Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about adherence to the neutral point of view in context!

Before posting here, consult the neutral point of view policy page and the FAQ explainer. Also, make sure to discuss the disagreement at the article's talk page. Fringe theories often involve questions about neutral point of view. These should be discussed at the dedicated noticeboard. You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:NPOVN-notice}} to do so. Additional notes: Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments, not on vote count or sheer size of argument. Consensus in previous discussions does not make policy, but you can generally rely on it. The list of articles where users flagged a point-of-view concern is here. This page is not a forum for discussions unrelated to the neutral point of view. We have a separate noticeboard for concerns about original research (material made up by a Wikipedia editor), and another dedicated noticeboard for questions about contextual reliability of a source. Start a new discussion

NAMBLA content on Harry Hay

Sorry for the length and subject matter.

I found the inclusion of NAMBLA content in the lead of Harry Hay surprising, and in looking at the sources used, then a look to see if there were better ones available, I found sourcing lacking. I took the one sentence off the lead and also removed Category:Pedophile activism as both seemed inappropriate. Can you guess where this is going? They were both re-added and the content in the lead expanded. (Here is a copy as of 4 July 2019. I read all the sources I could find and tried to apply NPOV. After a couple rounds of this I gave up and started a survey of all sources on this content.

NAMBLA is widely despised as child molesters by the vast majority of LGBTQ people as well as popular culture. It’s a group for pedophile advocacy. Pedophilia, is a preference for prepubescent children as old as 13. NAMBLA is possibly the most hated group imaginable to many LGBTQ people.

Any connections to NAMBLA automatically taint whoever is connected with them. The vast majority of reliable sources barely mention anything, those that do cite:

1. February 1983, Hay speaks at an event (not NAMBLA’s) and states, “...if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world.” This quote follows Hay’s recounting his own positive sexual experience when he was 14 with an older man (reasoning for his going public in proposed content section); No reliable source for the quote but one good source for the overall speech.
2. June 1986, LA Pride parade bans NAMBLA, Hay wears a sign in protest on his back, one supporting Valerie Terrigno who was also banned, on his front.
3. June 1994, Stonewall 25, and ILGA bans NAMBLA, Hay and 149 others protest the action, about NAMBLA mainly (reasoning in proposed content section) and march in the Spirit of Stonewall alternative parade with 7,000.
4. sometime in 1994, spoke at a NAMBLA event where he suggested changing the group’s name. (I only see one brief mention of this.)

reliable sources found

Click for list of reliable sources on this with any usable content

"When Nancy Met Harry". The American Spectator. Retrieved 2019-06-25. - from The American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord writes as a political commentator, and has a track record of controversial writing. I suspect this is not a reliable source, the chief purpose of the article is guilt by association attempting to connect Nancy Pelosi to allegation of pro-pedophile advocacy. But they do use the quote from 1 (above) taken from NAMBLA’s website. The speech was mainly Hay sharing his own positive gay sex experience with a man when he was 14. This assessment of this source might prove helpful, “I agree that The Specator should not be cited, or more accurately Jeffrey Lord should not be cited. That's not because he's a conservative, but because he has a documented history of saying utterly ridiculous things about anything he perceives as liberal. He's a political strategist, not an academic or a journalist, and his expertise is trying to make opponents look bad. This is the only source for 1. Marc LaRocque and Cooper Moll (2014). "Finding aid to the Lesbian and Gay Academic Union records, 1973-1987; Coll2011-041" (PDF). Online Archive of California. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help) [Box 2/folder 21] Lesbian and Gay Academic Union Records, Coll2011-041, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries, University of Southern California., this was added to the article here but despite several requests there remains zero evidence the quote is contained there in any form, as it’s administrative records about the conference there is still the possibility a copy was included. If verified what is actually there this could be a better source for 1 if it’s not a primary source. - just added. Biographer Vern L. Bullough writes, "Getting him to agree to simply wear a sign rather than carry a banner took considerable negotiation by the parade organizers, who wanted to distance the gay and lesbian movement from pedophilia, yet wanted Harry to participate." Of interest to note is that the same organizers who didn’t want any NAMBLA recognition did want Hay himself. Also interesting is the omission of context for Hay’s wanting to wear the sign from the previous but uncited sentence, wearing the sign was ”an action he took because he remembered the pleasure of coming out as a teenager with a man who initiated him to the gay world.” This is in alignment with the few NAMBLA-documented speeches Hay gave as an invited speaker where he didn’t advocate for the group but instead talked about his own experiences. This source also helpfully points out that the 1994 Stonewall march was also protested for its commercialization and that Hay helped lead the counter-March with almost 7,000 participants. This is helpful for 2 and 3. Timmons, Stuart (1990). "Photos by Sandy Dwyer". The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement. Retrieved 2010-06-24. The sign Harry tried to wear in the 1986 L.A. Gay Pride Parade - which points out he tried to be in the parade implying he didn’t succeed in some way, This is unneeded, but does provide a photo of 2. , a reliable source that confirms the two signs were worn in the LA Pride parade. This is for 2. Bronski, Michael (2002-11-07). "The real Harry Hay". The Phoenix. - (Copied here) - In an obituary, LGBT history academic and writer Michael Bronski wrote, “He was, at times, a serious political embarrassment, as when he consistently advocated the inclusion of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in gay-pride parades. HAY’S UNEASY relationship with the gay movement — he reviled what he saw as the movement’s propensity for selling out its fringe members for easy, and often illusory, respectability — didn’t develop later in life. It was there from the start.” He helpfully contextualizes why he thinks Hay advocated for inclusion in the two parades, although he doesn’t provide anything to prove his assertions. This is unneeded but supports items 2 and 3. "Defend Harry Hay's Reputation at the National Equality March". Retrieved 2019-06-25. - This affirms Hay was never a member, and contextualizes the Stonewall 25 episode. Additionally it notes exactly what I’ve been seeing: Allegations that Hay was a supporter of pederasty was “a staple of those members of the right-wing establishment who are bent on destabilizing the Obama Adminstration and destroying the careers of members of his administration through guilt by association.” (Specifically Kevin Jennings). This is unneeded but is a helpful source for 3. "#BornThisDay: Gay Rights Pioneer, Harry Hay". The WOW Report. 2019-04-07. Retrieved 2019-06-25. - In 1994, he joined the The Spirit Of Stonewall, instead of the official pride march and controversially supported inclusion of NAMBLA. “He felt that silencing any part of the movement because it was disliked or hated by mainstream culture was a seriously mistaken political strategy. ... He saw that eliminating any “objectionable” group, like drag queens or leather enthusiasts only pandered to the idea of respectability.” This is unneeded but helpful source for 3. Simon LeVay; Elisabeth Nonas (1997). City of Friends: A Portrait of the Gay and Lesbian Community in America. MIT Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0262621137. Although some prominent gay leaders such as Harry Hay have supported NAMBLA's right to participate in gay rights marches, the link between NAMBLA and the mainstream gay rights movement has always been tenuous. - This was Just added, although it only supports some prominent gay leaders such as Harry Hay have supported NAMBLA's right to participate in gay rights marches, it is use in the lead falsely to bolster that Hay was “an active supporter“, which no reliable source has yet to verify and the entire lead paragraph hinges upon. It’s not needed, but technically loosely confirm 2 and 3. Weir, John (August 23, 1994). The Advocate, “Mad About the Boys”. Here Publishing.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - he was speaking at a nambla event and said they should consider a name change because “boy lover” had negative connotations like “homosexual” did in the 1950’s. I’m not seeing any other mention of this. This is the only source that supports item 4, but does so trivially. Hard to believe if there was more connecting Hay it wouldn’t also be included. Hay, Harry, "Focusing on NAMBLA Obscures the Issues", Gay Community News, Fall 1994, pp. 16, 18. As cited in Jenkins, Philip (2004). Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America. Yale University Press. p. 275. ISBN 978-0300109634. - Just added to the reference section. This source, likely an opinion piece by Hay, comes just after the Stonewall 25 events where both ILGA, and Stonewall 25 organizers banned pro-pedophilia groups from participating. It likely reaffirms his already reported reasoning, included in proposed content, behind supporting the group being allowed to march. This might be useful for 3, if someone can confirm what Hay actually wrote. But would likely be under primary source. gives only one quote from that Hay-authored piece right above but it’s certainly relevant, "I am not a member of NAMBLA, nor would it ever have been my inclination to be one." This has obvious contextual relevance and likely should be included. Yalzadeh, Ida (October 20, 2018). "Harry Hay | Biography, Activism, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-07-02. A champion for a diverse homosexual identity, Hay often waded into contentious debates, notably by advocating for such controversial organizations as the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pro-pederasty group., this was just found and is the first to assert that Hay advocated for NAMBLA among other groups. It being the only source that offers this blanket statement lends to the point that this subject area is not yet proven to have such a weight in Hay’s life to warrant anything in the lead. The author doesn’t offer any information to corroborate the assertion. - Here is a helpful comment so far: “Beacon Press is a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, somewhat of an advocacy publisher, but still potentially useful. ... I'd be hesitant to use the Beacon book, as both the publisher and the editor you linked have long histories of being activists rather than dispassionate scholars, but it could be useful for simple factual statements, e.g. "Hay did X in year YYYY".” This source reprints Hay’s Spirit of Stonewall speech from their press conference. - After paging through this the “two contrasting interpretations of Hay's support for NAMBLA” were a sentence each: “outspoken advocate for” vs. “alleged advocate of”; both useless as neither provided any information to affirm the statements, Here is a helpful comment so far: “Left Coast Press is an imprint of Routledge/Taylor & Francis, a globally prominent academic publisher. ... Conversely, anything coming from T&F is highly likely to be reliable both for simple statements of fact and for theoretical analysis, and I'd need to be given a solid reason to doubt them before I advised someone to be careful using it.” This source delved into Hay’s using his coming-of-age story as a 14-year-old with a man in his twenties, and why he shared it publicly.

References

Unless other reliable sources support this material and demonstrate it has a significant bearing on his life I don’t see how this should be in the lead. As well I think the category is inappropriate. Am I crazy? Gleeanon409 (talk) 12:21, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Feedback

When Hay was was alive, his constant advocacy for NAMBLA and his cruising of boys was common knowledge. Same as with Ginsberg. It's part of what made Hay a controversial figure - someone who was routinely disrupting Pride, getting kicked out of the very orgs he founded (Mattachine Society), etc. I've tried to explain this to Gleeanaon, who clearly wasn't around then, but he takes my suggestion to read the sources as a personal attack. He suggests respected gay journalists like Michael Bronski, who was part of some of the same radical collectives as Hay, are somehow orchestrating a smear campaign. I suggest anyone who wants to comment first read Bronski's article, "The real Harry Hay", all the way to the end, as Bronski points out the the New York Times and other major outlets were already leaving the NAMBLA stuff out of his obits, and immediately trying to reinvent him on death:

Neither of the long and laudatory obits in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times mentioned his unyielding support for NAMBLA or even his deeply radical credentials and vision. Harry, it turns out, was a grandfatherly figure who had an affair with Grandpa Walton. But it’s important to remember Hay — with all his contradictions, his sometimes crackpot notions, and his radiant, ecstatic, vision of the holiness of being queer — as he lived. For in his death, Harry Hay is becoming everything he would have raged against.

Gleeanon's main project right now is editing National LGBTQ Wall of Honor, and they are the one who added the list of names and are the creator and main editor of the article. Gleeanon honestly didn't seem to any know this about Hay, as he seems to not know much about any of the older community members he's copy and pasting into that list. I've told them the answer is not to rewrite history. But Gleeanon keeps deleting discussions from their talk page and misrepresenting both the sourcing and other people's edits. He has become a Tendentious editor who is wasting our time with his, I'm sorry, ignorance of this topic and, possibly, agenda to whitewash on behalf of this group. If the people working on the memorial didn't want someone this problematic, they should have asked older people, or done their research, rather than trying to whitewash the honorees after the fact. Gleeanon is now focusing rather intensely on this. I have asked if they have COI on this project and they have denied it, but I'm really not sure I believe that given this intense POV push. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 19:15, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. It may be that Bronski had an inside view of what Hay was like, and that Bronski disliked the fact that reliable sources like the New York Times, did not consider these problematic aspects of Hay to be significant aspects of his life. It may be that some people involved in some hall of fame project have failed to consult enough older people about their choice of inclusions. But Wikipedia should reflect what the balance of reliable sources say about it, not the views of individuals with an interest or individuals disgusted or disappointed. MPS1992 (talk) 20:36, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Also, editors are permitted by policy to blank content from their own talk page -- especially when the content concerned is several thousand words in length. Blanking such content is generally regarded as an indication that they have read it. Anyway that's a question of editor conduct, not a question of article neutrality which is what this noticeboard covers. MPS1992 (talk) 20:56, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I have continually asked for reliable sources that verify the “constant advocacy for NAMBLA” and pedophilia. There seems to be a massive conspiracy except one lone, but respected LGBTQ journalist. Perhaps that should be also shoehorned into the lead? One of the world’s best known pioneering gay rights advocates whose had dozens of obituaries, articles, interviews, books, and documentaries about him all fail to mention this despite Wikipedia even advertising it, possibly for years. Perhaps because they saw was is plainly evident, a lack of evidence despite NAMBLA themselves posting every scrap of pro-pedophile material they can. I look forward to more people looking into this. Gleeanon409 (talk) 20:54, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Conspiracy? There is/was no conspiracy. This has been common knowledge for decades. The sources support this common knowledge. Indigenous girl (talk) 21:01, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Indeed -- but the sources do not seem to regard it as significant in the individual's biography. MPS1992 (talk) 21:05, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

MPS, it's not just Bronski, it's the Gay press in general who wanted this known about him, because he was continually raising a stink about it and people were having to kick him out of groups and events. It's in the Advocate[1], and his own group, the Radical Faeries have it on their tribute page to him:[2]. This isn't righting great wrongs, it's keeping history accurate against a POV push from a relatively new, revisionist editor. NAMBLA is ugly. Of course people would rather not see it. But those who supported and promoted the pedophile group should be kept accountable. Go look at the article, not this user's misrepresentations. I think there is a misunderstanding here about what WP:NPOV is. We write in a neutral voice. It doesn't mean we hide awful things about people to make them sound nicer. Yeah, it's hard to write neutrally about a pedophile group. So we just state the facts. But we don't bury the facts when he, after Allen Ginsberg, was probably the group's most famous advocate in the gay community. Yeah, it's gross. But it happened. So we document it. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 21:20, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Interesting. I guess you really are saying that the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times were "revisionist" as well, and therefore we shouldn't consider them reliable on this topic, but instead we should only consider reliable the views of people that Hay knew personally and had had disagreements with? MPS1992 (talk) 21:33, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Or, let us look at it a different way. There are three questions. First, should Hay's protesting the exclusion of NAMBLA from events be mentioned in the article? (I would say yes.) Second, should it be mentioned in the lede of the article? And third, if it should be mentioned in the lede of the article, how should it be mentioned there? MPS1992 (talk) 21:36, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

They were incomplete. As their obits of subcultural figures have often been. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 21:37, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Those sources are already included in the seven(!) total(!) to be found, this one is a collection of obits with only one even touching on this content, the very sole one you helpfully quoted at length despite it already being posted above. These scraps were then woven into a grand story. It certainly feels “undue”. Gleeanon409 (talk) 21:43, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

References in the article include Hay's official bio, which was fine with Gleeanon until he realized it sourced all this, with this photo:[3], where Hay wore the sign, "NAMBLA walks with me" in LA Pride. As I said on talk: I really didn't want to link to them, but here's - https://www. nambla. org/hay2002.html NAMBLA's index on their Harry Hay materials. This page has - https://www. nambla. org/sanfrancisco1984.html photos of Harry Hay speaking on a NAMBLA panel in 1984, in San Francisco, under their banner. And again in 1986 in Los Angeles (no photo). Ick. The link is not live because, understandably, the site is on the blacklist. So the the url has spaces. You will have to copy and paste, and take out the spaces, to see it. Ick again. Gleeanon thinks all this is a conspiracy. But it's in Hay's official bio, which was written by some of his most ardent supporters. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 21:37, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

None of that proves anything but that he made invited speeches at some of their conferences, helpfully they provide their version of the transcripts which show ... no advocacy for the group or even anything beyond Hay recounting his own positive gay sex experiences as a kid. Gleeanon409 (talk) 21:43, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Trying to destroy Pride because they wouldn't let NAMBLA march is not being an advocate? Helping them re-brand in order to get more members, sitting under the banner for photos while the group was sending out newsletters with photos of smiling seven year olds with the caption, "Smiles mean consent." Wow. You are really reaching here. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 21:52, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Original research inventing narratives not supported by reliable or even NAMBLA’s own sources isn’t helpful. Zero evidence Hay had control of how his photo was used, that he was helping recruit, or even destroy Pride. All interesting ideas that I’m sure will be spun into gold by right wing bloggers. Gleeanon409 (talk) 22:08, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

OK folks, I think we need some outside input here, if anyone is willing? That's what this noticeboard is for. MPS1992 (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm quite bemused by all this discussion about whether Hay was a ardent supporter of NAMBLA. He was. Anyone who is old enough, was contemporaneous in his communities while he was alive, knows it to be true. As a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, people saw him as an elder statesman in the 1970s-90s. Gay people listened when he had opinions. Many vociferously disagreed with him on supporting NAMBLA. There were a significant number of Gay/Lesbian newspapers and newsletters during that time period. Hay did interviews with them and articles were written about him. Those papers, often with very good journalists writing for them, could be used as contemporaneous reliable sources. Unfortunately, only a fraction of them are available online. They would be secondary sources on this issue. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 23:57, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mark Ironie: If you know of any particular articles, post a request at Wikipedia:RX and volunteers there may get free copies. Also searching university library databases may pull up some articles. For articles prior to the 1980s or 1985 etc some of those may not be available electronically and will need to be taken from microfilms. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:30, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

If you are aware of any reliable sources, they are welcome. I just added one that was wedge into the lead just hours ago which ironically proves how weak the sourcing remains. As to your point, it seems like the only thing that we can reliably verify up to now, is that he defended their right to be in two Pride parades where they had been banned, and the reasons. Arguably this might have caused a furor at the time, although I’m not seeing any evidence of that either, but don’t we have to rely on verification through reliable sources? What we have after searching is listed at the top. Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:11, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

"I also would like to say at this point that it seems to me that in the gay community the people who should be running interference for NAMBLA are the parents and friends of gays. Because if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world. And they would be welcoming this, and welcoming the opportunity for young gay kids to have the kind of experience that they would need." He is advocating for children to be in sexual relationships with adults. He gave this speech in 1983 at NYU and it is archived on the NAMBLA website as well as here . On the Back to Stonewall site it also states,"These events overshadowed Hay’s previous legacy so much that today he is all but forgotten and purposely left out of many LGBT historical writings." Indigenous girl (talk) 14:41, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

The first quote you cite is already included in the first sections of this report, sourced only to NAMBLA itself, everyone has pulled it from them.

On the surface, the “On the Back to Stonewall“ site looks great but the Hay content seems to be word for word copying from an older version of Wikipedia’s Hay page. Gleeanon409 (talk) 15:23, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I am aware that the quote has been previously linked to however I thought it best that it was out in the open. Please help me try and understand, are you insinuating that the speech at the forum, hosted by the Gay Academic Union at NYU in 1983, given by Hay, is not accurately presented? Are you insinuating that Back To Stonewall is made up of revisionists and that Will Kohler doesn't know what he's talking about? Indigenous girl (talk) 15:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

The quote was already out in the open, it’s point #1, in bold of this report.

That speech is only known from NAMBLA’s posting their transcript. It has to be presented that way. Additionally it’s not about NAMBLA so you have to use original research to say it is. It’s also not about pedophilia, Hay was the 14-year old and the man he had sex with thought he was an adult.

I’m saying ”Back To Stonewall” didn’t even use their own words for the NAMBLA content, they used Wikipedia’s Hay article as gospel, but as is evident here, all the NAMBLA content is generally unverified and he presents zero sources or even credit to Wikipedia. I have no problem publishing true content that is verifiably sourced, but we are currently publishing unverified, and possibly unverifiable claims. Gleeanon409 (talk) 16:26, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Actually the GSU collection at USC contains the entire transcript of his speech. He specifically mentions NAMBLA in the context of his speech and urges allies to advocate for sex with 13, 14 and 15 year old children because, "it's what they need more than anything else in the world.". Indigenous girl (talk) 20:31, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

@Indigenous girl:, or @CorbieVreccan:, who added it to the article here, can you share how you verified this? Any link that others can use?

