Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard

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Is it a NPOV violation to say Joe Biden won the 2020 election?

Is it a NPOV violation to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election? This has come up on several pages where editors instead add obfuscatory language about the election results. See this dispute on the Sidney Powell page.[1] Is it not instead a NPOV violation to mislead readers into thinking the election results are up in the air and omitting that all challenges of the results are without evidence of large-scale fraud? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:04, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, given the fact there is still another election to be held. It might be fair to say he won the popular vote, but the US does not elect its president based upon that.Slatersteven (talk) 17:10, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

This has been discussed ad nauseum at Talk:2020 United States presidential election and related articles, and I think it's safe to go with what has been decided there rather than trying to achieve a whole new consensus all over again. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:12, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

As far as I know, none of the states have certified the election results yet. Deadline is December 8. Until then, claims should not be made about who won, and assertions one way or the other are opinion and represent POV. Pkeets (talk) 17:14, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

This is incorrect. A number of states have certified their election results at this point. Within the next ten days, a majority will have done so. BD2412 T 17:16, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Arguably yes. He is currently the projected winner by all media sources, and the only official point that he will be named President-Elect prior to inauguration is after the EC votes in December. While there is no likely chance that all the challenges that Trump's team will change this, the fact that Trump has not conceded at all is making this difficult. Normally, if the other person running conceded, that would generally be the end of it, and then we can in factual terms the winner won.

That said, we also need to recognize that barring any wacky hijinks in the next 2 months, we should be writing these articles for the long-term. One has to ask if it is necessary to state "Joe Biden won" or simply to establish the period after the elction. Powell's article as I look at it now uses rather neutral language that establishes her role in the legal challenge to the election, but avoids saying anything if Biden won or not, which is good. That'll work in the very long term for this aspect. --Masem (t) 17:17, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

It is a NPOV violation to not say that Biden won the 2020 election. He is the president-elect, according to every reliable source, and our job, consistent with the NPOV policy, is to reflect what the reliable sources say. Neutrality^talk 17:29, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

But they are technically not correct. The only official point where "President-elect" can be used is after the EC tally. This is an example where the media may be saying something presumed factual when it actually is not the case. Its unlikely the results will change, but there is a factual aspect here that we should be respecting, if we need to include that. (Eg on Biden's page, we better not be calling him P-E until after the EC, but only the projected P-E). --Masem (t) 18:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:TRUTH. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:03, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

How the EC works and when the election results fully determine the actual Presidential-Elect is well documented in US Law. That's verifyable, so pointing to TRUTH doesn't make sense here. --Masem (t) 18:06, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes it does. You say the RS got it wrong, but that is classic WP:OR.

The President-Eject has called truth lie and lie truth from day one, and you want to make him the arbiter ("Trump has not conceded")? The media are telling us one thing, and Trump is telling us another thing, and we go with Trump because of legal nitpicking? I think this is real beef people have with that decision. It makes me antsy, Wikipedia siding with that old fraud.

It's a wiki. If Trump stages a coup, we can still change it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:17, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm saying, under US law, the next president is not decided until the EC vote is counted. The media can call it all they want, and never in the US EC history has that call been wrong, but there is a CRYSTAL factor here that there's a possibility - extremely slim here - that Trump may win. Sure, numerous legal experts have stated there's no reasonable chance that all of Trump's lawsuits will amount to flipping anything, nor any ploys to flip electors, but from a technical standpoint, the only point the US knows with 100% factual assurance that it has its next president is at the EC, and going by CRYSTAL, that's how we should be handling it. Everything else is projections of the winners barring any oddities. But as I said above, it seems outside of the specific articles on the election, Biden, and Trump, there's ways to reference the results of the election without having to say anything specific to the results of the election, given how we are to write for the long-term. --Masem (t) 18:49, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

And again we're dealing with the ugly face of RECENTISM. Facts based on the actual legal process supersede news media clickbait; i.e., use sound editorial judgment. We can say "media" declared the winner; however, the vote has been challenged by the Trump campaign/administration (whatever), or something along that line. Atsme 💬 📧 19:43, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Neutrality's statement that It is a NPOV violation to not say that Biden won the 2020 election. XOR'easter (talk) 22:01, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Masem, you state that the reliable sources are "technically not correct," but you don't cite any sources in support of that conclusion. That's because there's virtually no support in the RS for that conclusion. In any case, as O3000 points out, "president-elect" is not a formal position or office. It's not dependent on a concession speech and is not dependent on a GSA administrator's "ascertainment." The line of argument you are making amounts to OR. Neutrality^talk 23:39, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

The RS is the US law behind elections. The winner is not decided until the EC votes and the Senate affirms (as described below). While in all practicality Biden's won, its a language precision issue and incorrect to say that factually regardless of what the media states. The media knows as well as we do that the EC and Senate confirm, but its poor form for them to say he's won at this point. It would be like us saying a suspect is guilty before a trial because the media has all condemned him as guilty. The media is not a legal body responsible for anything here. --Masem (t) 05:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

(1) You're still not citing any sources; (2) "U.S. law" does not define who the president-elect is, because it is not a formal position or office; the closest thing is the GSA "ascertainment" which is only for purposes of allocating federal office space, etc.; (3) your analogy about declaring a suspect guilty before trial makes no sense (reliable media sources, such as those acceptable for use on Wikipedia, don't do this). We don't disregard the universal array of reliable sources because some editors declare that they are wrong. Neutrality^talk 20:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

The entire EC process is spelled out in Article Two of the US Constitution and the Twelfth Amendment (this shouldn't need pointing out), and it clear that the President and Vice-President are not named until the Senate counts the EC votes and completes the process. That is when we know 100% factually who "won" the election, no iota of doubt. Any call for who "won" is based on all projections and expectations that the EC voters will not be faithless (which is unlikely to happen this years as reports suggest), and hence we can only call Biden "President-elect" (the media's term) representing the projected winner of the election. Doesn't he has actually won yet because that cannot happen until after December 14. The point about comparing this to the media calling someone guilty ahead of time (as a hypothetical) is pointing out that we have to be careful of the media leapfrogging past the legal requirements of the process. --Masem (t) 20:50, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Masem, I have not known you to propose that your own reading of primary-source information be reflected in editorial decisions on any other topics in article space; why are you taking this [[WP:NOR|pro-original research] stance in this instance? What it looks like from here is an attempt to promote FALSEBALANCE by entertaining a hypothetical that no reliable sources are able to document.

Also, your original research is wrong; this year's supreme court ruling has strengthened the hand of the states considerably with respect to faithless electors, and the majority opinion was based on the ballot decision made by voters in each state. Therefore, the sources stating that Biden has won the electoral college are correct to do so, and SCOTUS jurisprudence has made clear that the election is decided by voters in each state and not by the electoral college, the members of which can be bound to the election result. Newimpartial (talk) 23:11, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

It's actually very much related to the blind faith editors sometimes put into the body we have of RSes. I have no question by Dec 15, Biden will be named as the next President from the EC, but that process is still happening and until then, it is incorrect to say "Biden is the next President of the U.S. under the terms of US law." This may be a squabble over technical language precision and the unquestional victory that Biden did achieve from preliminary results, but it is important that we can't let the media let Wikivoice speak incorrectly on something they are not the authority of (that being, what US law says). This type of slippage can leak into other areas, and creates more problems. And in this case, this is a "the sky is blue" situation: everyone should know what the EC is and despite how backasswards it may be, it is still part of the US election process. Having to source that is a silly question. And on the faithless electors, the SCOTUS case only gave the states the ability to actually impose fines and/or switch out electors if their laws have that in the books. (I expanded the article on these cases) It did not remove the possibility of faithless electors, but obviously in some states, makes any elector less likely to be faithless; experts have also said it is unlikely to see any real shift in the EC with faithless electors this year given the projected EC lead Biden has. But it remains a very remote possibility, so per CRYSTAL we should be avoiding any statement that Biden won with Wikivoice assurance. --Masem (t) 23:24, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

As usual, Masem, you are missing my point. I could cite any number of RS Political Science textbooks to tell you the same thing SCOTUS articulated: that a presidential candidate wins an election by collecting electoral college victories in a number of states sufficient to win a majority. The electoral college is only supposed to play a role, per US constitutional law, if no candidate gets a majority of Electoral College votes (or in other edge cases like a death of a candidate during or immediately following the election). That's what actual reliable sources on US elections state, and no presidential election for more than 100 years has been decided in any other way. But you want to set RS scholarship aside based on your own ideosyncratic reading of the US constitution. Absurd. Newimpartial (talk) 23:37, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Query in 2016, Wikipedia "called" the election early on the morning of November 9, when the electoral college counts were obvious as reported by multiple media outlets [2]. What is the policy-compliant reason that the 2020 election should be handled differently? Newimpartial (talk) 18:15, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I would avoid the word “won”. But, “president-elect” is not an official term. It’s a media term, and the media says Biden in president-elect. As there are no history books yet, we rely on the media. But, I wouldn't capitalize it. O3000 (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Clinton actually called to Trump to concede. Yes, there could have been EC shenanigans (The Faithless elector issue) but at that point, the losing candidate willingly admitted to losing. Arguably, though we should not have used that wording then there as well; the "win" only happens after the EC. --Masem (t) 18:25, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

You can retract a concession. Don’t think that’s meaningful. O3000 (talk) 18:37, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Also, that wording in that diff clearly doesn't factually state Trump won, but implied that he would likely win the EC when that happened, so it used appropriate caution in language. --Masem (t) 18:26, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

According to Merriam-Webster [3], The AP's assessment has been used as the announcement of a winner of the presidential race for decades. According to the AP and all mainstream media, Biden became president elect on November 7, four days after the election, when they determined that there was no longer any doubt about the outcome. That should be good enough for us. Even Trump has acknowledged that Biden "won" the election, but falsely claimed that Biden won because the election was "rigged", see [4]. NightHeron (talk) 18:39, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

But later after that one tweet, he stated in another that he has not conceded yet and still challenging the results (despite how everyone else knows how fruitless it will be). --Masem (t) 18:42, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

And he may claim he’s the winner for years. Although, he’ll need to retract that in four years if he wants to run for a third second term. O3000 (talk) 18:48, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Come Dec 14 (when the EC votes) we'll have the definitive answer, and at that point, regardless of what Trump claims, we can then factually call Biden as P-E. --Masem (t) 18:51, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, technically, the EC votes and passes it to the Senate which counts and announces the next president. Not the president-elect, as that’s just a media term. I think we can use president-elect since RS do and it happens to be a convenient term. But, it’s not something that matters a great deal. O3000 (talk) 19:07, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

