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RfC: Should the NPOV policy contain two sections devoted to pseudoscience and religion?

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Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#RfC: Should the NPOV policy contain two sections devoted to pseudoscience and religion?. The NPOV policy currently contains two sections on specific topics: a 534-word section on pseudoscience and a 267-word section on religion. These sections were removed last month as being too specific after an RfC was posted on April 3. [1] The pseudoscience section was moved to WP:FRINGE, [2] and the religion section removed entirely. The sections have now been restored by others on the grounds that consensus was not established, or has changed. Fresh eyes would therefore be appreciated to decide whether to restore or remove the sections. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:56, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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Remove both sections. None of the other content policies has sections devoted to specific topics like this. In addition, the pseudoscience section is highly contentious, wordy, and has caused a lot of problems. It is based in part on a 2006 ArbCom ruling, and it's not clear that the ArbCom intended their words to be added directly to a policy; ArbCom does not dictate the wording of content policies, and I don't think would want to. Finally, at over 5,000 words, this policy is a monster and badly needs to be cut back. For comparison's sake, WP:V is around 1,870 words, and WP:NOR 2,330. For all these reasons, I support the pseudoscience section being moved to WP:FRINGE and the religion section being removed entirely, unless someone can think of a good place for it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:57, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FRINGE is a guideline. The only problem PSEUDO has caused is for POV pushers of pseudoscience. Why do you want to make it NOT against policy to push pseudoscience as though it were accepted by the scientific community at large? Did you buy stock in a farm selling some herbal cancer cure? KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 00:22, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. It's change of status is already being used to deprecate the content and thus enable fringe and pseudoscience POV pushers and defenders. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:53, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Policy pages should be written so they can be understood by a casual reader. They should be short, simple, to the point, and general rather than specific. I personally would be happiest if no policy page was over 500 words total, but I don't see that happening.--Tznkai (talk) 00:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happier if it were a lot shorter too. But the way to do that is NOT to remove a core piece of the policy off to a guideline where it has no force. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 00:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain in substance; though they could stand some editing. In practice, pseudoscience and religious (and quasi religious) topics are those where advocates tend to construct elaborate walled gardens they try to "protect" against neutrality my misusing other policies to present their POV uncritically; addressing those areas in the policy makes sense even if the current wording is admittedly poor. — Coren ^(talk) 00:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree completely. Rephrasing, making more concise is an excellent path forward, so long as care is taken that the changes do not change the meaning - one of the recent edits, for example, removed a requirement for the mainstream view to be presented, and replaced with a requirement that it not be presented. This is clearly not in the best interested of our being taken seriously as an encyclopedia. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 00:27, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. It should be retained. I'm not wedded to the idea that it has to be retained on exactly this page, but I do believe it should be retained as policy. If not here, then as a new page. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:55, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain Religion ~~only~~ Given how contentious religious topics can get, it deserves special mention in policy. As the pseudoscience section still exists, just on a different page, ~~there's no~~ it might not necessarily need to be duplicated it here [Comment has been revised]. --Cybercobra (talk) 00:21, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove. I can readily write an equivalent (but hopefully more cogently stated) section on pseudo-history. The central tenet is already stated in bold: Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves [as facts]. I suggest adding the last two words. Providing topic-specific examples is well-meaning, but anyone observing the central tenet doesn't need the litany; anyone not observing the central tenet will ignore the litany. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk 00:25, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain, either here or on a new page. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:55, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain. I have seen no arguments for removal other than "this page is too long". When a page is too long, a spin off is often created. If the consensus is to create two new pages, then I have to say I object to yet more polices being added. I have no problem with trimming verbiage, if done with care - one of the recent edits changed the meaning from requiring the mainstream view, to requiring it be omitted - which is the type of error we need to be extremely careful of. I am so sorry for those who think this page is "too long to read". I suggest they not work on this project if they find a couple of screens of text too hard to read; perhaps they'd be happier in a non-text based project, or one where academic scrutiny does not require that we take steps to prevent nonsense from being presented as solid fact. I myself was very proud when Wikipedia was found to be as accurate as Brittanica; I'd hate to sink to the level that we're only as accurate as the Weekly World News - and again, if anyone actually wants that, I suggest they send an application to that publication or start a blog on their pet "theory" - but Wikipeida is not the place for that, and without policy to prevent such occurrences, I assure you that my posited outcomes are not mere fancy, but instead rather likely to occur. In fact, they did occur, quite frequently, until these policies were put in place, back some years ago. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 01:10, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove per SlimVirgin comments. I hardly ever see fringe being used in a legitimate way. It's more often used as away to avoid NPOV, rather than help it. Having this in NPOV seems to create more issues than it helps. Morphh ^(talk) 1:37, 02 May 2010 (UTC)

We're not talking about FRINGE. We're talking about pseudoscience and religion. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 03:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was titled "Pseudoscience and related fringe theories" with a main link to fringe, so you can see where this would be confusing. In any case, I haven't really seen where these areas introduce new policy. They seem more like guidelines to the existing NPOV policy. Morphh ^(talk) 16:38, 02 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove The core policies should be short and sweet. I believe we should cut down the current rambling and confusing verbiage drastically. These two sections contain unneeded detail which adds nothing useful in my view, and the Fringe/Pseudoscience section ends up creating an anti-minority POV by allowing POV pushers to label any view they dislike as "fringe" or "pseudo"-something. Neutrality means countering non-mainstream views with reliable sources, not by ridiculing them with "pseudo" labels. Crum375 (talk) 02:03, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain Once again the remove proponents are failing to engage the issue: Should Wikipedia be based on science? Or, should NPOV mean "we take all views: if a book says Daleks built the Pyramids that's what will go in the article, and it's not pseudoscience until a suitable authority bothers to publish a statement that in fact the Daleks did not build the Pyramids"? Moving PSCI to a guideline means it will be ignored; that is a massive change to Wikipedia and needs to be discussed extremely widely (much more than this RFC). Johnuniq (talk) 02:05, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment—These two issues are hot buttons, so I can see why some people want to retain them here as formally expressed parts of policy. But they need to be significantly trimmed. Tony (talk) 03:26, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove. The policy is stronger and provides better guidance for the project without those overly-specific sections. Everything that is needed to stop fringe POV-pushing is already in the core content triad of NPOV-V-NOR. The separate FRINGE guideline is an appropriate place to host the pseudoscience text that was moved there previously, where it may be useful for addressing problematic patterns that happen over and over. It performs that function based on the solid foundation that exists the NPOV policy. The religion content is not needed at all; as written, it's more like a style guide about how to apply the policy of NPOV to one particular situation. The core policies are more potent and effective when they are simple, direct and clear. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain per SlimVirgin's non-argument. QuackGuru (talk) 04:07, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep religion definitely where it is and more or less as written. It is a delicate subject and the issue as encapsulated by the three paragraphs will recur for as long as wikipedia is in existence. As far as the pseudoscience, I think keep but move as its content belongs more on the WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE pages as far as I can tell, but again, this is a vexed subject over which squabbles will erupt in the future. The lack of the general population's familiarity with Evidence (as in evidence-based medicine) and how to evaluate it will mean that dubious material will be portrayed as valid time and time again - verifiability as written isn't enough here Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:18, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

retain per Coren and KillerChihuaha. I would take Casliber's point above and expand it to say that's precisely why we need clear guidelines here, and not moved elsewhere. This has served us very well in dealing with fringe views in the past and I see no good reason to remove these. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:29, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What this indicates is that the FRINGE guideline really needs to be promoted to a policy. This idea has been discussed before and it needs to be taken seriously. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

retain Its important to demonstrate the concept that NPOV does not mean "all viewpoints are represented equally" but rather "all viewpoints are given appropriate weight". As always, some cleanup can be done to tighten up the langauge and make it more appropriate, but the concepts are contentious and common enough to need special clarification beyond the basic NPOV guideline. Ideally, we should never have to have this level of detail for any policy at Wikipedia. Policy statements should be simple and stand on their own. Pragmatically, these topics are so contentious that they need special treatment. --Jayron32 04:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

remove or major tightening. OK, if these subjects are common enough hot potatoes, we could have brief sections on them. But there's no justfication for the mass of words we have at the moment. Has anyone read these sections critically? It's embarrassing that in order to have a bat to beat pseudoscience with, we should use a passage which so obviously reeks of pseudo-logic and manipulation of language of the sort than any fringe-theory-pusher would be proud of. And the religion section isn't much better, for example giving an example of "the sort of sentence editors should try to write". --Kotniski (talk) 04:57, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain. I've recently encountered an editor who's tried to rewrite a WP:FRINGE article. When I informed the editor that her edits violated WP:FRINGE she informed me that since that is just a guideline it has no real weight. I therefore think this material should be a part of the NPOV policy page itself, to give it teeth. Eugene (talk) 06:22, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per my comment above, the solution is to promote FRINGE to a policy. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove pseudoscience WP:V supports the scientific method, which disposes with pseudoscience. --Philcha (talk)

Trim religion. We need to make the core policies easy for new editors to read and understand, otherwise WP will die. When sub-topics need mention, they should be as brief as possibly, which details elsewhere. --Philcha (talk) 06:58, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move to dedicated pages. While I wholly disagree with any weakening whatsoever of the sentiment of these sections, I agree that the policy pages shouldn't be cluttered with specific rulings. I think that links are sufficient so long as the retained pages are clearly still policy. SDY (talk) 07:33, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Retain both. I don't think the Procrustean approach is a good idea here. Cardamon (talk) 07:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain both. Do not shunt off to subpages unless those subpages also have the weight of 'policy'. From my own experience, and as noted by above by Eugeneacurry, fringe theory pushers will argue that WP:FRINGE can be ignored as it is 'merely' a guideline and not policy. Alternatively, move PSCI to WP:FRINGE and promote WP:FRINGE to policy. LK (talk) 08:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remove Per SlimVirgin and Crum375. All our policies are bloated with bright ideas that will save the wiki if only the bad people would listen and accept being bludgeoned by authoritative dogma, to the detriment of inculcating basic principles that would be far more effective in the long run.John Z (talk) 08:27, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain per KillerChihuahua. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:45, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Leave a few words and links only: The policy is too long to maintain adequately. As two of the most common problem areas, they should be mentioned, but the inevitable finessing and bloating of the wording should go somewhere else to keep this core policy concise and maintainable. Stephen B Streater (talk) 08:59, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove This is special pleading and contrary to WP:CREEP. The traditional hot-button topics to avoid in polite conversation are religion and politics. Why do we have pseudoscience here instead of politics? It seems to be a POV of particular editors, contrary to WP:SOAP. Let's have general principles, not pet peeves. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain pseudoscience (no opinion on religion) Pseudoscience affects all articles on matsh, physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, medicine, etc. Pseudohistory affects all articles that deal with some important historical fact. If the page is too long then shorten it, but don't remove it. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:55, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remove pseudoscience - or rather keep it at WP:FRINGE where it is more appropriately placed. Pseudoscience is after all a sub-group of Fringe. If needed this policy can contain a very brief statement stating that extra care must be taken when dealing with Fringe topics and pointing people to WP:FRINGE, but the details should be there. If people are worried about the "only a guideline" issue... I think there is a very good argument for promoting WP:FRINGE to "Policy" status... but that said, I don't think this distinction is as valid as some people make out... many of our guidelines have "bite"... We remove material based on WP:RS and it is "only a guideline"... WP:NOTE and the other notability guidelines are "only a guideline" and yet we delete entire articles that don't comply with them. WP:FRINGE is one of those guidelines with "bite".

Something else to consider... While I completely agree with what PSCI says, I really think we have gone over the deep end as far as where and how we repeat its provisions ... At the moment we have the exact same language here and at WP:FRINGE... then we repeat it at the top of the WT:FRINGE talk page... and at the top of WP:FTN. This isn't a case of bashing POV pushers over the head with a two-by-four... it's a case of bashing them over the head and then building a house on top of them.

As for the Religion section... I have a suggestion: perhaps what we need is a more generalized section on "Maintaining neutrality in controversial topics". This would include articles on Politics, Religion, Ethnicity and Race, etc. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove both. If NPOV was clear enough, it wouldn't need paragraphs tailored to different fields. Though this does not bear in any way on the question "keep or remove?", I'll mention in passing, the section on pseudoscience puts it at one end of a continuum with "scientific consensus" at the other. The opposite of pseudoscience is science. Consensus is opposite to fringe. Blueboar and KillerChihuahua, keep your comments to the discussion below. Anthony (talk) 13:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Retain the core wording as policy, remove the discourse and examples.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remove religion, trim down pseudoscience drastically: The text concerning religion is redundant and does not appear to play a role in any of the religion-related conflicts I am currently watching. The text about pseudoscience is also redundant, and the fact that it is so heavily focused on the term "pseudoscience" (a historical accident caused by the pseudoscience Arbcom cases) causes certain editors to fight for labelling every superstition and the kitchen fringe as "pseudoscience", apparently because they think the policy codifies special exceptions that only apply to pseudoscience and which they want to make use of.

The underlying problem here is that we have policy interpretation in a place where one would expect only normative policy text. As a result, certain editors think they must first make a formal (and sometimes incorrect) claim that something is pseudoscience, instead of simply applying the policy by analogy. This causes no end of disruption. Hans Adler 14:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain - at least for pseudoscience (I don't really get involved in religion) as per Coren/KillerChihuaha. Also, we need clear indications of how potential pseudoscience should be regarded. I've seen some clear nonsense in apparently peer-reviewed sources, but stuff like this rarely seems to attract a rebuttal in a similar source. We sometimes need to be able to point to something that states that the mainstream view should be taken into account when assessing these sources. Brunton (talk) 16:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remove to guideline It always struck me as a type of systematic bias that we specifically addressed these two things in the NPOV policy. We are, on the whole, atheistic nerds, but our policies don't need to so blatantly reflect that. Gigs (talk) 17:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
*Retain both of them, but keep them distilled to the core policy provisions, no more than one paragraph, or a couple extremely short paragraphs each. Earlier today I was a bit WP:BOLD and took a step in this direction by moving the PSCI guideline material to WP:FRINGE (here).
....... Both these topic areas are highly contentious areas of the wiki, and each has their own unique dynamics that seem to require specific language to apply WP:WEIGHT to those particular NPOV dynamics. WP:PSCI has long been a counterbalance to rabid insistence by some users to push their pet POV that flies directly in the face of established scientific or historical perspective, and Wikipedia is not the place for such pet POVs to try to push for wider acceptance by the general public. Many editors rely on WP:PSCI as a specialized explanation of WP:WEIGHT w.r.t. the many topics whose adherents attempt to draw on the credibility of words like "science", "scientific", etc., or apply the superficial trappings of scientific jargon to push their particular perspective on the general public, and WP needs a specialized way of dealing with this. I would not, however, object to reducing it to a subsection of WP:WEIGHT.
....... As to RNPOV, I imagine a guideline page might be needed to handle WP:RNPOV. It is also to some extent a WP:SOURCES issue w.r.t. what's taken as a reliable source for what kind of claim. (We run into this problem with certain situation where a religion has made claims disputed by empirical research, e.g. , but is not pseudoscientific because it claims to be a matter of faith not science.) Secondary sources quite commonly don't fit neatly into WP:PSTS (part of WP:NOR) because such sources are so frequently not third-party sources independent of the religion itself, but rather are by other adherents, commonly no more than repeating a mantra or beating a drum, so to speak. I think that like it or not, fundamentally it's a unique expression of WP:NPOV that comes into play, and countless religion-related articles suffer from various degrees of disorder due to these issues despite being highly notable and having many adherents. For now, I think RNPOV should be distilled to no more than one paragraph describing the particular WEIGHT issue(s). and shortening it even further ASAP, providing a link to a guideline page. Once that is done, I think another RfC should be called to assess whether the unique issues in such articles can indeed be subsumed completely into WP:NPOV, WEIGHT and WP:V, SOURCES... Kenosis (talk) 19:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove the sections on pseudoscience and religion. We should express this policy by relying on as fiew additional concepts as possible. Undue weight and fringe views are unavoidable and necessary concepts; pseudoscience is neither.

Instead, I have a proposal. To the section on undue weight, after the second setence, delete the remainder of this unnecessarily verbose section but then add the following:

Under this policy, fringe views can be excluded from an article, but if they meet the criteria of our notability guideline some views may become objects of their own article. Although this may seem to be a POV fork, which we generally seek to avoid, it is really a content fork and as such, acceptable. This has often occured with science-related articles like Intelligent design or Homeopathy.