I do accept the NAMBLA-posted transcript does mention the group in the summary of the speech. I still think it’s borderline original research and has to be used NPOV. His speech is a testamonial of Hay’s own positive experience as a 14-year old having gay sex with an older man, based on his own experience he thinks that parents and friends of gays “should be running interference for NAMBLA”. Only presenting this material NPOV without original interpretation is acceptable. He also does not specifically advocate for sex with teens, but says a relationship which, I think requires original research to infer he meant romance or sex rather or additionally to anything else. Gleeanon409 (talk) 06:10, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Are you serious? In one sentence he advocates defending NAMBLA and in the next he speaks positively about relationships between young teenagers and older men. How could you possibly read that in a way that isn't about sexual relationships? All of your comments in this thread give the impression of increasing desperate denialism. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 17:15, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Your opinion is noted. I maintain that Wikipedia should report facts that are actually verified in reliable sources. All this NAMBLA content is dependent on supposedly well-known information which few to none reliable sources documented. Compare that to the mamouth volume about this is the lead and article. Any reader would falsely believe this was central to his life. Yet the vast majority of reliable sources make no mention of it. Those that do make very little mention of it. Yet the article lead? It’s a fourth of the content. Gleeanon409 (talk) 18:03, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

@Gleeanon409: One way to obtain older newspaper sources is to use university library databses and type in particular phrases. Some of those may be paywalled/closed, but Wikipedia:RX is a tool one can use to get access. Some older papers are not electronically available, but articles may be available in microfilms. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:32, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I notice someone had already mentioned The Advocate - I wish to elaborate further and state that the article described Hay as being an older generation thing:

• Weir, John. "Mad about the boys." The Advocate. Here Publishing, August 23, 1994. ISSN 0001-8996. Start: p. 33. CITED: p. 37.
• "Harry Hay, 82, a founder of the Mattachine Society[...]suggests to a crowded room at the recent NAMBLA meeting that a name change for the association might help." -- "Hay's presence at the NAMBLA meeting signified that NAMBLA is more than just an advocacy group for men imprisoned[...] It has become in part the last refuge for longtime activists who feel alienated from the current mainstreaming of the lesbian and gay community."

It might help to search on Google Books for content like this. Check the publisher to ensure that it is not self-published.

WhisperToMe (talk) 22:40, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I looked around Google Books but sadly found that a lot of the newer books mentioning it tended to be hyper-religious or small publisher things... I'm looking for books from major publishers. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:53, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Found: Miller, Ben (2017-04-10). Jacobin https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/harry-hay-communist-mattachine-society-lgbtq. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) "When he died at ninety in October 2002, many remembrances focused on Hay’s late-life defense of the North American Man/Boy Love Association. While Hay never joined the group, he did defend it from being expelled from several LBGTQ conferences. His defense of NAMBLA was eccentric and troubling, rooted in his own experiences of teenaged sexual activity. But it was a small piece of Hay’s long life of writing and activism." - This source argued that it was not a significant part of Hay's activity and that he never joined... If you think Jacobin is mischaracterizing this, it would be good to find a secondary source (from a reputable publisher, of course) which says the opposite. "Gay History – October 23rd: The Almost Forgotten Gay Activist Harry Hay and Quebec’s Gay Club Raid Protests" (mentioned above by another user) seems to contradict Jacobin when it states "These events overshadowed Hay’s previous legacy so much that today he is all but forgotten and purposely left out of many LGBT historical writings." but it may be good to check the publishing status of this website to see if it counts as a Reliable Source. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:56, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe:, Thank you for the leads, the Miller one does help to anchor the content. The Back2Stonewall one though didn’t even use their own words, they copied word for word from Wikipedia’s Hay article. That does demonstrate, again, how out of step the article is compared to reliable sources. Gleeanon409 (talk) 05:14, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Gleeanon409: Re: back2stonewall copying from Wikipedia, remember to go through the revisions and find the earliest Wikipedia revision with the content versus the earliest copy of the back2stonewall page to establish which came first. If back2stonewall indeed copied from Wikipedia, it cannot be considered at all in regards to reliable sources. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:29, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe:, indeed. Back2Stonewall published OCTOBER 23, 2017; word for word from Wikipedia content that predates. Gleeanon409 (talk) 06:03, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

References

Notes before closing

In closing, I think the discussion here has reached consensus that this is reliably sourced as a prominent and recurring issue in Harry Hay's political work. As Gleeanon409's initial presentation did not include all the sources, mentioned "sources" that are not in the article, and simply dismissed all sources that discuss this part of Hay's life as "unreliable", I am including a list here of the actual sources that cite this well-known, unfortunate fact about Harry Hay. As others have said, NPOV means we write neutrally about the facts of someone's life, without censorship. This was a well-known fact of Hay's life.

Reliable Sources:

• The Advocate (LGBT magazine) <ref name="Advocate1994">{{cite magazine|last=Weir|first=John|title=Mad About the Boys|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KmMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA37|date=23 August 1994|magazine=[[The Advocate (LGBT magazine)|The Advocate]]|page=37|issn=0001-8996}}</ref>
• Michael Bronski for The Phoenix <ref name= rhh>{{cite news|url=http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02511115.htm|archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20120302214758/http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/02511115.htm |archivedate=2012-03-02|title=The real Harry Hay|date=2002-11-07|accessdate=2008-11-16|first=Michael|last=Bronski|authorlink=Michael Bronski|newspaper=[[The Phoenix (newspaper)|The Phoenix]]|quote=He was, at times, a serious political embarrassment, as when he consistently advocated the inclusion of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in gay-pride parades.|dead-url=no}}</ref>
• MIT Press <ref name=NonasLeVay>{{cite book|author1=Simon LeVay|author2=Elisabeth Nonas|title=City of Friends: A Portrait of the Gay and Lesbian Community in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cl-4yFFql8gC&pg=PA181&dq=Harry+Hay+NAMBLA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjb4enV94XjAhVnTt8KHWyVCHUQ6AEITTAH#v=onepage&q=Harry%20Hay%20NAMBLA&f=false|year=1997 |publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0262621137|page=181|quote=Although some prominent gay leaders such as Harry Hay have supported NAMBLA's right to participate in gay rights marches, the link between NAMBLA and the mainstream gay rights movement has always been tenuous.}}</ref>
• Stuart Timmons, Hay's Official Biographer: scan of photo plate <ref name="LAPridePhoto">{{cite web|url=https://www.wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Harryhaysignnambla2.jpg|title=Photos by Sandy Dwyer |last=Timmons |first=Stuart|date=1990|work=The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement|accessdate=2010-06-24|quote=The sign Harry tried to wear in the 1986 L.A. Gay Pride Parade}}</ref>
• <ref name=Spectator>{{Cite news | last = Lord | first = Jeffrey | title = When Nancy Met Harry | work = The American Spectator | date = 2006-10-05 | url = http://spectator.org/archives/2006/10/05/when-nancy-met-harry | accessdate = 2009-04-14 | deadurl = yes | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20090329000719/http://spectator.org/archives/2006/10/05/when-nancy-met-harry | archivedate = 2009-03-29 | quote=Said Harry: "Because if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world."}}</ref> Gleeanon wants to exclude this because it's "conservative". WP does not exclude sources on the basis of being liberal or conservative, and the text is the same as in the full speech below. This is included because it is an online text.
• Hay himself <ref name=LGAUfullspeech>[Box 2/folder 21] Lesbian and Gay Academic Union Records, Coll2011-041, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries, University of Southern California</ref>
• Timmons again {{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=310}} {{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=295}} - Official biographer
• Vern Bullough <ref name=Bullough>{{cite book|author=Vern L. Bullough|authorlink=Vern Bullough|title=Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-1560231936|page=74}}</ref> In Before Stonewall, biographer Vern L. Bullough writes, "Getting him to agree to simply wear a sign [supporting NAMBLA] rather than carry a banner took considerable negotiation by the parade organizers, who wanted to distance the gay and lesbian movement from pedophilia, yet wanted Harry to participate."
• Yale University Press / Hay again / GCN again: Hay, Harry, "Focusing on NAMBLA Obscures the Issues", Gay Community News, Fall 1994, pp. 16, 18. As cited in {{cite book |title=Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America|year=2004|last=Jenkins |first=Philip |publisher=Yale University Press|page=275|isbn=978-0300109634}} Hay writes on the issue for Gay Community paper of record.
• Hay's spiritual group: Obituary on Radical Fairy site, reproduces Bronski obituary.
• Obviously, as the NAMBLA site is blacklisted, we are not going to link to their website pages, but they have Hay's speeches, and photos of him speaking in front of their banner on their panels. These speeches and photos are in other publications that are not currently available online, but they are well-known in the community. It is inappropriate for Gleeanon409 to cast aspersions on older editors who remember these things and suggest this material is fabricated. This material is linked via broken URL's on article talk.

There are more mentions out there online, and a ton more in print, but these are the ones in the article at the moment. To include this material is in no way an endorsement of Hay's views. It is certainly not an endorsement of NAMBLA. Whenever someone invokes "trying to right great wrongs" when it's something like pedophile advocacy (dear gods...) I wonder if they think we have no responsibility as editors here at all. Hay made quite the ruckus trying to keep NAMBLA from being shunned when he was alive, so it's only fair that it stays in his article now. What's there right now is NPOV and minimal, all things considered. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 00:09, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Of course I remain dubious of these statements, and how “NPOV” and “minimally” the content is presented but first I’ll look at these sources to see which ones aren’t already listed at top, and include and assess what information should be added. It will take me a little while to do all this. When I’m ready I’ll post here again with a summary. Gleeanon409 (talk) 08:42, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The Advocate article was already listed by me in the reliable sources section; so is the Bronski obit with it’s quote; so is the superfluous Timmons photo; so is the problematic Jeffrey Lord article; so is the Vern Bullough book; so is the Gay Community News; so is the link to the Radical Faeries.
I’ve added the Simon LeVay book; and the LGAU archive box.
I see little value in adding any more credibility to NAMBLA by acknowledging their online content, we can hold our collective noses and use the Spectator article that got it from them. His other two times as speaker both were Hay talking about his own positive experiences with gay sex when he was young. We already have the context for the quote to cover that, and it’s all primary sourced. Gleeanon409 (talk) 10:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

So we basically haven’t moved much to allay my initial concerns.
There remains zero reliable sourcing to support “Hay was an active supporter [of NAMBLA]”, you may know it to be true but no reliable source has backed it up.
Also it’s deceptive to state Hay “protested the group being banned from Pride parades” when we only have evidence for two; 1986 LA Pride, and 1994 Stonewall parades.
It’s also POV to state he spoke “about helping the group strategize a name change to help with their public image” implying he was doing something not implicated in his speech, a neutral take would be more along the lines of what I tried, he thought boy lover had negative connotations just like homosexual did in the 1950’s.
Wikipedia is broadcasting worldwide these deceptions. I can’t see how any content on NAMBLA should be wedged into the lead, and the utter lack of coverage in reliable sources presented so far suggests it should be trimmed to a NPOV minimum in the article.
Additionally there remains zero evidence to prop up the “Pedophile advocacy” category being included. Gleeanon409 (talk) 12:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Speaking of POV, what you are calling "gay sex when he was young" was sex between an adult man and a 14 year old boy. Then Hay went on to speak at a handful of events that we have documented to plead with the gay community to endorse adults having sex with kids as young as 13, saying this would be the best thing adult gay people could do for gay kids. This is horrible. This is why he got kicked out of Pride parades and shunned by those who cared about kids. You are minimimizing criminal activity, this man's advocacy for criminal activity, and the way he tried to implicate normal gay people in criminal activity. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 18:54, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

He “pleaded” for gay men to have sex with teens? Or did he mean mentoring them? I don’t think we can say without evidence so instead, again to be NPOV, we likely should just report neutrally what the sources support, “relationships”, and leave the leap of guilt for the reader to decide. And that “series of events”, looks to be a total of three, and it was NAMBLA that kicked out of parades, and not even NAMBLA advocated for breaking any laws. Please dial down the hysteria and actually let the reliable sources dictate what is verified instead of your own memories. Your personal facts might be the gospel truth but they don’t belong in an encyclopedia. Gleeanon409 (talk) 19:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

As both Red Rock Canyon:[4] and Mark Ironie:[5] have noted, watching you increasingly attempt to minimize the damage done by NAMBLA, it's really hard to believe you're serious at this point. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 20:12, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Nowhere was this more evident than in Hay’s persistent support of NAMBLA’s right to march in gay-pride parades. In 1994, he refused to march with the official parade commemorating the Stonewall riots in New York because it refused NAMBLA a place in the event. Instead, he joined a competing march, dubbed The Spirit of Stonewall, which included NAMBLA as well as many of the original Gay Liberation Front members. A source specifically states that he "persistently" protested NAMBLA's exclusion from these marches. Including that is not deceptive; it's accurately following the sources. Your personal research about which marches he protested cannot be used to counter that statement.

Harry Hay... suggests to a crowded room at the recent NAMBLA meeting that a name change might help. Maybe this isn't "strategizing", but the source does say that he offered them advice on how to improve their image. This is not "adding credibility to NAMBLA," it's presenting the facts about Harry Hay as recorded in reliable sources. That is, and should be, the sole goal of Wikipedia. Material is not censored because we fear it may lend credence to some disgusting agenda, and biographies are not white-washed because we might prefer to see our heroes presented in a better light. Oh, and even Britannica mentions his support of NAMBLA [6] Hay often waded into contentious debates, notably by advocating for such controversial organizations as the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pro-pederasty group.. This isn't some smear cooked up by the right-wing media and Wikipedia.

That being said, I agree that these statements He spoke out in support of relationships between adult men and boys as young as thirteen and helping the group strategize a name change to help with their public image are not well-sourced. They rely on analysis of primary sources and that questionable Spectator article (hard to tell if it's an opinion piece or journalism). It would be better to leave that out of the lead, and just let the quotes speak for themselves in the body of the article. I think that entire final sentence should be cut from the lead, both for issues of sourcing and to avoid lending undue weight to the issue. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 20:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Indigenous girl found the full speech about NAMBLA where Hay "urges allies to advocate for sex with 13, 14 and 15 year old children because, 'it's what they need more than anything else in the world.' in the ONE archives of Hay's speeches at USC. So, the sourcing is solid, and it should be included in the body of the article. As long as the rest of the text prior to that is in the lede, as it was before Gleeanon's disruption, I think the specific details about that speech (which he gave multiple times) can be left for further down. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 21:45, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

That's a primary source, and appears to be interpreted as such -- those are the dangers of primary sources. I understand that the topic causes emotions to run riot, but this is, after all, the neutral point of view noticeboard. MPS1992 (talk) 21:53, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

By the way, @Gleeanon409:, please do not say things like 'it’s deceptive to state Hay “protested the group being banned from Pride parades” when we only have evidence for two' -- no that is not deceptive. If he protested two of them, he protested it on an ongoing basis. Don't be silly. MPS1992 (talk) 21:59, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, as MPS1992 says, any text of the speech is a primary source, and we are not permitted to analyze primary sources and summarize them. I think it might be acceptable to quote some of the text of the speech in the article, since it's on a topic discussed by other secondary sources, and it's in the subject's own words, but we cannot put in any interpretation of what he's saying absent a secondary source that reports on his speech and what it means. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 22:20, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Right, as the primary source is available for comparison, we are able to see that the secondary sources are quoting Hay accurately. So that means the Spectator, Kohler, and the others cannot be ruled out just because we may not like their views on other issues. That is the sole reason I left the Spectator in - to verify the quote. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 22:42, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Are you guys totally following the idea that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so we should be summarising what secondary sources say, not just confirming that our chosen primary sources are accurate in what they say and what our longstanding appreciation of them is? MPS1992 (talk) 23:09, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The main function of the primary source is to assuage concerns that the Spectator piece was completely inventing something. Author Jeffrey Lord's opinion of Hay based on that speech would need to be attributed, though. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:54, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing this NAMBLA content and presenting it NPOV has been the main problems from the beginning. It remains that we ONLY have the primary source for this quote. Kohler copies Wikipedia word for word, I pointed this out in a previous section, and the Spectator, which is unmistakably an opinion hit piece, acknowledges they got it off NAMBLA’s website. Gleeanon409 (talk) 01:55, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Indigenous girl may have found that Archive box source but you added it to the article, I asked both of you for anything that other editors could verify the information but nothing yet has come forth. It remain unclear what if anything about Hay’s speech is in there. Please be clear about what that source actually is and how it was confirmed.
And my “disruption” has continued to prove there indeed is glaring NPOV and sourcing issues. I’m glad we’re finally getting some more eyes on the issues, as well as finding any reliable sources. Hopefully the article will improve and all this content will be adjusted with due weight. Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:37, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@MPS1992: It’s hardly silly, especially with such contested and controversial content, to be precise, NPOV, and encyclopedic when reporting this content, specifically in the number of parades he protested NAMBLA being banned from. There were two, separated by eight years. It’s deceptive not to report the facts as verified. I would say the same thing if there were eight or dozens. Let the facts speak for themselves. Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:37, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Having more time to look over sources, I can't see an NPOV version of Hay's article not mentioning NAMBLA. Now, I will say that I agree that The Specator should not be cited, or more accurately Jeffrey Lord should not be cited. That's not because he's a conservative, but because he has a documented history of saying utterly ridiculous things about anything he perceives as liberal. He's a political strategist, not an academic or a journalist, and his expertise is trying to make opponents look bad. Aside, I found what I consider two more useful sources that I don't think have been mentioned yet. Hay, Harry (1997). Roscoe, Will (ed.). Radically Gay. Beacon Press. ISBN 9780807070819. seems to me a very good reference for sourcing content on this topic. There are also two contrasting interpretations of Hay's support for NAMBLA in Hubbard, Thomas K.; Verstraete, Beert (2013). Censoring Sex Research: The Debate Over Male Intergenerational Relations. Left Coast Press. ISBN 9781611323399. One of those interpretations was penned by Bruce Rind, who has a well known agenda, but I find he does have a point. Specifically, while searching for sources, it was hard to miss the volume of relatively recent conservative hit pieces that bring up Hay and overstate his support of NAMBLA, even going so far as to say he founded the organization. I will not cite those as they are light years from RS. That is, there really are people trying to posthumously demonize him as advocating for the rights of sexual predators to rape children, and may explain counter-attempts to minimize his involvement with them. Anyway, I found original statements of Hay and other content in Radically to be quite illuminating on Hay's position toward the group (note that although Hay is listed as the author, he is not the literal author of much of the content within). Notably, at times Hay described his support NAMBLA as being a sort of counter-counter-reaction. His belief was that NAMBLA was being excluded from the gay movement to appease conservatives, and therefore the gay community was allowing outsiders/opponents to dictate who could be members of it. He also of course had a very expansive view of "consent" as described here, that included underage males seeking out older men for sexual purposes, as already mentioned. Again, I don't see how an NPOV article avoids mentioning this, but it does have to be done correctly. I would actually avoid using any sources that are just dumbing down the history here to "Hay supported NAMBLA". Those are not useful because they are far more vague than we need to be. The outline of a paragraph or two I think would be npov would go, 1. Hay was controversial for his involvement with nambla. 2. Although not a member, Hay protested in support of Nambla's rights to march, etc. 3. Accurately describe Hay's statements on man-boy relations and exclusion of groups from the movement. It's of course a tricky thing because people see 'nambla', the imagine creepy old men grooming young boys for molestation. I assume that's the goal of some of the writers who bring this up. It's also obvious that although what Hay had in mind was still a crime, it's not that particular scenario. Plenty of people will consider that a distinction without a difference, but they will be basing that opinion on an accurate statements of facts. But anyway, I think this is achievable, inevitable, and necessary. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:39, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I very much appreciate your insight and comments on this. It’s exactly what I was hoping would happen here.
No one has suggested that this content shouldn’t be presented in the article. How it’s presented, and wether any mention belongs in the lead is the main concern.
I’ll have a look at these new sources to see how they can add to the understanding of the subject. Gleeanon409 (talk) 05:55, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I’m having several issues accessing these sources mostly because I’m using Google Books. The site purposely blocks sections of pages so I’m not sure that when I’m searching I’m getting all the content on the subject, as well everything has to be hand copied rather than cut and paste. If anyone has ideas I’m open to them! Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:53, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Update (July 6, 2019)

I got feedback on the two books suggested above. Accordingly the Will Roscoe one will likely be used to note facts but not analysis.
While the Hubbard - Verstraete one, is considered of scholarly research and likely can be used to explore Hay’s motivations. I have a copy of the book on its way as I’ve been unable to fully access it online. Gleeanon409 (talk) 03:52, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for sticking with this. I think some criticisms have been valid and others have been problematic. I hope you will take others' concerns seriously, and I hope that you will recognize their concerns about the historical portrayal of Harry Hay. Equally, I hope they will understand and help in your efforts to portray Hay according to reliable sources. I think you are all trying to achieve the same aim -- more or less. I am from a different cultural milieu, so I can't really claim to understand any of it. MPS1992 (talk) 21:04, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I’m learning plenty about sex and sexuality researchers including the prejudice and backlash they faced when they approach taboo subjects. Apparently that’s been true from the beginning. I’m almost through the first book, if I have to I’ll track down the other as well. Gleeanon409 (talk) 23:04, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• I’ve asked for some help at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#Pro-research help needed for Harry Hay. Gleeanon409 (talk) 12:56, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
• I’ve also asked for help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request#Opinion piece? By Harry Hay In ‘94 Gay Community News. Gleeanon409 (talk) 14:43, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible content

Hay’s favorite story, of his coming-of-age, “which he repeatedly told to audiences in later years and refered to ironically as his ‘child molestation speech,’ in order to emphasize how sharply different gay life is from heterosexual norms,” recounted his time as an emancipated fourteen-year-old (circa 1926) pursuing sex with a man in his mid-twenties who assumed Hay was of the age of consent. He shared the story “specifically to contradict entrenched stereotypes and to caution against uncritical generalizations so common in reference to pederasty.“ The man gave Hay “tips on how ‘people like us’ should conduct themselves, which ‘inspired Harry almost as vividly as the erotic memory’.”