This is the fifth election Wikipedia has been through, and we have never waited for the Electoral College to meet before reflecting the reporting of sources on the winner of an election. I think we would need a fairly definitive consensus to break with that precedent. I would also note that although lawsuits have been filed in various states, those lawsuits only address small numbers of votes in each state, and not enough to overturn the outcome in those states. Even so, those lawsuits have generally been dismissed as frivolous. BD2412 T 19:09, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I believe most cases where this may be an issue can be reworded to be set in language reflecting the long-term and not what is currently the "not yet determined" stated of the next 2-3 months (until Jan 20 when inauguration happens); the OP example seems already worded in a manner that doesn't spell out anything that says Biden won but alludes to the litigation Trump tried after it, implying that he was considered the loser without saying factually he lost. That's fine. As I mentioned above, there's only a handful of articles that we probably have to talk about Biden's current state as the media's selected President-Elect or the projected winner of the election or the like in that form, until we have official results from the EC. For example, if we are talking about COVID, we can say something "After being projected as the winner of the election, Biden set forth a new plan for dealing with COVID..." or "After being named president-elect from the election, ...." and avoid saying "After winning the election...." --Masem (t) 19:14, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Masem, in 2016 the language Donald Trump defeated Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump will become president on January 20, 2017 became part of the stable version of the 2016 election article the night after the election. If people here think that the lack of a concession speech from Trump makes a material difference to either the sourcing requirements or NPOV requirements concerning the election result or who the president-elect is - in the absence of any RS reporting casting doubt on the result - I would like to see what the policy basis of that argument might be. Newimpartial (talk) 19:43, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

We should say Biden won because that is what news media say. Note that while the U.S. system of using an electoral college is unusual, there are similar issues in say someone won a parliamentary election. If for example a party was projected to win a landslide in a parliamentary election, we would say the party leader won. However, losing candidates can request recounts, electoral officials may delay certification until every ballot box is received, elected MPs have not yet been sworn in, they may switch parties, the head of state may refuse to appoint the party leader as PM. But the standard should not be absolute certainty, it should be reasonable certainty. TFD (talk) 19:40, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Masem Surely this is wrong "the media's selected President-Elect or the projected winner of the election", the media has not selected anyone as leader, they have simply reported who has one won the USA nation wide popular election. I do admit I am no expert regards the confirmation process. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 22:40, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, they are reporting on the first counts reported by each state (their popular votes), though some states like Georgia are doing recounts (not expected to change the numbers). That can be immediately used to project the EC winner due to how the EC works, except for the potential of faithless electors which no expert believes will change anything. So there is less than a million in one (or closer to less than a 140 million to one) chance that the EC winner will be anything but Biden. But the process is simply not complete. As a comparison point, big news over last few days was the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which forms an Asia economic block. The problem is is that that process still requires individual ratification by each country. So we cannot say that this RCEP is now in force (as some poorer press outlets indicate), but that it has been signed for individual nation ratification. It is the same issue here, we still have a process that has to be complete before Biden, by law, is recognized as President and thus when we can factually say that without putting Wikivoice into any potential backfire situations. --Masem (t) 23:05, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Earlier in this thread you wrote that "if the other person running conceded, that would generally be the end of it, and then we can [state] in factual terms the winner won." In such cases the winner is called president elect days or weeks before the full legal procedure has taken place. So the issue is not that Wikipedia must wait until after the legalities have occurred. Rather, your position that we should not declare as fact that Biden is the president elect is based only on Trump's failure to concede, which in turn is based on his falsehood that the election was stolen from him. All mainstream sources agree that that's a falsehood, and for that reason refer to Biden as president elect. Per NPOV, Wikipedia should do likewise. NightHeron (talk) 23:49, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• "Twitter now alerts Trump that Biden is president every time he lies about election fraud". news.yahoo.com.

Thought I should note it here. --Walrus Ji (talk) 12:39, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

I have been giving this issue some thought, and I think that the real problem is that there is a conceptual distinction between winning the election and winning the presidency. Hypothetically, for example, if Biden were to die a week before the Electors meet, and the Electors (primarily being Democratic Electors) then cast their electoral votes for Kamala Harris to be president, no one would take this to mean that Biden had "lost" the election, even though it wouldn't be Biden who "won" the Electoral College and then assumed the presidency. As for the possibility that the outcome of the election itself will change, the audits and recounts that have been done to this point have only reinforced the Electoral College vote, and it has been noted that the lawsuits that have been filed do not impugn a sufficient number of votes to change the outcome either. Thus, we can properly reflect sources reporting that Biden won the election, while perhaps noting in a footnote that there are hypothetical scenarios under which the candidate who wins the election still does not win the presidency. My proposal, therefore, is that we refer to Biden as the winner of the election now, but not as the winner of the presidency until after the Electoral College votes. BD2412 T 04:06, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support One could say, in purely democratic terms, that the most votes wins the election. So a candidate can win the election and not gain the presidency. My view is that the electoral college is a toothless political ritual that has no real effect beyond custom and ceremony, and the constitution has long since evolved to make the fourth estate the arbiters of the elections of the third. GPinkerton (talk) 14:21, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support it's now 12/12/20 and Biden has won the popular vote, the EC (per any normal version of the way the EC is determined), and there are no plausible recount or legal actions that would change any of that. As Hob Gadling so trenchantly notes above, if Trump stages a coup, we can change it. DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:56, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Back to Sidney Powell

Could we please get back to the original topic, which was 2020 US presidential election results in Sidney Powell's biography. Only the opening post and one commenter have mentioned Powell. It is unclear which talk page discussion or article content the opening post refers to. Perhaps this edit (16:24, 15 November 2020), which added content "Joe Biden won the 2020 election" to the article without providing an inline source. For this is material that is likely to be challenged, it definitely must have inline citations. This is also a new claim that is not made in the article body.

Currently the lead says "to challenge president-elect Joe Biden's victory". That is not exactly an accurate summary of cited sources, though it would be verifiable to say that Powell was "seeking to stop state officials from confirming President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania". Would that be NPOV? I don't know. That is what the Reuters source is saying, whereas The Hill attributes calling Biden's victory (the word is not used in the source) to media outlets: "election results in several key battleground states that were called by media outlets for President-elect Joe Biden". Politrukki (talk) 14:25, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• It's basically language that in a few weeks won't matter in the specific case. Only thing you could take out would be "president-elect" as leaving "Biden's victory in PA" is otherwise "true" now; no , the state hasn't certified (though that should happen in most of the state today) but they reported their uncertified popular vote which has Biden clearly winning, and thus explains the legal challenges. I would assume the body would get into the specifics. --Masem (t) 14:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Pennsylvania has now certified the outcome in that state. BD2412 T 17:35, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

A new user Vic DiCara is editing his own band's page 108

A new user user:Vic DiCara is editing the page of 108 (band), while a member of the band goes by the name Vic DiCara. At least two edits here and here constitute WP:ORIGINAL research, a WP:CONFLICT of interest and/or are definitely not a WP:NEUTRAL point of view. Based on the level of knowledge level in the edits, I believe these edits are made by the public person and that they are made in good faith. However, they still violate Wikipedia's rules. The user is removing appropriately sourced claims and other changes are made with subjective language such as "excessive" and "minor". I will be notifying the user and reverting the edits momentarily. Kire1975 (talk) 04:34, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

User is also now promoting his vedic astrology business on his own page here. Kire1975 (talk) 04:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

User was indefinitely blocked by user:Cullen328. I consider this matter resolved:

Resolved

. Kire1975 (talk) 02:15, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Park West Gallery

A few years ago, I was a prolific editor with my own account. At the time, there was ongoing difficulty with this art gallery using Wikipedia to promote its cruise ship auctions and wiki-wash its bad publicity (lawsuits, fraud allegations, etc.).

This first appeared as a link-spam issue but evolved into more of a COI / NPOV problem

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2008 Archive Jul 2#Park West Gallery: our article vs. The New York Times'
• Talk:Park West Gallery
• Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 25#Park West Gallery: our article compared to the New York Times'

Since cleanup in 2008-2009, the article has been gradually re-worked by single-purpose editors to present a more benign view of a very controversial company.

My workload doesn't permit me to edit Wikipedia these days, but I wanted to point out the current problem in case someone here wants to take it on. --166.82.66.114 (talk) 23:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I added the New York Times article on the cruise ship complaints to a footnote. I can see that a "controversies" section would probably be a good idea for someone to add, especially if there are recent controversies. It's hard when the topic is consumer complaints about a big-time business, but I too hope somebody looks into this-- especially somebody who knows a little bit about the art business. --editeur24 (talk) 01:09, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Melukote

Isn't there a difference between the 2 statements -

1. Brahmins did not allow MANY Shudras to stay.
2. Brahmins did not allow ANY Shudras to stay.

The 1st statement is quoted from an online book. This statement has been exaggerated to say Brahmins did not allow ANY shudras to live there in this article. Furthermore the online book 'journey from Madras to Mysore' says '40 years ago 1000s of Brahmins lived here & they did not allow MANY Shudras to stay there'. This statement by the author could have been made, based on his conversation with a villager perhaps during his travel. How can you Quote such a statement to be a FACT! Brahmins & Shudras still exist. Adding such a statement like Brahmins did not allow ANY Shudras is quite divisive , when the source itself is not credible. The justification given by Walrus user is that he added this statement to clarify why the place only has primarily Brahmins. I find this reasoning not convincing. I personally don't think a reason needs to be given for why a place is primarily inhabited by Christians or Muslims or Sikhs. Moreover Walrus has exaggerated the comments from the book, the comments which were probably sought from a villager by the author of an incident that occurred 40 years ago. I tried to talk to him, but he reverted all my edits! My Edits undone by Walrus:

• 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Melukote&type=revision&diff=992903445&oldid=992902434

• 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AMelukote&type=revision&diff=992968122&oldid=992923511

In the talk page, I only requested Walrus to replace 'Brahmins did not allow ANY Shudras' to 'Brahmins did not allow MANY Shudras' & tried to reason with him, as to why even the statement was needed ? But instead Walrus user insists on keeping the statement 'Brahmins did not allow ANY Shudras' & does not want to even change 'ANY' to 'MANY', even though book states 'MANY'. Furthermore the author says that this incident happened 40 years before his travel there & he could have spoken to a villager who gave this info, which is not a reliable !

