Wikipedia talk:Civil POV pushing

What's all this talk about PCCTL?

Da Costa's syndrome

This is, in the grand scheme of things, a minor case, but it may illustrate some of the damage:

We have identified a single-purpose account, run by an identifiable individual who "just happens" to have a non-mainstream take on a particular set of symptoms. His real article, called The posture theory, was deleted as non-notable through AfD. A few days later, he decided to hang his idea on the peg of "Da Costa's syndrome" (a vague 19th century syndrome, generally considered a psychosomatic anxiety disorder). It's overall an unimportant article for Wikipedia, so we can't justify investing several editors' time and energy into turning it into a little gem of an article and discrediting his personal views. Considering the basic priorities, the goal for this article is to have it not actually be actively wrong while we deal with more important articles, like Meningitis or Mental health.

The SPA editor is no more frustrated with the NPOV-oriented editors than we are with him. He's (finally) mostly given up on getting his name and his website (with his expensive self-published book for sale) in the article. He comes by every week or two and adds bona fide medical publications on the subject -- but always and only those articles which support his particular views. Of course, the condition is entirely superseded, so most of the refs are from before most editors were born.

No editor has ever supported his view. Five editors have directly told him that using Wikipedia to promote his personal ideas is not accepted. We've been at this for more than six months, and he's undeterred in his overall goal.

But what sort of support do we get from the broader community? We get responses that add up to "Y'all play nice, now." "It's a content dispute: you should 'work for a consensus'." "You could just keep removing the stuff he adds; it's not like your time and energy is worth anything." "Surely nobody would deliberately add original research, because adding original research (*gasp*) violates Wikipedia's policy."

Yes, of course all of this violates a variety of policies, guidelines, and cultural conventions -- notably WP:CONSENSUS, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:COI, WP:RS, WP:TRUTH and WP:COPYVIO, in this case. But my existing attitude readjustment tools apparently don't reach as far as Australia, and the editor remains unscathed.

It's back at WP:COI/N for a second go-round. I expect no practical improvement: he's not particularly rude, so why bother blocking him? Unless I'm willing to undertake a concerted campaign to drive away the editor by convincing him that Wikipedia is controlled by a particularly rude version of the Wicked Witch of the West, then I'll probably still be removing the same cruft and leaving the same explanations and warnings on talk pages at the end of the year.

And that, BTW, is the only effective solution currently in place: When I am no longer willing to put up with this self-promoting nonsense, I can team up with other disgusted editors to be so mean and rude to the SPA that he leaves in disgust. It's not just the good editors who can be driven away by bad behavior. Unfortunately, every time someone resorts to that approach, Wikipedia's reputation is damaged.

We need another solution. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Seconded, and an update for general edification. The issue has been finally settled (I hope) by an indefinite block. It went to an RFC (which had a strong consensus, to no effect, that the editor concerned should edit articles away from pet topic). The problem trundled on with continual griping (invariably lengthy) on Talk pages while the editor wrote a personal new draft of the article (critics unwelcome). Then he chose to put it back against consensus into mainspace. Finally I raised it at Requests for Arbitration. They were cautiously moving toward accepting before the cavalry arrived in the form of admins who were prepared to bring blocks, ultimately an indefinite one for disruptive conduct.

This has taken about a year to settle. At one level, I don't blame anyone: it could argued that any particular report (e.g. at WP:ANI) only sees a snapshot of the situation and it doesn't look too bad. But on the other hand, the user hasn't been remotely civil. For six months, he has openly flouted WP:AGF and WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, with an extended userspace attack on two editors called The Motivations, Strategies, and Tactics of my Critics, and inflammatory language like editor X's "web of deceit" and "juvenile duplicity" and editor Y "swinging through the wiki trees beating his breast and yelling his typical bark". And yet you get admins looking at this and saying stuff to the effect of "Oh, I don't see anything here that really constitutes an attack or serious incivility."

