we flag an article to dispute its neutrality?

I have moved my question about a specific article to the Noticeboard. But I would still like to know where those notices come from, such as "the neutrality of this article has been disputed" or "this article does not cite any sources". MelanieN (talk) 18:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)MelanieN

For articles, you add {{POV}} to the top of the article. But you also need to go to the article talk page and describe how you think the article is biased. A tag without discussion helps no one and will usually get removed. FYI: here is the general link to article templates, and here is the link to POV templates. Hope that helps... Auntie E (talk) 18:46, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt reply, very helpful! --MelanieN (talk) 00:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)MelanieN

Mental reservation

It seems that one of the most common criticisms of the NPOV policy is that it gives editors the feeling that they are under a kind of forced mental reservation, which is a Jesuit doctrine that is meant to create doctrinal orthodoxy. Maintaining a feeling of prolonged mental reservation can actually be bad for your health, and I think this is one of the reasons that so many conflicts have erupted on Misplaced Pages. ADM (talk) 05:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

A bold proposal

In an attempt to turn a divisive RfC into something productive I have created a new page. I believe people who watch this page have valuable perspectives and I hope you will look at this new page, and do what you can to help make it work: Misplaced Pages: Areas for Reform Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Scientific consenus

My edit was reverted. I request that someone put the words "of scientists" back in. The Scientific consensus article linked in that sentences states, "Scientific consensus is the collective judgement, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study." A section I added that sought to explain how scientific consensus is related to the mainstream view of society was also reverted.. --Atomic blunder (talk) 16:36, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Not all mainstream views of society are influenced or related to scientific consensus, a point which I still have to get across in another thread. If it is to be readded in should be expanded to also make this clear and I will support such an attempt. On your first point I agree though that scientific consensus is the majority view of scientists (and ONLY scientists) towards a topic. Biofase | stalk 17:05, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The best anchor for additions to any article is reliable sources. Any good faith editor will think twice before deleting content that has a strong reference. Doc Tropics 18:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I gave a reference: Scientific consensus. --Atomic blunder (talk) 18:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I think he was referring to content to articles in general. Unfortunately that still does not address the problem itself. Biofase | stalk 20:29, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

A Minor Problem

I recently noticed an interesting comment on a webcomic called xkcd. It postulated that there could be some events that Misplaced Pages could not cover neutrally, and gives an example. I think that there may need to be a provision for the possibility that a Misplaced Pages article may affect the very subject that it describes. While the given example is admittedly unlikely, the premise itself remains valid. Bennoman (talk) 18:21, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Request to have WP:UNDUE updated to reflect proper etiquette concerns

I wonder if those who run Misplaced Pages might consider updating WP:UNDUE to indicate that, although giving undue weight to the claims of actual Holocaust deniers is, of course, a good example of what this policy is trying to prevent, it nevertheless is bad Misplaced Pages etiquette to imply that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial or engaging in anything akin to Holocaust denial. What I'm concerned about is that some editors invoke this in order to put a chill on debate on the Talk pages, e.g., "No one believes that but you, you're just like a Holocaust denier." A Holocaust denier is someone who wants to spread the manifest falsehood that millions of people were murdered. The average person whose edits manifest a potential issue over WP:UNDUE are people who have merely not sufficiently demonstrated that a substantial minority of people agree with some specific statement. I'm okay with the principle of WP:UNDUE, it's the tenor of the discussion that I have a problem with. We shouldn't be here to belittle people's edits, but to tell them what will fly and what won't. In the specific case I've confronted (on the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis page) I've found that some elements first criticized as WP:UNDUE turned out not to be as reliable sources began to report on those elements in more detail. In other words, the "Holocaust deniers" turned out to be people trying to report a dimension of the crisis but simply not having enough evidence yet to make their point. It was legitimate of people to make edits citing WP:UNDUE until those sources emerged. It was not legitimate of those people to compare their adversaries in an editing dispute to the Nazis. Is there something that can be added to this policy to make it clear that name-calling and guilt by association are not okay according to WP:UNDUE? Zachary Klaas (talk) 18:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually this is already covered by WP:Civility. Somehow some people still get away with this form of attack causing numerous good editors to be driven away so only the uncivil POV pushing cabals remain. Ironinally the best way to deal with this is to ignore WP:Civility and call a spade a spade like it's done in the real world. Fortunately wp is losing it's grip and credibility more and more in the real world. Many of us no longer accept any reference to it in debates so the cabals have essentially only succeeded in driving people away from their articles. Biofase | stalk 20:26, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, and I agree it is covered elsewhere. What I'm saying is that I think the suggestion to be more civil should also be right in the text of WP:UNDUE, because this is the policy people are citing as they blast people with guilt-by-association innuendo. Zachary Klaas (talk) 21:39, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually I have seen people fly right past one paragraph and refer only to the next. Your intention is good but if you are hoping that duplicating some of the information here will work I can tell you now it simply won't. The problem editors know very well that they should not be doing what they are doing, unless they are new which happens very rarely. This is more the unwillingness of the people in charge being too soft to do anything about it than the ingorance of the editors. Biofase | stalk 22:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