Brahmins & Shudra communities live in harmony today. To bring up & exaggerate statements such as this from the past is divisive & the reason for adding this statement is bizzare. His own words from the talk page : That bit about caste is relevant to clarify to the reader why this place is the primely inhabited by the Mandyam Iyengar community. The "bit" abt caste added was an exaggeration & I don't think a reason needs to be given for why a place is primarily inhabited by Christians or Muslims or Sikhs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.75.189.243 (talk) 05:05, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed that you may have recently made edits while logged out. Wikipedia's policy on multiple accounts usually does not allow the use of both an account and an IP address by the same person in the same setting and doing so may result in your account being blocked from editing. Additionally, making edits while logged out reveals your IP address, which may allow others to determine your location and identity. If this was not your intention, please remember to log in when editing. Thank you. Walrus Ji (talk) 12:05, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

@Anindian2020:, you need to login into your account if you want to edit. Please sign your posts with ~~~~ at the end of your comments. I have left you a note on your talk page User_talk:Anindian2020#Your uncivil comments, you are expected to read, and then engage in a civil discussion on the article talk page. I will not tolerate incivility or personal attacks against me, which is why your comment was removed. You are welcome to make a civil comment without name calling. The lines from the book before and after the quoted line are also relevant here. Walrus Ji (talk) 11:59, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I never used any bad words & I have deactivated my account as I realize pretty well by now that Wikipedia users have strong biases. The sad fact is one of my ancestors was killed by Tipu Sultan's army. So it causes me a lot of pain that the atrocities by Tipu on Brahmins are removed & instead a statement defaming Brahmins is added unnecessarily. The source is a book of some person who visited this place & seems to have enquired about brahmins settled there 40 years ago. Right from the day I signed in, I have only been getting warning & threats that your account will be blocked. Anyway Wikipedia is not a reliable source for me. I expect all my comments to be deleted by tomorrow & maybe the Melukote article would have more statements to vilify Brahmins further! Good job! Your statements won't change facts! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.75.189.243 (talk) 16:23, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

No but RS covering them might change our minds about them being facts.Slatersteven (talk) 16:26, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

One last comment - Walrus user has removed the RETIRED template from my talk page. Are there any rules that Wikipedia users have to follow when editing other's talk page, especially when they have retired?

Check the difference below : https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AAnindian2020&type=revision&diff=993031242&oldid=992936831 Walrus user has flagged me and said I am uncivil. When in fact, I never used any uncivil language. I am requesting you to reinstate the 'RETIRED' template on the talk page of 'Anindian2020' & delete it completely for I made a big mistake signing up to edit in Wikipedia. My only comment was to remove 'Brahmins not allowing any shudras' because of reasons mentioned above. But I have faced such stiff & strong opposition from Walrus user to my request. The statement provides no information as such & is divisive. The book also says Brahmans are cunning, showing the bias of the author. One of these 800 brahman was my ancestor who was from Melukote & killed in Srirangapatna.

Read more at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/71861480.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.75.189.243 (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

References

@Anindian2020:, You are name calling as biased, divisive, anti-Hindu, non neutral. So your comment was removed. If you want to engage in a civil discussion, you will have to use polite language. Respect towards others, is a major facet of Hindu culture, hope you know this. If you have no interest in editing, then that is your choice. But if you are editing, you should do it from your account. You are putting a retired tag and then you keep on editing. Do you think people will not notice? Since you are continuing your editing without logging in, your retirement tag is meaningless and misleading, so it was removed. --Walrus Ji (talk) 14:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute about Ferdinand Marcos

Hello, I am currently in a debuckle about whether or not the article of a controversial person, specifically Ferdinand Marcos, is neutral or not according to Wikipedia standards. As stated by this noticeboard, I must give context on the situation.

Ferdinand Marcos is the 10th president of the Philippines that underwent a long reign of 21 years, wherein 2 terms (of 4 years each) are of legal direct election, until he declared martial law near the end of his last term. He ruled for further 14 years until his deposition by EDSA Revolution. He commited several acts of torture and questionable political moves to his opponents, intimidating them under his rule.

I am currently in a dispute with User:Object404 whether or not to insert in a "Neutrality" template. This user has reverted multiple edits, and I commend him for doing so. However I feel that the article is too biased on the situation, now I am not defending the acts of violence, but I am asking whether or not the article really is "neutral" or not based on Wikipedia's standards. I ask your judgement whether or not to insert back the "NPOV" tag/template on the page since the user said above is reverting back my changes, and has a history of reverting changes as stated in this talk page: here and here, arguing to other opinions other than his. I'm gonna leave a notice on his talk page for us to resolve this issue professionally.

With regards, PyroFloe (talk) 17:43, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe what PyroFloe has been suggesting is WP:FALSEBALANCE. He is complaining that the article is unbalanced, towards "negative" coverage, when it is simply a function of the majority coverage of scholarly and journalistic sources about the subject -- as per WP:NPOV: "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence." Ferdinand Marcos is most famous worldwide for holding the Guinness World Record for the greatest robbery of a government (https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/65607-greatest-robbery-of-a-government) and his human rights abuses (Official website of the Martial Law Museum that is being built by the Philippine Government, dedicated to the victims of Marcos's Human Rights abuses -> https://thefreedommemorial.ph/about/). Since majority of scholarly, journalistic and historical reliable sources on the subject tends towards a certain type of coverage, the article simply reflects those. -Object404 (talk) 19:18, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

First of all, Guiness World Records has been criticised for taking in money from controversial people and authoritarian regimes, which is ironic since according to the article itself, they have been taking in money as stated in this section here. About the human rights abuses, it is true I agree with that, however it is worded out in a way that it repeats itself over and over again which may lead to doubts about the neutrality of the article. Being controversial doesn't mean that they should be treated with no neutrality. Even certain editors in both your talk page and the article being specified's talk page tells that the article is too biased and not neutral. PyroFloe (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

The tone of the article is supported by the reliable sources. What is it exactly do you mean by neutrality anyway? Can you elucidate clearly? -Object404 (talk) 19:44, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

As for Guinness World Records, the Marcoses have held the record since the 1980s, before the change of revenue model you pointed out, but it is beside the point. They are famous worldwide as being among the most corrupt in history. If you do a Google search on the phrase "world's greatest thief", Google will show Ferdinand Marcos as the #1 result depending on where you are located. -Object404 (talk) 19:51, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

First of all, I am NOT criticizing the reliable sources, I am criticizing the NEUTRALITY of the article. Compare the articles of Ferdinand Marcos to Nicolás Maduro, Richard Nixon, and even Adolf Hitler then you'll see the stark difference between the tones of all these controversial person's articles. Ferdinand Marcos is a dictator that's a fact, I am NOT denying that. But we are creating an encyclopedia not a tabloid. Just starting off with "kleptocrat" is already not neutral, why is it on the lead section? Even well known corrupt individuals don't have that on their lead section. PyroFloe (talk) 20:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Also, searching "World's greatest thief" just redirects you to the same Guiness World Records title for Marcos as cited by many sites. Extra citations are not needed, what we need is neutrality especially on how the article's tone is written. Your inability to hear other people's opinions just hurts the integrity and neutrality of the article, there are talks of you mass reverting even without mass concensus, there are reports of you not taking any advice from other editors, a bad sign that you only seek one side of the issue.PyroFloe (talk) 20:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

The issue of the term "kleptocrat" has been discussed before in the talk page and consensus has been reached before to keep it in the lede. You can view it at this talk archive: [5] . According to @BushelCandle:, "his history of dictatorship and kelptocracy are two of the most notable features of Marcos' reign and the lede would not be a fair executive summary of the article if they were not mentioned." -Object404 (talk) 20:37, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

"Concensus has been reached", no, there are active discussions that talks about this particular issue, there are proposals to fix the lead section and yet you say "no". Concensus has NOT been reached. Quoting something out of thin air from 2 years ago does not conform with the changing nature of Wikipedia articles. There are people that does say that this article is pretty biased and not neutral you just ignore it and say "wrong". Changing something from the article shouldn't be a problem, putting kleptocrat in the ARTICLE (not lead section) is fine, but repeating it over and over and over again throughout the article is not. Plus kleptocrat isn't a profession, the lead article serves as a way to introduce people into topics, they might be confused because in consistency's stake, ALL articles about people start out with profession rather than posthumously described adjectives. Do it like in Hitler's article, the adjective "dictator" is at the middle of the introduction and not at the top. PyroFloe (talk) 20:54, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Please elaborate in what way the article is biased and outline concrete steps to fix it. Give examples. -Object404 (talk) 21:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Should we use the word "kleptocrat", or should we use the word "thief" to describe Marcos in the lede? After all, he has stolen more than Vincenzo Peruggia and Vincenzo Pipino combined (both of whom are described as thieves in their article opening sentences if you're arguing that the word thief should not be used in the lede to describe an article's subject). Do note that Marcos is most famous internationally for being a thief (holding the Guinness World Record for greatest robbery of a government) and a dictator. -Object404 (talk) 22:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

No, I think we can rewrite the article to more of like: "His tenure was known for many controversies and corruption". Also, please wait, I'm compiling all the "elaboration" you requested into one talk page on the article. PyroFloe (talk) 22:51, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

That's already in the lede, third sentence. -Object404 (talk) 00:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Well then, I think we should remove repetition of the same concept especially in this one paragraph don't you agree? Even the "kleptocrat" you edited on Suharto is without mass concensus, good articles should be with support and mass concensus. The talk page of Marcos agrees that it should be rewritten. PyroFloe (talk) 00:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

No, there is a difference between corruption and theft, hence the 2 concepts are separate and non-redundant. Marcos was a thief of extraordinary magnitude, hence kleptocrat should stay where it is. That is, unless you prefer the term thief? This is neutral historical truth. We are merely calling a spade a spade, and it is backed up by reliable sources. -Object404 (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

"Corruption and theft is different", the article Corruption says otherwise, its literally stated in the article that corruption is prevalent on a kleptocracy which is what you're trying to push forward to include, it is repetition. PyroFloe (talk) 01:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Read it again. It is prevalent in, but is not kleptocracy. -Object404 (talk) 01:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if you're trolling or not, but you're literally saying that kleptocracy and corruption is different, even the article Kleptocracy starts with "Corrupt leaders" PyroFloe (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

No I am not. They are different. According to the Cambridge English dictionary (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/kleptocrat), a kleptocrat is "a leader who makes himself or herself rich and powerful by stealing from the rest of the people:". According to it as well (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/corruption), corruption is "illegal, bad, or dishonest behavior, especially by people in positions of power:". While related, they are quite distinct. -Object404 (talk) 01:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

How is that remotely different? A kleptocrat is a corrupt leader period. Merging it will be understood immediately, most people associate corruption with stealing which is "kleptocracy". Merging it will not impact the lead of the article at all. You defended with dictionaries, not with common sense. We will base the article on other articles about dictators, not from a dictionary. Plus why did you brush off the "profession" part, kleptocrat is not a job, its a description. Doing WP:Be bold is the only way of improving the article. Please do not edit-war, understand the concensus of other editors too. PyroFloe (talk) 01:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Dishonesty which can comprise corruption is different from theft. We are discussing definitions, hence we go with authoritative dictionaries. I do not believe that common sense is common, hence we must discuss with proof and logic. Kleptocrat is a role and profession, just like how an autocrat or technocrat is. Also, WP:Be bold is not consensus. -Object404 (talk) 02:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Really now? Edit "autocrat" in the lead page of Hitler and Stalin then, lets see their reaction. I was talking about WP:Be bold because I will now edit in and fix the flaws of the article you're trying to deny that there is a problem. PyroFloe (talk) 02:31, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Kleptocrat is a role Marcos is well-known for. -Object404 (talk) 02:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Edit in Autocrat on Hitler and Stalin then, also role does not mean job. PyroFloe (talk) 02:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Manual of style says profession OR role in lede. Jeffrey Epstein is also stated to be a sex offender in his opening sentence. Is sex offender a job? -Object404 (talk) 06:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