In 1986, Los Angeles Pride wanted Hay to march, but they had banned NAMBLA, a group synonymous in the U.S. with pro-pedophilia advocacy, and had to negotiate for him to only carry a sign, rather than a larger banner, to protest the action. Hay wanted to do so “because he remembered the pleasure of coming out as a teenager with a man who initiated him to the gay world.” He ended up wearing two posterboard signs; one for Valerie Terrigno, a recently disgraced lesbian politician also banned from the parade, on his front, “Valerie Terrigno walks with me"; and on his back, “NAMBLA walks with me.”

Eight years later, in 1994, Hay was again protesting NAMBLA being banned: ILGA (now ILGBTIA), the-then only group representing gays and lesbians at the United Nations (UN) banned them and two other groups from membership; and Stonewall 25 organizers, producing the 1994 twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the largest LGBTQ Pride event in the world as of then, banned them and similar groups from its Pride protest march, that purposely changed the route to use First Avenue going past the UN, reflecting the events’ international focus on LGBTQ issues. Hay was among the 150 “activists, scholars, artists, and writers” who signed on to support Spirit Of Stonewall (SOS), an ad hoc group that felt the banned group had free speech, and association rights. Hay delivered “Our Beloved Gay/Lesbian Movement at a Crossroads” speech, concerning the expulsion of NAMBLA, at a SOS press conference, where he stressed three organizing principles from the formation and growth of the LGBTQ movement he used since the early 1950s: we do not censor or exclude one another; if someone identifies as lesbian or gay he accepts them as such; and we cannot allow heterosexuals to dictate who is in our communities—we decide. Hay helped lead the counter-march with almost 7,000 participants.

Comments

If any better sources are forthcoming I’m happy to check them out and add accordingly.

I’m proposing this content be used in the article instead of the current material, after this has been vetted.

Separately, and dependent if any new sources are found, decisions can be made if the category is appropriate, and what, if any, content belongs in the lead. Gleeanon409 (talk) 11:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think this text serves as neutral. Is this intended as the lede? Or into the Later years: 1980-2002 section? It still seems like white-washing. I still have trouble understanding the resistance to the Michael Bronski obit/article. Bronski had been involved in journalism for over 30 years when it was published. The info in it is grounded in decades of gay journalism. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 19:41, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

This would potentially be content for inside the article. The lead content would then be a reflection of what we think belongs in the article itself. As for Bronski, and other sources that only gave a sentence, or less, of content on this I’m following the guidance above, “I would actually avoid using any sources that are just dumbing down the history here to "Hay supported NAMBLA". Those are not useful because they are far more vague than we need to be.” Bronski had one sentence, “He was, at times, a serious political embarrassment, as when he consistently advocated the inclusion of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in gay-pride parades.” Looking at every reliable source there remains only two parades, eight years apart, so it’s hard to reconcile that with “consistently advocated”. Likewise “He was, at times, a serious political embarrassment”: Bronski was the only source to characterize this way, again we only have two parades; the 1986 one he seemingly was alone in the position, but in 1994 he was one of 150 LGBTQ activists and others that was protesting the group being banned. Gleeanon409 (talk) 22:01, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Maybe I need to explain some of the editing choices made, if reading through the above sections weren’t clear:
  • The Hay quote, usually misrepresented—especially by right-wing and conservative bloggers—as him advocating for sexual contact with men and young teen boys, is omitted as we only have one primary source, NAMBLA itself.
    • What is included is analysis of why Hay often shared his own story of when he was 14, where that quote was picked from, and had a positive gay sex experience with an older man.
  • No mentions of Hay advocating for the group, or pedophilia by extension, are included as no reliable sources gave any evidence he did this. Of all the sources on Hay, the majority don’t mention this subject area at all. Those that do use only the briefest of mentions with the most credible citing his protesting the banning from two Pride parades: LA in 1986; and Stonewall 25 In 1994.
    • Both parade episodes are included with explanations of why he protested their bans. Tellingly he was one of 150 LGBTQ activists on record for the 1994 protesting.

Given the reliable sources available to now, and I’m happy to look at any others that may add to or change what is known, I think Wikipedia’s present content in the lead, and article is dreadfully sourced, and misrepresents Hay’s connection to this despised group. Additionally including Hay in the category of pedophile advocacy is wholly inaccurate. If Wikipedia is indeed an encyclopedia and not a click-bait tabloid then we should update the article accordingly. Gleeanon409 (talk) 07:48, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

• @MPS1992:, @Red Rock Canyon:, @Someguy1221:, I’d appreciate if you could look at the proposed content to see if the sourcing is reliable, NPOV, etc, and offer any changes, or any other sources. Gleeanon409 (talk) 07:48, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Gleenanon, what you have done above in your proposed text is simply leave out the WP:RS sources that have the well-documented content that you don't like. Your sanitized version, describing what you believe were and were not Hay's motives, is not an improvement and is not encyclopedic. Additionally, in this discussion you have consistently misrepresented the sources, claiming reliable sources are not reliable simply because you do not like them, or claiming that sources don't exist when they do. When people have pointed this out, you simply ignore the corrections and keep misrepresenting the sources. This is a serious violation of policy and wikiquette. Posting a note up top that people do not need to read the full discussion, only your bits of it, is inappropriate, and by only pinging the people who you think might agree with you, you are treading very close to violating the WP:CANVASSING policy. As a number of people have already told you, reliable sourcing and writing with a neutral tone don't mean "never critical" and "never controversial". The fact Hay supported NAMBLA, spoke on their panels, carried their signs, cruised boys, is what it is. It's sourced. It was his choice. Downplaying what that means, or what NAMBLA is, is really not the answer. As Wikipedians, it is not our place to re-interpret or decide what his statements and actions really meant. We just document it. It's on Hay, not us. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 18:41, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

This entire process was needed because the POV and poorly sourced content was included in the article. Your again inviting me to leave it as is, or otherwise waiving me off isn’t helpful.

If I had found any reliable source that did provide evidence he in any way was an advocate for NAMBLA, or by extension pedophilia, I would be obligated to include it, with due weight. I found none. Nor has anyone else thus far.

I looked, and still welcome, any usable reliable sources that actually provide evidence for your many claims against Hay. Please note, that is not an invitation for you to post a list of sources, like you’ve done in the past, that have been listed already, but are considered primary, unreliable, or too vague to be of any help.

If there is a source you think I’m misquoting, or otherwise misrepresenting, or an equally reliable source that should be used, that we haven’t already included, then please make it known here.

I’ve amended the note at the very top, it was never my intention to mislead. I encourage anyone who’s willing to read the wall of texts to do so. It’s right there. Their conclusions might easily catch something I missed.

I invited the uninvolved people in hopes they could help move the process forward. Gleeanon409 (talk) 21:02, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• Hello. I am one of the "uninvolved people", also described as "the people who you think might agree with you". I am really tired of this whole dispute, but I do not promise to be coherent while I explain why. It seems to me that this Gleeanon fellow was just fixing a few things, while also being far too excited about fixing things a little too much, and then suddenly he tripped some tripwire whereby people who ever advocated that bad thing, had to be vilified, and anyone trying to prevent that had to be crushed. Well actually my grandfather was in the military, and indeed he found that if you crush something under your boot then it often does not rise up again. He gave me many wise pieces of advice. I have not read every single piece of evidence presented above about what every single reliable source said about every single thing that this Hay fellow said about anything. To do that, it is probably going to take me another few weeks, so I hope you are all very patient people. For the time being, it seems to me that this Gleeanon fellow has some legitimate concerns about the current (original) article, and that some other editors are going slightly apoplectic that he should challenge the existing article. As someone who is not any part of any of either scene, this maybe should be the time that I back off and leave you all to it. But actually I am going to ask you to do two things. (1) actually understand what each of you is saying to the other, and if you can't do that, (2) give me some time until I can finally be bothered to read the above proposal and work out what it's about and whether it's accurate or what. I would much prefer the first option. MPS1992 (talk) 21:47, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• Comment. I opened a thread at WP:RSN to address sourcing in the lead’s first sentence, while this content for the article itself moves forward. Gleeanon409 (talk) 18:08, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
• Update. I just today got a copy of: “Our Beloved Gay/Lesbian Movement at a Crossroads” Hay, Harry. Gay Community News ; Boston Vol.20,Iss.3, (Fall 1994): 16. It’s the full text of his speech detailing why he, and apparently others, objected to ILGA and Stonewall 25, expelling NAMBLA or any other group that identified as gay/lesbian. The pdf is about six pages so it will take a bit of time to digest and hopefully distill into the proposed content.

  I did omit at least one important facet in trying to express his views. He adamantly felt that queer youth worldwide were victimized by being forced into hetero identities dooming them into forms of despair. He felt this was the real molestation they faced.

  He also connects Sen Jesse Helms move to defund the United Nations by discrediting ILGA via the pedophilia groups scandal; with his similar move 30 days later “amended an education bill on its way through the Senate by denying federal funds to any public school district that teaches homosexuality is a positive lifestyle alternative through class work, textbooks, or counseling. This language is so broad that even Project 10, a nationally known counseling program for Gay high school students, would be a key target of the ban.” Gleeanon409 (talk) 22:33, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

• I’m still going over Hay’s own writing on the subject: “Our Beloved Gay/Lesbian Movement at a Crossroads” Hay, Harry. Gay Community News ; Boston, Vol. 20, Iss.3, (Fall 1994): 16. Anyone can also get a copy by requesting it at WP:RX. Gleeanon409 (talk) 05:08, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
• Update. I’ve opened a request at WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests in hopes to resolve this and the other main tagged issue of the article. I’ll work on updating User:Gleeanon409/sandbox/Hay - nambla sourcing with Hay’s published speech on the subject. Gleeanon409 (talk) 00:31, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

• • Request was auto-declined until this issue is resolved; I’m looking at adding the Hay speech and checking out the source(s) added in the last week above. Then a rewrite of proposed content. Gleeanon409 (talk) 00:30, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
• Looking into the Miller source suggested above. Gleeanon409 (talk) 04:04, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Medicaid estate recovery and User:NormSpier

NormSpier (talk · contribs · count) has recently added a very large amount of negative content related to Medicaid estate recovery to the following articles:

• Medicaid estate recovery (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/682619084/912949236
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/909824345/912954601
• Massachusetts health care reform (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/901904756/912699623
• Health insurance coverage in the United States (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/905346028/912738497
• Health insurance in the United States (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/910497164/912742742
• Medicaid (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/909480199/909790623

Almost all of the edits included in the diffs were made by NormSpier.

These content additions are problematic because they use original research (with primary sources and synthesized claims), some self-published sources (including promotional links to their own website, such as this page – archived here – in Special:Diff/909660591), and an unbalanced presentation of facts and opinions to introduce arguments against Medicaid estate recovery in the style of an essay.

A portion of the criticism introduced in these edits may be warranted in these articles, but it should not be presented in this way.

Since this is a large amount of content to thoroughly review, I'd like to get some input from other editors. How should these articles be changed to reflect a neutral point of view? — Newslinger talk 17:07, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Initial Response by NormSpier:

I welcome the forthcoming efforts of one or more editors to improve the article. I am new to writing for Wikipedia, so I trust you will figure out a better way to present the issues.

Let me report on what I did, to make your edits the best possible:

I built of the "Medicaid estate recovery" article from a stub in the last month or so. I added mainly, but not only, a large section on the critical issue of Medicaid estate recovery of non-long-term-care-related expenses, and how it interferes with the ACA. (I tried to have the wording be neutral on the 2nd pass of the article, after a prior essay-like comment from an editor.)

I added to a number of other articles, on aspects of the Medicaid estate recovery of non-long-term-related expenses. However, in the case of the ACA article, I added about 5 problems (section called "Problems"), which are well-known, and I have references. (About half of them were pointed out to me from a user on the VoxCare facebook site, and I had to look them up. "Family glitch", etc.)

On the ACA article, note it was found a little too positive at some point. The "talk page" has:

Note that the"talk" section of the ACA article has, from someone, "(AUG 2018) Portions of this article read as though they were written by the government and therefore should be questioned as political propaganda. Instead of reading in a more neutral manner, many of the points play out in a consecutively gratuitous manner toward the subject of the article. It reads more like a brochure and less like an objective analysis. There is far more positive POV description of the law than neutral or negative, and much time is spent in this article describing the components of the law AND "why that is good" for you, in a symbiotic relationship."

(Thus, the added problems should add balance. Also, they are a real necessity for a balanced article, as the defects are conspicuous to people familiar with the details of the ACA.)

The content I added is mostly negative, because of the nature of the issues. (I was in fact focusing on adding problems, because the ACA is up for repair or replacement.) What I wrote does not reflecting original ideas, as far as I can tell. (Editors may find aspects where I slipped, and did inadvertantly have original ideas. But, after a caution from a prior editor of Medicaid estate recovery, I did try to remove everything that seemed original.) Note the pile of references after, in the "Medicaid estate recovery" article, "The view that there were problematic aspects of the interaction of non-LTCR Medicaid estate recovery with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was put forth in various places starting from the time the ACA was passed", including the Washington Post and Seattle Times and Minnesota Star Tribune, as well as the academic journal Health Affairs and other think-tanky sources. (Those references document that other have seen various issues with Medicaid estate recovery of non-long-term-care-related expenses as it relates to the ACA. Later in the article, I have sub-issues, which I have attempted to document from sources.)

Please note: the issue of recovery of non-long-term-care-related Medicaid expenses post ACA is real (I ask people to think about what it says and see that it is real; and note that 6 states have acted on it to adjust since the ACA start in 2014 or soon after, as well as the Obama administration attempted to address in a 2014 issue), somewhat obscure (for political reasons--it's embarassing to some politicians and may enrage some people getting ACA expanded Medicaid, as it did in certain states where it was reported on), and most definitely not original.

So I ask the editors: in order to do the edits well, please do try and understand the technical issue of Medicaid estate recovery for non-long-term-care-related expenses, and its interaction with the ACA. It has been underpublicized lately, I think for political reasons. I'll bet few, if any, editors who will do the edits on this knew about the issue prior. The issue is that, in many states which have expanded Medicaid, people 55 or older who get expanded Medicaid in fact are only getting a loan for medical expenses. The estate has to pay the expenses paid out back. (Here, not in the encyclopedia, but here, I am using partial language, because the issue is so stunning because it is so blatant yet underpublicized. I do hope all editors see the technical issue. Bills are paid for a person now, but have to be paid back the estate, as part of the ACAs health insurance system (for people 55 and older, in states which exercise their option to do Medicaid estate recovery, for people who get Medicaid or expanded Medicaid: that is, those with incomes to 138% Fed Pov. Level.). Editors, please see and understand the issue. I'll bet you all didn't know about it! You will of course have the article be objective about this, and my partiality, and being stunned shows here in this "Neutral Point of View" section, but of course, it should nor appear in the final article.)

(Also, since I'm being open on my personal position on the issue here, let me point out that I was and still am all for the ACA. However, my opinion is there are serious defects that need to be cleaned up in the law. One defect of which is Medicaid estate recovery for people 55 and over in states that still do that post-ACA. Further, there are other issues, which did make it into the ACA article only under problems, and are generally recognized. Of course, the Wikipedia entry itself needs to report on issues objectively, and in an objective tone.)

(I will be glad to help people understand the issue if they are unclear. I am not sure how familiar the editors are with the details of the ACA, and its construction. So if anything is unclear, just ask. You might Try also the Washington Post, Seattle Times, or Health Affairs articles.)

Please note, while you edit, that the problem isolated is specifically the recovery of non-long-term-care-related expenses from Medicaid for people 55 and older. It messes up half of the ACA (expanded Medicaid), and makes it essentially not real insurance. Bills paid out have to be paid back. (Here, in this document here, I am varying from neutral language which I tried to put into the article.)

I probably have not succeeded perfectly in making the article neutral point of view. I am new to Wikipedia writing, so certainly I could use to learn some things about being more neutral, and conforming to Wikipedia standards. Hopefully, you editors will fix and adjust wording, etc. I welcome your bringing things up to Wikipedia standards.

Note also: I am happy to have removed my own "Blog" pages on the matter from the articles. (The one cited by Newslinger, http://nasmusicsoft.com/BlogMAEstateClawback1.html , and possibly some article also has my other page: http://nasmusicsoft.com/BlogACAConsumerProblems.html. These are 2 of a total of about 80 references that I added. The "Medicaid estate recovery" article was taken up from a stub by me in the last month or so, and most of the references are mine. That is, about 70 references, one or two of which are to my own pages.) However, the other numerous references are not my own, and include Health Affairs (academic) and major and minor newspapers.)

I thank you all for your efforts to fix any problems with what I have added. I assume you will do this in the spirit of making the articles a more complete and fair representation of the ACA, and its associated Medicaid. I am glad to have the expertise of more experienced editors to figure out exactly how to do this.

NormSpier (talk) 19:45, 30 August 2019 (UTC) Added a little later:NormSpier (talk) 20:56, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi NormSpier, and thanks for your comprehensive response. Also, thank you for spending a large amount of time and effort into expanding these articles. The Medicaid estate recovery article is much more informative right now than it was a month ago (Special:Permalink/682619084). I've read your web page ("A List of Affordable Care Act Problems"), and I found it extremely informative. It provides a lot of useful information, and presents this confusing topic in an understandable way. Your personal experiences with the MA Estate Recovery Unit are enlightening, and your suggested solutions are thought-provoking. I could see your web page being popular on social media (e.g. certain subreddits) if it isn't already.

I get the impression that you are trying to convey the information on your web page, as well as your personal knowledge of Medicaid estate recovery, in these Wikipedia articles. However, what makes for a compelling web page rarely makes for an appropriate encyclopedia entry. Some of Wikipedia's key policies and guidelines are:

• Verifiability: Readers should be able to verify every single statement in a Wikipedia article with a reliable source. Assertions, opinions, or examples that are not from reliable sources are generally unacceptable. Synthesizing multiple sources to deduce something that none of the sources directly say is also not allowed.
• No original research: Articles should be based mostly on reliable secondary sources. Primary sources can be used for uncontroversial information in some cases, but claims that can't be verified in reliable secondary sources are usually excluded from articles.
• Neutrality: The goal of Wikipedia is to inform readers, not to persuade them. We try to reflect all major viewpoints covered by reliable sources in proportion to their prominence. If an issue is "underpublicized", it should be featured less prominently in an article.
• Tone: Web pages can be informal, but Wikipedia articles should be written in a dispassionate tone. Also, contractions shouldn't be used unless they are in quotes of cited sources.
• Reliability: On Wikipedia, sources are considered reliable if they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and if they are endorsed by other reliable sources. Unfortunately, self-published sources such as personal web pages are excluded by that definition in most cases, so you wouldn't be able to cite your own web page. This also applies to most blogs, including group blogs and company blogs.

You've done some significant research for these articles, and you've managed to collect a large number of relevant reliable sources. (You even have too many citations in some places. It's a good practice to condense long rows of citations with the {{refn}} template to save space.) The less reliable sources should be removed, and you can always ask the reliable sources noticeboard if you're not sure whether a source is reliable. Sticking to reliable sources means that a significant portion of your additions would have to be rewritten. Please don't take this personally, since articles change all the time, and everyone's contributions eventually get altered in some way.

On neutrality: I do expect much of the coverage on Medicaid estate recovery to be negative, since it is a liability from the consumer's perspective. However, editorializing can exaggerate the point of view, and its best to only use strict summaries of reliable sources. It's admirable that you are trying to communicate "the recovery of non-long-term-care-related expenses from Medicaid for people 55 and older" to the public, since this is a serious financial consideration for many American individuals. You are welcome to include information on this issue in Wikipedia articles, but only if it is adequately supported by reliable sources and explained in an appropriate amount of text for the topic of the article. Going beyond that to give undue emphasis to this aspect of Medicaid would unbalance the article.