And that's not even factoring in the exhausting effect of long-term contact with procedural nitpicking, obfuscation, misquotation, multiplying mess of detail, etc (e.g. "user A says at diff B that my version is wonderful", then you look at the diff and find user A said no such thing, or did but the quote is out of the context of other editors saying it was crap; so you say so, and get back 1500 words of WP:SOUP saying why it doesn't mean what it seems to mean, and how it's just another example of my critics using their tactics to silence me, and anyhow the procedure wasn't conducted properly because Bilbo von Booger who you got banned because he supported my case said at diff D that ... and so on and on and on and f***ing f***ing on).

As WhatamIdoing says, we need another solution. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion - addressing POV problems

GTB: I don't think that's right. I think that most POV pushers really believe what they claim to believe.

F: Yeah. So what?

Good question; see below.

Haemo: What matters is the effect on the encyclopedia, and that's the same either way: the encyclopedia is compromised, corrupted, made to look ridiculous, or even all three at once.

F: Correct.

Well, what matters is their effect on the encyclopedia, which is negative either way, and also how we go about stopping them, which might differ in the two cases. I'm pushing in the direction of identifying and studying specific strategies in a more scientific way that we have, hitherto. I may be wrong, and if so, we'll find out, but I suspect that there will be better strategies than identifying "bad guys" and topic-banning them. I'm open to testing both kinds, any kind of strategy. Maybe not any kind...

GTB: Regardless of one's opinion on that question, there are going to be different strategies.

F:Well different strategies have to be tried. Because we cannot continue under the present strategies which are ineffectual and based on a complete lack of knowledge of this venemous situation that the vast majority of Wikipedians are blind to and unaware of.--Filll (talk) 04:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm pretty much in agreement there.

Is part of the misunderstanding... does it seem to you that I'm suggesting professionalism as a the solution to neutrality problems? I'm not, and I haven't been. I was brought into this whole discussion because I saw people saying that "the community is obsessed with civility" and that what we need is more people "willing to call a spade a spade". I disagree with those claims.

I disagree that the solution is to downplay civility and assumption of good faith, and I said so at that RfC, and I'll continue to say so until I'm shown wrong. That can happen, and I'll facilitate my being proven wrong, if that's where things go.

The fact that I oppose incivility and accusations of bad faith doesn't mean I'm think promotion of "CIVIL" and "AGF" is the solution. It's just that we shouldn't begin our search for a solution by hobbling ourselves and handing ammunition to POV pushers. That's foolish, even though it's a completely understandable reaction to frustration. The high level of frustration is an indication that we need serious solutions. The beginning of a serious solution, however, is to commit to approaching it as serious professionals. Am I wrong? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

GTBacchus: 'I was brought into this whole discussion because I saw people saying that "the community is obsessed with civility" and that what we need is more people "willing to call a spade a spade"'

No one in this discussion, either on the talk page or on the main page, has used the expressions quoted above, so I'm not sure how it is that you were "brought into this whole discussion" because people were saying these things. Perhaps you have this discussion mixed up with another one. Your post is the only place in this discussion where those expressions occur.

The discussion that formed the main content of these pages was helpful, informative, and positive, IMO, and I'm cautiously encouraged by the recommendations coming out of it, as well as by Jimbo's endorsement. At least there's an acknowledgement that someone is paying attention and is supportive of finding a real solution to a real problem. The post-discussion that started with section 25 has added nothing useful to the discussion, IMO, and I regret my part in it. I was exasperated by a failure to move beyond an obsession with the word "civil" toward some actual suggestions of solutions to the real problems that beset us, but I shouldn't have let my exasperation get the better of me. I apologize to the editors who have done such a good job of articulating and exploring the problem here. Thank you.Woonpton (talk) 12:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Woonpton, thanks for your comments. When I said I was brought into "this whole discussion", I'm definitely referring to a larger scope than this page. The comments that brought me to this issue were made at an RfC a couple of months ago, where editors who are active on this page said precisely the things that I quoted. If I've seemed obsessed with talking about civility versus incivility, it's because I have been handed the argument, repeatedly, that incivility is somehow necessary or a good idea, or that our civility policy should be scrapped or at least downplayed. If you never said that, then my comments along those lines have not been directed at you, and I apologize if it seemed that they were. I'm not always the best at articulating precisely what I want to say. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