That is a conviction, is "kleptocrat" a conviction set forth through trial? Why doesn't Richard Nixon, a good article, have "crook" on it? You're trying to make it seem like I'm in the wrong here, I'm only helping clean up this article, why are you pushing me right into the edge? All edits by you are either sourced from only brief mentions, or just books that aren't even published online to be verified. PyroFloe (talk) 11:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The following are Good Article class entries and invalidate your argument: Edmund Kemper opening sentence: "serial killer, rapist, cannibal, and necrophile", Ted Kaczynski opening sentence: "domestic terrorist, anarchist", Earle Nelson: "serial killer, rapist, and necrophile", and Seung-Hui Cho (who was never convicted): "mass murderer". -Object404 (talk) 18:32, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

as an editor who has spent a great deal of time on these issues, I am here to say that thief, corrupt, and kleptocrat are not the same thing. A thief can be anyone, “corrupt” implies power, and kleptocrat means that the system is corrupt, not just a few cabinet members. I am on a phone and could not read the last few remarks. I have not looked at the article. I suggest that the corrupt behavior itself be described, outside the lede where a summarizing description such as kleptocracy may be appropriate Elinruby (talk) 12:03, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Here's the thing: The article subject is most known worldwide for 2 things: 1) being a kleptocrat 2) being a dictator. To not put kleptocrat in the lede is a kind of whitewashing of the subject. -Object404 (talk) 11:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not advocating removing the word. Neither is the other editor, as I read them — he/she appears to be saying the language goes too far to be considered objective. I think She you should confine the dispute to specific language. If, as PyroFloe (talk · contribs) seems to be saying, the lede calls him both a thief and a Kleptocrat, I might agree. Kleptocrat is a type of thief, no? I have other fires to fight, but as one who has asked a number of questions on this board, my advice is to make the question as specific and dispassionate as you can Elinruby (talk) 10:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

No, the lede does not call him both a thief and a kleptocrat. It says that he is a kleptocrat, and that his rule was known for its corruption. Kleptocracy and corruption are related but very different. They are apples to oranges. -Object404 (talk) 01:37, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Mining in Canada

A second opinion on the NPOV dispute at Talk:Mining in Canada would be very much welcome. Essentially, GaiusTranquillusSuetonius argues that the article omits enough relevant material to fail NPOV, and (at least until recently, when I removed the relevant section) included WP:UNDUE material about human rights complaints directed at Canadian firms operating abroad. Thanks, all! AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 20:57, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

This is incredibly disingenuous and underhanded. " argues that the article omits enough relevant material to fail NPOV, and (at least until recently, when I removed the relevant section) included WP:UNDUE material about human rights complaints directed at Canadian firms operating abroad"

You are completely misrepresenting what I am saying.

The rule states The very selection (and omission) of facts can make an article biased. I am arguing the fact that you selected international human rights abuses to include on a page called "Mining in Canada" when you made the article, while admitting that you didn't take the time to research what Canada even produces in its mines shows obvious bias. The most important elements of Canadian mining (what is produced, top export, top mineral mined) were not included yet a damnatory, minor fact, and ultimately one irrelevant to the subject at hand was. This casts aspersions on the neutrality of the rest of the material that was selected to appear. GaiusTranquillusSuetonius (talk) 21:12, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Once again, I removed the portion about international human rights, at your request. If there are other specific sections that you think are problematic, feel free to remove them. Also, please do not personally attack me. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 21:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Now I'm personally attacking you? I cast serious doubt on the validity of the research, please quote where I attacked your character. You completely misrepresented the point I am trying to make here then outright lied when you said "(at least until recently, when I removed the relevant section)". I said that was disingenuous because making things up is absolutely disingenuous; I would argue lying is a personal attack on me. You wrote an article about Mining in Canada. You did not research what is mined in Canada. You did not research what are the most important minerals mined in Canada, where, or how it is done. This information is relevant to the topic and it was not included. Information which was not relevant to the topic was included. This is not a personal attack, it is a critique of the process called, research, which was not properly conducted here. GaiusTranquillusSuetonius (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts. GaiusTranquillusSuetonius (talk · contribs) needs to calm down. Nothing is stopping him, at this point, from adding whatever he chooses to the article. Those changes may in turn be questioned, of course. Second, the topic should be more clearly defined. Is it mining projects that take place in Canada? Does this include pipelines in British Columbia? I didn’t see any mention of those. Is it the Canadian mining industry? This would seem to include mining companies listed on the Toronto and Vancouver stock exchanges? Some of those companies are in fact implicated in human rights abuses. If the topic is the contributions of the mining industry to the Canadian economy, or the environmental implications of mining, either way there is information missing.

I suggest splitting the topic up. But there is no call to be frothing at the mouth and casting aspersions on editors because you think they did not do as well (or what) as you think they should have. Welcome to Wikipedia, where everything is a work in progress, and other editors may disagree with one’s judgements. I do not see much that is very wrong with the article. I personally believe, for example, that the good deeds of given corporations should go on the articles devoted to those corporations. This noticeboard deals with articles, not editors. Complaints about behavior should go to administrative noticeboards. At the moment I think you are the one that is out of line, since you are doing all the yelling, but you do make several good points. Sudbury is in fact an important mining center. If the article is to be a top-level survey, yes, imports and exports and share of GNP are relevant.

Consider as an example:

• importance of extractive industry in Canada
• economy
• history (what is there is good)
• stock exchanges
• mining law
• Canadian companies abroad
• Alberta
  • pipelines
  • tar sands
• Ontario
  • nickel
  • sulfur
• Nunavut
• British Columbia
  • Transmountain
  • Kitimat

Of course, if the article is as broad as that, numerous spinoff articles may need to be created or linked up (I recently saw one about pollution in British Columbia, for example. The above is non-exclusive — there is probably mining in Labrador and the Yukon, for example — but it’s a preliminary proposed structure that might help Elinruby (talk) 10:04, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby, Thanks for this. I very much agree that the article is incomplete. It's intended as a top-level overview, à la Mining in Australia or Mining industry of South Africa, but it's obviously missing stuff at the moment. Do you think it fails NPOV in addition to being incomplete? I would like to be able to address the NPOV issues before starting on a significant expansion if at all possible. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 00:07, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not a regular on this board, but I will channel one to say that NPOV is really all about context. I haven’t taken a good look at the material he had you remove, however disputing derogatory material, while allowed, is in my opinion not the way to go if the object is objective truth. The usual response here to someone who says something is undue is to suggest including other, more positive facts as well.

I *have* taken a look at the article about the court case, and found it extremely significant. I come to this from some pro bono work about corruption in Africa and South America. There has been a definite pattern of mining companies listing on the Toronto and Vancouver stock exchanges because they are more lightly regulated than say London or New York. These companies pass profit through but not costs, and then go bankrupt after committing egregious abuses. So that decision is very important and the article about it should be expanded. Instead of taking a top-down approach, why not build up? In other words, expand the article about the court case, create a parent article about Canadian laws that affect mining, then one about the history of mining in Canada and so on. This is probably more work than you yourself are able or willing to do, but it amounts to doing a better job of covering smaller parts of the topic. The thing is, suppose you are an editor who thinks mining is good for the Canadian economy, it may well seem undue for an article about “mining in Canada” to not cover exports, or Sudbury or whatever, since these would be important subtopics.

The article as it stands is extremely generic, which is what you want in a short article about a big topic. But doing a deep dive in any one section raises questions of undue, so from here you may be better off going topic by topic, or province by province, or mineral by mineral, in separate articles that you then summarize in the main article. This is merely my suggestion, not WP policy, but I’ve been involved in big articles (Panama Papers, Operation Car Wash, History of Guatemala etc) and I think there is less strife when they are built as above, not that I have always followed this advice myself. Elinruby (talk) 06:28, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby, Thanks for this. Yes, it probably would have made much more sense to start small (province by province, mineral by mineral, etc), but I suppose one substitute would simply be to do that by section in the current article and split off as necessary. Completely agree re need for expansion of Nevsun Resources Ltd v Araya as well; for one thing, the case was recently settled, so the underlying issue (tort liability for violation of customary international law) will have to wait for another set of facts. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 00:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Ah. It is still important in that at least it is no longer being dismissed out of hand, though, no? As for the article, they usually do wind up being written top-down. Such is life. Pick a section as split it off if needed is the alternate. One further suggestion: since this is a big topic it may be tempting to split off by jurisdiction, but that may lead whataboutism unless you do them all at once, which seems daunting to me. I took a look at Mining in Guyana; he has split his article up by gold, oil, etc and that may be easier to keep geographically balanced since there are such vast differences in perception between provinces: think oil pipelines in Alberta and in BC. But it’s just a suggestion and of course Estheim may have done this for some quite other reason. But if my comments helped I am glad. Elinruby (talk) 12:43, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

(Random 2 cent opinion) I've been working on Mining in Guyana, and I definitely feel the struggle between "encyclopedic" and "99% of RS references are complaints/incidents". Elinruby puts my mind at some ease. Structure is king! Estheim (talk) 09:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

yes, been there as to West Africa and PEMEX. There are however quite a number of industry publications that can be used for geological facts (for individual mines) and business data (mergers). These too are important, but might not figure in a top-level survey article. (Depending. I know little about Guyana) But in this example, renaming the article might solve a lot. In other words the Mount Polley disaster is a lot less undue in “mining in British Columbia” and even less undue in “environmental incidents caused by mining in British Columbia”, to pick an example I happen to be familiar with. It would be undue weight if there was half a page about this one breach in a “mining in Canada” article that mentioned nothing else. This also doesn’t mean that half the content has to be happy stuff, just that it has to be true and elaborated upon at an appropriate scale, but belongs in a big survey article just like the contribution to GDP and some enumeration of the players. HTH Elinruby (talk) 13:10, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby I appreciate the methodical and very well reasoned approach, as well as the provided examples. You succinctly, and much more tactfully summarized my concerns. As I am out of line here, I will withdraw the dispute. Thank you Elinruby, Estheim, and AleatoryPonderings for your time and input. GaiusTranquillusSuetonius (talk) 00:12, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Women in chess

• Women in chess
• ---> disputed content special:diff/993816821/993817758#Research
• ---> comment please Talk:Women_in_chess#Quantitative_research_presenting_women_in_chess

Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:17, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Omar Navarro article by Ivanvector

Ivanvector wrote an openly biased article about Omar Navarro that appears to go against Wikipedia's requirement of neutrality. He not only brings up Omar Navarro's legal issues but then repeats them in detail in a section that is longer than any other section in his so-called biography. He called Navarro a self-proclaimed small business owner, as though he believes that Navarro is lying about owning a business. He told me Wikipedia is not censored, but Wikipedia states that it has a rule about neutrality. IvanVector, in this article, has not met that standard. He said the information included directly relates to the subject of the article, but left out a lot of information about Navarro that is truly neutral. A biography that focuses on what the writer doesn't like about the subject and hurting his reputation is called slander. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:147:4102:C340:D5DE:7ECA:6BAD:E55E (talk) 23:57, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

The article Omar Navarro looks pretty neutral point of view to me.