The crucial thing is that fringe views as views of a particular object do not beclong in any article but that in some cases fringe views may themselves be the object of an article. Under what conditions this is so is the crucial question. It does not matter whether something is pseudoscience or not - we should avodie having a section on pseudoscience because one person's science is someone else's pseudoscience. So what matters is not whethe or not it is pseudoscience but whether the view that something is pseudoscience is mainstream majority, minority, or ... frine. We should express this policy by relying on as fiew additional concepts as possible. Undue weight and fringe views are unavoidable and necessary concepts; pseudoscience is neither. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:22, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain in place - unless we could somehow agree on promoting the others from guideline to policy (which isn't going to happen), moving them would leave the door open even wider than it already is to those trying to abuse WP to lend credibility to these ideas. LeadSongDog come howl 02:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain in place. Demoting this to a guideline would give the wrong impression to users; it can be and has been enforced by ArbCom. Moving it would instigate people to violate policies in a manner which could get them topic-banned. *** Crotalus *** 16:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that is not exactly correct. The language of the PSCI section was created after the arbcom ruling... to reflect the arbcom ruling... but that ruling was based on what this policy said prior to the addition of the language. In other words, the arbcom ruling would stand whether this language was included in the policy or not. Blueboar (talk) 17:18, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove the pseudoscience section to WP:FRINGE. If a separate policy could be written on the coverage of religious subjects in Wikipedia, then I think the religion section could be moved to that policy. Until that is done, I think the religion section should remain here, and should further state that in order for a religion-related article to be considered NPOV it needs to first explain in full how the adherents of that religion or religious philosophy view themselves before stating any objections to that view from other religions or organizations and that the latter not be given more weight or space than the former. Cla68 (talk) 04:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain As per KillerChihuahua and Coren, and supporting the point made by LeadSongDog and Blueboar and others that demoting this to a guideline would be to the detriment of Wikipedia. A better solution would be to make WP:Fringe policy. I'm not sure what to do about the religious section but it should also be retained for the moment. Dougweller (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't imagine Blueboar would have said that, Doug, because he was the one who posted the first RfC to removed the pseudoscience section, removed it from here himself on April 12, [3] moved it into FRINGE, [4] and removed it again from NPOV twice after it was recently restored by FeloniousMonk and Quackguru. [5] [6] SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:40, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove both. Overly specific, and not likely to help new editors grasp the concept of NPOV, which is already hard for many. Dlabtot (talk) 18:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain or make FRINGE a policy. Wikipedia is being assaulted by climate change deniers, and their views, although popular amongst lay people, are in fact scientifically FRINGE. FRINGE as policy would help to keep the flat-Earthers at bay. ► RATEL ◄ 07:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain. The policy is a perfect catch-all for subjective or unsubstantiated views. WP:FRINGE is fine and all, but we'd indirectly adding more and more POV matters such as these into a list of where something is "okay" to source from regardless of how absurd? Case-by-case decisions are impractical and promote (if even accidentally) ownership-type behaviour on any kind of disputed topic. If the current is removed, it leaves the door wide open for discussions to any and everyone that can source something in some way; Requiring even more hoops to jump through such as WP:RS/N discussion to have it thrown out. Editors at ANI, AfD and ArbCom need somewhere to point to bring discussion points full circle, so don't fix what's not broken. Really, please don't. Clutter is bad, but for something this vital I think the clarification is good. The Scientology ArbCom case was a very clear demonstration of faith in the community to uphold what is currently on the books. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain both as policy, either in this policy or another one or two. — Jeff G. ツ 02:22, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Retain both. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Threaded discussion

Comment. I'm adding another argument here in favour of removal, which is that the section itself is not neutral and violates WP:V and WP:NOR. It says that certain topics may be labelled as pseudoscience without sources, just because a Wikipedian takes that view of them. It has been used that way ever since it was inserted, and is inherently biased. Attempts to clean it up have been reverted by the same people who want to retain it, and for the same reason. The way to fight people who push a POV about fringe topics is not to arm people who push their own POV in the opposite direction. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:16, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's not an argument for removal; that's an argument for cleanup. What is the sentence which states that? Please quote it here, thanks. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 01:39, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re User:Cybercobra: Except the page that it was recently moved to is a guideline, which has zero force. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 00:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, guidelines still have force, albeit less of it. However, I wasn't aware of the exact status of the page the pseudoscience part got moved to, so I've edited my !vote accordingly. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So much less that they're taken as optional advice, as I'm sure you're aware. Thanks for taking the time to read my concern about the change in status, and the courtesy of your reply. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 02:03, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That has not been my experience at all, so I strongly disagree with your assertion, but anyway... --Cybercobra (talk) 04:14, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That would be myth #3 at Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:07, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

:P I am not even going to read this. It's only an essay! Hans Adler 14:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SlimVirgin claims "Attempts to clean it up have been reverted by the same people who want to retain it, and for the same reason." SlimVirgin, please provide diffs for attempts to clean it up. Where does it say "that certain topics may be labelled as pseudoscience without sources, just because a Wikipedian takes that view of them." Can you point me to the articles that are labelled as pseudoscience without sources. QuackGuru (talk) 04:07, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SV did not directly repond to my questions. SV, please respond to my concerns or I suggest you withdraw your complaints. QuackGuru (talk) 01:53, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Even policies have exceptions. What matters is how a policy or guideline is applied, more than the way it is worded or the exact status that it has. NPOV is a policy which more than most other WP policies normally involves matters about which people feel very strongly for reasons not always amenable to logical argument--often long -standing pre-existing disputes of great practical or ideological consequence, which nothing said or done at Wikipedia is likely to resolve. The reason for however keeping these sections in policy is because they are exactly the sort of matters the policy addresses. I remind SV that the content of WP articles must follow WP:V; the decisions on how we are to deal with things at Wikipedia necessarily involves our own individual views. As for the sections themselves, I think the one of pseudoscience fairly well reflects the general position as it has been worked out in long discussions over multiple issues, but the one of religion is less well developed and perhaps might benefit from editing to give somewhat of a less antagonistic impression. DGG ( talk ) 04:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This RFC should have been split into 2 sections, as pseudoscience and religion are quite different matters. --Philcha (talk) 06:58, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

yes, and retain and remove sections too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nods, I agree, but we cannot change how SV set it up at this late date. We can gauge where we are without that... looks like no con atm; we can always revisit if needed. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 23:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For those concerned with shorter length as an objective, there's a discussion on VPP starting about this. I thought it better to delay an RfC on that until this one is over, as this discussion may inform that one. Stephen B Streater (talk) 22:19, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gauge as of 23:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC) Currently the views are very closely split. There are 13 to remove, with some specifying "to guideline". There are 19 to retain, about half of whom add some verbiage about trimming or editing. In addition, there are two views for keeping Pseudoscience and removing Religion, and one for keeping Religion. There is one view to move both Religion and Pseudoscience to their own policy pages. There is one view for "Trim Religion." Finally, there is a comment suggesting editing the entire policy for brevity and clarity, which I think is something everyone agrees upon, and which has been happening as this Rfc has been going on. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 23:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An important distinction

The above RfC is poorly worded... we are not talking about "removing" the pseudoscience section completely... we are really talking about whether it belongs here or at WP:FRINGE... it should be noted that a !vote to "remove" from this page is also a !vote to keep it where it currently is: at WP:FRINGE. Blueboar (talk) 12:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, a !vote for X is not a !vote for Y. That's twisting things. The RFC is title "Should the NPOV policy contain two sections devoted to pseudoscience and religion?" Maurreen (talk) 15:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly my point... things have become twisted. WP:PSCI has already been moved to WP:FRINGE. But some want to undo that move and return it to this policy. However, they are acting as if the move never took place. Instead of !voting "yes" or "no" ... they are responding with "Retain" or "Remove"... which confuses the issue and creates the false impression that someone is suggesting that PSCI be deleted from Wikipedia completely. That was never an option. I would suggest that the RFC should have been worded:

Should pseudoscience (and WP:PSCI in specific) be discussed at WP:NPOV, or should it be discussed at WP:FRINGE? Blueboar (talk) 22:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As several have pointed out in various ways, the important distinction is whether WP:PSCI is fundamentally policy or guideline. Whether one is for or against having it as policy, as policy it gives an extra measure of strength to the editorial stance of those editors that are trying to keep pseudoscientific material from being put forward by WP to readers as if it were credible material that readers should seriously take as being scientific. So the distinction is more than just one of WEIGHT or FRINGE, because many pseudoscientific ideas have much weight in many sources that can readily be argued to be RSs (e.g. media sources) and are not fringe in the broadest sense but rather are not uncommonly quite popular. I say this without making any judgments whether WP:PSCI should necessarily be kept as policy-- to me personally it's a bit of a tough call. ... Kenosis (talk) 23:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]

This is a very constructive way of framing the problem. I can see why you find it a tough call. But when you put it this way, I definitely think that it should be a guideline. I think that anything on applying our policies to a specific set of definable issues, like pseudoscience or religion, or anything else for that matter, should be in a guideline. And the underlying principles that one must apply in these situations belong in the policy. As a rule, I think policies should be as general and abstract as possible in order to give the editors working on any article both principles and also the freedom to work out how they best apply to that case. Discussions of how the principles have been applied in the past - descriptive rather than prescriptive or proscriptive rules, and based on our accumulated wisdom, seems to me to be most appropriate for guidelines. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Slrubenstien here. Adding case law into our statement of principles is a category error. It confuses definition with interpretation, and opens the door to unlimited bloat - which should rightly be put in the guidelines. Stephen B Streater (talk) 20:36, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the Arbcom stuff to WP:FRINGE yesterday (here), as they were explicitly stated to be guidelines anyway. Seems to me the core policy provision is essentially to clarify that w.r.t. pseudoscience and related fringe theories, the majority (per WP:WEIGHT) is to be taken to be the majority view of the scientific community, not that of the popular press or anything else-- even if there happens to be a proliferation of popular literature supporting a pseudoscientific view. It is, as I said elsewhere, a specialized application of WEIGHT. ... Kenosis (talk) 22:46, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Restart

As it seems to be a week since the last comment & I saw a request for more, I thought we should have a new section. Just a few thoughts.

Avoid remove & retain. Similarity of words slows down people trying to get a sense of the balance of opinion. Try delete & keep.
Plenty of qualified & registered medical practitioners use fringe medicine. It's mediacl scientists who regard it as fringe.

Peter jackson (talk) 10:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed alternative to "Explaining the Neutral Point of View

I find this section bloated, inconsistent, and at times imprecise. I have drafted an alternative. The question is simple whether or not it is an improvement. I invite discussion:

Explaining the neutral point of view

Shortcuts

The neutral point of view is a way of dealing with conflicting perspectives. The fundamental premise of NPOV is that on any topic experts or significant stakeholders may have different views (concerning what is true or false, fact or fiction, real or imagined, good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly and so on). Editors must be neutral and present these views without taking any side. This principle is especially important in the encyclopedy that "anyone can edit at any time" — editors may not agree over what is the "truth" or the "facts," but editors can agree that some people have one view of the "truth" or the "facts," and other people have a different view.

Controversial views Uncontroversial views – views that have no alternative or opposition to be found in other reliable sources – pose no problem for editors. This and related policies (Verifiability and No original research), however, require that anything challenged or likely to be challenged, including all quotations, be attributed to a reliable source in the form of an inline citation that directly supports the material in question. Where a statement is controversial or otherwise not broadly accepted, or expresses a particular point of view, use in-text attribution (i.e. identify the view in the passage): "John Smith writes that"— rather than publishing the material in Wikipedia's voice. When attributing views to individuals, make sure the text does not imply parity between a majority and minority view.

Balanced coverage Articles should contain balanced coverage of all majority and significant-minority views, but make sure they roughly reflect the relative levels of support among reliable sources for the position in question. Appropriate weight must be given to each view, so that it is clear what status the majority and significant-minority views have among reliable sources.

NPOV requires that all majority and significant-minority views found in reliable sources—as defined by Verifiability—be presented in a disinterested tone, and in rough proportion to their prevalence within the source material. Reliably sourced material should not be removed just because it is not neutral, or what Wikipedians call "POV," as long as the view is properly identified.

Unbiased writing The neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject. Unbiased writing is the disinterested description of all significant sides of a debate found in reliable sources. Articles should describe different points of view without endorsing any of them. It may describe the criticism of particular viewpoints found in reliable sources, but it should not take sides. Good research can prevent NPOV disagreements by using the best sources available and accurately summarizing what they say.

A simple formulation This is how the founders of Wikipedia explained NPOV to the first editors:

Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic, is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so. If this strikes you as somehow subjectivist or collectivist or imperialist, then ask me about it, because I think that you are just mistaken. What people believe is a matter of objective fact, and we can present that quite easily from the neutral point of view. --Jimbo Wales

Maybe you understand the following perfectly well--but it can't hurt to say it one more time. As far as we on Wikipedia are concerned, to speak of a lack of bias, or of neutral writing, is not to speak of a single viewpoint that is expressed in an article. The neutral point of view, as conceived by myself and Jimbo and many others, is not the view from nowhere. It is not "the truth," enunciated from "a neutral standpoint." In an encyclopedia at least, that's a silly fantasy and a total misunderstanding of what unbiased writing is like. Instead, where there is disagreement on a topic, one takes a step back to characterize the controversy--rather than to as it were engage directly in the controversy by taking a position, or by trying to find some bogus "middle" position that is the official view of the encyclopedia. --Larry M. Sanger

Comments? This page does need improvement, and we can improve it. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly agree with your concluding statement. But what I find hardest to accept about your proposed text is the emphasis on editors ("editors can agree...", "no other editor questions..."). This policy is saying fundamentally what we are aiming for - it should be independent of what editors may or may not think. And the "just write about what people believe" thing fails to address the key fact that sometimes, even in matters of controversy, we do conclude that there is a consensus among reliable sources strong enough to just make the statement without mentioning the fringe viewpoint (although if we are discussing the fringe viewpoint, we don't state that it is wrong). I don't think anyone, including Wales and Sanger, has yet managed to express clearly the whole concept of neutrality as Wikipedians understand it.--Kotniski (talk) 10:03, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is a good point, although I do not agree 100%. Would you just change "editors" to "reliable sources?" Or do you think some times "editors" is appropriate? Or do you have another idea?

Sometimes, "editors" is the right word. The fact remains that NPOV is basically a framework for diverse editors (Jimbo's amition is all literate humans) who hold strongly conflicting views of truth or fact to be able to work together. Sanger and Jimbo both emphasized time and time again that NPOV is not an epistemological claim, it makes no claims about what is right or wrong, it is a framework they viewed essential if Wikipedia is to be an encyclopedia everyone edits. I think this has to be explained clearly and consistenty or else it really doesn't make sense.

I appreciate your concerns, but I think V, RS and NOR all developed precisely to address your concerns. In other words, you are pointing out a limitation to NPOV. It is not that NPOV as Jimbo and Larry explained it is a muddled concept, it is just that it is insufficent. Jimbo and larry recognized that which is why V developed, and when many editors felt V was insufficient to address precisely such concerns as yours NOR and RS developed - those are the key policies that move away from a framework for how conflictign editors can work together, to policies that would help raise the quality of the articles by establishing some degree of rigor in the use of sources. NPOV is not our only policy. It fits in with V and NOR, and you have to take the effects of those policies into account. V and NOR and RS help ensure that "what people believe to be the truth or the facts," and of course undue weight, ensures that we do not just present anyone's personal beliefs, but beliefs (e.g. that space is curved) that are widely shared by people who think a lot about such things. (This of course is how scientists work - you look at the data and come up with your best model. No real scientist claims it is "the truth;" but if enough other scientists can be convinced it is a good model they will use it until something better comes along.) Slrubenstein | Talk 10:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I like the rewrite very much: its clear, to the point, short and snappy, and as a result, a huge improvement. With regard to the issue raised by Kotniski, I think there is always going be confusion as to what "editors agree on" and maybe we need to go one step back to define exactly what they are examining in the first place:

A careful selection of reliable sources is critical for producing articles with a neutral point of view. The fundamental premise of NPOV is that reliable sources may not agree over what is the "truth" or the "facts," but editors can agree that some sources have one view of the "truth" or the "facts," and other sources have a different view.

What I am suggesting here is to make clear what is the source of competing viewpoints, and it is down to editors to manage those differences. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:33, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the emphasis Slrs version places on "editors" is important because it includes the fact that what determines what neutrality is in a given situation is consensus among a group editors basing their judgement of what is neutral on reliable sources. I think it is important to keep an eye on the fact that neutrality isn't some objective reality that exists outside of consensus and that editors are supposed to aspire to come as close to as possible. That is never possibe, especially not with complex or controversial topics. Neutrality is negotiated based on policies, and the key policy is V - which is is beautifully supported by Slrs other emphasis on "views". ·Maunus·ƛ· 12:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality is not (or shouldn't be) "negotiated". If I'm writing an article, even if no other editor is interested in the topic, I still try to keep the text free of personal judgements. That's how it should be - it shouldn't be various groups of editors pushing opposing viewpoints and prejudices as hard as they can and seeing what results. Editors who notoriously try to force particular viewpoints into articles are the ones who ought to be excluded from the consensus-building process.--Kotniski (talk) 16:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course neutrality is negoatiated and while in a perfect world there might be a single objective truth about every topic in this world there isn't and about most topics the only way to come closer to neutrality is to negotiate. Of course as an editor you try to keep the article free from personal judgement - but there is no way you can actually achieve that - as a writer you have your personal and professional background as a lense through which you see things, and while a good academic training enables you to find viewpoints that are opposed to yours and include them, there is no way you can guarantee neutrality. One mans neutrality is anothers bias. This is why I think it is good to have the NPOV policy focus on "Views" and that it encourages Editors to identify and include all "Views". This means that if policy is followed the only negotiation that will be carried out is how to weigh them against eachother. Wikipedia is not about presenting facts it is about presenting views.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:34, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The key is to not fall into reductio ad opinionem, that is NPOV is a balance of opinion absent of facts as opposed to an unbiased representation of facts based on reputable sources and then indicating where opinions follow, or diverge, from said facts. Unfortunately, since only "consensus" counts as WP does not rule on "facts," all we are left with is reductio ad opinionem wherever editors choose to ignore reputable sources as they proselytize their cause. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk 16:26, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Unfortunately the short version of Jimbo's "write about what people believe, rather than what is so" is "facts don't count, only what people say"—note that what people say "ABOUT FACTS" is strictly something someone not pushing a POV will take for granted. Facts (and we are not talking "truth" here) are conspicuously absent from any WP determination of what is encyclopedic. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk 16:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.P.S. And all too often editors will jump in on a polarized topic (recall, reductio ad opinionem, not fact-based) and suggest that NPOV is the average of the two (the "truth must lie somewhere in-between")—the negotiation Kotniski speaks of happens every day and is the greatest disservice anyone can do to a topic as, since facts are not ruled upon, the FACTS of something are therefore forced to be some in-between by-definition fiction. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk 16:36, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Again, these issues are covered - by other policies (V and RS). The problem remains, significant views often disagree over the facts. In such cases we have to provide both views of the facts or of what constitutes a fact. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

V and RS do not cover ASF. V and RS is about finding a source. For ASF, it is how we present the verified text. When significant views disagree that is when in-text attribution may be required. QuackGuru (talk) 21:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No specific problem was identified with the current version

Editors allege the current version needs improvement. Some editors may not like a precise version of NPOV. They may think a detailed version of NPOV is rigid. If that's what you think then you prefer IAR. This proposal is a radical change to core NPOV policy without identifying how the current version did not work for the community. What some editors may think is a problem I think is detailed and precise.