I hope this clears up some of the expectations for Wikipedia articles, and helps clarify what is needed to improve these articles. I'll be happy to help you look over these articles, although there is a lot of content and writing articles on complex topics is always a long-term effort. If you have any questions on editing, please feel free to ask me on my talk page at any time. — Newslinger talk 22:15, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Newslinger and other editors who I get the feeling Newslinger is trying to get to look at at the articles.

For the main articles in question: Medicaid estate recovery and ACA, I have removed the one link to my own page on one of them, and two Daily Kos references, which were not verified by the publication, but just blog posts by users.

I have looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Usage_by_other_sources , as one of the issues. (This is the 5th of your issues: Reliability)

it says, under:

Statements of opinion

"Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact. For example, an inline qualifier might say "[Author XYZ] says....". A prime example of this is opinion pieces in sources recognized as reliable."

I think I've used the opinion sources correctly, stating them as opinion. (HufPost, etc.) I use terms like "viewpoint" where there is opinion.

Otherwise, to my eyes, I am OK on "verifiability", "No Original Research", "Neutrality", and "Tone". However, I'm not that experienced at writing for Wikipedia. (A week or two ago, AnUnnamedUser reviewed Medicaid estate recovery, and did have issues of "No Original Research", "Neutrality", and "Tone", and after that reviews, but I thought I fixed them as well as possible with both deletions and rewording as opinions. This for both the Medicaid estate recovery article, and the ACA article.)

Apparently not, and I think the issue is that I'm just not sensitive enough to Wikipedia standards at this point to make the articles conform without extensive help on specific sections of the text.

I'll see if I get any ideas on further improvements to conformance, but mainly, I think its up to you, more experienced Wikipedia editors to either:

a)point out specific passages that should be removed, reworded, and exactly how, if a rewording. (Or, ask for clarification, where does the reference say that?, etc.)

or b)do the deletion or rewording yourselves, using whatever editor consensus procedures you have to make sure there is sufficient agreement on your end.

So, basically, as I see it, I need to wait for more detailed feedback, or else you editors will just do the changes. (I realize no one may have time, and you may just delete my sections. That will be O.K. if that is your best judgement.)

Also, I'll of course be happy to delete my sections myself, for all the articles, if their editor consensus is that they should be deleted, as to not make extra work for everyone. (Except parts of the ACA article, which I added, which had no comments in review.)

NormSpier (talk) 13:55, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Just adding a bit on the critical ACA article, where you may want to avoid an appearance of bias in favor of the ACA, and the covering up of problems.

Also, note. Of the various articles in question (in the messageboard), probably the most critical for it not to appear to others of bias in favor of the ACA, covering up defects, is the ACA article itself, where the section Problems (which I added) lists 5 problems,

5 Problems 5.1 Subsidy Cliff at 400% FPL 5.2 Sometimes-Unaffordable Out-of-Pocket Maximums 5.3 Family Glitch 5.4 Estate Recovery under 138% FPL 5.5 Coordination of Medicaids with On-Exchange Plans

Note that most of the problems, including estate recovery when it is done by states non-long-term-care-related, are in multiple sources, and in particular this reliable one: https://tcf.org/content/report/key-proposals-to-strengthen-the-aca/ (co-authored by Tim Jost, an academic lawyer who did most of the the Health Affairs "Covering the ACA" posts until a year or two ago.)

Specifically, 4 of the 5 wikipedia ACA section 5 "problems" are within the text of the single "proposal to strengthen" article:

5.1 is within "Increase Credits for Moderate- and Middle-Income Families" 5.2 is within "Reduce Cost-sharing and Out-of-Pocket Limits and Improve Minimum Employer Coverage Requirements." 5.3 is within "Fix the Family Glitch" (you only have to go so far as the title) 5.4 is within "Eliminate Medicaid Estate Recoveries from the Expansion Population" 5.5 is the only one not in "proposal to strengthen". But I have reliable references (last paragraph in the article), including actual continuity of coverage issues found in the GAO report.

(The comment is repeated in the "talk" section for the ACA article only).

NormSpier (talk) 15:48, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi NormSpier, for the articles on broader subjects (e.g. Massachusetts health care reform), I think a better alternative than deleting would be to move the new content to sandboxes at subpages of the respective article talk pages (e.g. Talk:Massachusetts health care reform/sandbox). We could then gradually reintroduce the new content back into the articles as it becomes copyedited for policy compliance, and we'll also check the proportions of the articles' coverage of Medicaid estate recovery to make sure that they do not give undue weight to this subject. If an article covers Medicaid estate recovery in too much detail, we'll keep only the parts that are most relevant to the article's subject, and use a {{See also}} hatnote to direct the reader to the Medicaid estate recovery article for general information on the subject.

I'll help review the content, but we'll also solicit help from other editors on this noticeboard and in related WikiProjects such as the ones listed at the top of Talk:Medicaid estate recovery. Does this sound like an acceptable plan to you? — Newslinger talk 16:16, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is fine to include some of the criticism listed at Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act § Problems, although the length of the content should be reduced. For instance, the listed examples for silver/bronze plans are considered original research since they're not covered in reliable sources, and they should be removed. — Newslinger talk 16:25, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Newslinger

So, sure, I'm OK with the plan, as I understand it.

For the articles on your list besides the ACA and Medicaid estate recovery, I'll move it to the sandbox. (Unless any of it is obviously out of standards to me, even with my lack of complete understanding of the standards, in which case I will delete it.)

It sounds like for the Medicaid estate recovery, you, or assigns, are gonna handle it. That's fine. Do it however you wish. If you have questions about the meaning of what I wrote, or where the references apply, just ask.

For the ACA article, I don't want to be observed pulling out the 5 problems, or over-shortening them, as I actually support the ACA and might be accused of covering up defects. So I'll leave it to your group, to do whatever, including moving stuff to the sandbox temporarily. (I'll of course answer any questions, etc.)

Also, on the issue of the ACA article silver and bronze plan (used in 2 problems), note everything can be verified from the referenced healthcare.gov website. I've given the zipcode for a Chicago locale. A little math is needed, which may or may not be more than you want to have the readers or editors to have to do. (I see it may have to be pulled out for reasons of Wikipedia standards, so go ahead and do it, or sandbox it, or whatever.) However, just let me express the opinion that I find it informative, and gives people a picture of the numbers involved in people's real world premiums and copays, and the effect of the subsidy cliff. I personally don't want to be seen pulling out the sections myself, because it looks like it might be a covering up of real problems, with substantial cost-of-premium (when over the cliff) and copay issues with the ACA. (I guess I'm voicing a criticism of the Wikipedia policy on this--very useful information is kept out because it involves a little math and understanding of the regulations. But I'm attacking no one in particular. Just the principle. I did a search, and tried to find the numbers in direct form from a reputable source before computing the numbers myself, but could not. The numbers computed use a reputable source, Healthcare.gov, but calculation is involved. (Also, I took FPL from a reputable source.)

NormSpier (talk) 17:28, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, for the last 4 of the 6 articles, I just deleted the stuff. As discussed above, I've left the "Problems" section of the ACA article in the editors hands, as well as the Medicaid estate recovery article. NormSpier (talk) 17:59, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

For my own continuing edification and trying to figure out Wikipedia standards, I did look up undue weight "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects." Text later on is unclear to me if equal text space is mandated. I hope not. That wouldn't make sense from a pursuit-of-truth point of view. It may be that one argument is more complex than the other.

In the particular case of Medicaid estate recovery, I actually did, after the first reviewer cited essay like, add in 'The moral justification for Estate Recovery has been stated as “if you’re receiving a public benefit and the state is trying to support you, you should give back if you are able".' (5th paragraph) This actually is about the whole argument. (One might add something like the government needs money to pay for Medicaid expenses. But that's about it. Two short arguments.)

The other side of the argument, which only comes in post-ACA, with non-long-term-care related estate recovery, is in fact complicated. You can't really understand the issue unless you get into the structure of the ACA, and think about what's going on with the collection all medical expenses from the estates of people who were supposedly insured under the ACA. Further, you have to have pointed out the exact structure of who gets real insurance where nothing has to be paid back, and who gets mislabelled insurance that has to be paid. It's people with similar incomes paying similar premiums (small or 0) and all with small copays, on either side of the 138% Federal Poverty Level divide. Additionally, there was (prior to mandate repeal) an issue of people being compelled to accept expanded Medicaid, or pay a penalty. This is done under the pretext of limiting adverse selection in order to give everyone good insurance that pools risk, but the thing is, in states that do non-long-term-care estate Recovery for people 55 and older, when it is all medical expenses, there is no pooling of risk at all for those people. There is also an economically bizarre estate recovery of a non-asset-tested benefit. (In opinionated language, O.K. here, but not for articles, there are a lot of parts to explain to see how the contraption is so cockamamie!)

Then, in the case of Medicaid estate recovery, there is also a case of both the director of the National Accociation of Medicaid Directors, and the Obama administration, acting as though they see there is a problem. And many states fixed at ACA start, or after, but as well, many have not.

These are all relevant complicated factors, where I can find no complicated factors in the 2 short arguments for the other side. So, if the Wikipedia standard does in fact mean equal text length, then I find it at fault. Something that may help with the optics, but would lead to wasted space explaining simple things, or not explaining complicated things.

Also, I see it is in the standard, to give weight based on how reported things are. ("In proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." This, I guess, is the standard, but I find it intellectually faulty. People who are familiar with "Manufacturing Consent" (Chomsky/Herman) will understand why, immediately. (So will many Donald Trump voters!)

This mainstream business may be coming up with Medicaid estate recovery (interaction with ACA part), which, though publicized in 6 or 7 mainstream sources that I can find, including the mainstream, limited-view newspapers of Chomsky/Herman, is probably or apparently still intentionally underpublicized, in order to make the ACA look good, and to keep people from getting enraged as they have in states where the issue did manage to get publicized mainstream. (These are WA, where the issue got fixed in a few days I believe, after publicity in 2013. Also CA and MN, where publicity led to political action and changing the recovery of non-long-term-related expenses.)

So I've learned from this that wikipedia has standards forcing it to behave like a mainstream, limited-viewpoint, or viewpoint expressed- proportional-to-establishments-sources. (Just a comment. It may or may not apply to Medicaid estate recovery, but it looks like an issue.)

NormSpier (talk) 01:02, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

In case anyone is working on this, note that I have now added article-specific stuff on the Talk pages for the 2 remaining articles in question. These are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Medicaid_estate_recovery and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act.

NormSpier (talk) 21:10, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi NormSpier, I've set up sandboxes for all of these articles. They are listed below and also linked from the respective article talk pages (in a message box near the top).

• Talk:Medicaid estate recovery/sandbox
• Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act/sandbox
• Talk:Massachusetts health care reform/sandbox
• Talk:Health insurance coverage in the United States/sandbox
• Talk:Health insurance in the United States/sandbox
• Talk:Medicaid/sandbox

Currently, these sandboxes contain the content that was removed from the related articles. (The first two sandboxes are empty, because nothing has been removed from these articles yet.) If any portions of the sandbox content are both policy-compliant and relevant to the articles, we can restore them. We can also revise or copyedit the text in the sandboxes: it's a general drafting area for the articles.

Regarding your "pursuit-of-truth" comment, please note that Wikipedia seeks verifiability, not truth. In many topics, "truth" means different things to different people, and Wikipedia's way of adjudicating different perspectives is to derive our article content from reliable sources.

Wikipedia tends to reflect the information published in mainstream sources, and we recognize that as a form of systemic bias. The best way to address this bias is to use a diverse selection of reliable sources that reflect all prominent perspectives. In addition to online news sources, we can also use books and academic publications from reputable publishers. (Google Books, Google Scholar, and Semantic Scholar are good resources.) Once you participate a bit more on Wikipedia, you can also obtain access to The Wikipedia Library Card Platform, which gives you access to many paywalled publications free of charge.

However, there is no way around using reliable sources. Since all article content is derived from the cited sources, the quality of the sources directly determines the quality of our articles. If you feel that some information is inadequately covered by reliable sources, the only policy-compliant way to get that information into Wikipedia is to get it reliably published. You may want to consider getting into contact with journalists and convincing them to write about these subjects. You can also become a journalist yourself, although that opens you to conflict of interest issues on Wikipedia.

Let's discuss matters regarding specific content on the related article talk pages. We can continue coordinating the review process here, but it would be best to keep this discussion as organized as possible. Thanks again for your willingness to engage with other editors. — Newslinger talk 13:47, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Hi NormSpier, I'm following up on the Teahouse discussion. Once again, the disputed changes to the articles are below:

• Medicaid estate recovery (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/682619084/912949236
• Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/909824345/912954601
• Massachusetts health care reform (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/901904756/912699623
• Health insurance coverage in the United States (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/905346028/912738497
• Health insurance in the United States (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/910497164/912742742
• Medicaid (edit talk links history): Special:Diff/909480199/909790623

To use this method of dispute resolution, we need to figure out which sets of changes we agree and disagree on. For the articles which we disagree on, we can start a request for comment on the respective talk pages to ask the whole Wikipedia community whether your changes should be kept or removed. Editors who participate in the discussion might suggest other solutions, but they will usually choose one or the other.

Given the two choices (keep or remove) for each article, I would choose to keep the changes to the Medicaid estate recovery article and remove all of the changes to all of the other articles.

Which of these articles do you want to keep your changes in? — Newslinger talk 19:59, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Newslinger, and everyone else. As I indicated prior, and reiterated at the Teahouse, I have removed several days ago my additions to 4 of the articles (to the best of my ability). The two where the additions remain are Medicaid estate recovery (which I have built up from a stub), and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, where I've modified sections, adding stuff about "silver plan loading". I've also added a section trying to explain the way the coverage achieved ("Outline of the coverage mechanism"), which may or may not be problematic for Newslinger, but most definitely, my addition of the section "Problems", (Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#Problems) describing 5 problems with the ACA, like "subsidy cliff", "family glitch", and "excessively high copays" is a trouble spot for Newslinger.

Newslinger. I may have missed answering your exact question above. Of the two articles with remaining additions, ACA, and Medicaid estate recovery, I would keep both. Subject to, as below, I find the question too coarse, keep or remove. The binary choice. See below. NormSpier (talk) 01:47, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Note that there have been certain additions, either for additional clarity, or to try to reasonably comply with points made by Newslinger, so I don't know what, exactly, those bulleted diffs are, but note they may not be the latest version (of the articles in question).

Thirdly, please note that the optimal resolution is to find a person or two with time, familiar with Wikipedia standards, able to understand technical details of the ACA, able to review the text, and make by line comments, with possible iteration back and forth between us on where things come from, and what they mean, and how standards may or may not be violated. (I understand Newslinger has attempted to seek additional reviewers starting 5 or 6 days ago, but has not been able to find any.)

I'm uncomfortable with the binary choice on the ACA article that you've given. Reducing down to the two articles left, you are saying keep Medicaid estate recovery, and the choice is remove (or not remove) all changes to the ACA article, including the section you object to, which talks about 5 problems of the ACA. This, in fact, seems politically suspect. You have not indicated any errors in any section, including that section. You have indicated the point of view is not neutral, but it is a section on problems with the ACA, that are real, and should not be covered up. No one else besides yourself has indicated they find the section incorrect or biased or any other violation of standards.

NormSpier (talk) 20:36, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Newslinger, as in the second sentence, "The two where the additions remain are Medicaid estate recovery (which I have built up from a stub), and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"

Also, rather than "keep all", or "delete all" on what I put in the ACA article, if you can't find someone with appropriate time and skills take a careful look, including necessary iteration with me, a third option is to leave the "Problems with ACA" section exactly as it is, including keeping, over the section, (a) "Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. (August 2019)", (b)"The neutrality of this article is disputed. (August 2019)", and (c) "This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. (August 2019)" all of which you put on the "Problems" with ACA section 8 days ago, and wait till people with suitable time and understanding of the issues get to it.

I've perused the article. Some people with understanding of the ACA technical mechanisms (rather than politics or law--not particularly relevant for the matters in question) apparently wrote parts of it. Maybe they will come back, eventually. There also must be people in the general public who will see the article, with the 3 disputes over "Problems", and eventually take a stab.

NormSpier (talk) 21:26, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi NormSpier, I've started a request for comment (RfC) at Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act § RfC: Recent additions. Please comment with your opinion. For an example of what the RfC discussion format looks like, you can refer to this closed RfC on an unrelated topic that also asks editors to choose between two versions of an article.

Since the additions to the article are very long (over 54,000 characters), a line-by-line evaluation is not feasible without enough volunteers. This RfC will be advertised throughout Wikipedia in several ways (see WP:RFC § Publicizing an RfC for details), and will likely attract enough attention from other editors to form a consensus on this article. As I mentioned in the Teahouse discussion, the result of this RfC will determine the starting point for this article, and whether to include or exclude specific portions of the added content can be discussed on the talk page afterward. The attention from the RfC will hopefully attract editors who are willing to participate in these discussions after the RfC. — Newslinger talk 05:54, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

NormSpier I am sorry you have fallen into the Wiki world without knowing the rules. In the Teahouse you were all offended that someone could edit what you wrote without proof of their own expertise and knowledge. All of your hard work just edited by just anyone. You seemed to have learned who and how editing works. You need to learn how to be brief. I and nobody else wants to read all that you write. In fact I do not want to get any further into your education of this Wiki world. Good luck and listen to what a great many editors are trying to tell you. Maybe my comment should be on your talk page? Eschoryii (talk) 07:38, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Map of United Nations member states

There is a dispute on United Nations with the map File:United Nations Members (green–grey scheme).svg shown in the infobox. In it, Taiwan and Kosovo are coloured on the basis that they appear to be part of some UN member state on UN's maps. This claim is not sourced. Even if it is true, taking the UN's position without basing on reliable sources violates WP:NOTPROMO. The vast majority of such maps treat Taiwan independently. Doing otherwise violates WP:UNDUE. The map should be switched to this one, but User:Wadaad repeatedly refused to follow WP policies. Ythlev (talk) 11:26, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

References

• @Ythlev: I'm afraid if you want to get a serious discussion going, you're probably going to have to start with better sources than a link to reddit. GMG^talk 11:35, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  What's wrong with Reddit? I can throw a bunch of "better sources" if you like. It is absolutely not hard to demonstrate my point. Ythlev (talk) 11:52, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

References

• The map is sourced.[7] Secondly, Taiwan falls under China according to the UN.[8] Mind you China has a permanent veto on the UN Security Council, a vital component of the UN. Lastly, your proposed map[9] violates the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Somalia as Somaliland is not recognized by any country (literally zero) while Somalia is a UN member-state.[10] Your map strongly violates WP:ADVOCACY and hence should not be included and the status-quo should remain. Wadaad (talk) 11:55, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
• @Ythlev: So your saying that the UN's own information on it's own membership is not reliable? Why wouldn't it be? --Jayron32 11:56, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  This link that this user keeps citing makes absolutely no reference to Taiwan. Even if UN does consider Taiwan part of China, it is only one viewpoint. Is it the majority viewpoint according to WP:WEIGHT? Ythlev (talk) 12:57, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  But...on an article about the UN, isn't the UN's opinion the only one that really matters? I mean, opinions may differ about whether Taiwan should be an independent member state. But it's kindof hard to have an opinion on whether they currently are. You can have an opinion about whether Karachi should be the capital of Pakistan, but Pakistan says the capital is Islamabad, and that's pretty much the end of the discussion. GMG^talk 13:25, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  Regardless of your feelings regarding Taiwan's independence, it is treated, by the UN, as a part of China. And that map reflects this. It would violate WP:NPOV to say otherwise. Simonm223 (talk) 14:07, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  But...on an article about the UN, isn't the UN's opinion the only one that really matters? Says who? What policy says only the subject's opinion matters on its article? WP:NPOV:

  All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.

  Ythlev (talk) 14:33, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

  Yeah, but it's difficult to see how, on the subject of UN member states, a thing that the UN decides by definition, there are any "significant views" other than the views of the UN.