I did change the "self-proclaimed small business owner" phrase, with its cite to a reference hostile to him. On Navarro's own website, he says he is has a political consultant small business, which seems to be true, for what it's worth. Unsigned, you can change that kind of thing yourself, unless you are Mr. Navarro himself.

The criminal charges and controversies are most of the article, but they're also the most interesting thing about Mr. Navarro and what readers would be interested in, it seems. Maybe not. Some editor could add anything else, but the original article has enough to justify calling it "Omar Navarro", I think, rather than "Omar Navarro's Criminal Activities and Investigations".

It may be that there is too much about crime in the introduction, even though it is legitimate for it to be covered at length later in the article. I'll think about that.

--editeur24 (talk) 20:56, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Oops. I just looked at the sidebar, with his photo at the top. It's not neutral point of view, being almost entirely a listing of his criminal record, duplicative of what's in the main text. Also, the article includes a mugshot photo gratuitously. I'll edit that out. --editeur24 (talk) 21:14, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Hitler family

In Talk:Hitler_family#Otto_Hitler there is a controversy how to deal with the 2016 research that Adolf Hitler's brother Otto was on 17 June 1892 - not in 1887 (unspecified) as Hitler biographies had stated so far. In his addition Hitler_family#cite_note-24, user Beyond My Ken frames his conviction that the new date is original research resp. a fringe theory, with statements that I regard as original research and NPOV violation on his own (difflink):

• "Florian Kotanko, a Braunau am Inn headmaster with an interest in local history but no expertise in the subject..." - this person is a history teacher and the chairman of the Braunau association for contemporary history - and does any source claim he has no expertise on the subject?
• "the report [in Oberösterreichische Nachrichten] was picked up by Reuters, but has not been circulated by other news sources", although it was widely reported in German-speaking and international newspapers (examples: Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Der Standard, The Independent).
• "nor have their [sic] been scholarly papers confirming the new date", ignoring a book source by a professional Austrian historian I had cited.

I ask for feedback on this current version and the desirable general treatment in the article. --KnightMove (talk) 07:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

This is not appropriate for the NPOVN, as it has nothing to do with maintaining a neutral point of view. I have filed a report at WP:ORN because KnightMove does not seem to understand WP:OR or WP:RS, and wishes us to accept as fact information gleaned from a document from his own examination of it, when there is not a consensus of sunject experts published in reliable sources to support it.

I will not be responding here further. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:44, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, one further word, one single book does not indicate a consensus of opinion by subject experts -- which is what we require -- and does not outweigh the numerous reliable sources which support the previously established date. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:46, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I would finally like to point out that Beyond My Ken did not comment on his current insertion in the article with a single word. --KnightMove (talk) 07:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

That's because this is not the appropriate forum. As well as not understanding WP:OR and WP:RS, it also seems that you don't understand WP:NPOV. Every thing in my footnote to the article is directly sourced. That you don't like it doesn't make it POV.

Editors interested in this discussion are advised to read this and join the discussion at the proper forum, here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:19, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

If you are not willing to discuss your current version of the article in the other places, well then, the place to discuss it is here. --KnightMove (talk) 08:45, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, no. This forum is inappropriate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:54, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Actually, I think this can be seen as a NPOV issue because it raises the question of how we deal with sources fairly and proportionately (and I'm just interested in the secondary book; we obviously should not be interpreting primary documents or citing news reports for this, especially given that decent sourcing is available). As I see it, we have multiple sources giving one date for Otto Hitler's birth, and a new source[6] giving a different date based on an apparently newly-discovered document. Given that there is a known industry of Hitler document forgery a WP:REDFLAG is surely flying over this topic. Since the authors of the new book seem to be primarily exhibition curators rather than academic historians, and that Wikipedia is bound to present a summary of accepted knowledge, this new date should probably be omitted until corroborated by heavier-weight sources, or at most mentioned in a footnote as a difference in one source; anything more would I think be WP:UNDUE. Alexbrn (talk) 09:04, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Alexbrn: Here is a diploma thesis (to receive the title of Magister, roughly equivalent to Master), stating Otto's date of birth in 1892, based on a different source - an original newspaper stored in the Austrian National Library. The work has been supervised by historian Bertrand Perz. Do you regard this as sufficient? --KnightMove (talk) 12:20, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• No, per WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Alexbrn (talk) 12:30, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Ok, next question follows at WP:ORN. --KnightMove (talk) 12:36, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Fulani extremism in Nigeria

The word extremist: (my comment on article talk page) I have reservations about the use of this word and will run them past the WP:NPOV bulletin board. Sources appear to be solid academic stuff but would need to also use the word. Much is made of the Fulani being pastoralists and so are the jihadis in Mali, which doesn’t follow unless someone explains it better to me than that. In Mali aren’t the jihadis Tuareg? that doesn’t sound very close to Nigeria, in either culture or geography ... Maybe a bad generalization, and important to rule out when calling people extremists. Again, for clarity, the sources absolutely must say exact that, but better yet would be to avoid the fighting words and call it Herder-farmer conflicts in Nigeria or some similar name?

I am notifying the author now. I don’t really have a horse in this race, but would appreciate input especially from those familiar with the conflict Elinruby (talk) 16:32, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Heinz Haber

A relative of the Heinz Haber removed information regarding his uncle's connection to war crimes. The article right omits most involvement besides "was a pilot for the Luftwaffe" at the moment. See talk page. --Tavin (talk) 17:37, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

The Caliph Of Islam

Please remove this search content as it is totally a wrong information but the truth is That Muhammad ﷺ is the Last Prophet) and without that belief no one can be muslim so please pay attention to this issue. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Waleed pakistan0699 (talk • contribs) 05:07, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I want to say that one of page that shows Mirza Masroor as the Caliph of Islam but I wanna say that he is the Caliph of Ahmediya community not of muslims. Dear Sir As per the Laws of Islam and the Constitution of Pakistan Ahmedis are not muslims because they don't agree on the basic belief of Islam i.e Khatam e Nabuwat( That Muhammad ﷺ is the Last Prophet) and without that belief no one can be muslim. I will request you and want to draw attention towards it. Kindly see upon it. Thank You (A Muslim) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.102.1.70 (talk) 20:19, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello IP editor. It is Google that is displaying the false information, not Wikipedia. Please take this up with Google. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:09, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

User:Dwid Hellion is editing his own band page

It appears that this edit, this edit, this edit and this one by User:Dwid hellion go against WP:NPOV, WP:CONFLICT and WP:ORIGINAL. User goes by the same name as the well known lead singer of Integrity (band) the band whose page he is editing and is leaving comments in a manner consistent with it actually being him.

Furthermore, the user's contribution history shows at least 500 edits since 2010 and almost all of them are on his own band's page. He even created a draft for a biography page for himself.

He has also been warned about vandalizing wikipedia, disruptive editing and conflict of interest/npov violations in may 2009, August 2010, January 2013, February 2013 and March 2013. Three media images uploaded by the user were also deleted for being orphaned and unencyclopedic.

Questionable material on Integrity (band) has been tagged, a discussion on the talk page has been opened and the user has been notified. Kire1975 (talk) 01:40, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

A day later, User:Dwid hellion continues to disruptively edit his own band page with WP:ORIGINAL research and unambiguous promotion, ignoring the notification of this noticeboard discusion. Kire1975 (talk) 18:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Kire1975, I am grateful that my band is this important to you, and as you stated earlier you never heard of my band in your 29 years as a cop, yet here you are vigilantly editing and portraying yourself as an authority on a band that you've never heard . . . have fun with that — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwid hellion (talk • contribs) 19:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

User in question has blanked out all prose from the disputed page. Kire1975 (talk) 20:37, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Call for close

As often happens, it appears that Dwid hellion just needed someone to treat him like a human being and explain in a friendly way why we don't let band members edit their own pages. I had a talk with him, and he hasn't edited the page since the 16th. He still needs to learn about such things as signing posts, but he seems to understand our COI policies and to be cooperating with me. I suggest closing this as "problem solved -- no action required".

I find Kire1975's behavior towards Dwid Hellion and his band to be inappropriate. I stopped directly interacting with Kire1975 (and I will not respond when his inevitable reply accusing me of all sorts of wrong doing gets posted in response to this comment) but a look at his edit history shows that he appears to have a personal animosity against Dwid Hellion. This may be because of the themes of Dwid Hellion's music, which anger many people.

The page on the band is still somewhat promotional and needs work (I am swamped with a real-world project but hope to get to that soon) but Kire1975 does not appear to be willing to actually edit the page to fix any problems he sees (WP:SOFIXIT) or indeed to explain exactly what wording in the article he would find acceptable. To anyone reading this that has some time, I encourage you to go to Integrity (band) and do some copy editing. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:06, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Russian Revolution

Diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_Revolution&type=revision&diff=995040576&oldid=994676407

TimothyBlue refuses to include «soviet democracy» in the infobox of the Russian Revolution article, thus making it "Establishment of Bolshevik soviet democracy in Russia proper, most of Ukraine, Belarus, Middle Asia and Transcaucasia", for what he concludes: «"voting" with the Cheka holding guns to the heads of their families while the Red Terror raged is not democracy». This is accompanied by books about these Intelligence Services and the Russian Civil War. However, this peer-reviewed journal has an article dedicated to Soviet Democracy, which is introduced with the following:

The purpose of this article is to reveal which elements of the ideas of Soviet democracy legitimized the direct participation of the people, how these ideas shaped the legislative process, how people participated in the law-making process of the new family law of the union, and finally how the Communist Party and draft makers, including state officials and specialists, worked with popular participation. It took about 20 years to adopt the law, and the reason why it took so long was deeply rooted in the ideas of Soviet democracy. The Soviet regime was democratic in its own sense of the word and this article gives it a more democratic face than what is usually imagined, especially among Western people. However, the regime’s unique democratic character seemed to make it rather difficult to function adequately.