Radical proposal

This version is not appropriate and eliminates an important part of policy called ASF. For example, it does not clearly explain the difference between a fact and an opinion. This version also guts out important details of policy. Do editors understand when text requires an inline qualifier or when it does not require an inline qualifier. Or do editors think we don't need ASF and editors can decide on there own without a clearly defined policy.

The proposal states: "Where a statement is controversial or otherwise not broadly accepted, or expresses a particular point of view, use in-text attribution— (i.e. identify the view in the passage): "John Smith writes that"— rather than publishing the material in Wikipedia's voice." Such wording would change the onus of proof from an editor having to prove it was controversial, to an editor who does not want to use in-text attribution to show it is broadly accepted, it alters the default from "don't use in-text attribution unless it is a serious dispute" to "do use in-text attribution unless it is broadly accepted". This is completely different from the current articulated version that says: By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." And the current concise version also gives good examples of what are facts and what are opinions. The proposal is consistent with a certain editor's editing pattern who wants to eliminate ASF.[7][8][9][10]

ASF has worked in content disputes

When there is a serious dispute in-text attribution (The 2008 book Trick or Treatment states) may be required. In-text attribution such as this edit was a violation of ASF when no serious dispute exists. The editor eventualy removed the in-text attribution because it was a violation of ASF. This shows the edit made by an editor is a good edit, exactly the way we should be editing after it was explained on the talk page about ASF. The disagreement was with editors but not the reliable sources. You can check the archives for the specifics. When there is no serious dispute or it is an opinion, ASF explains the difference. From time to time there are editors who disagree with what a researcher says from a highly reliable source or does not understand ASF policy but wants to include in-text attribution in violation of ASF. The problems are not always easily fixed. Sometimes discussions can go on for weeks. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Vaccine controversy. For the sake of argument if I am actually correct[11][12][13] there are reasons ASF will be useful because there are content disputes that take a lot of effort to remove the attribution or explain to other editors it is not the intention of ASF to have detailed attribution when there is no dispute among researchers. According to ASF (the current precise version) there is a difference between a fact that can be asserted versus an opinion that requires in-text attribution. When there are competing viewpoints (serious dispute) in-text attribution is recommended. It is how we present the verified text for facts and opinions. Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts and only facts, in this sense. Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing (inline qualifier) the opinion to someone or a group. Isn't this a simple formulation? QuackGuru (talk) 17:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"From time to time there are editors who disagree with what a researcher says from a highly reliable source or does not understand ASF policy but wants to include in-text attribution in violation of ASF" - No, in text attribution has never been a violation of WP:ASF. We MUST attribute views that are clearly opinions, or are clearly controversial. We don't need to have dispute among reliable sources to attribute text. If you were to put forward a statement that said "New York is the most beautiful city on the eastern seaboard", we would want that attributed - without having to go looking for a source that disputes this - Why? Because it is clearly an opinion. DigitalC (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up comment: Your example of a violation of ASF ("In-text attribution such as this edit was a violation of ASF when no serious dispute exists") is poor. That edit by Tim Vickers attributed something that was clearly an opinion, it is making a value judgement about an idea put forward by someone else. So, this is in fact a clear example of attributing text according to ASF, not in "violation" of ASF. DigitalC (talk) 19:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DigitalC in the example you cite, which was first cited by QuackGuru as you point out, the following statement is made -- Writing in 2009 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Jeffrey Gerber and Paul Offit of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia summarized the current scientific consensus on this question. The idea that a summary of the current scientific consensus has to be attributed to two authors is completely absurd. Either it's not the current scientific consensus or it doesn't need attribution.Griswaldo (talk) 12:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You make two fundamental errors: (1) "From time to time there are editors who disagree with what a researcher says from a highly reliable source" - this is covered by NOR: editors never put in their own views, we represent significant views accurately. This is covered elsewhere in the policy, quite clearly. (2) "or does not understand ASF policy but wants to include in-text attribution in violation of ASF." Adding in-line attribution is in no way violation of policy, past or present. You are fabricating a groundless interpretation. The less controversial a claim, or the more wisely shared it is, the easier it is to find a source or provide attribution, and we do this in articles all the time. And it is a good thing - it further educates the public. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is not covered in OR when it is or when it is not required to have an inline qualifier. Adding or providing in-line attribution is a violation of ASF policy when there is "no serious dispute" among reliable sources. You are ignoring the current ASF policy based on your editing pattern.[14][15][16] According to Slrubenstein, "Adding in-line attribution is in no way violation of policy, past or present." You are obviously wrong. In-text attribution is clearly against ASF and the community's consensus. See: By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." You are not supposed to add in-text attribution any time you feel like it. On Wikipedia, we assert the facts but not opinions. You want to convert a fact when there is "no disagreement" into an opinion by providing an in-text qualifier (e.g. so-and-so says). You want to radically change fundamental core policy to match your editing behaviour? It seems you want to reverse the current meaning of ASF in the other direction. This is complete nonsense. QuackGuru (talk) 21:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Adding or providing in-line attribution is a violation of ASF policy when there is "no serious dispute" among reliable sources" - Again, this is false. It has never been against WP:ASF to add attribution without dispute among reliable sources. This has been pointed out to you time and time again. There is no consensus for your interpretation of WP:ASF. DigitalC (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

[17][18][19] QuackGuru (talk) 16:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It can never be against policy to provide a citation. And again, I must explain to you: people may hold different views as to what a fact is. The issue is not fact vs. non-fact, but rather total agreement vs. controversy. Sure, when there is total agreement you could say a citation is unnecessary. But nowhere does it say that you cannot add an attribution. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ASF is not about a citation. It is about how to present the verfied text. So that makes your comment irrelevant to the discussion.

It is not about people holding different views as to what is a fact. It is if among reliable sources if there is a serious disagreement.

The issue is fact and opinions and to show editors how to convert an opinion into a fact by attributing (inline qualifier) the opinion to someone or a group.

When there is total agreement you cannot say a citation is unnecessary if it is challenged or likely to be challenged. That is not what ASF is about. See: By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." This does say that you cannot add in-text attribution when no serious dispute exists for an obvious fact. In-text attribution is not a citation. In-text attribution is an inline qualifier such as so-and-so says. Let's test it. Was there a serious dispute among reliable sources for you to add so much in-text attribution. Did WP:ASF work for you in that content dispute. QuackGuru (talk) 23:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with "balanced coverage", the idea of precisely, or even imprecisely, "weighting" the number of sources to match the relative prominence of a point of view. This is because:

A Wikipedia editor is not qualified to determine which point of view is of exactly what overall strength. That is original research.
The proper response is to encourage editors to add sources to document underrepresented points of view. Any wording that even tacitly approves of the removal of sources and relative content leaves editors competing to delete and destroy parts of the article to support their POV, rather than adding and documenting the relevant perspectives as is productive and appropriate. This happens too often right now without such language! Wnt (talk) 23:29, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The proper response is to tell editors ASF is not about adding or removing sources. ASF is about how to present the verfied text. QuackGuru (talk) 23:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editors who oppose any change to make citations or reliably sourced information unwelcome by policy are for the current ASF policy because ASF is not about V policy while the rewrite is vague. QuackGuru (talk) 23:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Slrubenstein wrote Sure, when there is total agreement you could say a citation is unnecessary. It seems Slrubenstein wants to radically change ASF to encourage editors to not add sources to verify the text. This will discourage editors to verify the text. This conflicts with exisiting policies. QuackGuru (talk) 00:01, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And yet above Quack writes, "is about how to present the verfied text" so he even disagrees with himself. in any event, as I have already said, since Quack says he is talking about verivied texts, this is best dealt with in the V policy. Quack lies when he write that I "encourage editors to not add sources to verify the text." Nowhere have I ever written such a thing. Quak also writes, "You want to convert a fact when there is "no disagreement" into an opinion by providing an in-text qualifier" - this dietorts what i wrote, I never used the word "qualifier," we are only talking about verification and this is totally bizarre, adding in-line attribution does not change a fact into an opinion. Quack is just confused, and does not understand our policy (and certainly does not understand science), which is precisely why we need to make it clearer. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let's be fair - we're all confused. No-one's understanding what anyone else, or the "policy" page itself, is saying. Is anyone able to state in a few crisp points what the principles of Wikipedia's "neutral point of view" are? (My attempt would be something like: (1) prefer non-judgmental language; (2) present selections of views that don't mislead readers as to their prominence; (3) don't state as fact anything that is (a) a personal judgment, or (b) seriously disputed among reliable sources. Although (3) is probably part of V rather than NPOV, if you insist on keeping them separate.)--Kotniski (talk) 10:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let's be honest. I see a proposal that changes the meaning of current policy to allow a fact to be altered into an opinion. QuackGuru (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see why it is so confusing.

Wikipedia makes no epistemological claims. It does not decide what is true or what is a fact.
On any topic - political or scientific - there may be only one view or several. It does not matter whether this is a view as to what is the truth, or the facts, or what is good or bad, right or wrong, or beautiful or ugly. The cornerstone of our NPOV policy is "view."
What makes our approach to "views" is that we never decide which view is right or wrong. Instead, we present any and all (even if there is only one) views in a neutral way.

There are however a couple of conditions on what views we include:

the first condition is that the view is verifiable. This does not mean that the contents of the view have been "proven" (i.e. if Einstein claims space and time are the same thing, we do not care whether or not he has proven this). It means we can verify that someone (or everyone, whatever the case may be) holds the view (i.e. did Einstein really say that? Where? Can you provide a source? You say all physicists now agree with him - again, the question is not whether those physicists are right or wrong, that is not for a WP editor to judge. But do all physicists really agree? That is what "verification" is about. This is further explained in our V policy, supported by RS (I don't "insist" on separating it from NPOV, it was borne out of NPOV and is connected, but it still has its own policy where these things are covered in depth)
the second condition is that the view be significant. When there are multiple views, we must include all significant views. Usually editors try to reach a consensus on what views are significant, and there are different ways to do this. When it is unclear whether a view is significant or not, consult FRINGE
When there are multiple views, it is possible that all are equally significant. But often, one view is mainstream, or one view is majority and others minority. We must make these distinctions clear (see WEIGHT)

All the above bullet points are really explications of the main noun in the policy (view) and the adjective (neutral). The source of almost all confusion is a situation where there are multiple views, but I think the above covers all such situations. Some people think that religion and pseudoscience raise special issues. I do not want to get into that argument. i think it would be better to discuss those sections of the policy in a different conversation. But what is confusing about the above summary? Slrubenstein | Talk 11:25, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks to be approaching something reasonable - but as far as I can tell you haven't addressed what "in a neutral way" means. (I think there is a distinction between "views as to the facts" and "views as to what is good or bad )(etc.)" - if there is only one significant view as to the facts, we just state it as fact; but if there is only one significant view as to goodness/badness/etc., then we still attribute it in the text. This is what QG is trying to say, I think, with his defence of ASF.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just added another sentence to the introduction to respond to your initial concern. We can keep working on it. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:40, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Neutral" means it is simply not up to any Wikipedia editor to say what is a fact. Most editors working on the Evolution article agree that evolution is a fact, but this is just not relevant; we do not add editors' views to articles. What is important is that all evolutionary biologists believe evolution is a fact. We DO say this in the article, and we provide sources. This is our policy as it has been followed and I will quite the project rather than see it abandoned. Quack Guru has very passionate views about what is a fact and he can't stand it that some people wish him to defend his view by verifying it. I have been around here for a long time and have seen many other editors like Quack Guru insist that they know what the facts are. And you know what? Sometimes, I have even agreed with them. But I take it as a sine qua non that to edit Wikipedia I do not insert my own views into articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what QG's particular views are, but in general terms, there is a bullet to be bitten - we do state many things as fact in articles (and not only facts of the form "A believes B"). The question is: what conditions does something have to meet in order to be stated as a fact? --Kotniski (talk) 12:34, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer I have been involved recently in a dispute with Slrubenstein at Talk:Judiasm during which I quoted from the current WP:NPOV policy extensively to support my position. I have some concerns about how to interpret it, and I just want it to be clear that this is how I came across this conversation on the talk page. I have to admit some amount of surprise at discovering the extensive changes he decided to make to this policy page after the afore mentioned dispute was throughly underway, but that's another story. I would like to point out that Slrubenstein is missing Quack's point, and the Evolution example shows this clearly. Quack's point is that we don't need to "attribute" a statements of certain types. In Wikipedia's voice we can present them as facts. For instance

"Evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations."
and not "According to evolutionary biologists evolution is the change in inherited traits ..."

Slrubenstein's claims about this policy imply that we would have to attribute this "fact" to evolutionary biologists. That is clearly not how things have been done, and clearly not how they ought to be done. Quack is right to insist on including language in the policy that allows for the presentation of facts, as long as we have ways of establishing that these are indeed uncontroversial in the mainstream of the various communities (e.g. biologists, physical anthropologists, etc.) that we rely on to provide information about the subject. If we didn't have this the encyclopedia would turn into a mess of "he said she said", and would lose every manner of respectability in the real world.Griswaldo (talk) 17:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry Griswaldo believes we are still in some conflict (which by the way began some time after I began editing this part of the article) - I thought we had reached a compromise that maintained the longstanding consensus version of the article and that added a quote that included language Griswaldo added, and that came from a reliable source supported by the other editors on the page. Be that as it may, I fail to see how the language that is in my proposal in any way "implies" what Griswaldo says it implies. Griswaldo's view actually seems quite close to my own, if by fact he means and I quote "uncontroversial in the mainstream of the various communities (e.g. biologists, physical anthropologists, etc.) that we rely on to provide information about the subject" - and I repeat, I fully agree wih this part of Griswaldo's comment - we are reporting (one way or another) some group's (call them stakeholders, or community as Griswaldo does, whatever term you like) view of "the facts" or what is "a fact." If Griswaldo and I do agree on this, as it seems, I am quite glad. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:34, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are sorry about what. It is against current long standing policy to change a fact into an opinion when there is no serious dispute among reliable sources. Slrubenstein views allows a fact to be altered into an opinion. This is very different from Griswaldo's view. Slrubenstein, please show there is a serious dispute. See WP:ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 17:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There has never been consensus for your interpretation of ASF. It has never been against ASF to attribute text. DigitalC (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ASF: By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." There is consensus for this text. QuackGuru (talk) 19:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why am I not suprised to see you having a WP:IDHT violation again? There has never been consensus for your interpretation of that text. Nowhere in that text does it say that dispute must be in reliable sources. DigitalC (talk) 03:03, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I provided this link before. DigitalC thinks when an editor disputes an uncontroversial fact in-text attribution is warranted. DigitalC wants to change policy to allow a fact to be converted into an opinion regardless of what reliable sources say. QuackGuru (talk) 16:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Slrubenstein we are not in agreement unless there is a serious communications breakdown here. For instance you wrote:

Adding in-line attribution is in no way violation of policy, past or present ... The less controversial a claim, or the more wisely shared it is, the easier it is to find a source or provide attribution, and we do this in articles all the time. And it is a good thing - it further educates the public.
Most editors working on the Evolution article agree that evolution is a fact, but this is just not relevant; we do not add editors' views to articles. What is important is that all evolutionary biologists believe evolution is a fact. We DO say this in the article, and we provide sources. This is our policy as it has been followed and I will quite the project rather than see it abandoned.

You are also using the phrase "total agreement" to describe the conditions under which attribution is not necessary (there is never "total" agreement on anything!). What all of this suggests to me is that since there is not "total agreement" about what Evolution is, or whether or not it is factual, then the definition ought to be attributed, and indeed you suggest that it is already attributed in the article. I don't see such attribution. The fourth paragraph in the introduction of that article does state that "evolutionary biologists document the fact that evolution occurs, and also develop and test theories that explain its causes," and it does so without any citations whatsoever. That's a whole other ball game than what you said though. Once again we have evolution presented as fact in Wikipedia's voice, with the statement that evolutionary biologists are the ones who really know a lot about this fact. I think this is the correct way to treat such matters, and if you do then I don't understand why you want to make the change that Quack is unhappy about. Your change quite simply obscures the use of unattributed fact and makes it seem like attribution is preferable pretty much always.Griswaldo (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Griswa,do, the breakdown in communication is this: you are quoting my personal opinion, only part of which is policy (there is nothing in policy that has ever prohibited providing inline attribution; the rest is my personal opinion). But what really matters here is not my personal opinion but what I have proposed, and as far as I can tell what you wrote is consistent with what I have proposed as the wording for this section of the policy. Do we disagree? I oppose changing the policy to prevent in-line attribution (all I have been promoting in my proposal is to specify when it is prescribed, not proscribed, which is consistent with current policy). In your "evolution" example, the current wording of the article was worked out by the editors working on the page. In general, this is my view, as I explained in great detail to K., below. Do you think that the policy should be changed to specifically prohibit the use of in-line attribution? Then we would disagree. But if you support my proposal, NPOV would not prhibit editors working on an article (like evolution) to word the sentence the way you suggest - I just think this should be left up to editors who work on the article to decide on a case by case basis, and we should not have a blanket prohibition. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"My" answer to you: You have to explain to me why anything should be stated "as a fact." In any event, I do not think this has anything to do with NPOV.