Besides, you appear to be arguing from entirely hypothetical sources. The two you've provided regarding Taiwan don't have anything to do with the United Nations. The map you prefer seems to just throw around autonomous regions and disputed territories willy nilly, with no indication why these are being chosen out of scores of territorial disputes, and dozens of autonomous regions. Northern Cyprus is only recognized by one country. Somaliland isn't recognized by anyone. Transnistria is only recognized by other places struggling for recognition. So you are making the argument of "fairness and proportionality", when what you seem to have done is pick winners and losers in a random selection of conflicts, many of which are clearly not winning the "fair and proportional" debate. When a state has negligible or no international recognition, these do not constitute "significant views" that we must take into account on broad global subjects. Part of recognizing significant views is disregarding insignificant ones. Each of these areas have their own article, and interested readers can go there for additional information. GMG^talk 17:25, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps a reasonable way to resolve this would be to make a minor adjustment in the caption to the map to make it absolutely clear that it's the UN's map (without assuming that the reader will look at the source reference) rather than a map that everyone would necessarily agree with. Just change "Map of the current UN member states..." to "The UN's map of its current member states..." There's already a discussion of alternative opinions on Taiwan in the section on criticisms of the UN, so I don't think anything else is needed in order to ensure NPOV on this issue. NightHeron (talk) 14:59, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Except it isn't the UN map. The map was created by a Commons user. It describes exactly what it is: UN member states. The status of Taiwan may be in dispute in other contexts, but it is not in dispute that the UN considers it to be under the jurisdiction of the PRC. --Jayron32 18:21, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

@Jayron32: My apologies, I saw the citation to the UN and erroneously thought it was for the map. Now I see that the citation is just for the information that was used by whomever constructed the map. If the UN doesn't itself publish a map of this sort, don't we have a problem of OR and SYNTH, since the coloring of countries (such as Taiwan) is based on an interpretation of UN policy by an unnamed person? There are many other countries and regions besides Taiwan that have a complicated history of disputes and shifting boundaries, and the map clearly gives a simplified picture of that history as it relates to UN membership. If the source of the map is not the UN but an unknown person, don't we have RS and SYNTH issues? NightHeron (talk) 00:43, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

it is not in dispute that the UN considers it to be under the jurisdiction of the PRC. I dispute this. There is no source for this. Ythlev (talk) 00:09, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I think you might be well served to read WP:RGW. It is not the place of the encyclopedia to take a position on the question of the claimed territories of any state. The United Nations recognizes the PRC as the government of China, and does not recognize Taiwan's independence. This may have realpolitik reasons (such as China's permanent security council veto backed by a nuclear arsenal) but that's the de facto reality. To treat it otherwise violates WP:NPOV. Simonm223 (talk) 11:56, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, you can dispute anything you want. However, your individual dispute does not mean that the world at large is in dispute over the matter. The UN is not confused by its own resolutions and statements on the matter, however, as noted here, which states among other things "The General Assembly...decides to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize [it] as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations." Also, a clarifying statement on from the UN is made here which notes "regarding the Taiwan Province of China, the Secretary-General follows the General Assembly’s guidance incorporated in resolution 2758...The General Assembly decided to recognize the representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations. Hence, instruments received from the Taiwan Province of China will not be accepted by the Secretary-General in his capacity as depositary" Other UN documents consistently refer to Taiwan as the "Taiwan Province of China" and not as a sovereign state on its own, and do so unambiguously. Please note that my saying this does not mean that I agree with the UN on this matter (and me saying THAT does not mean that I don't. I hold no meaningful opinion on the issue, not that my opinion means anything) and saying all of THAT also does not mean that the matter of Taiwan's sovereignty is undisputed, but on the very narrow and specific issue of what the United Nations recognizes, the UN clearly, unambiguously, and repeatedly since 1971 has recognized the island of Taiwan as being under the Jurisdiction of the PRC. --Jayron32 12:04, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@Simonm223: @Jayron32: Other UN documents consistently refer to Taiwan as the "Taiwan Province of China". So your interpretation of this view is solely based on how the UN refers to Taiwan? Has the UN stated what territories are part of "Taiwan Province of China"? Does it include Kinmen?

Even if so, the point remains that colouring the map based on this view violates WP:UNDUE: Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority is as significant as the majority view. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. Colouring Taiwan independently is the majority view in sources. Ythlev (talk) 14:21, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Not if the map is specifically showing what the UN considers to be the status of Taiwan. This issue with this map is not what the majority view of Taiwan's status is. Only what the UN's view of Taiwan's status is. For other maps showing other views, they may serve to be colored differently. For the map of what the UN considers, this one is correct.--Jayron32 04:16, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

You still don't get it do you? I'm not arguing it's correctness. This is about how information is represented in the article. The UN considers every piece of land part of it? Fine. That can be easily stated with one sentence or a paragraph. This map, if it has any value, can still be in the article, but it is the main map. The main map should be the mainstream view, which is that Taiwan, Kosovo etc have different statuses and are coloured independently. Such a map as the main map only mislead readers, especially when the footnote is not expanded. Ythlev (talk) 05:38, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@Jayron32: @GreenMeansGo: By the way, File:ICAO.png colours Taiwan independently. Almost every map does. Ythlev (talk) 05:49, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

That's because the ICAO considers Taiwan to be independent This isn't complicated. --Jayron32 18:19, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Source? ICAO is an agency of the UN and it considers Taiwan independent but not the UN itself? Ythlev (talk) 12:13, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

The map that illustrates the lead in United Nations is the same one as in Member states of the United Nations, where it is sourced directly to the UN. However, it is too small to see any detail, and so is of questionable value. The footnote gives a qualifying statement, and there are qualifying statements in the original source about the map not implying endorsement of any party in certain disputes. The second map in United Nations, as User:Jayron32 pointed out, is not a UN map; rather, it was composed by someone who is not cited. It also is too small to show any detail, and, moreover, does not include any of the qualifying statements that are in the first map or in the UN source for the first map. I don't really see any reason not to remove both maps on the grounds that neither one is likely to be helpful to the reader, neither one contributes to the article's accuracy, and the second one violates WP:SYNTH. NightHeron (talk) 12:12, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't see why. We have maps all over Wikipedia created by Wikipedia users based on data from reliable sources. The maps can be clicked to zoom in for greater detail, as do all maps. This isn't a novel synthesis issue if the map is created from reliable sources, just as text is supposed to be created from reliable sources. The maps are fine, and other than your mis-use of WP:SYNTH, every single map everywhere on Wikipedia is similar to this one in all of the other points you make. --Jayron32 12:19, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about all those other maps, just about the two on United Nations. Take the first one, which illustrates the lead. Yes, when you click on it, it gets bigger. But even the bigger version is not informative. Everything is green, except for a few tiny white portions that are unlabeled. Most seem to be lakes, but some might be non-member countries. Not very helpful to the reader. The reason why the second map appears to be OR or SYNTH is that the person who composed the map did not include the caveats that the UN includes in its map, and so it implicitly invites the reader to draw conclusions from the map about the UN's stand on certain disputed areas. The UN itself seems not to want readers to over-interpret its maps in that way. So by including the map without caveats, Wikipedia is deviating from the source and imposing its own interpretation. In addition, as I said before, the map is a historical map that simplifies history. If the UN chose to do that (that is, publish this map), then fine. But the decision to present a simplified version of the history of UN membership was not the UN's decision or the decision of some other RS, but rather the decision of a Wikipedia editor. NightHeron (talk) 13:06, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@Jayron32: Please compare the historical map about UN membership to the cited source, which is the UN's year-by-year list of admissions of countries to the UN. The list has many footnotes explaining complicated cases. For example, in 1973 both the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (two different countries at the time) were admitted, and in 1990 following reunification of Germany they merged into a single member state. There are other complicated cases, as well (two different Yemens were admitted in 1947 and 1967, and they later merged into a single member state). In contrast, the map misrepresents the source by over-simplifying and introducing glaring inaccuracies. It portrays Germany as a united country that joined the UN between 1960 and 1989. A map-maker and a Wikipedia editor may have felt that this simplification/distortion was acceptable in order to have a visual representation. WP:SYNTH tells us "do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source," such as that a unified Germany joined the UN between 1960-1989. Presumably the UN would not be likely to publish such a map because they wouldn't want readers to have diminished confidence in the factual accuracy and reliability of UN documents. For the same reason, shouldn't the map be removed from Wikipedia? Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 12:03, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

The map doesn't display dates of membership. Only the current status. Former states that no longer exist aren't relevant for this map. It doesn't show that information at all, and isn't trying to, so your point is entirely worthless here.--Jayron32 04:22, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Please don't use insulting language like "worthless" (WP:CIV: "Avoid appearing to ridicule another editor's comment"). I think we might not be talking about the same map. Of the three maps in the article, I've been raising objections to the first (for being unhelpful to readers) and the third (for being inaccurate and misrepresenting the source). The latter map has the countries color-coded according to dates of membership. It shows a map of Germany as it currently exists being admitted in 1960-1989. It's a historical map that inaccurately represents the information contained in the source. NightHeron (talk) 11:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Just tacking on here for good measure. If you are using third party source to create maps for articles, please please please include the source on the file description on Commons (I have now added this). This map is currently used on 22 different projects, and there's nothing to otherwise indicate to a Danish editor that the original citation for the map is on the English Wikipedia, as opposed to 21 other places. GMG^talk 12:38, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Comment - Sorry for this long, rambling attempt at weighing in on the situation, but I'm disappointed with how this entire dispute at the talk page has been handled thus far. I'll be honest in saying that I can't be certain that either Ythlev or Wadaad are approaching this without any biases (in fact I'd suspect that this is an issue of clashing perspectives above all else). Despite how my comments at Talk:United Nations overall leaned more in favor of Ythlev's position than Wadaad's position, I must note that I do not support the exact version as proposed by Ythlev for one glaring issue that I should've noticed sooner: it includes Donetsk and Luhansk. I'm not going to articulate any of my own personal thoughts regarding the status of those entities because this is not the place to have that discussion. The key issue is that it defies the consensus at the Limited recognition article. There are exactly 10 non-member states for which it would be accurate to give the title "de facto independent state with limited international recognition." The consensus is that Donetsk and Luhansk don't belong on that list. See [[File:Limited recognition.png]] for the current consensus on this matter.
Our goal should be to provide as much relevant information as possible without going against the consensuses which regard de facto states. I do think it's relevant that Taiwan is a former member of the United Nations, and I think it's preferable to not simply leave Western Sahara et al as empty or gray, as doing so already displays it in a separate color, so we might as well give an informative key so the readers can know why it's displayed separately. With all of that said, I condemn the comments from Wadaad that suggested that entities can be "too small and irrelevant" to put on the map, and I do not approve of Ythlev's version either. In short, it does look like a feud between WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:ILIKEIT.
I think a lot of the arguments I'm seeing need to be cut out. If you'd like to suggest that it should simply be a map of the United Nations member states and their legally recognized land claims, then that's fine, but in doing so please be consistent. Wadaad changed [[File:United Nations Members (green–grey scheme).svg]] to list Morocco's borders and the SADR's borders separately, but every other state with limited recognition (including Palestine which is an observer and including Taiwan which was once a member) is not displayed as such. Including 1 but not the other 9 is just as problematic as including all 10 plus Donetsk and Luhansk. Just operate based on the existing consensus so we don't get bogged down by side arguments; if you want to change the consensus, do it at Limited recognition, not here or at Talk:United Nations. The "sides" of the disagreement should either be to display none of the non-member states or to display all of the non-member states, not to display some but not all, not to go too far and display ones which aren't even agreed to count as de facto states.
Lastly, to editors other than Wadaad and Ythlev: Yes, Taiwan is a de-facto independent state with limited international recognition. That's not a matter of whether or not it "should" be. This isn't about whether or not it is independent, this is about whether or not it should be displayed on the map. With all due respect to GMG, cut it out with the comparisons to whether or not a city should replace Islamabad as the capital of Pakistan. We already know which countries are and are not states with limited recognition. This has been settled already after years of RS-based discussions at Talk:List of states with limited recognition, and this isn't the place to change that. This is a highly contentious issue that needs to be handled delicately, and the arguments I'm seeing are deeply troubling because they veer off into unrelated arguments that would take us back to square one by having to argue about what countries even are de facto independent states.
Best wishes,  Vanilla  Wizard  💙 21:51, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Side-comment I hope that my ramblings above didn't come off as too harsh or too offensive to anyone. It's probably very visible that I found this entire mess to be very frustrating, but my intent isn't to burn bridges here.  Vanilla  Wizard  💙 22:23, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Does the UN consider Taiwan to be a non-member independent state or does it consider the Taiwanese land to be part of the PRC, another UN member state? --Jayron32 18:21, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The status quo version does not display all borders only as the United Nations recognizes them. I fully accept that the United Nations regards Taiwan as presently being under the sovereignty of the PRC, a current member of the United Nations, and I believe that it's a perfectly legitimate argument that we should simply display all borders only as the United Nations recognizes them, but I am critical of the fact that this argument has been used as a rationale for maintaining the status quo of the map, not to provide a new version of it. All versions of the green-gray scheme (both the original 2016 version & Wadaad's new version) display Western Sahara separate from the rest of the world by presenting it in gray. Whether the previous version, which displayed the whole of the Western Sahara region as being subject to a territorial dispute, or the new version by Wadaad, which displays the de facto borders of the SADR. By displaying it in gray, we are already making a distinction between it and the UN member states. I'm simply suggesting two things: 1) that we be consistent by displaying the other de facto states in the same color as we already display the SADR, and 2) that we provide a color key so the readers can see why we already display them separately.  Vanilla  Wizard  💙 21:25, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

The United Nations does not recognize Taiwan in the same way that it recognizes Western Sahara, so that is a bad analogy. Most relevant here, is that the United Nations, in This resolution, which AFAICT has never been revoked or superceded, recognizes the right of the people of Western Sahara to "self-determination and independence" (their words) in a way that it does not for Taiwan. According to the UN's own recognition, Western Sahara is basically an occupied-but-should-be-independent state, while Taiwan is an integral part of the PRC. Please try again. --Jayron32 16:50, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

while Taiwan is an integral part of the PRC Source? Ythlev (talk) 15:02, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@Vanilla Wizard: So minus Donetsk and Luhansk and it's fine? Ythlev (talk) 12:15, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Ythlev: In my opinion, yes. Minus those two polities, it's fine by my own assessment.  Vanilla  Wizard  💙 17:38, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Comment - The page is about the United Nations, an official organization, with specific members that claim specific territories. This is a crucial aspect of the UN as member-states go to long court battles over what their territory is at the UN recognized International Court of Justice. The map should reflect the norms of international diplomacy (WP:NPOV) and therefore not include unrecognized non-member rebel territories under the jurisdiction of already existing UN member-states as this would clearly violate WP:ADVOCACY, especially not those that are not recognized by any other country on the planet. Wadaad (talk) 15:55, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

As for Vanilla Wizard's claim that the local consensus on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Limited_recognition should apply to the more formal United Nations is absurd and goes against policy WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.Wadaad (talk) 16:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Where in WP:NPOV is it stated that reflecting the norms of international diplomacy is NPOV? Ythlev (talk) 16:59, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Comment - We are both Chinese, there is no difference between us, it’s just fabricated by the western powers. Besides, the whole world recognizes us as one China. Yes, I also agree that other non un regions and Somaliland enjoy barely or none acknowledgment as countries. Lo meiin (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

I am having problem with statement "Contemporary and modern historians have generally regarded Arminius' victory over Varus as "Rome's greatest defeat", in article Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Only source for this statement is Adrian Murdoch and his book Rome's Greatest Defeat.

In my thinking there are 2 problems with that statement:

1) Only Adrian Murdoch is behind that statement (not contemporary and modern historians).

Other historians are for example writing for example:"To understand what took place in 202 at Zama—not the name of the actual locality of the engagement, but the label most easily recognized—and the reasons why the records of the event were presented in the manner in which they have been preserved, it is necessary to go back to 216, the year of the greatest defeat in the history of Roman military power, the battle of Cannae. - Yozan D. Mosig and Imene Belhassen:Revision and Reconstruction of the Battles of Cannae and Zama page 25 University of Nebraska at Kearney. It is clear that different historians are having different opinion about greatest roman defeat.

2) We need to avoid words great, greatest etc in articles Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch Analitikos (talk) 08:51, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

This seems easy enough to solve. Figure out 1) is Adrian Murdoch a person whose opinion is notable (sounds like an author of popular books with that title); 2) if he is, attribute the "great defeat" to him. I'll inform Wikiproject classical Greece and Rome, since they might know about this author.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:43, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

If it is an opinon stated to be "widely held among historians" write "it is widely considered to be _____ among historians". Otherwise just state it is this persons personal opinion. I don't see this as being a big problem to solve.★Trekker (talk) 13:00, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I think it would be fine to say something like, "Adrian Murdoch calls the battle 'Rome's greatest defeat', because...", but there are several other candidates for that title that come to mind for me, and I suspect lots of classical scholars apart from Adrian Murdoch. The Battle of the Allia left Rome completely undefended, and led to the Gauls entering and sacking the city itself, an event not repeated for eight hundred years. The Battle of the Caudine Forks was a total defeat (if barely a battle) in that an entire Roman army was captured without a fight, and forced to go under the yoke, in the most complete humiliation suffered by any Roman force. Perhaps the least convincing of the group, however. The Battle of Cannae would live in Roman history as the most terribly destructive battle to Roman morale, perhaps eclipsing the Battle of the Allia due to its scale and the reputation of Hannibal, with which even Brennus couldn't compete. The Battle of Carrhae was a complete humiliation that forestalled Roman ambitions in the east for decades, and hastened Rome's plunge into civil war; indeed, had Crassus been less than totally defeated, the Civil War might have been forestalled or prevented, and the course of Roman history changed to an extent that a different outcome in the preceding three probably would not have seen. At the Battle of Edessa, an entire Roman army was captured along with the emperor Valerian, who died in captivity. And then we have the Battle of Adrianople (perhaps Ironic that "Adrian" Murdoch didn't consider this), in which the Roman army was slaughtered by the Goths, and the emperor Valens slain, on Roman territory. It's true that Teutoburg Forest was a significant defeat that halted Roman ambitions in Germany, but many other battles helped to determine the course of various campaigns; most unsuccessful campaigns ended following a disastrous defeat (just as successful ones usually followed decisive victories). As long as it's clear that it's just one (or a few) historians who call it this, and we're not lending that claim the "Wikipedia stamp of approval", I think it can be left in the article. P Aculeius (talk) 14:22, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Thought this might be worth adding: there is a tendency in Germany at least to downplay the importance of the Battle of the Teutoberg forest due to the shameless way it was exploited and glorified by German nationalists for hundreds of years (go visit the battlefield in Germany and they barely tell you why it's important in the museum). You could probably find a number of scholars to counter Adrian Reich who say that battle wasn't all that important at all, and, in fact, I would highly suggest that this perspective be added to the article--Ermenrich (talk) 14:30, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

The last sentence of the lede should be corrected. There are way too many citations, which should be included in the text, and the "greatest defeat" thing is probably the publisher's marketing strategist that went too far. I suggest: "Contemporary and modern historians have generally regarded Arminius' victory over Varus as one of the most important defeats in the history of Rome. It stopped its expansion in northern Europe and fixed the Empire's northern border on the Rhine and Danube until its fall, 450 years later." T8612 (talk) 23:23, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

There's also the problem that a number of other battles could be considered as "the worst defeat suffered by the Romans". As P Aculeius notes above, the Battle of the Cremera & the Battle of the Allia were considered such notable defeats by the Romans that they marked the anniversary of both battles as unlucky (nefastus). The Battle of Cannae is believed to have occasioned the worst total loss of life in combat prior to the meat-grinder battles of WW I. And then there is the Battle of Adrianople in 378, considered by Ammianus Marcellinus & others as the day of the army of the Western Roman Empire effectively died. (Ammianus also mentions two other battles as disastrous defeats, at least one of which is not listed here, but I don't have his work as hand as I type this.) At best, the Battle of Teutoberger Wald would be ranked as one of the worst defeats; I would leave it to a more weighty authority than Adrian Murdock to pick which of these was the worst. -- llywrch (talk) 16:33, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I think a "one of" solution is best - it is I suppose the worst defeat of the 1st century/early imperial period, but extra sources would be best for that formulation. Johnbod (talk) 16:39, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

The source from Adrian Murdoch was added by me four years ago.[11] Murdoch is a historian and member of the Royal Historical Society.[12] My initial edit was later substantially changed by Malik047.[13] I agree with the suggestion of Johnbod to change it to "one of". A search on Google Books indicates that the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was indeed one of the worst defeats suffered by the Roman army. Krakkos (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Duplicate discussion

This same issue is being discussed both here and at Talk:Battle of the Teutoburg Forest#Greatest defeat is POV simultaneously. Participants and arguments vary between them unnecessarily. As this appears primarily as a typical article content dispute, should the discussion here be moved to article talk? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 15:33, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, I don't think it ever needed to be brought here, probably a link to the discussion on the article talk at Wikiproject Classical Greece and Rome or maybe Wikiproject Military History would have been enough.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:53, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

What is the limit of ABOUTSELF?

I would like to raise a question that has come up at the Andy Ngo article. Part of the discussion centers around how people describe the subject's political views. We have a number of sources that state Ngo's beliefs are ___. We have at least two sources that are interviews with the subject where Ngo either responds to the claims of others or describes, in approximately one sentence, his own view of the subject.

First question, if 3rd party sources are describing the subject's political views, is it reasonable to include the subject's own claims as to their political views even if those claims are only from interviews rather than widely covered in RS articles (WP:ABOUTSELF related)? If yes, when does this change from a reasonable "aboutself" to self unduly promotional/self serving?

Second question, at what point is a source no longer reliable for an ABOUTSELF claim? My understanding is that in general an interview with the subject can be considered a reliable representation of what they said during that interview. The interview becomes a RS for specific statements made by the subject and thus could be used for ABOUTSELF material.