This article by David Priestland also discusses the development of Soviet Democracy across the Soviet Union. Suppa chuppa replied with the following, which I found very adequate to this discussion:

I concur. The current "outcome" cell does not cite any source for the results as claimed. And as was said above by others, the discussion and nuance around whether the system that was set up was a "true" democracy is not for us to decide, and the linked-to "soviet democracy" article should have the necessary discussion, sources, and summaries to provide context and explanation

--BunnyyHop (talk) 22:17, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

BunnyyHop All your edits are based around ML POV, all editors have stated this. All three editors on the page Marxist-Leninism are against your POV pushing text, hard working editors like TimothyBlue who is considered an extremely neutral and hard working wikipedian has called you out for it, users like CaperBlue have also reverted it. You then proceeded to revert that, you are going to be banned. Despite there being an ongoing talk on the talk page you keeped reverting to your proposed version 1 2 3 4 thereby edit warring, although you didn't break the 3 diff rule, you keeped reverting it despite 3 editors being involved in the dispute all opposing your changes! You also have an extreme Marxist-Leninist POV and have been warned about on numerous occasions, you only edit things relating to Marxist-Leninism and only post positive things on it, have edited the pages Portuguese Communist Party despite you stating to being a member of the PCP and consistently remove or dispute sections relating to Marxist-Leninism. You post POV pushing text constantly, you have completely removed sections detailing Marxist-Leninist atrocities, and state that "in practice Marxist-Leninist states have been described as anti-democratic." is a "[fringe theory]" your clearly not here to build an encyclopedia. Users like TimothyBlue have agreed and three editors have stated on the Page Russian Revolution that it is pure propaganda. You already justify being blocked for adding complete nonsense to article. You have edit warred with three separate users on this page despite consensus being against you, and you have done other things of complete Marxist-Leninist POV pushing, you removed sections of properly sourced material on the article Execution Van. Posted pro PCP text, despite being a member of the PCP. Removed sections detailing criticisms of Marxist-Leninism without any explanation despite there being four editors who opposed it. Removed sections detailing sections criticisms of Marxist-Leninist Guevarism, without consulting the talk and a direct link the the book. Added pro-Marxist-Leninist theory to articles. Removed the image on Totalitarianism because there was a picture of Mao and Stalin, despite all reliable sources sating that both Mao and Stalin are totalitarian, you did this twice. You also removed sections detailing Marxist-Leninist atrocities. You are clearly not here to build an encyclopedia you are clearly here to post pro Marxist-Leninist POV. Vallee01 (talk) 23:58, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

You have been warned multiple times to stop with the personal attacks. With me, these are always recurring, no matter what it is, everything is allowed. Someone who doesn't know this «all editors», «extreme POV», «member of X», «removing sections [sic!]», «clearly not here to build an encyclopedia» is rooted in a long, long discussion on the Marxism-Leninism talk page will absolutely despise me, even though in reality most editors on that talk page (minus you and other colleague) are actually against the main point of your edits. You went as far as my first edits on Wikipedia, and edits in other wikias! This almost feels like harassment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Marxism%E2%80%93Leninism&diff=993006628&oldid=993005529 --BunnyyHop (talk) 00:08, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

BunnyyHop What you were thinking when making this report? Users like Suppa chuppa, active and hard working editors on Soviet History like TimothyBlue, and CaperBlue and myself have all opposed your changes because they read like Marxist-Leninist propaganda something which again you have a long history of. How on earth did you think this would ever go your way when consensus is so clearly against you? Four editors have either reverted or disputed your additions, and all of which have no prior experience with you and are all neutral editors, all of which have been reverted by you.

You have already been warned multiple times that are you going to be topic banned if you keep your POV pushing editing, in fact you were warned on it recently. You also been warned and blocked before for POV editing both on Portuguese Wiki and English Wiki 1, 2, 3, 4. You were warned three times on Portuguese Wikipedia for biased editing on pages relating to Marxist-Leninism, you were also blocked twice for separate occasions POV pushing. when you tried renaming the Portuguese page "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" to "The Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat," or when you posted biased information on the Portuguese page on Marxist-Leninism Vallee01 (talk) 00:24, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

all opposed your changes

Suppa chuppa, replying to my answer, said:

I concur. The current "outcome" cell does not cite any source for the results as claimed. And as was said above by others, the discussion and nuance around whether the system that was set up was a "true" democracy is not for us to decide, and the linked-to "soviet democracy" article should have the necessary discussion, sources, and summaries to provide context and explanation. Suppa chuppa (talk) 22:15, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

IP user said:

It would appear to me that the more specific term (and article to link to) would be to "soviet democracy" instead of listing a generic "dictatorship", as any nuance and discussion as to whether the new government constituted a democracy or what manner of dictatorship (of an individual, of the party, or of the proletariat) is reflected in that page. 73.223.131.178 (talk) 06:09, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I won't address any points not related to this specific discussion on the Russian Revolution, them being truth or not. If the admin who reviews this wants clarification on my part on any of his claims, I'd be happy reply. On WP:NPA, the following points are stated:

Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream. An example could be "you're a railfan so what would you know about fashion?" Note that it is not a personal attack to question an editor about their possible conflict of interest on a specific article or topic; but beware – speculating on the real-life identity of another editor may constitute outing.

Using someone's political affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views, such as accusing them of being left-wing or right-wing, is also forbidden. Editors are allowed to have personal political POV, as long as it does not negatively affect their editing and discussions. Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence, usually in the form of diffs and links. --BunnyyHop (talk) 00:42, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

This isn't about your political views BunnyyHop its about your editing behavior, which again apears to be a complete pro Marxist-Leninist agenda, you only edit things relating to Marxist-Leninism and you only post positive things of Marxist-Leninism. Something was provided extensively in diffs, like when you removed the image of Totalitarianism because you didn't like that Stalin and Mao was present, you did this twice. Or when you removed text stating Marxist-Leninist regimes were undemocratic, despite being well cited you claim it is a "fringe theory," yet you cling to some strange fringe theories. Both diffs are provided. Vallee01 (talk) 00:50, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

This isn't the admin noticeboard, I won't reply to anything not related to the article. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 03:48, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not going to get involved in a topic dispute about a subject I am only slightly familiar with. So I am not going to be much help. However, as I have just pointed out in another thread, ANI is the place to go with concerns about editor behavior. BunnyyHop (talk · contribs) is right about that. Even if you convinced someone here that a given editor was a Bad Person, that person would most likely have no enforcement powers. I certainly don’t. Displays of acrimony only make people scroll on rather than try to understand the issue. I suggest that everyone restate the dispute as they see it, in three sentences or less, and without reference to other editors. That might help you get an answer. HTH Elinruby (talk) 10:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Restated

Elinruby, thanks for the answer. I'll keep it short for any colleague who reviews this and doesn't want to go through a wall of text:

TimothyBlue refuses to include «soviet democracy» in the infobox of the Russian Revolution article, thus making it "Establishment of Bolshevik soviet democracy in Russia proper, most of Ukraine, Belarus, Middle Asia and Transcaucasia", for what he concludes: «"voting" with the Cheka holding guns to the heads of their families while the Red Terror raged is not democracy». This is accompanied by books about these Intelligence Services and the Russian Civil War.

However, this peer-reviewed journal has an article dedicated to Soviet Democracy, which is introduced with the following:

The purpose of this article is to reveal which elements of the ideas of Soviet democracy legitimized the direct participation of the people, how these ideas shaped the legislative process, how people participated in the law-making process of the new family law of the union, and finally how the Communist Party and draft makers, including state officials and specialists, worked with popular participation. It took about 20 years to adopt the law, and the reason why it took so long was deeply rooted in the ideas of Soviet democracy. The Soviet regime was democratic in its own sense of the word and this article gives it a more democratic face than what is usually imagined, especially among Western people. However, the regime’s unique democratic character seemed to make it rather difficult to function adequately.

This article by David Priestland also discusses the development of Soviet Democracy across the Soviet Union. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 15:33, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Restated

Elinruby, thanks for the answer. I'll keep it short for any colleague who reviews this and doesn't want to go through a wall of text:

TimothyBlue refuses to include «soviet democracy» in the infobox of the Russian Revolution article, thus making it "Establishment of Bolshevik soviet democracy in Russia proper, most of Ukraine, Belarus, Middle Asia and Transcaucasia", for what he concludes: «"voting" with the Cheka holding guns to the heads of their families while the Red Terror raged is not democracy». This is accompanied by books about these Intelligence Services and the Russian Civil War.

However, this peer-reviewed journal has an article dedicated to Soviet Democracy, which is introduced with the following:

The purpose of this article is to reveal which elements of the ideas of Soviet democracy legitimized the direct participation of the people, how these ideas shaped the legislative process, how people participated in the law-making process of the new family law of the union, and finally how the Communist Party and draft makers, including state officials and specialists, worked with popular participation. It took about 20 years to adopt the law, and the reason why it took so long was deeply rooted in the ideas of Soviet democracy. The Soviet regime was democratic in its own sense of the word and this article gives it a more democratic face than what is usually imagined, especially among Western people. However, the regime’s unique democratic character seemed to make it rather difficult to function adequately.

This article by David Priestland also discusses the development of Soviet Democracy across the Soviet Union. --BunnyyHop (^talk) 15:33, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

First of all that quote is too long. Where did you say you wanted to put it? Or you want to say that Russia was a democracy, and you are saying this quote proves it? Not really, if so. It says that Soviet democracy is a very specific thing. This may be said in the sense of "neo-liberal" being a special case of liberal, as understood by US viewers of Fox News. So no, looking at this as a reliable source question no. What period was this? Right after the revolution? I am not at all sure that France was a democracy after the revolution, or is yet. And I know something about that revolution. Not touching one I don't. And this is for outcome in the infobox? Hahaha. Elinruby (talk) 18:51, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

So, in broad strokes, it currently says Bolsheviks and you want it to say Soviet democracy instead? Why? Elinruby (talk) 18:57, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby, the first soviets, or workers' councils, were formed after the Russian Revolution of 1905. Lenin saw soviets as the basic organizing unit in a socialist system and defended a dictatorship of the proletariat based on soviet democracy. To quote Priestland,

Lenin defended all four elements of Soviet democracy in his seminal theoretical work of 1917, State and Revolution

In the October revolution the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was proclaimed, whose supreme governing body was the A-R Congress of Soviets. In the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, July 1918, the Bolsheviks constituted 66% of all delegates. To quote the Russian Civil War article, After the revolution the Bolsheviks swept through Russia nearly unopposed. The republic had collapsed after the Soviets were given all political power, leaving no solid resistance to the Reds. The soviets were a central point of the Russian Revolution. The type of system established was based on them, a year before the end of the Russian Revolution, in the Soviet Union. Thus, the inclusion of Rise of Bolshevik Soviet Democracy in regions of the Soviet Union, is the most informative and correct way to put it. Remember - according to the article, the Russian revolution span from 8 March 1917 to 16 June 1923.

The colleague defended the removal of soviet democracy because he viewed it as a dictatorship due to the Red Terror and others. This, however, is just an editor's POV, and WP:OR, hence the quotations to prove that his POV is heavily opposed by very verifiable sources - a peer-reviewed journal and David Priestland.