I personally have written a lot of content where I have never used the word "fact." you might say that by njot providing attribution I am suggesting that it is a fact. But if someone on the talk page says the text is wrong, well, we do what I explain in the following:

"Wikipedia's" answer (i.e. what usually happens) Wikipedia's practice in the past has been pragmatic, and I think it ought to remain so. By this I mean, as long as there is no conflict on the talk page, people generally have no cause to consult NPOV. When there is conflict on the talk page, I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask any editor to verify his or her claims. Editors ought to reach consensus on what to do next (add a citation, add in-line attribution, or keep it as is. This is a wikipedia and policy should not, cannot, and has never tried to legislate everything. Editors need to collaborate and work out what to do. Our assumption (and if it is wrong the whole project is sunk) is that editors working on a page are generally the ones best qualified to figure out how to handle the matter (if one or a few editors are DEs or POV pushuers, sooner or later it goes to mediation, arbitration, or an admin bans someone; the people who are left are - I continue to believe - the best qualified to figure out how to handle it). I understand your concern about a single editor writing alone, but the policy page is already clear: write in a neutral language, provide all significant views from reliable sources. So if you are writing an article on let's say the history of Dry Wipe Markers (I am trying to imagine something that no one else is working on, if it even exists right now), you have to do research - read books and articles - and provide references for whatever you write. If you believe something is uncontroversial and there are no dviews expressed by anyone .. "Dry wipe markers are used with specially made dry wipe boards" for example just go ahead and write it - this is wikipedia, anyone can edit at any time, and remember that our FIRST policy was "ignore all rules," so just write it. Maybeone day another editor wil come around and write on the talk page that this is not true, dry wipe markers were originally invented for use in space, you can say, "really? What is your source" and you may even go back to the library and do more investigating and find a newspaper article announcing the invention of dry wipe markers for use in universities, and then you have to rewrite it so some say x and some say y. Or, you may ask a source from this newcomer and if she cannot provide any, you can just say "look, we are going to leave it as is until you find a verifiable source, okay?" I mean, isn't this how it works at almost every article?

NPOV is not like some 2,000 page piece of legislation that is meant to tell people what to do in every situation. It provides a general framework for a "wikipedia," an encyclopedia in which there is no editorial control and in which we hope that thousands of people work on each article. That's its purpose. If we were not a wiki pedia we wouldn't need the policy at all. We would be like any other encyclopedia in which an editor hires experts to write articles, and the author or the editorial board claims that what they publish in their encyclopedia is factually accurate or true. But we aren't that kind of encyclopedia, we do not work that way, and cannot make such claims. No one is the "author" of the article or signs the article, so (unlike in a magazine) there is no author to claim "I guarantee you that what I wrote is accurate." And Jimbo owns the servers, but he is not a master-editor guaranteeing to the general public that Wikipedia is accurate. We are not set up like other encyclopedias so we cannot operate that way. All we can police is that claims are verifiable, any unverifiable claim can be removed from an article. We just assume that editors are not morons or children who remove material only because it is un-referenced - every particle has people watching it and when someone deletes something that people watching thinks is fine, someone reverts the deletion. If an editor comes along and says, "I do not believe it," we do have an obligation to provide verification, and if something is widely believed to be true this should - by definition - be easy to verify. And in such cases you can tell an editor "look, this is so easy to verify, that we do not need to add a citation" and if the other guy insists, just ask "Look, why do you think this is controversial? Why do you think it needs citation?" Kotniski, more than any policy like NPOV we just have to assume that editors are thoughtful adults who can have mature discussions over how to handle these matters in a way that makes the article better. That is the whole idea of a wikipedia, anyone editing any time. People cannot keep running to policy to support them in every argument, people need to discuss, provide reasons, try to persuade one another, or whatever. Policy provides minimum standards and a general framework, but in the end the article is written by its authors, in collaboration, and if the editors are childish, contentious, immature POV pushers the article will suffer. Sadly, this often happens. We just hope more mature, thoughtful, and willing-to-do-real-research editors will come along and fix the article. And if there is a conflict they should try to use reason on the talk page. No policy can be a substitute for this process. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I would generally agree with most of that, and I'm always arguing for policy to be made as short and clear as possible so it can't be abused and doesn't waste people's time. But on the specific point, you seem to be drifting again towards confusion between in-text attribution and (footnote) citations. I think we understand that the latter are desirable for pretty much anything anyone can reasonably request them for (and that is the domain of WP:V). But what about the former? When is that appropriate? (It can't be just "whenever any editor disputes something", since that would mean (a) subjective statements like "A is beautiful" could be left in articles until some editor comes along actually claiming that A is not beautiful; (b) well-established scientific facts like "organism X evolved during era Y" could be required to have in-text attribution just because some Creationist editor comes along denying that evolution is possible.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My answer remains, realy, common sense reached by consensus among editors working on the talk page. I have made a few edits to the first two paragraphs of the proposed alternative, again, based on issuesyou bring up. I have reread my proposed second paragraph and I honestly think it is all a policy page should bring up. Policy cannot provide any blanket justification for not providing an in-line attribution. This would constrain editors too much. I think policy can describe under what conditions we typically provide in-line attribution and why, and then has to leave it up to editors. We need to insist on more common sense, rather than more rules. Please reread the first two paragraphs of my proposal with your question in mind. What I wrote does not give a decisive answer, but that is because I do not think that is a good way to write policy. The task of this policy is to explain NPOV, not to answer every question that comes up in editing. There is a spirit of NPOV - not to get metaphysical, but a way of approaching problems that is found in NPOV, V, and NOR, and this should guide well-intentioned discussions among editors. When is in-text attribution appropriate? I think what I wrote answers that question. It is required when what we have is clearly an attributable view. I think thise leaves a wide space open, where editors can decide whether it is desirable or unnecessary, based on their own ability to reach a consensus based on well-informed common sense. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You have an answer? First you need to explain why you are against the current ASF. It seems you want to alter exisitng policy rather than working within the spirit of NPOV. You think NPOV is rigid and you don't like that. Now you want to alter it in a way that will make it vague and confusing. You don't want to make ASF more concise. You want to radically alter core policy. Isn't that right? QuackGuru (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Changing a fact into an opinion is against the spirit of NPOV

The bias proposal states: "Where a statement is controversial or otherwise not broadly accepted, or expresses a particular point of view, use in-text attribution— (i.e. identify the view in the passage): "John Smith writes that"— rather than publishing the material in Wikipedia's voice." Such wording would change the proof from an editor must show that there is serious dispute (among reliable sources), to an editor who does not want to use in-text attribution to show that the view is broadly accepted, it alters the default from "don't use in-text attribution unless it is a serious dispute" to "do use in-text attribution unless it is broadly accepted". This will allow an editor to change a fact into an opinion which is against the long standing consensus version that has always worked for the community.

The consensus version states: The obviously correct version says: By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." And the current concise version also gives good examples of what are facts and what are opinions. The proposal is consistent with a certain editor's editing pattern who wants to eliminate ASF.[20][21][22][23]

Slrubenstein wrote Sure, when there is total agreement you could say a citation is unnecessary.? This is not our aim for ASF. It is about how to present the verfied text. Do we present the text as an opinion or a fact. When it is an opinion (serious dispute) we can convert it into a fact with an inline qualifier.

If there is no serious dispute adding an inline-text attribution such as so-and-so says does radically change a fact into an opinion. If there is no serious dispute among reliable sources then adding so much inline-text attribution alters what was a fact into an opinion. This conflicts with exisiting policies and wriitng from a neutral point of view. QuackGuru (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see much difference in consequence between "don't use in-text attribution unless it is in serious dispute" to "do use in-text attribution unless it is broadly accepted". If that's the only difference between you two, then I think we can very quickly reach an acceptable form of wording. The precise wording we choose oughtn't to affect much how people behave (as long as it's stated clearly); it's the idea behind it that counts, and I think we all basically agree on that idea.--Kotniski (talk) 17:16, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The version I am proposing goes with the former. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:34, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is not the idea behind it, but the wording that counts. I think we disagree on what are facts and what are opinions. ASF explains how to present the views from reliable sources. When you don't understand the consequences between the different wording that is what the problem is. Changing a fact into an opinion is against NPOV. The acceptable form of wording is the current version of NPOV. Not this incoherent proposal. If editors want to read an acceptable form of wording then they can read WP:NPOV. I don't see anything in the proposal that would improve NPOV. QuackGuru (talk) 17:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A holding note – I'm sympathetic to the aim of simplification and clarification, but don't think this proposal at present achieves that aim. One concern is the piped link to WP:UNDUE, terms should be consistent to aid recognition and the summary in this section should be fully consistent with the main section on weight. The reference to "topic experts or significant stakeholders" is interesting, though as Wikipedia articles are based on third party sources the emphasis should be on topic experts rather than "significant stakeholders" which seems to imply primary sources. Nonetheless, the point that we look to reliable sources of expert opinion rather than of public opinion is significant. Anyway, will try to review this more thoroughly when time permits. . . dave souza, talk 21:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dave, could you make whatever edit you think called for concerning the piped links issue? Also, I am not married to the term "stkeholder" but I didn't think "experts" is enough - in some cases a view of a non-expert may be significant to merit inclusion. If you have a better way to word it ... could you rephrase it accordingly? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting debate, particularly after a few days elsewhere. I now understand what Quack Guru is on about. Unfortunately, WP broke for a while this evening and so I won't have time to give my full feedback until Thursday. As usual, there are lots of things I agree with from all parties, but a brief summary of my thought is:
I would include that it should not be possible to discern the POV of the editors from reading the article.
The choice of reliable sources involves judgement. But the choice of reliable sources is easier to agree on than positions being discussed in those sources. So by allowing all views from reliable sources to be presented, NPOV is far easier to attain than by trying to find the elusive single viewpoint. This is the point of using reliable sources rather than reliable information as the test
NPOV must give readers enough material about the significant viewpoints to give them the ability to form their own opinion about the most valid position.
Consensus is not the same as majority or compromise. See Consensus.
Inline citations should not be confused with inline source attribution.
Inline citations can be used even when information is not disputed to give the reader a link to a more detailed context for a statement.
In source attribution should be used where there is dispute amongst reliable sources and not otherwise. This avoids clutter and allows the reader to know when some statement is contentious
How can non-expert editors tell if a point is contentious and just not attributed yet (through laziness, for example, or lack of time), or whether it is genuinely not disputed by the experts. An inline cite saying it is not controversial would show that attribution was not required. It could also say why it was not controversial.
NPOV is the grandfather policy which spawned V, NOR, RS, UNDUE, FRINGE etc. It should not be afraid to use information from these policies, though detailed explanations should be wikilinked
Some concepts are intrinsically subjective, eg good/not good, even if they are not controversial. These should not be stated as facts, even if everyone seems to agree with them. In principle an event may change the world view at any time, and the article should not suddenly become opinionated. My test would be along the lines of could a computer tell whether the statement was true? - Mars is a planet is a yes, Eating meat is bad is a no. I haven't thought through a definitive test though.
Some ideas, like scientific theories, create their own model (eg proton or black hole) which cannot be accurately described outside the theory. The theories define what the object is. A physical object with the attributes similar to those predicted by the theory may also exist, but this is a different category of object - ie a physical object, rather than a theoretical model. In politics or history, different views represent different theoretical objects, and none of them correspond exactly with the actual historical figure. So facts about a theory correspond to opinions about reality.
In the case of a scientific theory, we do not need to state that proponents of the theory believe X in the article about X. We can just state X. We can assume that if the article is about a black hole, a concept which is defined by a mathematically described model, then the text describes the theoretical object, not some supposed real object. Black holes also have a non-scientific usage, but nothing can be said about these objects these with certainty, as each author can make up any ideas he wants and use the term black hole. It doesn't make it a black hole.
We only need to convert facts into opinions if there is a serious dispute about the accuracy of the fact, or if it is of an intrinsically subjective nature. Otherwise it is excessive verbiage. If there is not serious dispute, we can state as a fact and include an inline citation if verification is required - but not report it as an opinion.
Finally, I agree with Slrubenstein that pragmatism is crucial, and we should expect editors to use their discretion. It is often a lot easier to clean up imperfect text than to write the perfect version down from scratch if the rough version is deleted and lost.

I hope these ideas help the discussion Stephen B Streater (talk) 22:37, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think most of these points are constructive. I really do not think we will ever come up with a computer program acceptable to all astronomers that will identify "planets" in a way that will constantly match consensus among astronomers over the next century. In some cases astronomers may have conflicting criteria, in some cases it will change over time. This is why I think we are better off not using words like "fact" or "opinion" at all. Today, everyone may agree on what a fact is, tomorrow they may not. It is best to stick to the terms essential to the policy. Present views in a neutral way. Why say anything about stating facts? If all the sources call something a "fact" we can use the word and provide citations. In many cases what some editors may consider facts scientists may not consider facts at all but data or theory; we need to be careful not to have a policy that misrepresents science. If editors working on an article agree about reliable sources and how to present them in an article, I have no idea why they would use in-line attribution and when some editors keep bringing it up i can only conclude that it is either (a) a red herring or (b) they want the policy to proscribe in-line attribution rather than leave it to the editors to work it out which I really oppose. But let's not keep confusing the in-line citation issue with the fact issue. Editors may agree that in-line citation is not necessary even when no source identifies something as a fact. These are two separate issues. But I like what you say about scientific theories. Do you think what i propose is 'workable? If so, then I would encourage you to make any changes to it you feel confident would improve it. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy and attribution

Slrubenstein, in order to make this less confusing I'm posting this here instead of above where our ongoing discussing is right in the middle of the thread. I'd like to focus on the follwing part of your proposal, which I gather is the part Quackguru has the biggest problem with as well:

Controversial views Uncontroversial views – views that have no alternative or opposition to be found in other reliable sources – pose no problem for editors. This and related policies (Verifiability and No original research), however, require that anything challenged or likely to be challenged, including all quotations, be attributed to a reliable source in the form of an inline citation that directly supports the material in question. Where a statement is controversial or otherwise not broadly accepted, or expresses a particular point of view, use in-text attribution— (i.e. identify the view in the passage): "John Smith writes that"— rather than publishing the material in Wikipedia's voice. When attributing views to individuals, make sure the text does not imply parity between a majority and minority view.

That "uncontroversial views" as you define them pose no problem for editors does not need to be stated since by definition such views pose no problems. However, you then go on to state that "anything challenged or likely to be challenged ... be attributed to a reliable source in the form of an inline citation." Challenged by whom? By other reliable sources or by other editors? Your opinions above suggest that anything challenged by other Wikipedia editors needs attribution. It is of vital importance to clarify that the challenge must be from reliable sources. Indeed not stating so is contradictory to other policies like WP:V and WP:OR. Claiming that clarifying this here is unnecessary because of the existence of other policies is a mistake since all policies necessitate clear integration and overlap without room for contradiction. Can we agree on this first step?

Further down you go on to write that "[w]here a statement is controversial or otherwise not broadly accepted, or expresses a particular point of view, use in-text attribution." (emphasis mine) The last part is problematic because as you and Maunus have been discussing above everything can be viewed as "expressing a particular point of view." Again one wonders who is arbiter of all this? How do we decide if something "expresses a particular point of view" and therefore needs attribution? In the end this language is much to open for scenarios in which editors simply say ... "oh well that's just one POV so you'll have to attribute that in the text." We had this problem at Genesis creation narrative when a couple of editors insisted on obfuscating the mainstream view that the Biblical creation story is one of several "Near Eastern creation myths" by slapping on the attribution "according to many scholars" [24]. These editors were unable to show any significant mainstream support for that view.

My closing remark on this is that it is absolutely necessary to have policies that help us settle disputes as objectively as possible by examining the relative quality and quantity of sources, as opposed to relying simply on consensus. By relative quality I don't mean what we claim about these sources, but what already established communities of experts claim about the quality of various sources. This is necessary because we can actually rely on measurements of some kind as opposed to the relative number of Wikipedians holding a certain opinion and participating on a talk page or even worse the relative ability of Wikipedians to filibusterer discussions until they get their way. Your text waters down the policy in ways that suggest a stronger role for consensus, and where there is none for the presentation of facts as if there "views" or "opinions". I think this is a serious mistake.Griswaldo (talk) 20:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Griswaldo, I simply do not see how anything can present a fact as an opinion. The problem is, sometimes different sources provide conflicting acounts of the facts. NPOV provides a way to deal with this.

You raise some good questions, but i still disagree with you. People who edit the encyclopedia use sources, and if they they use a quote or add content that they know is not widely believed, understood, or known, it is always a good idea to provide a citation - I have seen you do this yourself. I also think "a particular point of viw" is clearer than what we currently have. The adjective makes it quite clear that we are not talking about any view. You know what the word particular means (anyone who doesn't perhaps should not be editing encyclopedias). I am not watering down the policy - this is already the policy, I am just stating it more clearly.

The whole reason for having this discussion on the talk page is to see if what I am proposing can be improved upon. I think that part of the NPOV colicy as it stands is bloated, inconsistent, and confusing. This is an attempt to improve it. If you hate it, you hate it, but the choice is not hate it or love it, there is room to raise questions, point out problems, and try to make it better. I do not agree with you but appreciate your raising these questions. We will see how many share them, and also whether someone else can imagine better phrasing.

But do recall that the first rule of Wikipedia is "ignore all rules." Policies describe established practices, and NPOV certainly is the king of them all. But in the end, policy does not tell editors what to do. Common sense, a willingness to assume good faith on the part of people we disagree with, and a willingness to compromise is what makes Wikipedia work. No policy can substitute for these qualities among editors working on an article. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

May be unnecessary to say, but "presenting a fact as an opinion" seems to mean (needlessly) attributing uncontroversial statements, and so creating the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none.John Z (talk) 23:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that attribution is often used to present facts as opinion particularly where opposing opinions lack supporting facts. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ►talk 00:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I made this change to clarify facts and opinions. Facts are uncontroversial statements and opinions are opposing or disputed views. QuackGuru (talk) 00:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This change added "complementary and alternative medicine[1]".