As someone mentioned above, there is an immense amount here, and it might not be possible given assorted constraints to respond to it. I guess I am still waiting to see more concrete examples with real substance. Pretend I am from Missouri. In the meantime, I will keep making what I perceive as potential solutions to attempt and placing them out there for consideration in various venues.--Filll (talk) 00:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Concrete examples of what? So far, I've been trying to ask a few questions, and defending myself against claims that I'm in favor of all manner of nonsense. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I ask for the same thing from GTBacchus that I ask from everyone; namely, concrete examples of novel approaches to these issues, and concrete examples of their success or failure in field trials. I have found over the last few months that many who make grand pronouncements about this area are quite vague about the details of their purported novel approaches, or have developed their novel approaches based on uninformed intuition and hunches, or have never tested their novel approaches in practice, or when I have observed their vaunted novel approaches in action, they have not performed anywhere near what was advertised. This is not to say that novel approaches do not exist; I made several suggestions of novel approaches to the mainspace version of this page, and I have made several more at the User: Raymond arritt Expert Withdrawal pages. I have listed a few I have seen operate successfully in my draft here. I have observed several admins and editors here who have shown me novel approaches to this issue; in particular I was quite impressed by User:Silence but I have also been impressed by User:KillerChihuahua on occasion. So I know that new approaches exist, because I have seen it. I just think that it is to our advantage to compile the largest possible number of them and to test them in actual field conditions to gain experience with them. --Filll (talk) 15:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Then we're in complete agreement. The best suggestion I can make is to create some kind of central discussion area for comparison of different strategies. I'd like to see groups of Wikipedians mindfully select and apply specific strategies, and keep notes on what works and what doesn't. What I know now is that I've got my ideas, and other people have got theirs, and that arguing between the two takes us around in circles.

I think the central page should be called something like "Dispute Resolution work group", as opposed to "Expert Withdrawal" or "Civil POV pushing", which are focused on some of the right questions, but which carry weird baggage.

I don't know whether your second paragraph above ("I have found...") applies to me, since I haven't proposed any novel approaches, "vaunted" or otherwise. I've disagreed with the idea of scrapping civility, or that "the community is too obsessed with civility" (which turned out to be code for "the community is too permissive of wikilawyering"), and I've suggested that any successful approach should involve professional behavior,. I have got some approaches in mind that I'm looking forward to testing on articles such as Homeopathy and Chiropractic, and I'll be in a position to do that when I've laid some more ground work. However, any idea that my arguments for professionalism consist of suggesting a "novel approach" is sorely mistaken. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Characteristics

IME, paradoxes are a fertile ground for this problem. Paradoctor (talk) 15:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:CRUSH

I've added a new shortcut because it's more mnemonic, and I think it captures the essence of what happens with Civil POV Pushing. The Civil POV Pushers post such a volume of argumentation that ordinary, decent editors are crushed by the weight of words and wastage of time, and are driven off. Jehochman ^Talk 02:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I think what I said above is especially relevant. Huge volumes of talk from a small number of editors can be problematic. Jehochman ^Talk 02:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

It can be. Maybe I'm part of that problem. Let me admit: I get wordy. But remember the saying, "A lie gets halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on." It can work the other way: civil POV-pushers can also intimidate with a concise sentence that misconstrues guidelines and policies in so many different ways that a detailed, multi-sentence rebuttal is the only way to address the errors. Then those civil POV-pushers can say, "Be careful -- you might be accused of WP:CRUSH if you keep going on and on the way you have." Yakushima (talk) 05:05, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Post "crush" Civil POV Pushers may then enshrine the new "consensus" into the talk page FAQ and any future requests for discussion are then dismissed via "Read the FAQ" statements (with little or no explanation). ArtifexMayhem (talk) 18:50, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed that, on a few liberal POVs like global warming being "mostly caused by humans". The idea that most scientists support the UN's position / environmentalist position / pro-Kyoto protocol position is then enshrined as common knowledge, and any complaint from a scientist or mathematician of bias in scientific organizations or journals is immediately deleted.