From what I've seen, I don't doubt it...but it would help me to be able to say "Your invoking of the Holocaust in this completely unrelated context is defamatory, and look, it says right there in WP:UNDUE, the very policy you're citing that using the policy to invoke guilt-by-association is not allowed. Zachary Klaas (talk) 22:37, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Less emotionally-charged example

While I think that ZK is misreading the policy, I do agree that it would be better to use a less emotionally-charge example to illustrate the principle. Thus I changed the statement from denying that the Holocaust occurred to denying that the Apollo moon landings never occurred. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

That is completely separate from this. ZK is also talking about another policy and not misreading this one. Biofase | stalk 01:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I find it hard to figure out just what he's talking about. But the point remains that mentioning Holocaust denial tends to bring emotional reactions, so it would be better to use a more mundane example. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Biofase | stalk 02:29, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

My concern is that WP:UNDUE doesn't contain within it an express warning not to condemn other editors to guilt-by-association. My point was that calling someone a "Holocaust denier" when the debate concerning content on a particular page has nothing to do with the Holocaust. I would have the same problem if someone were called a "moon landing denier" when discussing content on a page having nothing to do with the moon landing or even space travel in general. The point of that kind of language is to stigmatize the editor and conduct argumentum ad hominem, not merely correct a page so that it doesn't give undue weight to theories supported only by a tiny minority. If this is said in other policies, fine, but I see editors using WP:UNDUE as something which sanctifies their incivility.

In the particular case of the page 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, upon which I've been working, I've seen WP:UNDUE brought up reasonably, with positive effects on the page, when people were not able to demonstrate that opinions are held by a more sizeable minority. However, when people have been able to find sources backing up their claims, they receive no apologies for being unjustly labeled Holocaust deniers. I'd like a policy that allows people to make the proper WP:UNDUE criticisms while reining in the bullies. Zachary Klaas (talk) 04:31, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that the Apollo moon landing hoax is a good choice: I added the example (as part of a minor attempt to clarify the wording), and merely wanted to choose something almost everyone could agree was clearly an extreme minority view and wrong. But if it's giving the impression of an accusation of anti-semitism when the policy is linked to, it's not serving its purpose very well, and a different clearly-wrong minority claim - without the emotional baggage - will be better. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Zachary, do you have any diffs that establish that someone is "calling someone a 'Holocaust denier,'" or of "people ... being unjustly labeled Holocaust deniers"? I'd hate to think you're writing something that's clearly untrue.

Please, show us a diff where an edit has "impl that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial".

Please provide the diff for this direct quote: "No one believes that but you, you're just like a Holocaust denier."

Please provide the diff that shows how "those people," "compare their adversaries in an editing dispute to the Nazis."