The article already says "It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM),[3] a characterization that many chiropractors reject.[4]"

It is seriously disputed that chiropractic is categorized as a complementary and alternative medicine. This is an example why WP:ASF is needed. The dispute is summarised in the lead but a few editors want to continue to assert it is a complementary and alternative medicine when it is duplication and an opinion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments about article content belong on the article talk page. Wikipedia requires you to collaborate with other editors. if you get into an intractable conflict, seek mediation. That is how we do things at Wikipedia. You cannot use policy to legislate your point of view in an edit conflict. If you have a reliable source saying something is a fact, they simply have no right to remove it. That is that. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:50, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Giving good examples of how ASF works showed insight to other editors here. Wikipedia requires editors to collaborate and edit from a neutral point of view. This requires reading policy and not make up stuff as you go along. You should use policy like ASF to guide article content. If there is a source misused to assert an opinion when the serious disagreement was already explained later in the article or the source violated MEDRS it can be removed. One source may say it is a fact but the are other sources showed a serious dispute. That's it. QuackGuru (talk) 04:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See History of the race and intelligence controversy#1960-1980.

This version added inline-text attribution: According to William Tucker, author of The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund, the most significant of Shockley's lobbying campaigns involved the educational psychologist, Arthur Jensen, from the University of California, Berkeley.[25]

This version asserts the text as fact: One of Shockley's lobbying campaigns involved the educational psychologist, Arthur Jensen, from the University of California, Berkeley.

WP:ASF states: "Facts can be asserted without an inline qualifier (e.g. "John Doe believes...")."

Slrubenstein, are you coming to policy page to allow editors to convert an uncontroversial fact into an implied controversial opinion. When an editor adds inline-text attribtion such as "According to William Tucker" it implies there is a serious dispute. Was there a serious dispute or do you want to add inline-text attribution to falsely imply there is a serious dispute. QuackGuru (talk) 17:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Race and intelligence#IQ differences outside of the USA.

This version is an uncontroversial fact: Racial differences in IQ scores are observed around the world.[26]

This version converts a fact into an opinion and implies there is serious disagreement. The word "others" is vague and mass attribution which is also a violation of ASF and poor writing: According to Richard Lynn and others, racial differences in IQ scores are observed around the world.[27][28]

Slrubenstein wrote Sure, when there is total agreement you could say a citation is unnecessary. It seems Slrubenstein wants to alter ASF to encourage editors to delete sources that verify the text. This will discourage editors to verify the text. This conflicts with exisiting policies. I don't see a valid reason to imply there was serious dispute or to delete sources. QuackGuru (talk) 19:31, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I agree that NPOV needs some tightening and better examples and this is a step in the right direction. One thing we need is some help in is what happens if reliable sources or reliable and notable sources don't seem to quite match up in definitions or viability as seen in the Talk:Rorschach test and Talk:Christ_myth_theory archives.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaning up undue weight for non-viewpoint issues

I have had issues in the past with editors claiming WP:UNDUE does not apply specifically with regard to fiction with stuff like listing every special attacks and the like. While it does mention that undue weight is not simply restricted to viewpoints, it is buried inbetween statements that emphasise the importance of not promoting minority views or giving them equal weight. I do not want to get rid of this, but simply make it much clearer that undue weight applies equally to the items i listed above.陣内 _Jinnai 20:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure I understand your concern... could you give an example? Blueboar (talk) 14:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the most recent one was the debate on List of Hunter x Hunter characters claiming that removing all the trivial info on named attacks, and such wasn't justified. I do not know if the issue was ever cleared up because the person disputing it ended up not talking anymore. It has happened before though, at least several times. I think one was with the list of in-universe terms in Tsukihime some time ago. The discussion was on the users talk page if I remember correctly.陣内 _Jinnai 02:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When removing information because good writing is concise, a good policy section to quote would be WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine for some stuff, but the problem comes in when we decide to keep some of that information. Then I get complaints that, to paraphrase: "because I kept X, then Y is okay because otherwise it is all indisciminate and there is no way (for fiction) to disciminate as to what is more important than something else."陣内 _Jinnai 00:03, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Essentially, what you are talking about is a matter of editorial consensus, and not a NPOV issue. Blueboar (talk) 00:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV between similar articles

There has recently been a conflict over at the Criticism of Judaism page, where there is confusion over whether NPOV would apply across the similar Criticism of (whatever religion) articles. For instance, is it applicable to say that, since all of the other Criticism of articles have a section of criticism on that religion's holy book, it is necessary to have a criticism section on the Torah, the Jewish holy book, in order to maintain NPOV and balance for different religions? If so, where does it say in this policy that it is so? Thanks to anyone trying to help clear up this confusion. Silverseren^C 00:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In short...no, you do not need to maintain a ballance between articles. People often have the misconception that a Neutral POV means treating everything the same... it doesn't. It means taking a step back and discussing the topic with neutrality, with each POV discussed according to its merits and without undue weight. That said... I would think that any neutral article about Criticism of Judaism would contain a section on the Torah. In other words... While I think the rational you mention is flawed... I think the article should have the section never the less. Blueboar (talk) 01:38, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would WP:UNDUE apply at all or is there really no sort of rationale, for any policy, that applies for similar, but separate articles? Silverseren^C 01:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would ask the question whether this topic really exists in the first place. Is there truly signficant coverage from reliable secondary sources that address the topic "Criticism of Judaism" directly and detail? I am sceptical myslef. My view is that this is topic that is original research (or more correctly a synethesis) that fails WP:MADEUP. A good test of whether this is the case is to see if the sources have been cited in other articles, for if they have, then its likely that its content duplicates other topics. In my view, this topic is ripe for merger with more notable topics that can provide balanced coverage of the issues. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:41, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't antisemitism criticism of Judaism? And isn't there therefore "signficant coverage from reliable secondary sources that address the topic "Criticism of Judaism" directly and detail"? Peter jackson (talk) 09:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Antisemitism is a specific form of racism, and is a seperate topic in its own right. Why I think "Criticism of Judaism" is a madeup topic is that the criticisms it contains address to specific topics about Jewish beliefs that already have articles, such as Jews as a chosen people and Covenant (biblical). It seems to me that various criticisms have been stitched togther to form an entirely new and original topic that does not exist outside of Wikipedia. The NPOV disputes about the tone and sourcing of the article are symptoms that this topic fails WP:MADEUP, as a madeup topic is incapable of treating is subject matter in balanced way or provide context about its subject matter that would put praise or criticism in perspective. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:05, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Feminists and gay rights activists have criticisms of Judaism and there are criticisms of the archaeological accuracy of the texts. You can find the phrase elsewhere on the web than wikipedia. We aren't supposed to use WP:what about article X to decide what goes into one article but IM experience functionally that gets violated everyday here. Alatari (talk) 10:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is a contrived slice of a variety of other subjects. Criticism of Judaism is probably not a subject in its own right. It is an approach to understanding Judaism. Criticism of Judaism should be incorporated into articles on Judaism. As an example, it is said that kosher slaughter of animals is "criticized" as being "cruel." But articles exist treating exactly this, and in context, as here. The problem isn't one of finding reliable sources to support the kosher slaughter as cruelty thesis. The problem is the redundancy of this article, the taking out of context of the subject matter, and the reassembling of a variety of subjects into one article devoted to "criticism." Unless a significant number of good quality reliable sources treat criticism of Judaism as its own topic I think this article fails several Wiki policies. Bus stop (talk) 10:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We have reliable sources as it is (and had more from the previous version three times the size) that document the notability of the subject. Please do not bring arguments from another article onto this page. Silverseren^C 10:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The argument is not generally made that NPOV supports the notion that Article A behaves in a certain way therefore Article B must behave in a similar way. Bus stop (talk) 10:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We already know your viewpoint on the subject.I came here to get outside opinions. Silverseren^C 10:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unless there is a knockout source of significant coverage which identifies "Criticism of Judaism" as being a real world topic, I think it is a made up subject. While Silver seren is sure that such sources exist, I am not sure and they certainly are not cited in the lead, where I would expect the topic to be defined from such sources. Instead, I think this article is made up of sources which contain the word "criticism" in passing, but which do not address the topic of "Criticism of Judaism" directly. Rather, the criticism are being direct to various other sub-topics of Judaism, each one of which has its own standalone article which contain criticism already. I concur with Bus stop's analysis. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:13, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This topic doesn't strike me as particularly notable either. Judaism is criticized, along with other religions, in general critiques of "religion" of course, but as such it bares very little of the brunt of those attacks. For various obvious socio-political reasons Christianity and Islam have historically been the real whipping boys of this, and certainly in today's climate. Of course, if Judaism had enjoyed the same relation to hegemony that Christianity and Islam have throughout history then it would be a different story. But that is neither here nor there. I agree with those who say that "criticism of Judaism", as it relates to real notable topics is already covered in various other pages.Griswaldo (talk) 12:50, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All of you are avoiding his question. He asked whether NPOV is applicable across articles with a similar theme. Criticism of X, Y, or Z is an example but what about spreading NPOV in approach across all religion articles? What about all political party articles? If you want to discuss whether Criticism of Judaism is a notable article take that to Talk:Criticism of Judaism. The last section of Wikipedia:Other stuff exists#Precedent in usage seems to address this topic. I quote While not a strict OSE reasoning, the overarching concept remains, that of precedent and consistency throughout the Wikipedia project.. Alatari (talk) 13:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also review the good article judging criteria which theoretically, if applied equally across all examples should amount to consistency in the content. Alatari (talk) 13:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for answering my question. I was looking for something that related, that's what I needed. Thank you. Silverseren^C 18:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No one is avoiding the question. It has already been answered. If there is a policy applicable to the type of consistency you are discussing it isn't this one. From what I understand WP:NPOV determines how individual topics are treated on individual entries and does so in conjunction with notability and verifiability. If the criticism of the Tanakh, as distinctly Jewish scripture, is a notable and verifiable topic then belong in the entry for reasons other than WP:NPOV. It's treatment in the entry, should it belong, should then abide by WP:NPOV, but NPOV doesn't determine whether or not it belongs. The same goes for the overarching question of the topic's notability. I agree this isn't the page for discussing that topic but we did. Sorry. :)Griswaldo (talk) 13:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I have a question still. Does NPOV apply across, say the entire South Park Project or Project Religion, or do we only apply per article? Alatari (talk) 13:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please give an example. Bus stop (talk) 14:27, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would we be required to insert criticisms of each episode in South Park? Would we be required to have a cultural references section? Would each religion article each need a deniers section? Would each be required to have a section on prominent members? Maybe this is more about digesting the NPOV pillar and applying it to the style manuals of each portal? Alatari (talk) 13:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism is not required to demonstrate notability, but if there is none, some other form of significant coverage is needed from reliable secondary sources. If notability can be clearly demonstrated, say, by citing a source that provides a clear definition of the subject without recourse to synthesis, then there is a rationale for inclusion. However, my guess is that as a class of article topic, Criticism of X, Y, or Z are article topics that are likely to fail WP:MADEUP, in which case they will fail WP:NPOV and probably fail the rest of Wikipedia's content polcies as well, let alone WP:N. Whether or not this applies across an entire class of similar articles is debateable, because evidence of notability may be found for a topic what first appears to be novel or synthetic. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Required" is too strong a word, in my opinion. Sections in one article can serve as a checklist for areas that you may wish to cover in another article.

NPOV can't have applicability across articles. NPOV only "works" within articles because the material contained within an article is limited. A multitude of articles pose a different problem.

The closest approximation I know of concerning policy addressing something of this nature is WP:BIAS. I just mention it because it is similar. But it is of course quite different. Bus stop (talk) 14:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was reading through the debate on whether to keep the article and a case for cross-article NPOV was made:

Keep. The Criticism of Judaism article should not be deleted as there are articles on Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of Islam, Criticism of Hinduism, and Criticism of Buddhism. It is not neutral and WP:NPOV to have criticism articles on some religions while not on others. It would be incredibly biased and would never be accepted. Either there are criticism articles on all religions or no criticism articles on any religions ....... Space25689 (talk) 18:17, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

which you disagreed with. I believe you (Bus stop) are right that NPOV is per article application but then Space's idea is not NPOV but about WP:BIAS. I know this is a heated debate so think of another broad topic where you would think exclusion would be an unacceptable BIAS. How would you argue for that non-deletion to avoid unfairness in the article data base? .... (I've not seen deletion arguments come down to Wikipedia Bias before.) Alatari (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is that criticism comes to different topics in different ways, and hence we have to look at each one seperately. I suspect these Criticism of X, Y, or Z are essential criticisms of different tenets of belief, each one of which should be feature in articles to which they relate. Put them together, and essentially you have a synthetic topics. As a class of articles, I think it would be best to get rid of them all, but maybe one or two are genuinely notable. Non-deletion to avoid bias is not a valid excuse if the article is synthesis, or worse still, a coatrack article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for why they aren't in their constituent religion articles is quite clear; they're too long. The main religion articles were already too long as it was, so the criticism sections were split, as per policy. They are not synthetic topics if they hold information that would have gone on the main article as it is. If they would go there, then the split information is instead put on the criticism page. We are not here to discuss notability of the subject. The recent AfD closed quite clearly as keep, as have all the other AfDs for the other criticism articles that were raised. The community has clearly stated (and time and again has stated over the past 5 years) that Criticism of articles are notable. Silverseren^C 18:28, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, Silver is correct on that... "Criticism of ..." articles are almost always viewed as being notable... the problem isn't notability... it's that they are usually filled with WP:SYNT. That is a different problem... one that is not fixed through the AfD process (Fixing it may require removing most of the text of the article, essentially stubbing it, so you can start over. But that is a different process than AfD). Blueboar (talk) 20:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And that's what we are in the process of doing, which is why I came here to ask whether NPOV would show that a certain section should be included. I got my answer. Thanks for your help. Silverseren^C 20:33, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, as I don't think you ever fix an article topic that fails WP:MADEUP. If there is insufficient coverage that addresses the topic directly and in detail, then the relevance of article content is always going to be disputed, as there is no recognised subject matter or definition of its subject matter to hold it together other than its title. In any case, I don't see how balance can be achieved if the article topic is restricted by nature of its title, e.g. "Criticism of...", "Advocacy of..." or "Praise of..." as such titles contravene WP:LABEL. I don't see how Blueboar can support the argument that such articles are almost always viewed as being notable, given that there is no evidence to suggest this is even remotely true. Going back to the article Criticism of Judaism for instance, it is bizarre that this article contains 26 citations, but none of them address the title, either directly or in passing. It obvious to me that this article is a lot of Jewish related topics stuck together like a popcorn ball with a thin solution of intellectual puffery. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 02:14, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can say that Criticism of articles are almost always considered notable because almost every single AfD vote for them has ended in Keep. Those that didn't were later overturned. The AfD for Criticism of Judaism ended just a few days ago as Keep after extensive discussion, so the community's viewpoint is clear on the matter. Silverseren^C 02:19, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, you can't infer that. You can only say that these types of articles have been nominated for deletion because they fail Wikipedia's content policies. In the case of Criticism of Judaism, its been nominated twice and I predict it will nominated again until it is deleted for the reasons I have outlined. It might be the consensus at the moment that, because it is sourced, the topic is therefore verifiable. However, as I have pointed out, even though it contains significant coverage from reliable secondary sources, none of that coverage actually defines or addresses the subject of article's title directly or in detail. In my view, "Criticism of ..." type articles are made up topics into which an assortment of related sub-topics have been dumped by editors who have not realised that these subject don't exist in the real world. To make an analogy, these editors are a bit like the birds that bring up Cuckoos in their nests, not knowing they are nursing a parasite. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 04:06, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Gavin.collins here, other than I'm not sure Wikipedians will ever get around to voting delete for these terrible examples of WP:SYN/WP:MADEUP. Another example that has been 'kept' is Chiropractic controversy and criticism. DigitalC (talk) 14:58, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this illustrates the difference between "what should be" and "what is". That is why I said these articles are almost always viewed as being notable (as opposed to saying that they are notable). Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Commandeering, squatting and sanitizing

Does this article adequately address criticism of wikipedia#Commandeering or Sanitizing Articles issues? IMO it doesn't. What tools, remedies, tactics does an editor use when the consensus on an article is obvious that of POV squatters? Alatari (talk) 10:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, you won't get much help from this page (or any other policy page) when it comes to actually putting principles into practice against determined opposition. You just have to publicize the problem and hope to bring in enough neutral editors to take an interest and establish a consensus about what the article should say. But even then, you won't be able to enforce that consensus against determined edit warring from the opposition. Basically this is a problem which Wikipedia editors have decided should not be fixed, because Wikipedia should not be allowed to be as good as some people would like it to be.--Kotniski (talk) 10:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So Wikipedia:Canvassing is to be overruled in these cases? Alatari (talk) 10:41, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Asking editors to take an interest isn't canvassing, as long as it's done in a neutral way.--Kotniski (talk) 10:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see someone else recognizes the problem, but interested to hear it's already been decided not to solve it. Peter jackson (talk) 15:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

POV editwarriors are blocked/banned all the time on WP. In my experience, though, 90% of the people that come to a discussion or policy page complaining about POV warriors are themselves a POV warrior (not lumping you in that group). Thus, the community has quickly become deaf to these type complaints. The best way to approach in my opinion is to identify to the editor a specific area of policy that is being violated, and if they do not agree, give a clear, reasoned, and non-passionate explanation of the violation on a noticeboard. If they are not willing to comply with policy, they will be exiting the community in short order. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 15:41, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, WP:CANVAS generally only applies to messages on user talk pages. Asking for help in a general forum such as WP:RSN or WP:NPOVN is not canvassing. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 15:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I asked about this at RSN recently. Did they reach consensus & would that be enforced? Nobody seemed prepared to make such a claim. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RSN and similar policy/guideline noticeboards are not "enforcement" oriented... they are designed as places to get advice and assistance (Many of those who respond there are simply experienced editors who are not admins, and so have no authority to enforce their opinions). If you need enforcement, the next step is to seek mediation and/or take the issue to the admin noticeboard (WP:ANI). Blueboar (talk) 17:48, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which is exactly what I asked them about. I asked whether, in practice, admins would enforce noticeboard consensus. Some said often no. Nobody disagreed. Peter jackson (talk) 09:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ASF: problems still there

Back to the WP:ASF section, which still hasn't been successfully improved in spite of the numerous criticisms of it. Regardless of the nuances of what policy actually is, can we agree that the following things are definitely wrong about the way it's presented?