These are edits I'm interested in reviewing in this context [[14]]. But I would like to have an idea in general as I've seen this sort of thing come up several times though typically in the form of a company/organization's response to accusations made/published in a news story. For instance, a news article comes out questioning a company's actions. Is it reasonable to state the company replied and link to the reply on the company's website etc. Springee (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Generally speaking, a person's own explanation of his or her political beliefs is presumptively a reliable source for the fact that he or she holds those beliefs, irrespective of the medium. You don't need to wait for a reliable third-party source to report what was said in the interview. What constitutes undue self-promotion has to be determined by context: are the subject's political beliefs relevant to the article? Does the manner in which they're expressed suggest undeserved praise, or simply rebut the statements of others? Remember, you can summarize relevant portions of what the subject said, without quoting portions you believe might be self-promoting.

I think that the source would be considered reliable for the fact that the subject said it, so long as there's no substantial doubt as to the authenticity of the interview, or the subject's mental state at the time it was given. These concerns would usually have to be raised by some reliable third-party source, unless the subject himself disavows them. Note that this is different from the statements made in the interview being contradicted by the subject's prior or subsequent statements or actions. It's possible for someone's beliefs to change over time, or for the subject to lie or misrepresent those beliefs. If there's substantial evidence that one of these is the case, then that should also appear in the article.

The fact that a company replies to allegations in the news is relevant, as is the substance of that reply, but it would be better to summarize the company's position than to simply link to the company's statement, which could leave readers with either the impression that we don't credit what the company says, or that we consider its statement sufficiently good to make summarizing it unnecessary. Either way, it suggests to the reader that our viewpoint isn't truly neutral, which is why it would be better to describe the company's reply. P Aculeius (talk) 18:53, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

• I do find it interesting that wikipedia editors seem to have no problem deferring to a subject’s expressions of self-identity when it comes to issues such as religious identity or gender identity, but when it comes to political self-identity... we have more difficulty accepting the subject’s self expression. Blueboar (talk) 19:06, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

This is entirely reasonable. There's no real reason why someone would lie about being Christian, but every reason for them to lie about being a racist, say. There are very few bigots who openly acknowledge their bigotry and most engage in all manner of special pleading to explain wy they are not a bigot really, despite all the bigoted things they say and do. Hence we limit ABOUTSELF where it is robustly contradicted by independent sources. Guy (help!) 20:49, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the view that we generally should allow ABOUTSELF to provide things like their own political beliefs or their opinion of the beliefs etc so long as other RS's broached the subject. I think my views align well with P Aculeius here.

• Non-controversial, basic claims can be stated in Wiki voice absent any reason to question the claim, "Smith was born [date] in [location].[aboutself citation]
• Claims disputed by others but that are closely related to the article/article section are reasonable for inclusion and should be be attributed. "Smith says she is a life long Democrat [aboutself citation] but [sources] say her support is motivated by self interest and has donated to both Democratic and GOP campaigns." In this case it is relevant to the subject that what they say about themselves doesn't align with evidence presented by other sources.
• Response to accusations should be generally OK but with some caution. For example, Smith is accused of being in the pocket of big oil for objecting to a bill aimed at cutting green house emissions. Several RS's say Smith is a GW denier and the article lists several examples where RS's say Smith's actions harmed attempts to curb GW. Smith publishes a reply explaining her position and/or the problems with the accusations made against her. The Wiki article can summarize Smith's response with attribution to Smith and a link to the reply. I do not think this is unreasonable as often the initial claim gets RS coverage but frequently the follow up often does not.

I think in only rare cases would we outright refuse to allow any form of ABOUTSELF reply if reliable aboutself material exists. For example, a terrorist group might publish a manifesto justifying a crime. This is a case where I think unduely self serving is an issue. Another obvious example would be if the material is simply unrelated to any content raised by RSs. So if Smith is notable for her political activities we wouldn't discuss her views on cooking or her upcoming healthy living cook book as this would be self serving (promoting the book) and not related to any of the topics raised by RSs. As a general rule I think we do readers a disservice by trying to keep things like responses to criticism and relevant, self identification type claims out of articles. Wikipedia should simply present the evidence in a neutral fashion and let the readers decide for themselves. Springee (talk) 13:21, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

• The issue with using WP:ABOUTSELF for Ngo's claims about his political position is that they aren't non-controversial by any stretch of the imagination. Ngo was recently recorded collaborating with far-right groups to gain access in exchange for favorable writing. His claims on Joe Rogan's show that he's center-right could represent one of three possibilities:

1. A sincere failure to understand the tenets of centrism.
2. A deliberate mis-characterization of his views to shift the Overton Window.
3. An american political climate so skewed that hanging out with Patriot Prayer is now considered normal behaviour for a centrist.

Furthermore, as addressed at length at article talk, the "but I'm a liberal" defense is an established tactic of far-right figures to deliberately shift the Overton Window. Now Ngo is variously described by multiple reliable sources as falling within the right wing, with some sources calling him "conservative", some calling him "right-wing" and some calling him "far right". Considering that, his claims to centrism seem unfounded at best. And as such, they're . Simonm223 (talk) 13:28, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I would note that WP:ABOUTSELF item 1 is probably the bar that it fails to pass as his claims to the political center could be seen as unduly self-serving. Simonm223 (talk) 13:39, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

It is very strange to have a section about his poltical views but then refuse to include a statement about his view of his political views. Per interviews we had in the article Ngo once said he was center and once said center right. I don't see that there is any controversy over the fact that "he claims to be...". This seems like it treads on NOTCENSORED. Is our intent to inform the readers and let them decide or to protect them from facts that we fear will confuse them? Yes, sources dispute the veracity of his claim but not that he made it. No one claims "Ngo said he is center" isn't true. It's just that many RSs don't agree that he is center. I don't think you have done a reasonable job of explaining why it is unduly self serving to publish that he claims to be center/center right. You could claim it's self serving as he doesn't want to be seen as an extremist but that isn't unduly self serving. In reading through WP_Talk:V and here it seems "unduly" has been reserved for things such as links to fund raising or product promotion. Example, BMW says the new 330 engine has 300hp (not unduly) vs BMW says the engine sets a new standard in smoothness, response and efficiency (unduly). I haven't found a case where people agreed that it was unduly self promotional to say "I think I'm a centrist" when other sources say you are right or left wing. If we say Ngo says he is center-right [sources] and others say he is [far-right] [source] then the readers can decide. Let's give our readers some credit here and let them decide if they agree or not. Springee (talk) 14:06, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

As Simonm223 has pointed out, there is a history and pattern of right-wing and extreme-right-wing individuals trying to misrepresent themselves or their groups in order to shift the Overton Window and make themselves seem more acceptable. Case in point, the marketing gimmickry of having someone like Matt Schlapp call Marine Le Pen a "classical liberal"[15], a title on which Wikipedia has a wonderfully out-of-date-sourced article on the term while missing entirely the modern usage [16].

To give a concrete Wikipedia example: Carl Benjamin aka "Sargon of Akkad" likes to call himself a "classical liberal". Nowhere in his article is this mentioned because his claim is utterly self-serving and devoid of honesty. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 14:56, 16 September 2019 (UTC) Strike per EVADE [17]. Springee (talk) 01:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

So in those cases how are the readers hurt or worse off if the article says, "Benjamin refers to himself as a classical liberal[cite]. Journalist have called him X, Y, Z [cites]"? Are the readers better or worse informed? Springee (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

This is an area where I have seen the FRINGE approach used appropriately. If the bulk of the media reporting on this person have labeled him X (X likely being a more extreme position), but the person considers themselves Y (more centralist/normative), then the statement from the person is included but treated as a FRINGE view. In the above case that would mean you flip the statement around : "Journalists have called Benjamin X, but he considers himself a Y." Gives less weight to the FRINGE view. But that's again, when the bulk of the media shares that. More often, I have seen people cherry pick from three or four sources out of hundreds to say a person is X, which is not making that person's insight a FRINGE view. --Masem (t) 15:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with that. In the article in question the original statement was in that form (RS's say ... but BLP says...). My concern is when we refuse to allow BLP (or organization in some instances) to offer their own take. I just can't see how that makes for a better article. Springee (talk) 15:14, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

If you can't see how making sure we're not repeating abject nonsense or deliberate falsehoods makes for a better article, then maybe there are larger issues with your editing? 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 12:39, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

WP:FOC Springee (talk) 13:09, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Ridiculous response. You're the one insisting you "can't see how that makes for a better article" so I will ask you plainly, @Springee: how does including abject nonsense or deliberate falsehoods improve an article in any way? There's a reason WP:ABOUTSELF specifically disallows unduly self-serving claims.6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 13:43, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

First, it isn't unduly self serving. His reply was in response to those saying he is "far-right" etc. Second, the subject's own POV on the topic offers more information to the reader. The only reason to censor that material, and censoring is what you are suggesting, is to "protect" readers from the material. Wikipedia isn't supposed to vilify or vindicate a subject, rather the purpose is to present the facts. Springee (talk) 13:56, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

That is not an accurate portrayal of the interview in virtually any regard, and you are way off base in trying to suggest that anyone is trying to "vilify" Ngo by presenting the facts as observed by WP:Reliable Sources. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 14:59, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

The wording "4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity" could also be read in regard to the question of whether Ngo is authentically representing his political position, given that outside observers classify him so differently. Maybe that point should be clarified in policy as to if it means that, or merely the question of whether the interview or statement truly happened, though. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 14:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC) Strike per EVADE [18]. Springee (talk) 01:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

That isn't a reasonable reading of #4 in this case. No one has questioned the authenticity of the quote. They have questioned if the quote is true but not that Ngo said it. However, I would support asking these questions at the WP:V talk page to clarify that point. Springee (talk) 14:06, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

While I disagree strongly with Springee about whether item 1 of ABOUTSELF applies, there's no doubt that Ngo made that statement on Rogan; and that is what #4 is about. Simonm223 (talk) 14:29, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

• I posted a question about the intent of ABOUTSELF exception #1 (the one containing no unduly self serving) on the WP:V talk page here [[19]]. I've posted this as an open ended question not linked to this discussion but I mention it here since as clarification there could impact the discussion here. Springee (talk) 14:43, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
• In the broadest terms possible, if you have to ask the question whether something is covered by ABOUTSELF, then it's almost certainly not covered by ABOUTSELF. Everything else is going to be determined by context, and there will be situations where ABOUTSELF cannot apply to what would normally be the must mundane personal details. (Everyone please wish Dolly Parton a happy 27th birthday. May 2020 be as happy as 2019 was.) GMG^talk 14:56, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

See, this is a case where I think it's obvious that ABOUTSELF would apply. Springee (talk) 14:59, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Ngo's entire career has been based around writing attack pieces about figures on the left, falling back on a rhetorical crutch of the reasonable figure at the center. As such, when the majority of sources do not call him center-right, it is unduly self-serving to Ngo for us to give credence to his claims that he's a centrist. And considering his recent, recorded, involvement with the far-right group Patriot Prayer it's also something of an extraordinary claim. As I said above, either Ngo is being dishonest, he's laughably naive to the spectrum of politics outside his echo chamber, or the Overton Window in the United States has shifted so far to the right that hanging out with a group that has been widely described as far-right extremists (Patriot Prayer) is now something we can expect of centrists. In which case, Wikipedia, as a neutral and international source, should be treating pretty much any statement regarding political orientation from the United States as being deeply suspect. Simonm223 (talk) 15:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

If I'm reading this right, part of the RS coverage of Ngo is the fact that he is seemingly duplicity, correct? (I mean, I commented on the bus/hammer thing recently). Even in that case, highlighting his opinion on his political POV to what the media calls him seems a valid point to include, because that's part of his overall notability facets, that he misrepresents where he sits on the political scale. Its not unduly self-serving as long as that is used in context of what the media states, it actually fills out the picture more about how to understand Ngo. --Masem (t) 15:15, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

That is the opposite of how his self-description of his political orientation has historically been used on his page. Simonm223 (talk) 15:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

The material in question was stable and only recently removed. Springee (talk) 15:48, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think any of the sources have accused him of duplicity in his self portrayal of his political views. In most cases the source simply says he is a ____ journalist (or similar). They don't mention his view nor dive into why they feel their description is actually correct. Springee (talk) 15:48, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Except for we have a whole RfC on his duplicity and your position on that is rather controversial to say the least. And that's excluding all these sources that call him a grifter, troll or provocateur. Simonm223 (talk) 15:59, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Simon is correct here. If you have to have a lengthy (good faith) debate about whether the information is controversial, then the information is ipso facto controversial. This kindof thing happens all the time. For example, we regularly use ABOUTSELF content to support birth dates, up until there is serious question raised about whether the person is manipulating their birth date for self-serving reasons, which is not uncommon for at least female celebrities in the western world, obsessed with youthfulness as we tend to be. GMG^talk 16:13, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

There is a catch, Simonm223, I believe is referring to my comments as to if we should call Ngo a journalist, writer, right-wing writer, etc. Also, I largely disagree that if others are saying "Ngo's politics are X" that we should censor Ngo's own statements on the subject. Simonm223, alludes to my concern that a number of the sources are clearly unsympathetic to the general view expressed by Ngo and are often assuming the worst when assigning motives to his actions. That's not a great way to build a really neutral article. It's also apparent those views aren't universal. Either way, we get back to my unanswered question, how does this hurt the reader/article? Springee (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I think you might want to consider that part of the reason so many disparate sources are hostile toward Ngo isn't part of some grand leftist conspiracy to smear the man; it's just that's how he's generally seen. Simonm223 (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I think there is a difference between the tone of a number of these articles, even the ones that aren't flattering of Ngo. Your claim of "grand leftist conspiracy" is a poor summary of my position. If that is what you read out of my words we have had a clear failure to communicate. Springee (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Here is how you get to what you want, since at least two of those sources (media matters and second Rolling Stone) support it. The Media Matters article has this critical line Many mainstream media outlets simply identified Ngo as an “independent journalist” or a “conservative journalist,” lending legitimacy to his narrative while ignoring his long record of credibility issues. So what you should be doing in the article to combine all this is to say something like: Many journalists and analysts call Ngo as far-right troll or provacateur for these reasons. These sources have said that Ngo tries to appear legitimate by appearing more centralist with his reporting; Ngo called himself "center-right" on the Joe Rogan show in July 2019, and his writings have some outlets calling him a "conservative journalist". As a result, his writings tend to try to make the views and actions of the far-right seem more acceptable. or something along those lines. Put the political facet in a broader section about Views or Controversy or something like that. You can get to the points that are being made if you don't try to separate the politics from his writings. Boom, you have his stance (so that we're neutral on that facet) but in context that many do not believe it and that it has been used to dupe some sources. --Masem (t) 16:19, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

This is probably a good way forward. It's better than just restoring the removed content (which had been stable in the article) Springee (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

• I would definitely say that if third-party RSes have started on the questions of a person's political views, that this has been deemed appropriate to include in the article on that person in the first place, and the person has stated (ideally in an RS, but even if in an BLPSPS) that they actually hold a contrary view specifically in response to the RSes, it is reasonable to include a brief attributable statement to contrast what the RSes have said. This is not "unduly" (the key word at play) because it is being added in specific response to what others have said about that person, and not an unsolicited statement of their view, and balances the NPOV around a BLP. The only exceptions that would be made for this are general biographical elements, which is self-identity of sexual orientation, gender identity, and faith/religion, where unsoliciated statements by the BLP can be used without being unduly. --Masem (t) 15:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

The problem with your response (I'm guessing you have not reviewed the actual source before) is that Ngo's claims are not situated in that way and are not "specifically in response to the RSes", @Masem: but most of the time rather are self-serving, in that they are Ngo attempting to describe himself as "center" or "center-right" to legitimize the slant he places on his journalism. And the Rogan transcript is even more clearly not a qualifying response, the answer was prompted by Rogan[20] asking "If people feel like right-wing people are being attacked and I don't think you're even right wing are you? I mean what are what we just what would if you had a gun to your head or a mace to your face what would you, would you say you're a centrist?" 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 15:19, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

If we are talking about the Joe Rogan statement he made, given that was made in July 2019 which after his major "coverage" in the media from the May + June events, it is reasonable, knowing Joe Rogan's format, that the the question was asked in response to how the rest of the media was covering Ngo. If that statement was in 2016, before he really was a figure in the news, that would be unsolicated. But in the midst of the 2019 events? Clearly the question was selected in response to the media's portrayal of him, and thus his statement was not solicited and thus reasonable to include. (Perhaps "solicited" is the wrong word here, but key is that there was a reasonable driving factor that Ngo stated what his political position was due to external events about him.) --Masem (t) 15:27, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

To add, this is not stating that we have to treat Ngo's statement as fact or even non-FRINGE-y. Must still be attributed, and still be given less UNDUE weight than the main sources that put him at conservative/alt-right. --Masem (t) 15:29, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

The fundamental problem is still that Ngo attempts to describe himself as "center" or "center-right" to legitimize the slant he places on his journalism. It's self-serving in the same way that Fox News, undeniably right-wing and well documented to have been created for the purposes of right-wing advocacy[21], used the disingenuous slogans "fair and balanced" and "we report. you decide". The Rogan quote is the same way - not only is the answer prompted by the host, but the context is in attempting to establish Ngo as somehow uninvolved and an innocent victim, framing him as a "centrist" reporting on "far left militancy" (term used about a minute later) rather than - oh I don't know - someone who we have now found out embeds himself with violent groups like Patriot Prayer in return for giving them favorable coverage? That's what makes it unduly self-serving, by far. It's not just "he calls himself a centrist or center-right, but every news organization that's analyzed it places him firmly conservative/right-wing if not extreme right", but that he uses his own claim of being "center" to move the Overton Window and paint his targets as being "far left" while trying to paint the groups he embeds with as closer to center. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 15:38, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

You have ascribed a motive to the discrepancy between various RS's (not all would disagree with Ngo's self assessment BTW) and Ngo's own statements. If you want to imply the motive is deception you would need a source. Currently we have no evidence he doesn't believe his view. Springee (talk) 15:44, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

This (I had a reply, but this is more succinct). 6Years' analysis is on the money, but it is OR on a BLP, which is 100% not allowed. --Masem (t) 15:48, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

You're getting it backwards. This is not something I would write into the article, that would indeed be impermissible WP:OR. It is the analysis as to why Ngo's statements violate clause 1 of WP:ABOUTSELF in being self-serving and therefore under policy cannot be included either. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 15:53, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

It's fair to put in that light to consider the statement self-serving but I don't know if I would use that to say it was unduly self-service, given that we are talking about a person that is the subject of negative media coverage and that we have NPOV as policy. We're supposed to be impartial on BLPs, and so trying to ascribe motive to why he said that while he was in the middle of all this negative media coverage (even if that seems a spot on analysis) to determine whether to include or not is not really appropriate. Attribution as has been done here keeps Wikiepdia out of trying to decide if he is being honest or not here. --Masem (t) 15:59, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

@Masem: Given the first sentence, what would it take for you to agree that something was unduly self-serving? Where do you put the goalposts? We have a situation where the interviewee is being directly prompted for the "correct" answer for the audience, but the prompting was chopped off the front of the quotation that was added to the article here on Wikipedia. Not exactly neutral in that sense either, is it? 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 23:24, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I pointed out elsewhere in this that if that interview was taken alone and no other context, it would be unduly self-serving, but in context of the events from May onward that Ngo has been involved with, the question was clearly prompted from what external media was saying about Ngo, so the question and his reply are not unduly in this case - there's a good reason it was asked, even if we are considering the answer to be dubious as to fit what the audience for the Joe Rogan show would be. Is there a clear goal-line here? No, so each case has to be considered by consensus, but there is reasonable allowance for cases like this. --Masem (t) 23:46, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

That seems to be a Catch-22. Because on the one hand, if he were stating it under an "alone and no other context" situation, you say it would be INadmissible (but he'd have no standing reason to be self-serving), but the very circumstances that make it highly suspect and self-serving you then claim make it admissible. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 01:28, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Let me put this in another context. There was a running candidate (name I forget) that had come up on the boards because editors wanted to include her political positions which (prior to a point) were not be reported on by any RSes, nor anyone discussed her political positions. To include her positions from her own writings or comments would be unduly self-serving because no one talked about it, thus they are "unsolicited" (I wish there was a better word but I hope the meaning I'm trying to get across is recognized with that). It would be the same with Ngo if this same interview was years earlier, where he might have just barely been notable and without any controversy around him, it would be unduly at that point. But now that he is a figure embroiled in a controversy around how he presented himself/his writings to a certain audience, and we have sources that have a made a point about his political position, it is now fully acceptable (and sorta required by BLP) to include, with attribution and with reasonable due weight (a sentence, not a paragraph) relative to the press coverage.