--BunnyyHop (^talk) 22:34, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Find sources that use your wording. But ask yourself if this is important enough to argue about this for the next five years? Anything that goes in the infobox should be blindingly obvious and apparently it's not. Go from there. I think I understand that you are saying that a Soviet is a collective in Lenin's paradigm. I have no idea whether this is so or is a good summation of the situation so I am bowing out here. But. Unconvinced. If it is technically correct somehow then it needs some references. If it is correct you should not have trouble finding them. Elinruby (talk) 22:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby I see what you're saying, thanks for taking your time and putting yourself in this situation. Honestly, I don't think it's worth it. However, the two editors who got rid of that edit had mainly a problem with the term Soviet democracy itself, for what one called «complete ML (as an acronym of Marxism-Leninism) propaganda», and other «parroting statements from a dictatorship». «one-party dictatorship [sic!]» was explicitly accepted by one of those two editors, «soviet democracy» was not. This, to me, is a POV who just wants to censor «Soviet democracy», being thus not neutral editing. The objection the two colleagues raised up was with the concept of soviet democracy, and how it's «propaganda» and so on, even though verifiable sources, (and the article itself), say otherwise. The way one editor reacted with the all the accusations about me, not addressing the main point of the edit, really shows. I find it very complementary to the article, since there are 8 references to «soviet» just in the lead, and the following:

The Bolsheviks had secured a strong base of support within the Soviets and, as the supreme governing party, established a federal government dedicated to reorganizing the former empire into the world's first socialist state, to practice Soviet democracy on a national and international scale

This is actually in the lead. So, it would be logical to include the establishment of soviet democracy in the infobox as one of the outcomes, don't you agree? --BunnyyHop (^talk) 01:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I have not agreed that your source is reliable. Perhaps it is, but my point is that regardless of the quality of the source, it does not support your contention that Russia after the revolution was a soviet democracy, even if it contains the words “soviet” and “democracy”. Sources that do may exist but that one does not. But democracy is a term of art — I know people who are adamant that the US is a republic not a democracy, for example. Soviet democracy is presumably even more so. Meanwhile, a couple of possibly useful points: yes the infobox should reflect the article. No, Marxist-Leninism thought is not inherently non-neutral and if it is appropriate anywhere it would definitely be so in the context of the Soviet Union. But this seems to fundamentally be a topic question, for which I personally lack sufficient expertise. If nobody else chimes in here, you might consider taking the question to the reliable sources board, or else starting a political science or history RfC. Elinruby (talk) 09:30, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Clarification please

The first sentence under WP:DUE reads as such:

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."

I need the "in proportion to prominence of each viewpoint" to be clarified more please. What does it mean exactly?

For instance, if we are talking about POV-A and POV-B and there are 10 and 5 sources respectively for POV-A and POV-B, does DUE say the amount of the content dedicated to POV-A and POV-B should keep the same proportion as 10 and 5? Or does it say keep the proportion for the POVs separately in accordance with the sources? --Mhhossein ^talk 07:43, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

So first I think it would be better to try to get a measure of the overall proportion of support from the relevant scholarly community than the number of sources present. That might be hard to do, but you could look at things beyond just the published literature to make an informed decision, like who supports which viewpoint and how prominent they are, how prominent the publications are, whether professional societies have officially endorsed something, distribution of stuff presented at conferences. There are a lot of resources to inform a decision beyond just what gets used in the article.

You could also try to match the balance used by reliable secondary/tertiary sources if there are such things that took a neutral approach to comparing them. I'd usually just consider the available ratios to be vaguely, "about even, more of this one, a lot more of this one" instead of counting sentences or words or anything.

I'm not entirely sure what your last question means, specifically what the last option you give is supposed to mean. But the policy you're referring to means something close to first option you give. Again remembering that a straight counting of sources is neither the best nor the only way to determine the proportion of viewpoints. Someguy1221 (talk) 12:24, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

This is not a mechanical formula based on counting the number of sources. It should also account for the quality of sources (how authoritative is each source? how recent? how frequently cited? etc.) and the depth of their treatment of the subject. Neutrality^talk 04:22, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Someguy1221 and Neutrality. Both have pointed out the importance of the quality which I also believe should be a determining factor. To clarify myself further, just assume we have POV-A and POV-B both being equally covered by credible scholarly sources. Also assume that other factors like publication time, coverage depth, reputation of the source and etc are the same (I know this rarely happens) and that there are 10 unique statements from those sources on POV-A which merits inclusion given the situation of the page, while this number is 5 for POV-B. Now, how can the page cover these statements:

1: 10 statements in the page dedicated to POV-A and 5 to POV-B (The 10/5 ratio is kept and the proportion of coverage level to sources are kept for both of the POVs)

2: 2 statements in the page dedicated to POV-A and 1 to POV-B (the 10/5 ratio is kept but the proportion of coverage level to sources are not obeyed.)

Actually, what kind of "proportion" is the policy referring to? In the second, some important statements are missed but the 10/5 proportion is still true. I hope I'm clear this time but let me know if there more vague things. Thank you. --Mhhossein ^talk 12:36, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Mhhossein can you please provide the sources/article you're referring to so that we can address the specific issue at hand? Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 13:16, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Assuming you are not referring to some specific case, then usually we defer to a balance of sources. Most of the time, there will be a clear consensus position. You can cover more complicated situations differently, most versus some, a majority versus a minority, nearly all, which form of words to use will depend on the case and is somewhat subjective. Sometimes it is even appropriate to source the dissenting view of only one of many.Selfstudier (talk) 13:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Selfstudier I also think balance of the sources should usually be the criteria. Let's see what @Someguy1221 and Neutrality: say about it. --Mhhossein ^talk 18:43, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• Vice regent is asking my question better and briefer than I did:

  Suppose for a given topic there is controversy X. In that controversy X, 10 sources take POV-A, but 5 sources take POV-B. We can agree that a section on controversy X should give POV-A twice as much weight as POV-B. But how much weight should the controversy section as a whole be given? A little weight or a lot of weight? How can that be determined?

Insights please. Thanks. --Mhhossein ^talk 18:59, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, it largely depends on the content and the sources. Can you please provide the content/sources so that we can evaluate things with more accuracy? (there isn't a one-size-fits-all scheme as others have said here). Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 05:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

This one doesn't have a straight answer. Normally we would like to say, give it as much weight as the overall relevant scholarly community gives the controversy. That is, if no source ever mentions some guy without talking about his work on Wikipedia, the article on him must mention his work on Wikipedia in a similar proportion. But you are often dealing with topics where there are not many sources that attempt a broad overview, thus precluding such an analysis. This can be due to an absence of such sources generally, or some controversy has arisen only recently. In that case it's really a subjective matter of getting consensus on how relevant this controversy is to the subject of the article - both in how it impacts whatever made the subject notable, and in how notable the controversy itself is. Relying on the percentage of sources on a subject that are about a controversy can even be misleading if we are talking about a recent controversy, as news events often generate a flurry of articles about something that will hardly be mentioned in some years time. So really, there you go. Unless you're talking about something that happened ages ago and for which the relevant scholarly community seems settled as to how relevant the controversy is, there are no simple guidelines. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:08, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Uyghur genocide

• PlanespotterA320 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• GrignardReagent007 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hello. I would like to direct your attention towards Talk:Uyghur genocide. Several newly registered accounts are active in the latest discussion (bit of a dead horse re: the title), denying the genocide, as well as trying to slander researcher Adrian Zenz's good name and reputation. Comments such as comedic religious beleifs about g-d wanting him to fight big bad China. This is hardly a neutral academic…[an] end-times tinfoil hatter and his anti-China defense-contractor sponsored think tanks violate BLP, TALK and FORUM. I think Drmies gave a nicely worded warning, but they kept going anyway. See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Uyghur_genocidal_denial,_pro_Chinese_soap_boxing. 81.191.204.248 (talk) 05:10, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I think you should take it to WP:ANI. This board is dedicated to the NPOV issues only (see the banner at the beginning). --Mhhossein ^talk 05:22, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, this is clearly not a neutral point of view. What’s more to the point is that this noticeboard only works when the people involved are willing to listen, and has no tools to enforce anything against anyone who is not. This sounds to me like a case for a topic ban. However, since China officially maintains that this does not happen, despite good evidence that it does, this topic is going to draw everybody from outraged patriots defending the good name of China to paid editors. I assume page protection is in place? Maybe it should be upped a level.Elinruby (talk) 12:59, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

First of all, my account is not "newly registered", I have been a registered Wikipedian for YEARS. I have created HUNDREDS of articles. I have THOUSANDS of edits. Second of all, questioning an articles heavy dependence on a "researcher" with huge self-admitted biases and very extreme religious beleifs the he is open about IS NOT "slander". I do not think anyone actually beleives Zenz is a neutral academic given his past statements, and the figure of speech "tinfoil hatter" is an appropriate descriptor for anyone obsessed with rapture and with a seething hatred of feminists and homosexuals. Given the recent increase in tensions with China, it is expected that medias tied to those that have a beef with China would push this kind of narrative. Ergo, we should try to avoid articles related to China being dependent on sourcing tied to Western governments or "researchers" like Zenz - if we were to take NPOV seriously, sources citing such questionable claimants like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (funded by various Western governments), the World Uyghur Congress (funded by US), and Zenz (problems already explained) would not be used as citations, but the article is heavily dependent on invoking such sources. I stand by my comments that calling what is happening in Xinjiang a genocide renders the word meaningless and is insulting to survivors of actual genocides.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 14:18, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I notice that the SPI (GrignardReagent007) has been indeffed for WP:NOTHERE, after not heeding the advice given by Drmies. Good move. The same is due for PlanespotterA320, who keeps doubling down on the defamatory remarks about Zenz. Their comments also violate AGF and RS, by repeating talking points from disallowed sources like Chinese state media. 81.191.204.248 (talk) 14:43, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Let’s make it really simple. These rules aren’t being invented to annoy China; they apply all over Wikipedia. Nobody should ever use the voice of Wikipedia to call anyone tin-foil hatted. Accusations of antisemitim require careful attribution, and even then are usually inappropriate except in articles about Nazi Germany and the like. Personally, I have seen enough coverage in reliable sources to convince me that these camps aren’t just jolly vocational training opportunities, but ok, if that is still what China has to say about this, then it should be in there somewhere. But “neutral” does not extend to removing material because you yelled some slurs about the source. If you are in fact editing in good faith, you should go read the reliable sources policy then demonstrate that the sources you dislike do not meet the criteria. Or, alternatively, you could add your own material that complies with that policy. And calm down. Your last tirade convinced me, personally, that you are indeed WP:NOTTHERE. This matter seems to be in capsble hands so I will wander off now. Elinruby (talk) 16:07, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Indefinatly blocking someone for suggesting that a writer that openly admitted to holding certain fringe be taken with a grain of salt and not be the backbone of a Wikipedia article's sources is absolutely uncalled for and pure censorship. Also, complaining about "repeating talking points from disallowed sources like Chinese state media"? I never cited Chinese state media once, and despite searching far and wide, I have NEVER seen any Chinese state media even attempt to compare the situation of Crimean Tatars and Uyghurs to point out that there is no genocide in Xinjiang (since China generally sides with Russia on such issues currently). I merely noticed that Xinjiang is OFFICALLY called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (with Uyghurs as titular people) - a status that ACTUALLY genocided peoples (people that were eliminated from their historic homeland and suffered population drops that took a long time to recover), like Crimean Tatars, have been lobbying for. It is a historic fact that whenever the USSR decided to marginalize a particular minority to the point of being potentially genocide, it stripped them of their status as titular people of an autonomous region and then downgraded the area to an oblast (be it in the case of Crimea becoming an oblast, Chechen-Ingush ASSR dissolved, Kalmyk ASSR dissloved, etc.) That hasn't happened in Xinjiang - Uyghurs remain the titular people. It is not slander or defamatory to request that Zenz's word be taken with a grain of salt or note that he has extreme beleifs - his extremist writings are a matter of public record and can be found in the via "Chinese State media" rags that are the OCLC Worldcat Database [7] and google books [8]. Your demands are unreasonable and uncalled for. To imply that anyone that dissents against the current official narrative is only doing so out of eating up state media is completely disengenous, disrespectful, and bad faith. You are writing on a forum of Wikipedians, mind you, so keep in mind that you are speaking to a diverse group of well-educated people with niche knowledges of history on certain areas far above your par and far more in depth than any eye-catching headline the English-language clickbait media generates.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 16:16, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Softly characterizing the problem behaviour as "suggesting that a writer that openly admitted to holding certain fringe be taken with a grain of salt and not be the backbone of a Wikipedia article's sources", when in fact the problem is edits like this, would seem to suggest, at the very least, a serious lack of judgement. Alexbrn (talk) 16:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

