Talk:Timeline of the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests (January–June 2012)

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Quality concern[edit]

I believe that this are article is to biased and radical, it seams that its strongly motivated by sectarian feelings and serving only an Iranian agenda to control the oil filed of Saudi Arabia and alginate the free world — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.49.43.42 (talk) 04:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You would be most welcome to help make the article have a more Neutral Point of View, in the Wikipedia sense, by adding sources which give different claims regarding the events that occurred. Preferably, most sources should be in the English language. It is acceptable that they be Saudi Arabian sources, e.g. Arab News. In terms of "bias", it is unlikely that we can find any sources that are unbiased: what would be more realistic would be to find sources that have a range of different biases: some will be radical, some will be conservative, some may be seen as pro-Iranian, some as anti-Iranian, some as pro-KSA, some as anti-KSA.

For example, if you can find sources (preferably in English) claiming that the events happened in different ways to what is presently in the article, or that other protest events happened that were critical of Iran, or that the protests were consciously non-sectarian, then please add them to the article, including the references as inline references (see the present source of the article for examples, you can copy/paste and correct the parameters).

As you'll find explained on the page WP:NPOV, you'll see that by having the different points of view on what/when/where/how the events happened included together in an article, the result is encyclopedic. We would hope that encyclopedic presentation of information gets somewhere close to the Truth, but when different points of view exist about what/when/where/how events happened, any "decision" on who is speaking the closest to the truth has to be made by the reader. An encyclopedia can only list and summarise the main claims.

So if you can help, then please do so. Boud (talk) 22:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We don't everytime use Press TV as the reference, because they also have bias about the coverage in Syria. However I must this is all about Saudi Arabian protests itself, so Saudi news like Al-Arabiyah (except the Al Jazeera) cannot be relied. How NPOV we should get is usually we get the opponents news, but then we surely should be careful. 60.49.60.158 (talk) 14:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that what 60.49.60.158 is saying (more or less), is that it would be preferable to use Press TV a lot less often, but that Press TV is more likely to give factual type information (what/when/where) about protests in KSA than al-Arabiyah - in the same way that al-Arabiyah is more likely to give factual information about protests in Iran than Press TV. So we don't have much choice. I more or less agree with this.

But I also understand 188.49.43.42's concern, in the sense that whenever Arab News or other English-language Saudi or Gulf region online newspapers present the Saudi government POV on what happened or Saudi religious authorities' POV on what happened, that would be useful to add to this article. There have been some statements by police saying nothing about protests, but saying that police were shot at by gunmen and responded, killing some of the gunmen. These are included in the article. Anyone with internet access is welcome to add statements that are missing, as long as they are properly referenced, and provided that the "anyone" makes a reasonable effort to follow Wikipedia guidelines.

Press TV, Arab News, BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, CNN, Thomson Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France Presse, etc. all have biases that tend to be obvious unless you are a citizen of the country in which the newspaper or agency is based. Propaganda model refers to a qualitative model whose predictions about statistical "filters" in the US media have been tested quantitatively and found to successfully predict the test results. Censorship in Saudi Arabia and Censorship in Iran give some idea of biases or filters that are known in KSA and Iran. Putting together the different POVs on what/when/where happened from different sources gives NPOV. Boud (talk) 22:23, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]