Another issue I'm readily between the lines here is a point I've stressed on other boards: WP articles on BLPs embroiled in controversies should not be seen as scarlet letters or walls of shame. As editors, we should not be trying to figure out Ngo's motives, but report as neutrally as possible as presented by the sources. I recognize there is little love of Ngo here on WP (for completely fair purposes), but that does not give us any reason to throw proper BLP adherence to the side. Ngo is not going to have a whitewashed article, it is clear that he is disliked by the press, but we still can stay impartial and just report the facts, which in a case like this, is letting Ngo explain his stance, even if the media strongly disbelieves that. --Masem (t) 04:01, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

But you still haven't addressed the Catch-22 problem. If he were "just barely notable and without any controversy", you claim it would be undue, but it would also be unnecessary and meaningless because his political positions would be essentially irrelevant. But when he has the MOST incentive to falsely portray his position in a self-serving way, suddenly it's not undue? That's amazingly backwards. As JzG stated, "Hence we limit ABOUTSELF where it is robustly contradicted by independent sources", i.e. where there is every incentive for the subject to falsely portray themselves. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 04:25, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

We as editors cannot care if Ngo was in a position to be dubious about reporting his political view, only that he stated something about his political view in the midst of controversy around his political view. We can let the sources talk about the duplicity, but we can't be doing that as editors -when we do, we lose impartiality. As to "robustly contradicted" here, there are not that many sources that are sufficiently about Ngo to be considered that "robustly". That is, I talked about when someone's own self-statement can be taken as FRINGE, and that's when nearly all the sources about the person state one thing against what the person says. You definitely have a few here for Ngo, but not enough to apply FRINGE. --Masem (t) 04:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

See my frustration lies in that the same group of editors who has most vehemently pushed to include Ngo's self-reported political persuasion are the ones who have most aggressively pushed to avoid the article reporting on his duplicity. My concern is that, in this climate, what you're asking us to do is effectively impossible; the editors who believe we must report Ngo's beliefs have also claimed that the sources that call him a huckster, provocateur and propagandist don't count. Simonm223 (talk) 11:56, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

@Masem: you keep trying to flip the argument and it's starting to seem like you're not even listening. When you argue "We can let the sources talk about the duplicity, but we can't be doing that as editors -when we do, we lose impartiality. ", you are trying to make a claim about inclusion. But the criteria for WP:ABOUTSELF are clear that the self-serving statement should NOT be included. Let the WP:RSs talk about his position and place his position in the political spectrum appropriately, and leave the "unduly self-serving" (Point 1 of WP:ABOUTSELF) item out of the article, especially as it's not in a WP:RS to begin with. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 12:17, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok, look here's some examples of what I'm talking about. In this dif, Springee argues against the use of the Daily Beast and Mother Jones as sources. Both are critical of Ngo. [22]. In this edit, Springee strangely calls sources critical of Ngo "reactionary" and argues against inclusion in favour of more anodyne mentions in Washington Post and the New York Times [23] in this dif, Springee calls Vice and Huffington Post tabloids to argue against inclusion [24]. So this is the challenge we've been facing in specific. Springee, and a small group of editors who hold negative POVs on antifascists, have vigorously fought the inclusion of any source that says anything critical of Ngo. This is on top of explicit resistance to inclusion of anything calling a statement by Ngo false at this RfC. So while I'm trying very hard to assume good faith about Springee's requests on multiple noticeboards, they have not provided a complete picture. If we could easily situate Ngo's comments in context, this wouldn't be an issue. But Springee has been instrumental in keeping any context off the page that might make Ngo seem anything other than an heroic truth-teller. Simonm223 (talk) 12:53, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Please stick to the topic at hand. Taking snippets of my arguments here may misrepresent my arguments. Springee (talk) 13:09, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

This is entirely relevant to your discussion, because my concern that I'm expressing to Masem is that while I certainly recognize and respect his position, what he's recommending as a course of action has been actively blocked. By you. In the difs I presented, in which you argued against the use of any source that spoke unkindly of Ngo. Simonm223 (talk) 13:46, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

That is not the argument I made. I did not say we should not use sources that "spoke unkindly of Ngo". If you wish to debate that point, please do it at the article talk page. Springee (talk) 13:58, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

This is directly relevant to this question. Masem has proposed a solution. Before I agree to it I need some assurance that the solution is workable. And your resistance to the use of these sources is the principal impediment to implementing this solution. So please answer the question. Are you going to keep calling sources critical of Ngo tabloids? Simonm223 (talk) 14:01, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

"May misrepresent"? This is getting ridiculous. No, Simonm223 did not misrepresent your arguments at any point here, Springee. And he is especially correct that you have filibustered and blockaded against any source that says something you don't like. It's very revealing that you use phrasing like "the duplicity POV" to describe accurate coverage with WP:Reliable Sources. 6YearsTillRetirement (talk) 14:07, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

This is a rather circular argument. The other side is those who want to keep Ngo's ABOUTSELF out are those who are pushing the hardest to promote the duplicity POV. Springee (talk) 13:09, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from but I believe I'm arguing from the NPOV side here. That it, I agree with the assessment that from the view of what Ngo's trying to do with that comment from the Rogan show is clearly self-servicing and knowing his duplicity, likely unduly self-serving. But, from NPOV, we try to cover all sides of a controversy, though without creating a false balance. Moreso when a BLP is at the center of a controversy (as Ngo) is. A statement from that BLP that directly applies to the controversy that refutes or counters statements made about them is in no such way unduly in that context, from the standpoint of WP's neutrality and impartiality. To put that in a different context, lets say there is another person charged with some behavior from the past (something out of #metoo); those allegations will get wide coverage as we've seen, and nearly always either the person admits to them, or they refute them. The logic that is being used here is that a person's refuting those allegations is "unduly" self-serving because it is clearly trying to present themselves as innocent. But we would 100% include the person's statement because it is a BLP and we are expected to be neutral and impartial - in that context, the statement is not "unduly self-serving" because it is standard practice for editing Wikipedia and not something we are going out of our way to include to better serve that individual. That's the context here - it's not whether or not the statement is excessively supportive of the person, but whether it is excessive within context of its use in the WP article. That's why I've stressed we cannot be looking to Ngo's motives here to decide if the statement should be include, only the context, which in this case is in the middle of a controversy around Ngo. --Masem (t) 13:54, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

So then I'd ask this question of Springee: are they going to continue to resist the inclusion of sources that are critical of Ngo? Because for us to do that, we need to be able to make use of Vice, Jacobin, the Daily Dot, the Huffington Post, etc. without spending weeks on article talk discussing whether they're tabloids. Simonm223 (talk) 13:57, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

• There is a similar situation happening at Talk:Richard Stallman#Marvin Minsky and pedophilia where what someone says is Stallman's position is allowed, but Stallman himself denying it is claimed to be not allowed Quote: "Putting Stallman's defense of himself directly from his blog is, now that I've read it, a clear violation of WP:BLPSELFPUB because it is transparently self-serving." Didn't we go through this with Hillary Clinton, with some editors claiming that we can include what others say about her email server but we can't include her response to the accusations? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:17, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

That's where I think we need clarity on the word "unduly" in ABOUTSELF, and why I suggested something along the lines of that when a self-made statement is in response to something ("solicited" but maybe not the best word) that is directly about their person, that does not make their self-statement statement "unduly". We definitely do not want unwarranted promotion or the like. We also must consider how outing one's sexual preferrences or gender identity may be seen as self-serving to some, but we include those without question. There is a proper limit, but it is nuanced. --Masem (t) 15:34, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't think there is any dispute about what Ngo's political views are, but which term is most appropriate. Sara Diamond explains that from the 1950s these views were described as extreme right or radical right, but the propents called themselves conservative. She uses the term right-wing.[25] I think first it is important that the article correctly convey to the reader what Ngo's ideology is. I believe that the term right-wing does that, since the term is normally used to describe people to the right of the mainstream Right (Bush/McCain/Romney Republicans, Cameron/May conservatives, Merkel Christian Democrats), who are more often referred to as center-right. Conservative is misleading because it is usually used as a synonym for center-right.

And no, we don't use someone's self-description, because reliable secondary sources don't. Vladimir Putin is not called a conservative, Silvio Berlusconi is not called a liberal and Tony Blair is not called a democratic socialist in their articles. And Bernie Sanders article says he "is a self-described democratic socialist," before quoting a number of unnoteworthy op-eds saying he isn't.

TFD (talk) 19:33, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Putin: Putin has promoted explicitly conservative policies in social, cultural and political matters, both at home and abroad. Putin has attacked globalism and neo-liberalism and is identified by scholars with Russian conservatism.

Berlusconi: Berlusconi defines himself as moderate,[165] liberal, and a free trader,[166] but he is often accused of being a populist and a conservative.

Blair: Blair rarely applies such labels to himself, but he promised before the 1997 election that New Labour would govern "from the radical centre", and according to one lifelong Labour Party member, has always described himself as a social democrat.[111] However, at least one left-wing commentator has said that Blair is to the right of centre.

Note that we are very clear that these are self-identified labels, not in Wikivoice. That's the correct way to do that. --Masem (t) 19:42, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Well said. I think the same principle is the answer on the Stallman page. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:20, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

• Most people are quite bad at describing their own ideologies. Its not like describing your date or birth. Even if we see Ngo as trustworthy on this topic (and that's questionable) he may not have given a whole lot of thought to his self-description in that interview. At best, it might be acceptable to say something along the lines of "person X describes themselves as BLANK", but even then, editors should be careful to avoid cherry-picking. In nearly all cases, characterizations that show up in reliable secondary sources should be given more weight, and we should avoid elaborating too much when a person's self description are potentially misleading, incoherent, or fringe-y. If a self-description is notable enough for the lead, it will probably be picked up by an RS. Nblund ^talk 20:00, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
• I completely agree with Masem’s take on all of this. Well argued. Blueboar (talk) 20:10, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

They are reliable for what they claim (I.E. "Bert Terrible has said he is a seven day wonder"), not for it being true. Many people are not honest about their politics.Slatersteven (talk) 16:04, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Please do not comment on users or their actions, if you think any user has canvased report it at wp:ani, please do not discus it here.Slatersteven (talk) 14:59, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

1. Springee - Why did you ask for an opinion and then argue with anyone who responded? What does crossed out text mean? Thanks. Eschoryii (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Steve Rothman

Wasn't sure whether to post here or COIN, but more eyes on Steve Rothman are needed. I have started a talk page discussion there. It is one of the stranger biographies I've run across on Wikipedia and appears to have been substantially created by the article subject. Marquardtika (talk) 20:05, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• @Marquardtika: It is rather unique. I don't think I have ever seen an article so heavily and obviously edited by those close to him -- if not Mr. Rothman himself. Looking at it further. It needs to be trimmed quite significantly in my book. -- Dolotta (talk) 01:44, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this @Dolotta: it looks much improved! Marquardtika (talk) 02:38, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

RfC on including content about illegal fetal tissue dealers

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_2015_undercover_videos_controversy#/talk/8

I'd love some comments on this. Maybe I misunderstand the Wikipedia policies, but at least some of the content seems relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Natemup (talk • contribs) 16:22, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Courtesy link: Talk:Planned_Parenthood_2015_undercover_videos_controversy#RfC_on_content_concerning_an_investigation/settlement Poveglia (talk) 06:43, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

@Natemup: Please read WP:CANVASSING. It says: "Notifications must be polite, neutrally worded with a neutral title, clear in presentation, and brief" and "at least some of the content seems relevant" doesn't seem very neutral to me. Just so you know for next time. Poveglia (talk) 17:29, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Jason Jessee

I am hoping to find better sources than these:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59q343/skateboarding-icon-jason-jessee-is-under-fire-for-use-of-swastikas-and-racist-remarks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZfRX6IMPCA

Do we include stuff like this? Should we?

Poveglia (talk) 06:41, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

YouTube? no!Slatersteven (talk) 08:59, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I was unclear, the "Do we include stuff like this? Should we?" is specifically referring to the nazi shit; not those sources. I am sure better ones can be found. I am not sure if we should include this information. I don't know anything about the person, but it seems (based on very very little information) like he moved on and regrets his past (but of course quite a few of the people we write about do, and some of those articles do include negative information about something that happened in the past). And if so, how should we describe something like that? Poveglia (talk) 09:07, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

If better ones can be found yes it should be included, it a serious allegation. AS to how to describe it "There has been a controversy over alleged racist and homophobic remarks and and the appearance of racist symbols in early interviews with him"Slatersteven (talk) 09:35, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure that “controversy” is the right word. A controversy needs two sides and, so far, the coverage of this has been fairly one sided. Perhaps “condemnation”? Blueboar (talk) 11:49, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Good point; the companies that severed their ties with him condemned his "views". Poveglia (talk) 13:10, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Has he denied it?Slatersteven (talk) 10:34, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality of repetitive prefacing of the word "allegedly" when discussing war crimes

Just seeking clarification on whether overtly prefacing an alleged massacre with the words "alleged" creates NPOV. The event is already mentioned as having alleged to have occurred in the initial sentence of the article, and edits have inserted continually, that it was alleged including multiple times in the same sentence.

Article: Bình An/Tây Vinh massacre Edit here [26]:

Previous version:

The Bình An / Tây Vinh massacre (Korean: 타이빈 양민 학살 사건) was a series of massacres alleged to have been conducted by the ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army between February 12, 1966 and March 17, 1966 of 1,200 unarmed citizens in the Go Dai village and other areas in the rural commune of Bình An/ Tây Vinh area, Tây Sơn District of Bình Định Province in South Vietnam.The massacre was reported' to have occurred over the course of three weeks, in which 1,004-1,200 civilians were massacred. Like other massacres occurring throughout the region, the targets were primarily women, children, elderly men and infants. They were conducted as part of Operation Maeng Ho which formed a part of Operation Masher, and were reported as "enemy KIA" and occurred alongside separate massacres in the region possibly totalling 1,600 people.

New Version

The Bình An / Tây Vinh massacre (Korean: 타이빈 양민 학살 사건) was a series of massacres alleged to have been conducted by the ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army between February 12, 1966 and March 17, 1966 of 1,200 unarmed citizens in the Go Dai village and other areas in the rural commune of Bình An/ Tây Vinh area, Tây Sơn District of Bình Định Province in South Vietnam. The massacre was reported to have occurred over the course of three weeks, in which 1,004-1,200 civilians were allegedly massacred, primarily women, children, elderly men and infants. They were conducted as part of Operation Maeng Ho which formed a part of Operation Masher, and were reported as "enemy KIA".

Previous NPOV edits by the user has been raised by others, including here [27].

frankly I am unsure about both versions. We should not over use alleged, nor should we put contested claims in our voice.Slatersteven (talk) 08:54, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I have opened an SPI here: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/A bicyclette as I believe that Deogyusan is a sock of A bicyclette who pushed a particular POV regarding the Vietnam War and particularly real and alleged massacres. Bình An/Tây Vinh massacre was a page reinstated by A bicyclette after having previously been deleted for lack of WP:RS which Deogyusan has somehow come upon today in their 2nd burst of activity since opening their account. The objection to referring to massacres as being alleged or purported was repeatedly argued by A bicyclette and his socks, such as 116.106.89.77 here: [28] and as I noted on the Talk Page on 5 July 2018 Talk:Bình An/Tây Vinh massacre#Restored, but no more WP:RS provided, there is good reason to question what went on at Bình An/Tây Vinh and certainly not enough to say that a massacre took place there. Mztourist (talk) 09:02, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you have engaged this issue with several users, as well as other users as shown here [29] and here [30]. The issue in all instances isn't whether it occurred or not, wikipedia isn't the place for this. The issue is whether the phrasing that you introduced introduces NPOV descriptions Deogyusan (talk) 10:03, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Not several users, the same user and his multiple socks. Mztourist (talk) 10:31, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Deogyusan has been blocked as another sock of User:A bicyclette, accordingly I believe this can be closed. Mztourist (talk) 03:25, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Burgeoning coat rack article: No-go area

• No-go area (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Here we have an article that is ostensibly about a topic that is both hotly contested and poorly-defined. This is a recipe for disaster. The article's lede section puts forth some plausible definitions for a "no-go area" and the body of the article proceeds to violate that definition six ways from Sunday. Can we somehow agree to limit this article's scope to something reasonable? The recent incidents in Poland are informative: some local governments have declared their territories should be free of a certain ideology. Does that constitute a "no-go area" as defined in this article? At least two WP:RS provided have cited a Tweet containing this claim. Are political Tweets competent to define "no-go areas" sufficiently for inclusion in this article? I am not sure. Elizium23 (talk) 21:10, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

José Filomeno dos Santos

José Filomeno dos Santos needs a lot of help, since there are definite spin problems, and the sources, which are in English, don't really back up the text. I have made a few changes but would welcome the assistance of other editors. Elinruby (talk) 06:36, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Jesuit topics written by a Jesuit

Hello, it appears that user talk engagement will not be effective, so I will bring it to a wider audience. @Jzsj: I must say that your recent patterns of editing have raised some concern in my mind. I have seen a distinct bias of adding Jesuit-friendly sources such as America (magazine) and promoting Jesuit theologians and Jesuit-written articles. (Not to mention the coincidence of Pope Francis being the first Jesuit Pope.) And it's not merely promoting the Society's views, you're removing substantial contrasting views at the same time. You've drastically overhauled Sacrament of Penance — along with a proposed name change to match — and now you've removed some well-substantiated criticism of Jesuit vocations from Society of Jesus because it was in a 'conservative' periodical (and apparently because you wish parity for the removal of an unsubstantiated peek 15 years into the future?)

Regardless of whether you have an actual conflict of interest due to your membership in the Society of Jesus and an ordained representative of the Catholic Church, it would be good to see some good-faith adherence to neutrality in your selections of source material, your reflections of the myriad of perspectives on doctrine and belief in the Church, rather than gradually making Wikipedia as Jesuit as possible, which is what I see taking shape here now with your edits in the past few weeks. Elizium23 (talk) 01:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

User:Jzsj replied on my user talk page: Please be specific about which edits you think are inappropriate. It is not helpful when you refer to "reverts" that don't exist. If you don't think my additions or references are helpful then let's discuss them one-by-one, as we did here. I tried to explain why my original contribution was correct, and your criticism of it was ill-founded, and responded to your criticism by making changes, which didn't please you. But the original sources that I inserted (not my "synthesis" but The New Yorker's) might have warranted your restoral of my first version. You kept making inaccurate statements: most unhelpful! And as to my "drastically overhaul[ing]" the Sacrament of Penance, note the call for this on the talk page: "The history section of this article needs improvement to describe more clearly what was new in various centuries." I then offered to do it 17 May 2017 and no one objected. So I undertook it just now, along with shortening of the verbose lede that the talk page called for. Give me some credit! ... and be assured of my readiness to yield to your wisdom and experience where it is manifest. And shouldn't you open an Rfc if we have an honest disagreement on content matters? Jzsj (talk) 01:11, 29 September 2019 (UTC) Elizium23 (talk) 01:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

• I stand by what you've quoted in the third paragraph. Now I must mention inaccuracies in your first paragraph. I have no intention of "removing substantial contrasting views" and it has never been my practice. Please give references to where you claim to find this. My extensive improvements to Sacrament of Penance were a rare effort of mine to respond to multiple calls for work on an article that was overly verbose and very short on references. I'd invite specific criticism of my arduous effort to record the history there, simply for accuracy and backed up by very reliable sources. Your "well-substantiated criticism of Jesuit vocations" gives no facts on the number of vocations (which I have just added), 28 novices taking vows for the US and Haiti in 2019. You'd have to compare this with the religious congregations that are getting no vocations before giving an objective opinion whether there is any "Francis effect" that vocation directors can most reliably report on. Jzsj (talk) 01:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

There is no requirement for sources to be neutral and in fact most academic sources are not. TFD (talk) 16:15, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

• I hope this section will result in more eyes on Jzsj's editing. He is an SPA for Jesuit-related subjects and IMO a problematic user, see his block log. The latest block listed there, three months for repeated topic ban violations, expired as recently as 24 September. (For his topic ban, see this ANI thread.) It's fairly alarming to see him already brought to a noticeboard for tendentious editing a mere five days after this lengthy block expired, and I have to agree with Elizium23 that this edit to Society of Jesus is downright promotion. I have myself engaged with him on his talkpage, such as here in March this year, but it gets fairly exhausting, since I'm no kind of expert on Catholicism, let alone on the Society of Jesus. Bishonen | talk 16:38, 3 October 2019 (UTC).