I thought Wikipedia isn't supposed to settle controversies (but see List of misconceptions). How can contributors get away with taking one side on this? --Uncle Ed (talk) 19:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Ed, anthropogenic climate change isn't a "liberal POV". That may be at the root of your confusion here. MastCell ^Talk 20:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant the belief that most global warming since 1850 is anthropogenic, which in the US is held 2 to 1 by liberals, and opposed 2 to 1 by conservatives. Is that clearer now? I can get the poll for you if you haven't seen it. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I understood you, but I don't think you understood me. Just because one political party opposes a scientific finding does not make people who accept that finding partisan. The relevant poll numbers are simple: anthropogenic climate change is accepted by somewhere between 95% and 100% of people who actually study the climate. Liberals may be more willing than conservatives to accept that finding, but the finding itself is not partisan. MastCell ^Talk 21:30, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

MastCell, perhaps I wasn't clear when I mentioned global warming. I did not mean (1) the view that a discernable amount of warming is due to human activity, such as spewing CO2 into the air - but (2) the view that most warming is due to human activity. Your reference to acceptance of "anthropogenic climate change" looks to me like you thought I meant the first. Is that how you took it? --13:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Ed, "enshrined as common knowledge" is a different topic, IMHO. Feel free to hit my talk page if you'd like to have an extended discussion on that topic :) ArtifexMayhem (talk) 21:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

POV pushing

This essay would probably be more useful if it were renamed to Wikipedia:POV pushing and the civil POV pushing made a subset of it. There are many POV pushing behaviours that are not associated with being civil, and it would help to cover them here. I've said more on this here. Also, it is confusing that WP:PUSH redirects here and WP:POVPUSH redirects to a section of Wikipedia:NPOV dispute. Which in turn links to WP:Advocacy. Surely WP:PUSH and WP:POVPUSH should point to the same place? Carcharoth (talk) 08:01, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Good points. Civil POV pushing is in the eye of the beholder. Uncivil is pretty obvious to everyone - though a lot of people get away with it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, ever since the original NPOV policy was changed from "describe all views fairly" to add "in proportion to the prominence of each", POV pushers have seized upon this as a legal pretext to suppress views which they label as "fringe". For example, they deny that controversy exists in the global warming (or "climate change") field, siding with those who claim that the science is settled.

It shouldn't matter whether someone has an ideological or financial motive to advocate or criticize a scientific idea. I would hope we would be able to describe all scientific views fairly, paying careful attention to falsifiability and reproducibility of results. Considering that a top journal rejected a paper critical of AGW theory, even after it passed peer review - solely on the grounds that it "would not be of interest to our readers" - is indicative of the possibility of bias in the scientific world.

Wikipedia should not, therefore, endorse either side in the dispute but rather report what each side says, and summary its evidence and reasoning.

Or is it by definition "POV pushing" to ask Wikipedia to describe a minority view, when only 5% to 20% of scientists question (what seems to be) the majority view? What is the threshold? --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Musings

If there were a simpler way of topic banning editors who have been heard on a topic, were unable to provide reliable sources to substantiate their points, but kept talking - then methinks this problem could be dealt with. I deal with a fair number of topics and editors that circle around this idea and the biggest failings are a failure to appreciate what a reliable source is for a regular article, what a parity source is for a fringe article, and why a failure to find discussion in mainstream scholarly literature is an excuse to dismiss a topic rather than start rooting around in suspect webpages and 6th-tier sources. If a source appears, and is legitimately dismissed as inadequate, that should be the end of discussion. Just some musings, these issues are cropping up in an article I'm working on/with/against right now. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:36, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Very much agree. There is a process of natural selection at Wikipedia: blatantly disruptive editors are removed, leaving those who have learned a few survival rules. They push and push and push, and wear out useful editors. I noticed an excellent draft essay at User:AGK/Arbitration and content and am hoping the community will recognize that new approaches are needed to avoid having Wikipedia end up being dominated by civil POV pushers. Johnuniq (talk) 08:14, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Although many wikipedians might not like to admit it, the primary problem is the fundamental policy of consensus itself. When you allow a group of random people to attempt to form some agreement as to the contents of an encyclopedia article there are bound to be those who aren't rational and intellectually honest. Not everybody is intellectually on the same playing field and when you pair the dumb with the brilliant the dumb are going to prevail. In practice what happens is that the dumb tend to be more fervent in getting their way and the smart unwilling to argue with a brick wall forever. Unfortunately, those intellectually dishonest amongst us are growing in number and soon I suspect wikipedia will be completely inundated as their numbers continue to grow in the admins group. The solution to this problem though is simple. You merely have to get rid of consensus and replace it with a hierarchical based system. If wikipedia users were subjugated to an online test that assigned a score to their ability to be intellectually honest and reason, than a voting system based on such scores could be created. Those with higher scores could trump article writing decisions of lower ranking editors when disagreements arise. Problem solved. Consensus could then be relegated amongst only those editors within the highest of scores.