That was GrignardReagent007. I did not make that edit. He is already blocked. The fact that some new editors less aware of the rules have been more agressive in their edits does not change the fundamental fact that Zenz is hardly a reliable source and no Wikipedia article should depend on his research. I have only expressed my concerns about Zenz's questionable stances on the talkpage and related forums, and that is not worthy of a block. It is incredible that people are willing to demand a permanent block over such factual statements that should be uncontroversial just because it hurts their narrative (instead of trying to find better sourcing, they demand anyone who question Zenz be censored instead). That is not OK. As for so-callsed "Softly characterizing" the "problem behaviour" - merely questioning the reliablility of an author should NOT be considered a problem behavior. Stop painting all dissenting editors with a broad brush.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 17:09, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I know it was GrignardReagent007. I thought you were arguing their block was unwarranted? Be aware WP:BLP applies to Talk pages too. I don't know anything about this Zenz guy but I do know that edits like this, by you, are highly problematic and if you continue in this vein then yes, you will merit a block/ban for the good of the encyclopedia. Alexbrn (talk) 17:16, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Seconded. Also You are writing on a forum of Wikipedians, mind you, so keep in mind that you are speaking to a diverse group of well-educated people with niche knowledges of history on certain areas far above your par and far more in depth than any eye-catching headline the English-language clickbait media generates (emph.mine) is a blatant personal attack, which ought to be retracted ASAP. 81.191.204.248 (talk) 17:32, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes. And putting all of this on Zenz, as if they were the only one criticizing China for its policies, is a straw man. The first 13 sources in the article aren't Zenz, for instance. If Zenz is problematic for one reason or another, that can be handled on the talk page, and the beauty of it is that one doesn't need "researcher Zenz" to write up the article. Hell, Marsha Blackburn is cited; we don't need her either. Drmies (talk) 18:11, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I never said that GrignardReagent007 should be unblocked or that his edits were correct. He is clearly inexperienced and unfamiliar with how to get consensus for a mainspace edit. I am arguing that 81.191.204.248's demand that I also be blocked for dissenting against the dominant narrative by pointing out problems with many of the article's sources (including Zenz) and noting major differences between the current situation in Xinjiang in comparison to actual historic genocides (re: population bottlenecks and loss of titular status in historic homeland). I do not intend to apologize for using personal attacks on those who have already resorted to such methods (whining about non-existant Chinese media talking points, etc). On Wikipedia there is a formal process for nominating and proposing name changes, and blocking people for more than reasonable talkpage comments voicing support of renaming an article in agreement with many other people (ie, trying to gain consensus) after an article was prematurely renamed and such name has not withstood time is censhorship. My edits are not "in vein" or intended to be disruptive, I resent such implications. I am merely trying to help Wikipedia have a consistent and less subjective standard for when an article should be titled genocide. (Keep in mind that we don't even have an article for Australian genocide of Aboriginal peoples, just a subsection "Australian genocide debate" in "History Wars", and "Taino genocide" redirects to the "depopulation" subsection of the Taino article.) I'm sure most reasonable people have a hard time beleiving that what happened to the Aboriginals and Taino was only "debated" to be genocide while Xinjiang is "certainly genocide" considering the fact the Uyghur population is steadily increasing, in sharp contrast to events in other cases that Wikipedia hesitates to call genocide that include sharp or complete population declines.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 18:48, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Planespotter, I haven't said much about you but I see some serious problems here. You object against a supposed inflation of the term "genocide", which can be a valid argument, but in this huge edit you mention "small repressions against titular peoples" (that's a buzzword for you?)--while removing text about the Holodomor, the repression of Estonians and Hungarians, the (alleged, sure) genocide of Chechens, and the persecution of Greeks. That makes me question your judgment. I mean, we can discuss whether racism weighs more or less heavily than sheer repressive politics because of other concerns, but to do away with hundreds of thousands of deaths, no, millions of deaths, as "small repressions"--that's actually disgusting. Drmies (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I stand by my edits there too. It is completely inapprortiate for most of the content of that article to be about political (not ethnic) persecution and dekulakization against people the Soviet Union never tried to completely eliminate, marginalize, assimilate, or banish from public life. Numerous small-scale arrests and deportations that did not even affect half of their respective nations and people groups received the g-word and same, if not more, text and time in the article as ACTUAL racist events - ie, the minorities universally branded second-class citizens. I edited the section about the repression of Chechens because Soviet policy in the 1950's made a COMPLETE turnaround - they were given universal right of return, fully rehabilitated, and their republic (the Chechen-Ingush ASSR) was restored. The people who were absolutely treated the WORST by the Soviet Union - Crimean Tatars - who were not allowed right of return by Khrushchev, denied their denonym (refered to as "people of Tatar nationality that formerly lived in Crimea" instead of "Crimean Tatars" to deliminate the significant differences between other people called Tatars), demonized by the press, and kept out of Crimea. There is a far stronger case for an attempted (and nearly successful) genocide of Crimean Tatars than the laughable idea that the deportation of a fraction of the Soviet polish and estonian populations was just as bad or even more worthy of the g-word and attention in the article. In case you haven't researched it, there are plenty of Polish-Soviet, Estonian-Russian, Ukrainian-Russian friendship and propaganda posters telling Soviet people how great Poles, Ukrainians, and Estonians are and to accept them into the union. Meanwhile, Russian chauvanists in Crimea were encouraged to celebrate the "liberation" of Crimea from "mongols" and given propaganda that demonized Crimean Tatars. So yes, my edits were accurate. There is overwhelming evidence that the USSR maintained racist attitudes and policies against Crimean Tatars for decades, to a lesser extent against Chechens and other deported peoples for shorter time before reversing course and fully rehabilitating. But it is hard to beleive the USSR was systematically racist against certain people (like Ukrainians and Estonians) WHILE allowing them to have perks (titular people of republic in historic homeland, language nor dead, not demonized in media) that actually repressed peoples were committing self-immolation for just because a few thousand of them, just like Russians, got sent to Siberia. --PlanespotterA320 (talk) 20:26, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately my experience with PlanespotterA320 is that when she is on the RGW track she will not stop and needs a block, or at least a very realistic promise of a block.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:37, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

That is an incredibly vague statement with broad insinuations. Putting correct information in Wikipedia articles supported by numerous sources and suggesting that information traced to questionable authors is not grounds for blocking just because you don't like it. By the way, if this is about my attempts to clean up Commons from the copyright violations uploaded by people who think all Soviet works are PD and find suitable replacements, (which you have had difficulty understanding and expressed your anger about) that is hardly a bad thing. The vast majority of my editing isn't even on the subject of politics, but the rare time I do I make a point of being consistent in the information presented and citing sources. Anyone can tell from my userpage that I am NOT a single-purpose editor, and demanding a block in this situation is tantamount to censorship given that it is clearly being used as a means of intimidating me into avoiding even voicing my opinion on a talkpage once in a while. Ymblanter should keep his opinons about what happens in Russian Wikipedia and on Commons completely separate from this matter on English Wikipedia, and avoid personal attacks or "revenge" block demands.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 22:43, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

What happened on Commons, repeatedly, that you were told to stop disruptive behavior but you claimed that you were right and everybody else is wrong, including pretty much every Commons administrator (myself included) who you claimed are there to harm the project. The last time nobody, not a single editor agreed with your ridiculous request. Concerning the English Wikipedia, I unfortunately had to interact with you here where you have clearly demonstrated that you think your opinion is more important than our policies. This is exactly what you are doing here and now, again. Well, in my book this is a block.--Ymblanter (talk) 23:07, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Btw if we keep Commons out of the picture as you suggest (not sure why you involve the Russian Wikipedia, I am not active here) then I am an uninvolved administrator. You probably do not mean this.--Ymblanter (talk) 23:19, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

This discussion has gotten very off topic and spun into ad-hominen against me and has become irrelevant to what this page is for (neutrality in articles), especially considering that I did not even change the article mainspace itself (merely expressed a dissenting opinion to the choice of article title on the talkpage). If anyone else wishes to drag my name, please find somewhere else. I stand by the fact that as a Wikipedian I have the same right as the rest of us to voice an opinion about choice of sources and critisize and article title ON A TALKPAGE. If you disagree with other edits I make, take it up on the TALKPAGE of that article. If you don't like me because I eventually read the PD-Russia-1996 template and am one of the only Wikimedians that bothers pre-1946 publications for photos invoking that template, well, good luck arguing in favor of allowing fair-use on Commons.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The reason that the discussion has gotten very off topic, is you constantly doubling down on the antagonistic and POV-pushing behaviour that I pointed to in my initial post. You started talking about repression/genocide in the Soviet Union, in addition to Commons. I think you've also provided a satisfying answer to User:Mhhossein's quibble about my thread here: this is indeed a topic for the NPOV noticeboard, given your long walls of prevaricating jibber-jabber. Q.E.D. I think we've given you plenty of rope here; time to retract your silly comments about Zenz, and move on. 81.191.204.248 (talk) 00:24, 31 December 2020 (UTC)