Talk:Alternative facts (law)

Issues

The citations are diverse and unconnected and give no indication that the term 'alternative facts' is, in fact, a noteworthy legal term rather than the words 'alternative' and 'facts' occuring next to eachother as a function of specific communication. Coupled with the convienient timing of the page's creation and source gathering I dispute the neutrality of this article on the basis that the method in which it is written is an attempt to impart a sense of support for certain current American political events rather than to educate the public in a neutral and authoritative nature on the purported subject of the page. If the term 'Alternative facts' is, in actuality, deserving of a separate legal page from the one dealing with the American political event it should be written in a manner that explains the uses and history of the concept, it's origin, etc (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_custody, etc) rather than reading like an apologetic for the idea that the term in fact exists without disclaiming itself as such.

47.208.76.120 (talk) 07:53, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Upon review of the principal sources, the alleged statements are also not supported by the linked material, though the mistake is possibly due to the writer's unfamiliarity with legal jargon. The statements made are similar to statements made in the source material, but the claims made here would be like taking a physics paper on the speed of light and using it to argue that the letter c is numerically equal to 2.998X10^8 when it appeared in a integral calculus problem

47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:02, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

What's the reason to say that this article "relies extensively on quotations that were previously collated by an advocacy or lobbying group"? I have no idea of any reference to such thing. I'm a bit confused. Z22 (talk) 14:14, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm kinda new to wikipedia. What I meant by that tag is that the sources have clearly been chosen to support a particular idea for political reasons (namely that 'alternative facts' is a term used in law, when as far as I can tell from the sources it is not, and currently there are good political reasons to want to make it seem like that is a real term. 47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

For, "This article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards", please specify which standards we are talking about. For, "This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information", please specify which part of the article that is not objective so that we can improve the article. For, "This article contains a list of miscellaneous information", this article does not even contain a list. If it means something else, please clarify. Thank you for working together to improve the article. Z22 (talk) 19:41, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Rewrite: It needs: better encyclopedic tone/spelling/grammar; sources that support the claims that they are supposedly sources for; sources that are relevant and credible, ideally at least one source establishing that the use of these words in conjunction has some sort of special meaning; a point of view that focuses on encyclopedically explaining the topic at hand in the title rather than arguing for or against its existence as this seems to be doing. 47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Subjective: The article is written to promote the idea of 'alternative facts' as a common legal term. I'm not convinced that it is in fact common or a term. The text has to jump across a number of seemingly unconnected (i.e. they are from vastly different legal subsystems and dealing with vastly different topics) legal sources, which also seems to have skimmed rather than read (I am not convinced that a well-intentioned and expert reader would make the sorts of basic mistakes in reading the source proceedings), in order to purport its viewpoint. It seems forced, and hence the tag. The information given is also not 'real' in that the claims made on the page are largely false, by which I mean that they are unsubstantiated by their sources and also I believe them to be objectively untrue. 47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

List: The article is a list of misc. information. It's just a collection of random sources that happen to put the word 'alternative' which occasionally has a special legal meaning next to the word 'facts' which does not. They don't even bother to only use sources that are using the special legal version of the term 'alternative'-- they use sources using the regular English meaning of the term instead, and interchangeably.47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I notice that the page has been significantly re-decorated since I first complained. The redecoration is much better, but I still am dubious as to the quality/value of this page on several counts. The style has notably improved, so that's much less of an issue though "In the courts of England and Wales, it used to have rules for statements of case which expressly allow alternative facts[no citation]" is still particularly annoying both as an uncited thing (I realize the citation is at the end of the section, this objection is about style) and as a grammatically bothersome sentence. I need to go through the new source list to see if those are actually an all new set of sources or not. The listiness is also less bad with the style change, probably that can be de-tagged.47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Upon review the citation at the end of the section says nothing about England and Wales47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

It should be noted that there are several users in 4chan and /pol/ who are making significant efforts in an attempt to bury or invalidate this article. Be wary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.147.123.130 (talk) 23:05, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Source 1 does not support its supposed claim. Source one is titled 'alternative facts' and deals with sets of inconsistent facts, such as by indicating that in some cases one can 'plead the inconsistent facts in the alternative' but does not make extensive use of 'alternative facts' as a term in the rest of the source-- in fact it never uses that term at all. It is particularly telling that the writer chose to use the version of the source which is behind a paywall and at first glance looks potentially relevant rather than linking to the source in a freely available form such as http://www.mondaq.com/x/21461/Statements+of+Truth+Alternative+Facts 47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:33, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Source 2 does support its first claim and is legit. Also establishes the term as potentially notable47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Source 3 is legit47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Source 2 cannot be used to support its second current use: That statement is nowhere contained nor implied in the source47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Source 4 does indirectly support its claim, but the blurb for 'alternative pleading' could be significantly rewritten. Of note is the quality of the 'alternative pleading' article which clearly substantiates and defines the scope of its topic and addresses in a neutral and encyclopedic way. This article would do well to be written similarly.47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Source 2 can be used to support its third claim only inasmuch as that claim is limited to the final sentence of the paragraph it features in and not the rest of the paragraph, which is uncited and currently unsupported47.208.76.120 (talk) 08:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)