Either the section is supposed to be a "simple formulation" of the whole of NPOV, or it's supposed to be just about the particular matter of when in-text attribution is required. If the former, then the bold topic sentence is wrong; if the latter, then the section title ("A simple formulation") is wrong (and much of the text is off-topic). WHICH IS IT?
The text in all its lengthy glory fails to make clear that there are two different conditions that require in-text attribution - "value judgement-ness" and "seriously disputed-ness". Does anyone seriously object to rewriting the text so as to make this absolutely clear? (At the moment it looks like we think that the two concepts are the same, which is obviously wrong.)

Thoughts please.--Kotniski (talk) 10:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that ASF is supposed to be about the particular matter of when in-text attribution is required. I agree that there are two different conditions that require attribution and the text should make this clear. DigitalC (talk) 12:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ASF has been sucessfully restored and tweaked despite the mass deletions of the entire ASF section. Now it is clearly than before. ASF is not just about when in-text attribution is required but some editors want that to be the case. So for editors have not pointed out any specific wording that is a problem. The same editors continue to disagree with the current consensus version of ASF. The bold topic sentence is correct and prevents POV warriors from adding in-text attribtuion to every uncontroversial factual sentence they disagree with. If no specific problem with the wording of text is identified then there is no problem. QuackGuru (talk) 17:10, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well I've just identified two problems to be getting on with. If I'm to understand you correctly, you're saying that this section is about in-text attribution, but not only about when it's required (i.e. it's also about when it should not be used). Do others agree with that? If so, then we would need to (a) change the title of the section (since the section is not a formulation of the whole of the policy) and (b) expunge the off-topic text. Objections?--Kotniski (talk) 05:48, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that the section is about "when it should not be used". We could put in some wording to help guide people when not to use it, but I disagree that it has ever been about that. DigitalC (talk) 11:54, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But it would be a bit strange to talk about when to do something, without at the same time talking about when not to do it? Wouldn't it? (I mean, the first clause is "Assert facts", and in this context this seems to be supposed to mean assert them without in-text attribution, so it is trying to tell us that in certain situations we shouldn't use such attribution...)--Kotniski (talk) 17:38, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You have never identified any problems and the section name is fine. It is a simple formulation that explains among other things when to assert text and when not to. If there is something specific that is a problem editors are not explaining what the problem is. What you think is a problem I think stops editors from damaging articles. For example, for a uncontroversial fact, editors want to change ASF in a way to allow an editor to WP:SYN disagreement where there is none by needlessly adding in-text attribtuion. This smacks POINT. After a month of discussion, can any editor explain a specific problem with any sentence or are editors making vague objections because they have run out of excuses. If you want to improve this section then do something productive instead of deleting or altering its meaning. The on-topic text should not be expunged again. QuackGuru (talk) 19:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately Kotniski, the problem then is that people debate over what is a fact. Is an opinion a fact if there are no reliable sources that dispute it? DigitalC (talk) 20:46, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, QuackGuru has gone and made major changes to the NPOV FAQ in regards to WP:ASF, despite the objections that have been raised about his interpretation of the policy. It appears that he is trying to change the policy and the FAQ to suit his interpretation. DigitalC (talk) 03:04, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can we agree that there are many circumstances in which it is clearly inappropriate to add in-text attribution (otherwise Wikipedia would become unreadable), as well as manyu circumstances in which it is clearly inappropriate to omit such attribution? Can we also agree that this policy, though it will never be able to lay down a complete algorithm for deciding when such attribution is desirable or not, can at least set out the general principles by which editors are guided when making such decisions?--Kotniski (talk) 16:46, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I can agree that there are circumstance where attribution is better avoided. However, I worry about this text being wiki-lawyered to say that unless there is a reliable source that disagrees with an opinion, the opinion should be stated as fact. DigitalC (talk) 19:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might help to have several examples of articles that have been wikilawyered into having too many in-text attributions. ... Kenosis (talk) 19:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stuff which makes the article unnecessarily verbose should be omitted; stuff which identifies controversial views should be included. Apart from that, can we just tell editors to use common sense? Stephen B Streater (talk) 20:35, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd certainly like to reduce the overall length of the section (not to mention the rest of the policy). DigitalC's concern about the possible wikilawyering is one of the things I'd want to address in the rewriting (we must make it clear that some things are opinions regardless of whether there is a source that disagrees with them - something that isn't entirely clear at the moment, since the text tries to equate two different concepts). --Kotniski (talk) 07:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do you want to reduce the length because you did not succeed in deleteing it. Do you want to rewrite it because you are against the current meaning of ASF. You have claimed there is a problem but you haven't shown there is any problem. So what is the problem? What sentence is not clear. QuackGuru (talk) 07:49, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've said at the start of this thread what I see as the most obvious problems. And because we are not clear about the scope of the section or the distinction we're making between "fact" and "opinion", almost every sentence becomes individually unclear. The "current meaning" of ASF is non-existent if people are interpreting it in conflicting ways. --Kotniski (talk) 07:59, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You wrote The "current meaning" of ASF is non-existent if people are interpreting it in conflicting ways. What way do you interpret the text.

I asked which sentence is not clear and how it is not clear. Please identify which sentence is a problem and how it could be improved. How do you propose to make it clearer. Do you think deleting sentences makes the text clearer. QuackGuru (talk) 08:16, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well deleting the whole thing would at least stop people from reading it and thinking they've understood it (when there is no "it" to understand). But if we want to retain it, then I propose at the very least changing the section title to something like "When to use in-text attribution", and redefining "fact" as something like "a statement which does not pass judgement and which is supported without serious controversy by reliable sources" (and "opinion" as any statement made in reliable sources that is not a fact under that definition). Wordings to be improved, but that seems to be the way to go if we want this section to make consistent sense. --Kotniski (talk) 08:47, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your proposal is not clear but ASF is clear. The title of the section is appropriate. It is a simple formulation that a lot of editors do not like because it stops them from redefining a fact. Do you agree an uncontroversial fact should not be converted into an opinion and when it is controversial an inline qualifier will convert an opinion into an attributed fact. It seems you understood ASF and there is no confusion. It seems most editors interpret the text the same way. You want to alter ASF but have not given a valid reason for doing so. The text concisely explains the difference between facts and opinions. But you have not explained your reason to rewrite well written policy. No specific problem with the wording has been identified. You have not explained why the text must be changed. If you disagree with ASF you should admit you don't want to clarify ASF. You want to redefine it and rewrite ASF. This is not about making ASF more concise. This seems to be that your against ASF and now you want to continue until you eliminate how editors should define facts and opinions. Editors need guidance on how to present the text. That is the purpose. If you want to clarify ASF you can explain what is wrong first and confidently make a specific proposal to clarify the text. So far your incoherent suggestions do not improve ASF in any way. QuackGuru (talk) 18:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Kotniski's points about areas of ambiguity that should be clarified. The WP:ASF section should be clarified as addressing specifically the need for in-text attribution, and clarifying the two classes of non-facts would be helpful. I tend to think that a brief clarification of the difference between in-text attribution and reference citation (i.e. verifiability) would also be beneficial; even in the lengthy thread above there seemed to be some confusion. Rvcx (talk) 09:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rvcx, you still have not explained why you added a misleading opinion without clarification against ASF and against BLP. After you looked through my contributions, did you follow me to this talk page. QuackGuru (talk) 17:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quack, I have no idea what "explanation" you're looking for, and this is not an appropriate venue for attacking another editor over issues on which you disagree with consensus (particularly when you've repeatedly refused to articulate the grounds for your objection). The text you cite does in fact present the notion that Sanger sent a letter to the FBI as a fact. If whether or not he sent the letter were under dispute, then in-text attribution would be appropriate; e.g. "Sanger claims to have sent a letter to the FBI." Rvcx (talk) 17:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you read the references you would of read about the clarification. If you have no idea what the "clarification" is then read the reference. You are adding misleading text to a BLP and ignoring my concerns. ASF is not confusing to me. It is not about V. It is about how to present the text. The text was not presented with the clarification. QuackGuru (talk) 17:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There does seem to be some degree of confusion among many users between in-text attribution and inline citation(s). The former is a WP:NPOV issue, while the latter is a WP:V issue. At present, the parenthetical statement (e.g. "John Doe believes...") in the last sentence of the first paragraph of "A simple formulation" gives an explicit example of in-text attribution. ... Kenosis (talk) 10:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All right, I've had a go at making the section more logical, as I see it. I've divided into two parts, each with a topic sentence, since these seem to be the two distinct subjects being discussed here - firstly when to use in-text attribution, and secondly to report a selection of opinions that reflects the sources. Please improve further.--Kotniski (talk) 16:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support I support Kotniski's recent edit to ASF. It's shorter and clearer, and appears to capture all the salient points. However, I don't like the title 'Direct and indirect statements'. I'm going to be bold and change it to 'Assert facts' (which incidentally also abbreviates to ASF). LK (talk) 17:01, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was shorter and delted relevant text. It will cause confuse the incoherent shorter version. The editors disagrees with ASF and now is trying to alter ASF to change its meaning. QuackGuru (talk) 17:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This edit also confuses the meaning of facts with verifiability. This was explained before. ASF is not sopecifically about V. ASF is about how to present the verified text. QuackGuru (talk) 17:37, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

W.r.t. this edit: What does "Direct and indirect statements" mean? Why not leave it as "A simple formulation" ... Kenosis (talk) 17:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support I also support Kotniski's recent edit to ASF. Much clearer; much better organized; much less redundant with other policy. Rvcx (talk) 19:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You have not explained what is more clearly but I did explain the edit confuses the meaning of facts with verifiability. You are not here to support Kotniski's edit. You followed me here to object to my edits. QuackGuru (talk) 19:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the rewrite was "It is perfectly acceptable, however, to state the fact that a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons holds a particular opinion."

The long standing consensus version is "When we discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons, and discuss the fact that they have this opinion, citing a reliable source for the fact that the person, organization, group or percentage of persons holds the particular opinion."

According to the rewrite a fact is stating that "a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons holds a particular opinion."

Acording to the cosnensus version it is an opinion that "we attribute the opinion to a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons,..."

The rewrite changes the meaning of ASF and was confusing. The rewrite was not to improve the exisitng meaning of ASF. It was to alter or eliminate the definition of ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 20:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually there was no consensus to re-insert ASF when you asked above. I think the edits make the section much clearer. Instead of trying to argue about this, start an RfC, advertised on WP:VPP to ask if the edits reflect consensus. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 21:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since it does trim quite a bit of text, I think Quackguru is right. It would be a good idea to have an RfC to have more eyeballs on this, just to make sure that the rewritten version captures all the essential points of the old one, and doesn't change any of the essential meaning. But before we start one, Quackguru, you want to take a try at tweaking the rewritten version to address the objections that you have raised? LK (talk) 02:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently not, since he has just reverted and re-reverted to his personal preferred version, as is his wont. Here comes the RfC then. --Kotniski (talk) 06:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which version of "assert facts" do people prefer? No, the rewrite is not about ASF. It is about altering the meaning of ASF because an editor disagrees with a simple formulation. If he can't delete it then he wants to alter it. The shorter version muddles different sentences together and is very confusing. There is no problem with the longstanding consensus version. Editors have tweaked and gradually improved ASF while keeping the original meaning intact. We can't ignore WP:NPOV. QuackGuru (talk) 06:53, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can any editor explain the need to eliminate ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 18:59, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It could be happily deleted provided all of its substance is already contained in the policy; however, it's not currently being proposed that it be deleted, so we don't currently need to concern ourselves about whether that is the case.--Kotniski (talk) 20:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editors have explained what is wrong with the proposed text. But you have not explained what is wrong with ASF.

You wrote It could be happily deleted provided all of its substance is already contained in the policy. Where is all of its substance provided in policy when you deleted it. QuackGuru (talk) 18:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Which version of WP:ASF do people prefer?

Template:Uninvolved

Which version from this revert do people prefer: the section entitled "Assert facts" in this revision, or that entitled "A simple formulation" in this one (or some hybrid or some other alternative). For previous discussion see above.--Kotniski (talk) 06:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC); (edited Rvcx (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Assert Facts. I've just gone through the two versions carefully line by line, and the newer 'Assert Facts' version contains all the relevant arguments made by the old version. IMO, it's a concise and accurate rewrite. It's shorter and easier to read, and there are no substantive changes in policy. LK (talk) 09:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assert Facts. The "Assert facts" version is clearer and avoids many of the redundancies the other version has with other NPOV issues. Rvcx (talk) 10:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assert Facts is the version I prefer as more concise. If there is some minor concept that has been missed from the re-write, then it's trivial to incorporate that into the new section. Per LK, there's nothing I can see that's missing except wordiness. BTW, this is a very strangely worded RfC, I would suggest re-wording it to ask if the respondents support the Newer or Older version. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 12:14, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why would anyone coming to the RfC be expected to know which version was older?--Kotniski (talk) 17:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, I'm happy with the way it's been re-worded now. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This RfC might as well be worded, "Do you or do you not in fact oppose the support for reverting the revert of the previous edit in relation to the asserting facts, or do you?" Clarifying would be fruitful. Angryapathy (talk) 14:29, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems quite clear to me; after the clarification that's been made, is it clear to everyone now?--Kotniski (talk) 17:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is quite clear is that editors have ignored my previous comments about the recent changes made to ASF. You don't want to make ASF clearer. You want to alter or eliminate the meaning of ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean. Can you say what substantial meaning you think would be altered or eliminated if the rewritten version were adopted? --Kotniski (talk) 18:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My previous comments explained there are problems with the rewrite. "Facts which can be verified in reliable sources," is misleading. Opinions can also be verified in reliable sources. The part about "serious dispute among reliable sources" is not accurate. Sometimes one reliable source indicated different views or it could be between only two sources. I went ahead and fixed the problems myself. QuackGuru (talk) 19:41, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assert Facts: It is more concise, and yet more clear. It could still use some minor improvements, but it is much better than "A Simple Formulation" DigitalC (talk) 21:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, editors have explained the problems with the altered ASF but you have no valid response to the concerns. The changes in no way made anything clearer. QuackGuru (talk) 22:35, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assert Facts: as written here is more concise and well written. It does have a few mistakes and since this is such an important section to Wikipedia, we go through it line by line for consensus. On the positive; most of the errors seem to be pointed out below. Alatari (talk) 10:27, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On the positive; most of the errors seem to be pointed out below? So there are more errors that have not been pointed out yet. Errors are not concise or an improvement. What is the problem with the current ASF version that prompted a complete shift in the core meaning of ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 05:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A simple formulation: There are many reasonable concerns with the shorter, vague version and there have been no reasonable suggestions for improvement. Editors have acknowledged there a problems with altering the meaning of ASF but editors have not explained what was the problem with a simple formulation. The shorter version was vague and confusing while the concise version is a lot easier to read. QuackGuru (talk) 02:07, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A simple formulation: shows important clarification about dealing with minority non-expert views, and that's essential enough to keep until all the bugs are sorted out with the "Assert Facts" version. Right at the start of "Assert Facts" it links fact to an article which begins with the erroneous definition "In science, it means a provable concept:!!! Aargh, proof is for maths and whisky. The cited source is as bad – fact (a concept whose truth can be proved) "scientific hypotheses are not facts". If we're defining terms, a wikilink isn't a reliable source. Not good enough. . . dave souza, talk 10:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Huh?? That link to fact appears in both versions, so I don't see what it has to do with the question asked. (I'd be happy to see it go, but that's quite another matter.) And I don't know what you mean by "important clasirifcation about dealing with minority non-expert views" - can you indicate what part of the text you mean?--Kotniski (talk) 10:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Right at the start "Facts which can be verified in reliable sources,..." is about V. For ASF, it is how we present the verified text. The "Assert facts" disorganised version confounds two different policies. QuackGuru (talk) 18:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

diffs The problem is that the large edit may fix some problems but it introduces others. For example the new title is better but adding "or 'Some scientists say...'. " is completely contradicted by the last paragraph: "mass attribution".

I don't see how Lawrencekhoo can say " It's shorter and easier to read" when comparisons of clauses such as this:

"Facts can be asserted without an inline qualifier (e.g. 'John Doe believes...').
"without any need for a qualifier of the type "John Doe believes..." or "Some scientists say...".

Contradicts that statement. The former is shorter and include "inline qualifier" which is more precise than "qualifier" as without the word inline the text to qualify the statement could be placed in the citation. Intended or not this changing of the wording from "inline qualifier" to "qualifier" alters the meaning of the paragraph.

Also Lawrencekhoo writes "I've just gone through the two versions carefully line by line, and the newer 'Assert Facts' version contains all the relevant arguments made by the old version." But in the first paragraph another example a large change exists between "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." and "about which there is no serious dispute among such sources". If there are only a few sources, it is quite possible for the sources to be in agreement, while the information is still an opinion and not a fact. For example a publication may publish an opinion on a person that ends up in a libel case (EG the Irving v. Lipstadt case). With the "A simple formulation" version one can use editorial judgement and know that there will be a "serious dispute" over such a fact. But if only the sources are to be used then that editorial judgement is removed because it can not be shown that there is a serious dispute "among [such] sources". So in the first paragraph alone there have been at least two substantial changes which as far as I can see have not yet been discussed in detail as to whether these changes are intended.

So I think for the moment it is better to keep the "A simple formulation" and alter it statement by statement, with a detailed discussion of the ramifications for each change, rather than making one large edit and voting on which is the best. -- PBS (talk) 21:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let's just let the RfC process play out, rather than trying to discredit the question. To your points:

"qualifier" vs. "inline qualifier". The meaning is not changed, since we are giving an example directly afterward. How would practice be changed by the removal of the word?
"Some scientists say" should just be removed from the "Assert Facts" version
Requiring disagreement among the sources requires minor or fringe viewpoints to be covered by reliable sources. With the "A simple formulation" version, any editor could come up with a novel theory, and claim that there is a dispute, and thus require in-line attribution for facts about which there is no serious dispute. We can only write what the reliable sources say, so refering to reliable sources here only makes sense.

--Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence "On the other hand, statements which express a value or opinion, or a fact about which there is serious dispute among reliable sources, should not be made directly (as if in Wikipedia's voice)..." seems to clearly state that an opinion (value statement) needs to be attributed with an inline qualifier, as does a fact where there is dispute in the sources. If it is NOT an opinion, AND there is no dispute in the sources, then it doesn't need attribution. If it is a BLP concern, it can be removed under BLP. DigitalC (talk) 21:35, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of assert facts is that opinions are not opinions if they are qualified with inline attribution because they as they become facts: "So and So said xyz" changes a sentence from expressing an opinion into a fact about who expressed an opinion. See my example below about the DNB, it is not always possible to tell if an opinion is disputed in other reliable sources (because the editors of the article may not have access to many sources), and if it is not possible to tell, the default should be to turn an opinion into a fact by inline attribution and not to leave it in the text as an opinion. That makes assert facts into a npov fail safe system. -- PBS (talk) 22:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So a potential libel about a living person should be left in an article if there are no sources that contradict it? Frequently historians express novel opinions on a subject (that is one of the things that good historians do for a living), those opinions should be attributed inline unless the opinion is so widely held that it is no longer novel. -- PBS (talk) 05:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BLP concerns trump almost everything else, so such libel will likely be immediately removed. In any case, BLP is a separate policy and shouldn't intrude into our discussions here. If you only objection is the change of "about which there is no serious dispute" to "about which there is no serious dispute among such sources", that's easy to fix. Just remove "among such sources" from the assert facts version. LK (talk) 14:02, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point about inline attribution is that it meant to be a fail safe mechanism. If such views are attributed, then the no libel will exist. I only used BLP as an example to highlight why in-line attribution about opinions are desirable. To expand on my point about historians, which you have chosen not to comment on and so may not have been clear. I have been copying may DNB articles about men of the C17th from Wikisource into Wikipedia. Usually these contain just a string of sentences that cover the primary sources. Eg "He fought at the Battle of xyz and was captured at a skirmish in ABCshire and had his estate compounded after he was found to be a delinquent". All that is factual (and is from primary sources cited in the DNB articles) and can be copied verbatim, but not infrequently the historian will express an opinion or speculation about an issue eg "He may have been involved in the 1655 royalist plots because as he was a friend of xyz who was also an ardent royalist who is known to have corresponded with Penruddock, and he is know to have left the country shortly after the uprisings failed". Now it may be that this is widely published and held view that he was involved in the plots, but with out evidence that it is a widely held view, I would always alter the text to explicitly attribute such speculation to the author of the piece.

"If you only objection is the change ..." No it is not. I just highlighted a couple of point near the top of the text, to show that there were changes in meaning, I did not analysis the rest of the text for changes, because the point that there were changes in meaning between the two version had been made, as I wanted to show to the editors who have written above that the changes to the text did not change the meaning of the section, may not have considered all the potential problems when drawing their conclusions.

In the case of Wikipedia policies the nuances of sentences have often been discussed in the archives in detail and the wording is deliberately as it is because of those discussions. Large changes to sections without a detailed review of the archived discussions on the talk page is always likely to change the meaning in unforeseen ways. This is clearly true in this case, as people have been stating that there are no changes in meaning which is demonstrably not true. Now it may be that those changes in meaning are desirable. But those changes in meaning should be highlighted and agreed before they are made, because large changes to the text which alter the meaning of the text that then has to be retro edited to put back the nuances in meaning, is less efficient and more likely to cause disruption on article talk pages which refer to this section than gradual change to the section. -- PBS (talk) 22:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To talk about "nuances of meaning" here is rather inappropriate, given that the original text is so unclear as to barely have any uniformly understood meaning, let alone nuances (and I'm not saying the revised text is anywhere near perfect either). We will never get anywhere if we just assume that there are changes in meaning without making any effort to point them out, and on those grounds reject any attempt at making things clearer. (Doing it one step at a time might seem desirable, but then someone just comes along and reverts the whole lot for no apparent reason, and everyone's time is wasted - that's happened recently on this page.) I agree with your point about the historical speculation, but I don't see how you're saying it's covered differently (or necessarily at all) in the two proposed versions of the text. How would you phrase this point in the policy to make it absolutely clear to everyone?--Kotniski (talk) 07:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The original text is very clear and this rewrite was in no way an attempt to improve anything. You have made it clear you are against ASF when you mass deleted it and now you want to alter its original meaning. You have not told other editors the reason you are against ASF. Perhaps you could share that with us. QuackGuru (talk) 05:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please cease these irrelevant personalized distractions and say concretely what you think is wrong with the proposed text.--Kotniski (talk) 10:31, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please tell us your reason for deleting the entire ASF section. QuackGuru (talk) 18:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These are reasonable concerns and there have been reasonable suggestions for improvement. But the question at the heart of the matter is whether starting from the more concise "Assert Facts" version would get us to where we want faster than starting from the "A simple formulation" version. Frankly, I find the latter so nebulous and confusing that it's difficult to pin down particular complaints (other than "this doesn't add much; that isn't necessary", which is pretty much what the overhaul does). I consider it evidence of the improvement that we're already having a more engaged and substantive discussion about the revised text than the disjointed conflation of issues represented in the threads above, which were trying to untangle the old text. Rvcx (talk) 14:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with PBS's point that sometimes a statement from just one or a few reliable sources, even if factual in nature and not contradicted by any other sources, might still be too unreliable to include as a direct statement. This is a problem that neither version of the text really addresses, as far as I can see. PBS suggests that it's solved by saying "...serious dispute..." without requiring the serious dispute to be among reliable sources, but I don't think that can be right - if "serious dispute" is not to be interpreted as meaning "among reliable sources", then the whole thing falls apart, as fringe sources or even POV Wikipedia editors can create the impression of a "serious dispute" over even the most widely accepted facts. I would include something like "fact which is not verifiable sufficiently widely among reliable sources as to make it reliable" (or something along those lines) as another type of statement that requires in-text attribution.--Kotniski (talk) 14:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To give a concrete and real example, we know of no reliable source that says anything about Chopin's citizenship except for one, otherwise pretty reliable-seeming, biography that states that at a certain point he "changed his citizenship [to French]". This statement seems dubious for two reasons - firstly that none of the other biographies mention this event (which they would reasonably be expected to, had it occurred), and secondly that it seems illogical based on what we know about the law (he would have been expected to have French "citizenship" from birth, having a French father). So, should it be stated as fact in the article? I would say not.--Kotniski (talk) 14:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If there are no sources saying he was a French citizen from birth, then I don't see any choice but to go with the one source that makes a statement about it. Otherwise, we are doing WP:Original research to come up with his being a citizen at birth. The other choice is that the editors agree that the source is not reliable. Seems to me that such a glaring error would cast doubts on the quality of the source.

Either way, the wording in the section doesn't change the practice in that case. We can't rely on WP editors for the basis of whether or not there is a dispute; only reliable sources can determine whether there is a dispute. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 16:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not really a "dispute", more of a question of whether the source is in error (even the most reliable sources make mistakes sometimes). Perhaps this is a matter for V rather than NPOV, but since the splitters have decided that matters of in-text attribution are to be addressed at NPOV rather than V, it becomes necessary to discuss it here.--Kotniski (talk) 07:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In either version, I don't care for the statement "A reliable source supporting a statement that a group holds an opinion must accurately describe how large this group is." (Emphasis added) What constitutes accurate? It seems perfectly acceptable to attribute that a source says many scientists, most economists, the majority of people, a minority group, etc hold an opinion. These all appear to be inaccurate descriptions about how large a group is. Morphh ^(talk) 15:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are cases where one would not reasonably expect technical details to be in more than one source. An example would be a specification by a software manufacturer about what input a proprietary applications programming interface will accept. In the absence of reported bugs, there would be no reason to doubt the manufacturer. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is more a case where the Wikiepdia summary must accurately reflect what the reliable source is saying. If the source says for example if a source says "a majority" that should not be used to say "most", or if the survey says "90% in favour" that does not become "an overwhelming majority" in the Wikiepdia text. In my opinion the wording should be changed to reflect that. -- PBS (talk) 02:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the text needed to be changed to better reflect policy but an editor reverted the change. QuackGuru (talk) 20:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Substantial changes to ASF

Morphh on 19:47, 27 June 2007 wrote "Looks good to me." Are you having some second thoughts about the major rewrite. See Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 29#Proposed wording for - .22A simple formulation.22. See Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 29#Comments on proposed addition of final draft shown above. Me thinks we need to review the substantial changes made to ASF when fewer editors were watching ASF or NPOV policy. I request editors focus on this possibly controversial edit. I suggest we can improve ASF by correcting any mistakes that have been made in the past. QuackGuru (talk) 07:04, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"A reliable source supporting a statement that a group holds an opinion must accurately describe how large this group is." This sentence can use an adjustment. QuackGuru (talk) 03:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"A reliable source supporting a statement that a group holds an opinion should accurately reflect what the group is saying." This is the adjusted text. QuackGuru (talk) 20:35, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was clearer but an editor reverted it. QuackGuru (talk) 20:50, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remaining problems

Per above consensus, I've restored the preferred text under the title "Assert facts". What problems do people still see with this section?--Kotniski (talk) 09:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the word 'multiple' to "Facts which can be verified in multiple reliable sources," to address the issue brought up above, about how single sources are not enough to back up assertions in the encyclopedic voice. LK (talk) 15:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First, Laurencekhoo's phrase "to address the issue brought up above, about how single sources are not enough to back up assertions in the encyclopedic voice" is inadequate to locate the discussion.

Second, the addition of "multiple" is inappropriate because while it makes sense for major facts which one would expect to find in multiple sources, it does not make sense for technical details which might be hard to find in multiple sources, yet about which there is no serious dispute. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this is potentially an issue, but I'm not sure it can be solved by adding or removing one word. It really belongs to the scope of WP:V, I suppose, if we insist on keeping these two pages separate - but finding something appropriate that can be written might be contentious, since as far as I know it hasn't been addressed in policy before. (Well, there is WP:REDFLAG over at V, but that probably doesn't go as far as it could.) We mean that a statement becomes dubious if it doesn't appear in as many reliable sources as we would expect it to if it were a generally acknowledged fact, or something like that - but can we write that concept into policy?--Kotniski (talk) 16:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editors ignored there are problems with the rewrite. But editors have not shown the problem with the consensus version. QuackGuru (talk) 18:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quack, I must once against strongly advise you to take a step back and consider the manner in which you engage with Wikipedia. While other editors have noted problems with both versions of the ASF policy, there is a clear consensus to use the Assert Facts version as a starting point for improvement. An RfC was issued. There were many responses. Discussion died down. The new consensus was implemented. It is entirely inappropriate for you to unilaterally overturn this new consensus, and absurd for you to "fix the problems yourself". If you are unhappy with the new text then I suggest that you describe your specific concerns so that they can be addressed. While you may be unable to detect any problems in the old text, many other editors did and have agreed that the new text (at least partly) addresses many of the problems, for an overall net improvement. Your pattern of obstruction, disruption, and edit-warring must stop. Rvcx (talk) 22:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editors have not been able to detect any problems in the consensus text, and editors did disagree with new text. Ediotrs ignore the problems and are trying to force changes to policy. You have a pattern of ignoring comments, and edit-warring while ignoring comments by other editors must stop. There was no net improvement. Specific concerns were not addressed by other editors and the new text created many of the problems. My previous comments explained there are problems with the rewrite. "Facts which can be verified in reliable sources," is misleading. Opinions can also be verified in reliable sources. The part about "serious dispute among reliable sources" is not accurate. Sometimes one reliable source indicated different views or it could be between only two sources. Wikipedia is not a vote. When editors ignored the concerns it showed there was a lack of consensus to introduce problems into ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 00:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the above RfC there is a clear consensus (in fact unanimous, but I guess that's because you didn't comment) to base further editing on the new version. It's absurd to call the old text "consensus" text under these circumstances. I suggest that you think about whether the fact that you are alone defending the old version here might have something to do with the fact that you often run into trouble in Wikipedia when you think you are just defending the policies. It appears to me that you simply misunderstand them, and that in this instance you are defending a formulation that you misunderstood and try to prevent it from being replaced with a new formulation that you can't misunderstand in the same way. Seems an improvement to me. Hans Adler 00:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To talk about nuances of meaning here is rather appropriate, and ignoring the concerns is disruption. In the above RFC there is clearly disagreement in the discussion. This shows a lack of consensus for the incoherent and not understanable version. Wikipedia is never a vote. Hans Adler, you have not addressed the concerns in my previous comments or other comments.[29][30][31] QuackGuru (talk) 00:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If silence means consent, and after editors continue to ignore the above previous concerns and have went silent, there is consensus for a simple formulation. QuackGuru (talk) 02:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editors have not provided a specific response to the above concerns. So, there is broad consensus for a simple formulation. QuackGuru (talk) 17:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"there is a clear consensus to use the Assert Facts version as a starting point for improvement"(Rvcx) and "In the above RfC there is a clear consensus (in fact unanimous, but I guess that's because you didn't comment)" (User:Hans Adler). Can's see how you can come to that conclusion reading the discussion section of the above. A section heading put above my wish to start with the original text and make the changes one by one with discussion for each change. What exactly do editors think has been agreed to change in the original text here on this page? for example the change to "serious dispute among reliable sources"? -- PBS (talk) 02:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond the fact that silence means consent, and after a couple of initial comments you went silent, I also did ask you whether you intent to weigh in, and you declined. Frankly, I think that both the support the "assert facts" has from other editors as well as the general opinion that it is clearer and the objective fact that it's much, much shorter all point to the burden being on you to point out exactly what you find wrong with it that isn't wrong with the other text. Is it just this last sentence? If you think it need to be gone through sentence by sentence then please do so, pointing out exactly what differences you find from the old version. Because as far as I can see the old text could be interpreted in any number of ridiculous ways, including what I interpret to be QuackGuru's interpretation as an endorsement of "truth" instead of verifiable viewpoints, some of which are subject to no serious dispute and thus are phrased as fact. Rvcx (talk) 02:37, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, you continue to decline to give a direct response to many of the concerns. QuackGuru (talk) 02:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note. The sentence that addresses serious dispute is "Reliable sources can determine whether "a matter is subject to dispute" when there is opposing views." QuackGuru (talk) 02:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Next Steps?

This is getting ridiculous. As far as I can see, everyone but User_talk:QuackGuru sees problems with the "A simple formulation" text, and everyone but User:Philip_Baird_Shearer and QG thinks that the best way to fix these problems is to start with the "Assert facts" version. Obviously since QG sees nothing wrong with the old text he won't discuss how to fix it, and PBS hasn't offered any follow-up on his suggestion to go through the old text "statement by statement" to address the problems. We've been through a full RfC process (which neither of them deigned to clearly weigh in on) to get outside opinions and it's been overwhelmingly in favor of the "assert facts" text, but both of them seem determined to edit-war to defend the "a simple formulation" text, which clearly is not supported by consensus. Anyone want to suggest a reasonable way forward on this? Rvcx (talk) 02:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are not engaging in the discussion properly. There are many concerns which were ignored. QuackGuru (talk) 02:20, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry I don't under stand Rvcx, what does "which neither of them deigned to clearly weigh in on" mean? My reasonable way forward on this is to change the text sentence by sentence. Not already that the text now being inserted is not the text that was initially put up for the RFC which suggests that this process is already morphing towards a compromise. -- PBS (talk) 02:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is how WP works. I changed the text that was up for RfC in order to address the concern you expressed - now you're complaining that the text was changed? I really have no idea what your objection is at the moment. Changing sentence by sentence has been tried before, but someone always comes along and unilaterally reverts the whole lot and destroys everyone's work.--Kotniski (talk) 07:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You've been around long enough to know what clearing weighing in on an RfC with two options means. Other editors obviously have gone through the "a simple formulation" text sentence by sentence, and changed it to come up with the "assert facts" version. I strongly encourage you to go through the "assert facts" version sentence by sentence and suggest changes. But just arguing "no; start over" when everyone else agrees that the new text is a step in the right direction, and when discussion has moved on to small details of the new text, just feels like a way to stall progress. I feel, and apparently many other editors feel, that the "a simple formulation" text is subject to disruptive misinterpretation; it is not supported by consensus. In that case isn't the best thing to do to replace it and work from there? Rvcx (talk) 02:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You have not responded to my previous concerns. The continued vague objections seems to mean you don't really have a problem with a simple formulation. On the other hand, editors have made specific objections to the "assert facts" vague version. QuackGuru (talk) 03:01, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PBS, The trouble with trying to start editing from the "a simple formulation" text and change sentence by sentence, is that the "a simple formulation" version is not very well organized. It jumps from idea to idea. Not only is it not a good base to work from, it would make moving in the right direction extremely difficult, as sometimes the smallest step possible would be to rearrange multiple sentences at once (which would trigger an edit war, and bring us to an impasse again). I think the easiest, most productive way forward is to make a fair and complete rewrite for organization and clarity, and then hash out the problems. Which is what the "assert facts" version does. Can I respectfully suggest that you support the rest of us here in this, and try to work forward from the "assert facts" version? LK (talk) 04:43, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You have not determined any specific problems with "a simple formulation". Do you agree editors have identified many problems with the "assert facts" vague version. QuackGuru (talk) 04:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm left with absolutely no idea what the issue is now. Can someone say clearly and without rhetoric, what the problem(s) are with the new version that would be solved by going back to the old version. (Because in terms of clarity and logical structure, there seems to be general agreement that the new version is superior.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:31, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please?? --Kotniski (talk) 11:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so there's definitely no consensus for the "a simple formulation" version, and apparently some editors have concerns about the "assert facts" version. It is significant, however, that almost all of these concerns are applicable to the "a simple formulation" version as well. Until we find some version on which we can agree, I've retracted the section: no version currently has consensus. Rvcx (talk) 11:32, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've set up a sandbox "assert facts" version at [32]. Let's try to edit that into a consensus version and then slot it in here. Rvcx (talk) 11:37, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which ever version is on the policy page it is not appropriate to remove the section completely because while we are discussing this other editors will still be using WP:ASF on talk page of articles. If I was not involved in this discussion and discovered that the section had been removed while a new version was discussed in a sandbox I would not be amused. For this reason I have reverted the removal. -- PBS (talk) 11:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's all very well, but more to the point, can you explain what your current objection(s) are to the rewritten version? No-one else seems to be able to formulate any.--Kotniski (talk) 11:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain what was the objection to the consensus version. We start with a simple formulation. If you can't provided an objection then there is no problem. It seems you object to defining facts and opinions. Is that the reason why you are mixing different sentences together and trying to add "Facts which can be verified in reliable sources" which is about V and not ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 18:00, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

diffs

Differences between new and old versions

The first substantive change is

By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute."
"Facts which can be verified in reliable sources, and about which there is no serious dispute among such sources, can be asserted directly in Wikipedia articles."