The only problem with this idea is that it would require wikipedia to have an adequate test written outside the collaboration of wikipedian editors. There would have to be a large pool of questions so that sockpuppets couldn't determine the correct answers through trial and error and would require periodic retesting of users. The test would also not be able to have standard IQ questions since such questions can easily be answered by dishonest people. Instead the focus should be on questions that gauge ones ability to separate one's beliefs, politics, cultural norms etc. from plain truths. Most of the people I have dealt with on wikipedia simply are unable to do this. For example in politically related articles you often see users argue one position when it paints their political parties in a favorable light, but then take the exact opposite position if they perceive it would make their party look bad. They don't care about whats true or not only with how it would be perceived. This type of intellectual dishonesty can easily be weeded out via a series of questions whose correct answers would require users to admit truths that they don't want to be true. It wouldn't be too hard to gather a large collection of editing decisions made by past users that clearly reflect dishonest decision making and create a test based on that.Chhe (talk) 10:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Might be a good idea in principle but you're never going to get consensus for it. The only way it could happen is if WMF decide WP is getting so bad they need to impose a solution unilaterally. Peter jackson (talk) 10:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Civil POV Pushing is in the eye of the beholder.

My POV is I want an article to be factually correct and NPOV. If other editors don't, then I'm "Civil POV Pushing" unless I walk away. I have noticed there seem to be admins patrolling controversial articles but they're pretty hands off unless there's an edit war. Self-appointed "lead editors" exist now. They are WP:OWN and WP:NINJA. It's hard to see how ArbCom would have the time to do an adequate job of vetting these editors. I believe the solution is tighter enforcement of existing rules, starting with reliable sources. That means no sources who are affiliated with the subject. Primary sources have parity with secondary sources when it comes to determinations of fact. And most of all, if reliable sources are in conflict, an assertion cannot be made in Wikipedia's voice. As they say, you're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Brmull (talk) 10:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree what's needed is enforcement. But

1. who's going to enforce policy?
2. what can be done about vagueness?

On the examples you mention, I'm not entirely sure what you mean. A source published by a political or religious group would count as self-published, and so subject to the restrictions given in WP:SPS. But the same applies to primary sources: indeed SPSs are primary sources. Priamry sources are regarded as reliable sources only for straightforward descriptive statements about themselves. For other facts they're not relaible. For example, Nigerian census returns are wildly inflated by tribal rivalry. Similarly, birth cerificates aren't necessarily reliable sources for dates of birth: they may be falsified to make the child seem legitimate, or to avoid a fine for not registering within the time limit. Peter jackson (talk) 09:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In scientific matters there are only 2 categories of information. 1 Relevant facts, and 2 Relevant information. And most readers are running around looking for relevant facts. But you system of organization of information places more emphasis upon the degree of agreement of opinions on subject matters than it does about the clarity of the understanding of the subject matter, and about any known relevant facts. Thus the protocol of presentation becomes more important than the information conveyed in the article about the subject matter. In earlier days, when there were less fact and more opinions, there was more discussion in articles about comparative opinions about a subject matter. And now we're being overwhelmed by irrelevant diversity of information about scientific matters and by the unorganized compartmentalization of subservient matters such as to interfere with finding an getting at the pertinent facts.WFPM (talk) 18:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)