What y'all are not being told, is that there was a military coup in Honduras. Members of the coup-spawned government denied that it was a coup. Most Interested Persons have been fighting for the elimination of the word "coup" everywhere it appears in Misplaced Pages, even though all the reliable sources -- that I have seen (WP, the Times in Britain, AP, Reuters) -- have been regularly, simply referring to the coup as a "coup", knowing that the de facto government denies it was one.

The Most Interested Persons fought for changing the name, and a single admin changed it, and it was whitewashed.

I -- as one of "the bullies" -- have argued that there are more people that deny the Holocaust, than that deny the coup, but we have an article called, The Holocaust. Zachary Klaas was on the other side of that "extremely small minority" argument.

I've not been "bullying", by making this argument -- and there's nothing "defamatory" about it. There has never been any "accusation of anti-semitism." You're being conned. Klaas has written about what he thinks I think, or why I've posted things, and his mind reading has been inaccurate, both times.

Helping Zachary Klaas censor people's valid arguments is an extremely poor reason to change a 5P. Klaas admits, here, that this is his reason for wanting NPOV policy changed: "it would help to be able to say 'Your invoking of the Holocaust in this completely unrelated context is defamatory, and look, it says right there in WP:UNDUE, the very policy you're citing that using the policy to invoke guilt-by-association is not allowed.' " -- Rico 18:31, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

The only place here you are mentioned is in your comment itself. He did not campaign to "change policy" as you put it. By him own admission he knows it is already a policy so nothing would change in effect. Biofase | stalk 18:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: "He did not campaign to 'change policy' ".

He wrote, "updating WP:UNDUE to indicate that, although giving undue weight to the claims of actual Holocaust deniers is, of course, a good example of what this policy is trying to prevent, it nevertheless is bad Misplaced Pages etiquette to imply that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial or engaging in anything akin to Holocaust denial." -- Rico 18:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

It's awkward wording, but I think he just meant that people were interpreting being linked to that as saying they were, or were as bad as, Holocaust deniers. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:45, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

That may be -- I don't buy it -- but it does request a change to a 5P policy.

I haven't seen anyone "imply that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial" but I'm satisfied to wait for the diffs.

And -- to be more truthful -- the claim was "extremely small minority," not just "WP:UNDUE". -- Rico 18:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I personally don't have an issue with changing the Holocaust denier text to the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax text. However, in principle, I agree with Rico that we should try to establish a community consensus before changing one of the 5P policies. No big whoop. Somebody start an RfC (or whatever) and let's get this ball rolling. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ 19:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

It's already policy so there's no net change in policy. And please try to make less edits and use the preview button, it's hard being bombarded by edit conflict alerts. Biofase | stalk 19:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the consensus for both of the changes, and I think controversial changes to a 5P should be discussed here first -- especially in the case of a con job. (Have the diffs been provided?) -- Rico 19:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Diffs requested (from the Honduran coup debates)

Someone "calling someone a 'Holocaust denier'"
Showing "people ... being unjustly labeled Holocaust deniers"?
Where an edit has "impl that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial".
This direct quote: "No one believes that but you, you're just like a Holocaust denier."
One that shows how "those people," "compare their adversaries in an editing dispute to the Nazis."

This -- and "it would help to be able to say 'Your invoking of the Holocaust in this completely unrelated context is defamatory, and look, it says right there in WP:UNDUE, the very policy you're citing that using the policy to invoke guilt-by-association is not allowed' " -- were the reasons cited for the need for this 5P change. -- Rico 19:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Trying to change NPOV, because "it would help to be able to say 'Your invoking of the Holocaust in this completely unrelated context is defamatory, and look, it says right there in WP:UNDUE, the very policy you're citing that using the policy to invoke guilt-by-association is not allowed.' "

I don't agree with this, and I think it needs to be discussed by more than just a very few editors.
I think it's unbelieveable that someone would come here to try to stop me from arguing that only an extremely small minority denies the Holocaust, and we have an article named, "The Holocaust" -- so we can name the coup a "coup", even if there exists an extremely small minority that deny it was a coup. -- Rico 19:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)