Is the new formulation clear or not cleared than the old wording? Do we need to include verified. Is that not implied in the text higher up this policy page? -- PBS (talk) 11:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the old version fails to make it clear that the dispute must be in reliable sources. Perhaps verifiability is mentioned elsewhere, but if we leave it out here, then people may misinterpret this section if they read it out of context. So definitely the old version is inferior here, if only because of its totally bogus definition of "fact" (though I'm not saying I know of any good definition of fact, which is why the rewritten version doesn't include one - if anyone's got one, then we can consider including it).--Kotniski (talk) 12:02, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I find the old wording extremely unclear; it's quite important that the "serious dispute" be between reliable sources and not just individual editor opinions. The first version can be read as an excuse for any editor to rock up, dispute something, and then claim that because they've disputed it it can't be asserted as a fact. I've edited the version in my sandbox to call them "objective facts". Fact is a useful word but we shouldn't get sidetracked by nuance; all we need it to mean here is "piece of information". If we were relying on the connotation that facts are objective and not subjective then we may as well just make it explicit to remove ambiguity and move on. Rvcx (talk) 12:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The older version is better because it does define a fact in a clearer way. It is confusing to mix different sentences together. "Facts which can be verified in reliable sources," is about V. This is confounding two different policies. This is confusing especially to new editors. QuackGuru (talk) 17:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The second change is:

For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato ...
For example, that a survey produced a certain published result, that there is a planet called Mars, or that Plato ...

This seems to be concatenating two sentences which changes the meaning of both. -- PBS (talk) 11:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it could be phrased better, but the old version is still inferior, because what it's doing here is not saying anything about Wikipedia editing, but just trying to illustrate its already inappropriate definition of "fact".--Kotniski (talk) 12:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I simply can't parse this criticism. What is the semantic distinction between "For example, X is a fact. Y is a fact. Z is a fact." and "For example, X, Y, and Z are facts." ??? If your reading is that Y and Z weren't previously taken as examples, then I'd say that's yet another clear problem with the old version; they are examples. Rvcx (talk) 12:05, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is the full stop. The older version is saying. It is fact that a that a survey produced a certain published result. FULL STOP. It is a fact that Mars is a planet. They are two different examples. The newer version says "a survey produced a certain published result, that there is a planet called Mars" is one fact it does not say that there is a planet called Mars. The point is there is no need to assert information like the "sun rises in the east" or for that matter provide a reliable source to support it. -- PBS (talk) 12:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well no, there is a need to assert the information (I presume that's what you meant), but this isn't about whether a reliable source should be provided to support it (that's the domain of WP:V, and in principle a source should be provided, which would be very easy). I agree about the punctuation, but other than that, the older version is still inferior because it's trying to define "fact" in a confused way (the text from the newer version is not trying to define "fact", it's giving examples of directly assertable statements, which is what we're really interested in here).--Kotniski (talk) 13:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is confusing again to mix different sentences together. The older version was phrased better. QuackGuru (talk) 17:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The third change is:

By value or opinion, (Opinions involve both matters of fact and value; see fact-value distinction.) on the other hand, we mean "a matter which is subject to dispute." There are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions. That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion. That The Beatles were the greatest band in history is an opinion. That the United States is the only country in the world that has used a nuclear weapon during wartime is a fact. That the United States was right or wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a value or opinion. However, there are bound to be borderline cases (see Undue weight) where it is not clear if a particular dispute should be taken seriously and included.
On the other hand, statements which express a value or opinion, or a fact about which there is serious dispute among reliable sources, should not be made directly (as if in Wikipedia's voice). For example, an article should not assert directly that stealing is wrong, or that The Beatles were the greatest band in history.

My problem with this change is that it introduces "dispute among reliable sources" this is something I discussed above, the fail-safe should be use inline attribution for opinions unless the can be shown to be no dispute over it. But in principle I think this paragraph can lose most of the examples and keep just the Beatles example although I would keep the atom bomb example as well as it shows the difference between fact and opinion in a slightly different way. -- PBS (talk) 12:09, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind including another example; but the "dispute among reliable sources" is an essential improvement I think - we should not be forced to rewrite articles because of some dispute which is not reflected in reliable sources (at least, not that I can think of - can you give an example of what you have in mind?)--Kotniski (talk) 12:12, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then you are interpreting both versions incorrectly: opinions should not be asserted, regardless of whether they are disputed or not. Even if everyone who had ever lived agreed that the Beatles were awesome, the policy prohibits Wikipedia from calling them awesome because that's a subjective judgement. There is a separate condition that applies to objective facts: those that are agreed on by all reliable sources should be asserted; those that are not should not. Rvcx (talk) 12:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is the essential point that the old version was all mixed up over. (I suspect there should be another condition as well, something about "surprising" statements that have only a few sources to support them, but that hasn't been addressed anywhere yet.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My problem with this change is that it introduces "dispute among reliable sources" this is something I discussed above, the fail-safe should be use inline attribution for opinions unless the can be shown to be no dispute over it. But in principle I think this paragraph can lose most of the examples and keep just the Beatles example although I would keep the atom bomb example as well as it shows the difference between fact and opinion in a slightly different way. -- PBS (talk) 12:09, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On re-reading it I could live with it but I would want to break it out the clause "or a fact about which there is serious dispute among reliable sources," and the preamble so it read

"Statements which express a value or opinion, must not be made directly in the passive narrative voice of the article."

See my comment on fourth change about "must" and "should". --PBS (talk) 12:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fourth change

Values or opinions must never be written as if they were in Wikipedia's voice. When we want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons, and discuss the fact that they have this opinion, citing a reliable source for the fact that the person, organization, group or percentage of persons holds the particular opinion.
?

See my comment above. As far as I can tell the second half of the sentence is covered in the new version under the subsection "Don't misrepresent the relative prominence of views reported" -- PBS (talk) 12:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"When we want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons, and discuss the fact that they have this opinion, citing a reliable source for the fact that the person, organization, group or percentage of persons holds the particular opinion."

"It is perfectly acceptable, however, to state the fact that a person, organization, group of persons, or percentage of persons holds a particular opinion."

A simple formulation has an important clarification. "When we want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing..." This explains what an editor should do when it is an opinion. This is the whole point to ASF. Assert facts and attribute the opinions.

The Assert facts version is confusing. It says "to state the fact that a person..." This does not define an opinion and implies to attribute facts. This contradicts the current meaning of ASF. QuackGuru (talk) 18:35, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fifth change:

Don't misrepresent the relative prominence of views reported.'

Personally I think that the new wording is preferable to the older wording. But I would like anyone who does not to point out what emphasis they think has changed and may change my opinion if they point out something I have missed. -- PBS (talk) 12:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that the main objection that PBS has to the newer version is the issue of "dispute among reliable sources". IMO, we should keep the old wording of "no serious dispute" for now, and leave the question of how to fix it for later. It'll be easier to move forward, if we just aim at a new version that is shorter, clearer and better organized, but does not change the policy at all. LK (talk) 13:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK as a first step, but PBS has struck out his comment above about "among reliable sources" - does that mean there isn't any further dispute over that point? (I don't think it really changes the policy, just clarifies it - I'm sure it was never the intention to consider disputes anywhere other than in reliable sources - at least, I'd like to hear examples of any other kind of dispute we might be considering.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:18, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I feel strongly that it should be clarified that it's "serious dispute among reliable sources" that is necessary to disqualify a fact from being presented in Wikipedia's voice, but I've struck off "among reliable sources" from the two places it occurred in my sandbox version, and reordered the examples to make it even clearer that the survey isn't about Mars (although standard rules of grammar and punctuation didn't leave much ambiguity, IMO). Rvcx (talk) 15:11, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence that clarified serious dispute is "Reliable sources can determine whether "a matter is subject to dispute" when there is opposing views." I previously wrote this but it was ignored again. QuackGuru (talk) 17:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Facts which can be verified in reliable sources, and about which there is no serious dispute among such sources, can be asserted directly in Wikipedia articles."

This sentennce is confusing. This is mixing too many things together. "Facts which can be verified in reliable sources," is incorrect. Opinions can also be verified in reliable sources. That part about "serious dispute among reliable sources" is also incorrect. There could be a oppossing views between two sources. A serious dispute among reliable sources is covered with this sentence. QuackGuru (talk) 17:31, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Don't misrepresent the relative prominence of views reported.

Don't misrepresent the relevant prominence of opposing views.

I think "Don't misrepresent the relevant prominence of opposing views." is better written. QuackGuru (talk) 17:36, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, perhaps, as a lead sentence. But about "mixing things together" in the same sentence, we simply must do this if we are to present this policy correctly. I know there are many people who can't hold more than one idea in their heads at one time, but those people are never going to get this policy however hard we try. There are several conditions (and not black-and-white conditions either) that need to be satisfied for us to be able to state something without inline attribution. The current version tries to dodge this by pretending that these conditions are equivalent ("subject to dispute" = "value or opinion"), and then goes all over the place trying to cover up for the illogicalities that produces. And saying "facts which can be verified..." means precisely that - those facts which can be verified - it doesn't say "facts, i.e. things which can be verified...", so it doesn't preclude the possibility that opinions can be verified as well. --Kotniski (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where the sentence (Don't misrepresent the relevant prominence of opposing views.) is currently is fine. Mixing things together introduces too many ideas at once. Mixing things up is incoherent and changes the meaning of the sentences. Editors do understand this policy. But the proposed changes will make it impossible to understand. The current version clearly defines a serious dispute and value or opinion. The rewrite contradicts the current meaning of ASF. It says "to state the fact that a person..." This does not define an opinion and implies to attribute facts. Saying "facts which can be verified..." is not about ASF. It will confuse editors. I pointed out the problems with the proposal. QuackGuru (talk) 19:18, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where does the current version clearly define a "serious dispute" and "value or opinion"? Apart from saying that the two cases are the same thing, which we have established many times is simply wrong. --Kotniski (talk) 19:42, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The first paragraph defines a serioius dispute and the second paragraph defines a value or opinion. The third paragraph clarifies opinions.QuackGuru (talk) 19:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Er... where does the first paragraph define a serious dispute? It just doesn't. The second paragraph does define a "value or opinion", but totally wrongly. The third paragraph then says what to do about opinions, but clearly using the word differently than it's just been (wrongly) defined. Can't you see how obviously illogical this all is?--Kotniski (talk) 19:56, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The first paragraph clearly explains what are facts. That is enough in the first. The second paragraph is clear to me. The third is also clear. QuackGuru (talk) 20:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After reading Kotniski comments, I made it even more clearer but it was reverted without explanation. QuackGuru (talk) 20:54, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quack, please stop this. Until you actually acknowledge and understand the issues that are being raised you are in no position to "clarify". Facts about competing views are not "a matter which is subject to dispute"; in fact the whole point of the policy is that facts about views are still facts. You also seem to miss the distinction between "competing views", which can be opposed but not necessarily in contradiction, and "disputed facts". Further, your definition of an opinion as "a statement which does not express a fact" is...let's just say incomplete. Rvcx (talk) 21:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rvcx now disagress with Kotniski comments and prefers the older version. Facts about competing views or disputed facts are "a matter which is subject to dispute". Further, the definition of an opinion as "a statement which does not express a fact" is clearer. QuackGuru (talk) 21:10, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, Quack, you are still not understanding. If person A thinks B and person C thinks D, and B and D are competing views, then "A thinks B" and "C thinks D"—facts about competing views—are not (necessarily) subject to dispute. Each of the two views may be under dispute, but the facts about the views are not. This is the most important and fundamental part of this policy. You really need to understand it if you're going to make any contributions of value here. Rvcx (talk) 21:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus

A simple formulation has consensus. We should work from that version because it was pointed out that the vague and disorganised version has too many problems. I don't see problems with a simple formulation. QuackGuru (talk) 18:50, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No-olne's yet pointed out a serious problem with the new version, while they certainly have pointed out problems with the old one. Also more editors support the new version. So with respect, if anything, you have it entirely the wrong way round. (But we're not constrained to choosing between the two versions - if we can work on the current version without knee-jerk reverting anything anyone tries to change, we can mvoe towards to a version that explains everything clearly and satisfactorily.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:56, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Serious problems have been pointed out with the proposed text. Editors cannot point out problems with ASF. We have already started from a simple formulation and a few minor changes were made. QuackGuru (talk) 19:07, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Words to watch

See Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 40#Words to watch

From the history of the article:

21:18, 19 May 2010 Griswaldo (PBS I think your version is much more vague ... lets discuss the change you want to make ... I thought after being reverted you were supposed to do that)

I did discuss it see above. -- PBS (talk) 22:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I admit I'm being a bit bold in my conclusions here, but IMO here's our eventual bottom line, so to speak, on this issue: With a title like "WP:Words to watch" (read that, roughly, "words to watch out for" or "words to take note of") this currently proposed approach to WP policy cannot properly work as a policy, but must remain at most an editorial guideline. Either a community-wide consensus must be gained for a policy provision such as that certain words are forbidden, or, e.g. that "these listed words are by policy to be regarded as suspicious and are to be not to be used absent a clear consensus to invoke WP:IAR", or alternately the general provision about "which words to watch" must at most remain a general guideline, not part of a core-content policy such as WP:NPOV. ... Kenosis (talk) 03:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why I do not think that "For example, the word 'claim' can imply that a statement is incorrect," should be in this policy. There is nothing inherently wrong with the word "claim" it depends on the context in which it is used and that is far to detailed an issue to include in this policy. --PBS (talk) 03:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused, if you think that the current version is too detailed, why are you trying to copy the even more detailed style guideline's wording here? The current version gives a very broad statement "some words carry non-neutral implications" and proceeds to give one example. If you don't like the example, then propose another one, but promoting style guidelines to policy through a copy/paste should not be done.

I'll also note that in the linked previous discussion I see no consensus to change the wording. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the wording from the lead of the guideline "There are no forbidden words or expressions on Wikipedia, but certain expressions should be used with care, because they may introduce bias. Strive to eliminate expressions that are flattering, disparaging, vague, or clichéd, or that endorse a particular point of view." is better than the current wording. However if an example is going to be used in this policy then lets use "terrorist" which unlike "claim" nearly always carries a non neutral point of view: "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". -- PBS (talk) 06:06, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So which is it to be replace claim with terrorist, to remove the word claim and make it more general along the lines of the lead in the guideline, or remove the whole section and move the guideline in to a see also section? -- PBS (talk) 09:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Something to think about ... how to neutrally describe what the sources say when the sources themselves take a non-neutral stance and use non-neutral language. If the reliable sources speak of something in flattering, disparaging, etc, terms... using non-neutral language to do so, can we accurately reflect that stance without using non-neutral language in turn. In fact, I think if enough reliable sources share a seemingly non-neutral opinion, it can become non-neutral for us to use milder language (as we would be imposing our own opinion over the opinion of the sources).

I think it is important to remember that true neutrality means we step back and accurately reflect what the sources say... without injecting our own POV ... but doing this can mean using language that may seem non-neutral. Blueboar (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is true. Just because a biography is created from sources that are hagiographies is no reason why that needs to be reflected in a Wikipedia biography article. -- PBS (talk) 09:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOR may require that a hagiography is taken at face value, unless there's some other support. And supporting sources can go either way:

At Emmanuel Lasker, another source described the largest and most wide-known as a hagiography and no source defended the hagiography, so the hagiography was heavily qualified.
OTOH sources at Warcraft II unanimously describe Blizzard Entertainment as the most successful ever developer of Real-time strategy games, and WP:NPOV and WP:NOR require that this be acknowledged. --Philcha (talk) 10:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 829: / Line 829: @@
 :::::::::::Quack, please stop this. Until you actually acknowledge and understand the issues that are being raised you are in no position to "clarify". Facts about competing views are '''not''' "a matter which is subject to dispute"; in fact the whole point of the policy is that facts about views are still facts. You also seem to miss the distinction between "competing views", which can be opposed but not necessarily in contradiction, and "disputed facts". Further, your definition of an opinion as "a statement which does not express a fact" is...let's just say incomplete. [[User:Rvcx|Rvcx]] ([[User talk:Rvcx|talk]]) 21:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 ::::::::::::Rvcx now disagress with Kotniski comments and prefers the older version. Facts about competing views or disputed facts '''are''' "a matter which is subject to dispute". Further, the definition of an opinion as "a statement which does not express a fact" is clearer. [[User:QuackGuru|QuackGuru]] ([[User talk:QuackGuru|talk]]) 21:10, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
+:::::::::::::No, Quack, you are '''still''' not understanding. If person A thinks B and person C thinks D, and B and D are competing views, then "A thinks B" and "C thinks D"—facts about competing views—are '''not''' (necessarily) subject to dispute. Each of the two views may be under dispute, but the facts about the views are not. '''This is the most important and fundamental part of this policy.''' You really need to understand it if you're going to make any contributions of value here. [[User:Rvcx|Rvcx]] ([[User talk:Rvcx|talk]]) 21:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 === Consensus ===