There's been a lot of loose talk about "Jesuit-related" articles and "Jesuit views" etc, but most of the articles mentioned above, such as Notre Dame Cristo Rey High School (run by nuns), Sacrament of Penance and George Pell are just Catholic topics, not Jesuit ones. I don't really see that "this edit to Society of Jesus is downright promotion" at all - in a long article the trend in membership of the order (a much-discussed topic with all types of Catholic clergy) seems something that should obviously be covered. Elizium23 seems also to be a Catholic, but from the conservative wing of the church, with an anti-Jesuit bee in his bonnet, if not quite as strong a one as the duc de Saint-Simon and some other Catholic figures. Johnbod (talk) 16:47, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

A Course in Miracles

[31] seems like WP:SOAP. Please chime in. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:25, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I could see this as a valid edit. One would need to be rather well versed in A Course of Miracles writings to have a working understanding of what books could add to the article. It would possibly help everyone involved to discuss on talk which books could be reasonably incorporated into the prose of the article in some way, and which candidates best serve the readers in a further reading section. Gleeanon409 (talk) 12:02, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

There are about 10-20 books written by a variety of ACIM students/teachers over the last 50 years. I have tried to add these to the article. I thought it would be helpful to readers. Nirvana2013 (talk) 12:24, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

No WP:FRIND WP:SOURCES in order to WP:Verify your claims. You have given absolutely no reason for why we should have that list of books instead of any other random list of books on the subject. Perhaps you know why, but we don't, since we cannot examine your WP:RS for such information. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:28, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Nirvana2013, the long-term quality of the article could be improved with talking about the more important books on the subject that have been penned, as noted in reliable sources. Anything in the Further Reading section is disposable, just like most external links.

Finding the connections to the best of those books through reliable sources and documenting it all in the article will actually help the readers. Gleeanon409 (talk) 12:37, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Agreed Gleeanon409 that would improve the article. I don't have time just now to make the necessary edits but I would propose a reading list is a good first step. All the books can be verified as being related to ACIM by a quick Google search. Nirvana2013 (talk) 16:04, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Bible POV

I have recently come across several pages reflecting what I would consider a systemic POV problem, regarding Biblical authorship. For example, "Today scholars are virtually unanimous in rejecting Mosaic authorship of the Torah" (Composition of the Torah), and, "It is generally accepted that the Book of Daniel is a product of the mid-2nd century bc" (Daniel 7). Surely countless Biblical scholars would disagree. Whether these scholars are correct is not the point (and not an argument I'd care to get involved in), merely that the expressed views are hardly unanimous. It baffles me that anyone would maintain otherwise.

So far, the examples I've noticed are in C-class or lower articles. The Torah article (B-class), in contrast, claims: "Rabbinic tradition's understanding is that all of the teachings found in the Torah ... were written down by Moses ... The majority of Biblical scholars believe that the written books were a product of the Babylonian captivity (c. 6th century BCE), based on earlier written sources and oral traditions, and that it was completed with final revisions during the post-Exilic period (c. 5th century BCE)." It is at least plausible (and presumably supported by sources) that this is a majority view, and therefore a reasonable statement. (Heck, it even leaves open the possibility that Moses authored some of those earlier written sources.)

I do not ask that authors change their content, merely that they respect NPOV and avoid weasel words. I have discovered, however, that some militantly disagree. I hope a consensus here might resolve this issue. See also: WP:FTN#Daniel 7. –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 19:20, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Addendum: Since my original post, I discovered another example where attribution is left out altogether, and the majority view is simply stated as fact (Book of Daniel). 15:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

The statement about Mosaic authorship of the Torah is correct unless you include WP:FRINGE sources, which we don't. Many scholars don't even believe that Moses existed. If there is a bias here it is toward academic sources. Both statements you mention are sourced as well. There is no bias problem here.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:33, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I believe your statement of policy regarding WP:FRINGE sources is overly simplistic. According to WP:DUE, WP:FRINGE/PS, and WP:RS, non-majority (a.k.a. fringe) views should be represented, albeit without attributing equal validity, so long as they are held by a significant minority of scholars, and are within the realm of scientific discourse (my paraphrase, but accurate, I think). This is the case we are talking about here.

Just because a statement cites a source doesn't mean it's sourced, in the sense of verifiable. For the statement, "Today scholars are virtually unanimous in rejecting Mosaic authorship of the Torah," its linked source states, "There is a consensus among modern biblical scholars that the present text of the Bible is the final product in a long evolution..." This is a much more modest (and plausible) statement in terms of both acceptance ("consensus" vs. "virtually unanimous") and content (it does not reject the possibility that Moses was part of that evolution). I do not have easy access to the other source, but I would wager it, too, makes a more measured claim.

To be clear, I am not challenging the reliability of the sources or their theories, nor would I have the credentials to do so. I am challenging the (understandable) tendency of Wikipedia articles to exaggerate the degree of scholarly acceptance beyond what the sources, themselves, attest; or to misrepresent the theories, themselves, as in the above case. –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 15:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Your 2 quotes says basically the same thing, since "Rabbinic tradition" is a theological position, not a scholarly one (for a certain value of "scholarly"). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: One quote says, "[Biblical] scholars are virtually unanimous...", and the other says, "The majority of Biblical scholars believe..." You maintain those are basically the same thing?

As for the definition of "scholarly", I'm assuming the criteria in WP:SCHOLAR. Do you have a different one? –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 15:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Collapsed quotes on pseudohistory and academic bias

Robert Todd Carroll has developed a list of criteria to identify pseudo-historic works. He states that: "Pseudohistory is purported history which: Treats myths, legends, sagas and similar literature as literal truth — Pseudohistory Modern Bible scholarship/scholars (MBS) assumes that: • The Bible is a collection of books like any others: created and put together by normal (i.e. fallible) human beings; • The Bible is often inconsistent because it derives from sources (written and oral) that do not always agree; individual biblical books grow over time, are multilayered; • The Bible is to be interpreted in its context: ✦ Individual biblical books take shape in historical contexts; the Bible is a document of its time; ✦ Biblical verses are to be interpreted in context; ✦ The "original" or contextual meaning is to be prized above all others; • The Bible is an ideologically-driven text (collection of texts). It is not "objective" or neutral about any of the topics that it treats. Its historical books are not "historical" in our sense. ✦ "hermeneutics of suspicion"; ✦ Consequently MBS often reject the alleged "facts" of the Bible (e.g. was Abraham a real person? Did the Israelites leave Egypt in a mighty Exodus? Was Solomon the king of a mighty empire?); ✦ MBS do not assess its moral or theological truth claims, and if they do, they do so from a humanist perspective; ★ The Bible contains many ideas/laws that we moderns find offensive; • The authority of the Bible is for MBS a historical artifact; it does derive from any ontological status as the revealed word of God; — Beardsley Ruml, Shaye J.D. Cohen's Lecture Notes: INTRO TO THE HEBREW BIBLE @ Harvard (BAS website) (78 pages) Thank you for your views. Wikipedia has a strong bias in favor of academic sources for history. That is how it should be. If archaeology says Beersheba was founded 6000 years ago and the bible says it was founded 4000 years ago, archaeology wins. Zerotalk 13:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

To sum up: fideist scholars from fideist universities and seminaries, who only publish in fideist journals are WP:FRINGE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:24, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu, are you citing Wikpedia policy, or is that your personal opinion? In either case, see above discussion of WP:FRINGE. (I am curious which universities and journals you consider fideist, though. Is Oxford one of them?)

As for what you pasted above (or your more recent comment, for that matter), I don't see anything relevant to the discussion, or anything I'd particularly disagree with. Please clarify if I am missing something. (I presume you're aware that lecture notes do not meet the Wikipedia standard for reliable source.) –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 15:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

The question here is one of DUE WEIGHT for views that do not agree with scholarly consensus. For widely held (but minority) views, DUE weight can mean we mention the view, but don’t go into details. However, for extremely fringe views, DUE weight means we don’t mention the view at all. So... what we need to determine in this case is: where on the scale of “fringeness” does a particular view fall. Blueboar (talk) 15:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I concur (although that's not the only question, more below). –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 20:34, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Blue Hoopy Frood: My argument was: biblical inerrancy is WP:FRINGE in WP:MAINSTREAM Bible WP:SCHOLARSHIP. By default, the historical method does not allow for inerrant sources. If from Ivy Plus to state universities and from mainline Protestant to Catholic seminaries all scholars toe the line that the Bible is errant, it is pseudohistory to affirm that the Bible is inerrant.

Collapsed quotes on Bible scholarship

::::Ehrman, Bart (2010). "A Historical Assault on Faith". Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). HarperCollins e-books. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9780061173943. My hunch is that the majority of students coming into their first year of seminary training do not know what to expect from courses on the Bible. ... Most students expect these courses to be taught from a more or less pious perspective, showing them how, as future pastors, to take the Bible and make it applicable to people's lives in their weekly sermons. Such students are in for a rude awakening. Mainline Protestant seminaries in this country are notorious for challenging students' cherished beliefs about the Bible—even if these cherished beliefs are simply a warm and fuzzy sense that the Bible is a wonderful guide to faith and practice, to be treated with reverence and piety. These seminaries teach serious, hard-core Bible scholarship. They don't pander to piety. They are taught by scholars who are familiar with what German- and English-speaking scholarship has been saying about the Bible over the past three hundred years. ... The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the "historical-critical" method. It is completely different from the "devotional" approach to the Bible one learns in church. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2002) [2001]. "Epilogue. The Future of Biblical Israel". The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and The Origin of Its Sacred Texts (First Touchstone Edition 2002 ed.). New York: Touchstone. p. 318. ISBN 978-0-684-86913-1. It was only when the Hebrew Bible began to be dissected and studied in isolation from its powerful function in community life that theologians and biblical scholars began to demand of it something that it was not. From the eighteenth century, in the Enlightenment quest for thoroughly accurate, verifiable history, the historical factuality of the Bible became — as it remains — a matter of bitter debate. Realizing that a seven-day creation and spontaneous miracles could not be satisfactorily explained by science and reason, the scholars began to pick and choose what they found to be "historical" in the Bible and what they did not. Theories arose about the various sources contained in the text of the Bible, and archaeologists argued over the evidence that proved or disproved the historical reliability of a given biblical passage. Yet the Bible's integrity and, in fact, its historicity, do not depend on dutiful historical "proof" of any of its particular events or personalities... {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

Miracles (including genuine prophecy) have been purged from history since the Enlightenment. Some editors are unaware that proclaiming that miracles do happen is pseudohistory (yes, this includes the claim that the Book of Daniel is a 6th century BCE writing). Conclusion: dating it to the 6th century BCE is WP:FRINGE/PS. Oh, yes, Shaye J.D. Cohen has been recorded on vimeo.com by Beardsley Ruml. You could check the first video of the series in order to WP:Verify the above claims. Cohen's course is here: "Free Hebrew Bible Course with Shaye Cohen". Biblical Archaeology Society. 28 February 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2019. (On the background you will see chunks of the above quote.) Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:05, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: Thank you for the detailed references. I'm still puzzled, though. How does any of this relate to the topic? I've said nothing regarding inerrancy, miracles, or the historicity of the Bible. (BTW, thank you for introducing me to {{Re}}.) –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 20:34, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

If this is about biblical inerrancy... then Tgeorgescue is correct. That is a very Fringe theory. If about something else, we would need to examine in more detail (please supply specifics). Blueboar (talk) 19:23, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I introduced this topic with examples of people exaggerating claims of consensus. If someone says, "Scholars are unanimous about X" (or nearly unanimous, or split 74-26), they should be able to back the claim up with sources. If they cannot, they should limit themselves to assertions that sources do support. –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 20:34, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

To clarify, of course people slip up, and I don't mean to align such authors. Corrections of such errors should be simple, painless, and expected. –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 20:42, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

IMHO, Blue Hoopy Frood conflates WP:NPOV with false balance. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:43, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: Is that a personal attack? If not, please clarify. I am, indeed, new to these terms. –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 20:34, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

The term scholar in this context refers to people whose publish articles in scholarly journals and write textbooks. They are unanimous that the Torah was not written by Moses, hence the article should mention this. we mention the fringe view that the Torah is literally true, since we are writing about religious literature, but cannot say that this view has any acceptance among scholars. I don't see why you would have a problem with that. It could be that Moses really did part the Red Sea, but historians lack the competence to accept that. But that's a discussion for religious sites, not encyclopedia articles. TFD (talk) 19:53, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: "The term scholar in this context refers to people whose publish articles in scholarly journals and write textbooks. They are unanimous that the Torah was not written by Moses..." That's a bold statement. Can you back it up? –Blue Hoopy Frood ^(talk) 20:34, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Blue Hoopy Frood: Wikipedia isn't a substitute for adult education. You might read WP:CIR, previously it had a sub-section for bias-based incompetence of editing according to WP:RULES. I think that your bias for biblical inerrancy turns you into a POV-pusher for WP:FRINGE WP:POV. And no, this isn't a personal attack. It is simply obvious to the rest of competent editors that you cannot edit neutrally on biblical topics, see e.g. what ජපස wrote at WP:FTN. In the future please avoid baseless claims of personal attacks. It is not a personal attack that you are a fringe POV-pusher as long as it is manifest that you push frige POVs, such as biblical inerrancy.

Collapsed quotes on POV-pushing

:::: Wikipedia is not an advertising billboard. Just because members of the MGTOW community don't like this article doesn't mean it's biased. Wikipedia is designed to be written from a neutral point of view, not a promotional point of view. In the case of fringe opinions, such as MGTOW, Flat Earth Society, etc., the proponents of such opinions are as a rule never satisfied with the consensus version of the article. That doesn't mean Wikipedia should completely avoid covering such topics. FiredanceThroughTheNight (talk) 03:12, 31 December 2015 (UTC) @Proveallthings: I did overlook Stephen Miller's reasoning, and I did it intentionally. And it's because me and you are attempting to do two different things right now. You're attempting to use evidence to find what is true. I'm attempting to survey the literature to find out what most scholars say about this particular question. That's because Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of truth, but a service for summarizing what the scholarly community says. If we were here to discover what is true together on the Wikipedia talk pages, then you would be doing what is right (marshalling the linguistic arguments), and I would be doing something wrong (just quoting a bunch of authorities and pointing out that "your side" here consists only of people with a particular theological set of commitments). So let me be clear. I'm not saying you're wrong about "father". You, and Kenneth Kitchen, might be right. I'm just saying that, in terms of the way Wikipedia weighs sources, Kenneth Kitchen's opinion is out on the fringes in the scholarly world. Alephb (talk) 21:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC) HiLo, saying that someone has a POV or even that their editing with a POV is not a personal attack. At least not in general. Volunteer Marek 00:30, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:52, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Blue Hoopy Frood, there's no need to repeat what I wrote. I am quite able to remember what I wrote. It is quite simple to find sources that no scholars support the view that Moses wrote the Torah. But since you claim the statement is false and want to change the article, it is up to you to find a source that says otherwise. TFD (talk) 21:08, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Collapsed quotes on Daniel, dating (history), Moses and historiography

:John J. Collins stated: The history of Daniel’s influence has been chronicled by Klaus Koch, who has also noted the decline of that influence in modern times. Since the Enlightenment, scholars have increasingly come to view the book not as a reliable guide to history, past or future, but as a collection of imaginative tales and visions that reflect the fears and hopes of beleaguered Jews in the Hellenistic period. In fact, this change of academic perspective was hard won — one need only think of the Fundamentalist crisis that divided American Protestantism at the beginning of the twentieth Century. In academic circles, that crisis is generally viewed as having ended in the defeat of the Fundamentalists. Robert Dick Wilson, one of the scholars who consequently left Princeton Theological Seminary to found the more conservative Westminster Seminary, has been called “the last great defender of Daniel’s traditional authorship.” Fundamentalist readings of Daniel continue to flourish in the popular culture, as can be seen from the best-selling writings of Hal Lindsey, and conservative scholars have continued to fight rear-guard actions in defence of the reliability of the book. In mainline scholarship, however, the great issues that made Daniel the focus of controversy for centuries were laid to rest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A broad consensus on several key issues has existed since then. It is agreed that Daniel is pseudepigraphic: the stories in chapters 1-6 are legendary in character, and the visions in chapters 7-12 were composed by persons unknown in the Maccabean era. The stories are almost certainly older than the visions, but the book itself was put together shortly after the Maccabean crisis. It must be read, then, as a witness to the religiosity of that time, not as a prophecy of western political history or of the eschatological future. Bart Ehrman stated: This isn’t simply the approach of “liberal” Bible professors. It’s the way historians always date sources. If you find a letter written on paper that is obviously 300 years old or so, and the author says something about the “United States” — then you know it was written after the Revolutionary War. So too if you find an ancient document that describes the destruction of Jerusalem, then you know it was written after 70 CE. It’s not rocket science! But it’s also not “liberal.” It’s simply how history is done. If someone wants to invent other rules, they’re the ones who are begging questions! John Van Seters and Israel Finkelstein from Bible Unearthed Discoveries of Old versions of the bible) on YouTube stated: but what about Moses himself surely there must be some evidence for this most famous Old Testament hero perhaps the most famous of all Old Testament figures even if there's no evidence of the exodus they must surely be some record of a leader as important as him the name Moses is a name which is very popular from early periods right down into late periods so it's a fairly common Egyptian name that's that's all that we can say there is no text in which we can identify this Moses or that Moses as the Moses the question of the historicity of Moses is the same as the question of the historicity of Abraham that is to say maybe there was a figure maybe there was a leader I am NOT here to undermined historicity of Moses I think that it is possible but I would say it's beyond recovery Neil Asher Silberman stated: what we're doing is just continuing a struggle a scholarly struggle that's been going on for a hundred years the boundary just now happens to be in the story of the Israelites and the Israelite Kingdom and it's moving forward slowly to separate religious literature and spirituality from what we call history.

Quoted by Tgeorgescu. Oh, yes, clarify: WP:FALSEBALANCE. These being said, he is a man with a plan: he wants to make Wikipedia inerrantist-friendly, as it is manifest at User:Blue Hoopy Frood#Bible scholarship and POV. His method is casting doubt upon WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP by giving it equal validity with the inerrantist fringe (aka Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing).

Collapsed quote on WP:SPADE
:: I'd say that your statement of [y]our demand that all content on Talk pages complies with NPOV is absurd is what's actually absurd. I would also suggest that calling what you're doing "POV pushing" is, in fact, accurate, since that's exactly what you're doing. If you don't like being called a POV-pusher, don't push a POV. ... --Calton — [[User: Talk 03:36, 18 November 2018 (UTC)]]

Quoted by Tgeorgescu. I also note that here the OP replied always civil, but repeatedly failed to address the arguments of his opponents, namely that giving equal validity to mainstream academic learning and fringe fideism is prohibited by WP:PAGs. His behavior is described by WP:RGW. As Collins stated, fundamentalists lost in the academia (more than a century ago and still very much ongoing). Wikipedia sides with the mainstream academia, therefore fundamentalists lost inside Wikipedia. WP:CHOPSY don't teach fringe fideistic views as true, objective facts. So why should Wikipedia teach those as such?

Collapsed quote about inerrantist nonsense
I think we have to avoid extremes. The minimalists would make out of the Bible a pious fraud and I think that's going much, much too far. On the other hand, if we try as moderns to read the Bible literally in the way fundamentalists do, we make nonsense of it. I would try to avoid both of those extremes. — William G. Dever, Lateline. It Ain't Necessarily So

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:37, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Whatever you are doing, Tgeorgescu, it is very confusing. I have tried to clean up your quotes of other users with the {{talk quote}} template. Your formatting and overall spamming of these quotes renders the page nearly unreadable. —DIYeditor (talk) 16:50, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm honestly surprised to see this talk page tornado come from a Wikipedia user of 16 years. The way you pasted quotes of other users made it look like many more people were talking in this thread than actually were, among other formatting and indentation problems not solely attributable to you. What did you hope to accomplish by this barrage of ill-formatted quotes? Sorry to have to say something but it is some of the most ham-fisted talk page editing I have seen. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I have collapsed the quotes. The role of the quotes was proving that inerrantist dating of the Book of Daniel and Torah, and inerrantism itself are WP:FRINGE and that it is ok to WP:SPADE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:19, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, it helps with readability. No disagreement from me on inerrantist or any similar interpretations of the bible being extreme fringe. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:35, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Yup, the recipe is historical method + holy book = blasphemy. Some people didn't get the memo. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Gas van

The issued have already been discussed in June 2018 under Talk:Gas_van#Soviet_vans with and Talk:Gas van#Soviet Union section.

I am concerned with NPOV issues, WP:UNDUE and WP:PROPORTION in particular, in this version[32] of the article.

According entries in standard encyclopedias of the Holocaust like Bartrop, Paul R. (2017). "Gas Vans". In Paul R. Bartrop; Michael Dickerman (eds.). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 234–235: "Gas vans were used by the Nazis to murder Jews and other prisoners through asphyxiation by carbon monoxide. As such a gas van was equipped a mobile gas chamber.” (p. 234). As other scholars have put it “the gas van is a product of the Third Reich, whose origin is traced back to 1939.” (Patrick Montague, Chelmno and the Holocaust, 2012, p. 199) In his standard work on the origins of the Holocaust Henry Friedlander wrote: “For this purpose [killing patients in numerous Wartheland hospitals in 1940], a kind of mobile gas chamber had been invented. We do not know the inventor, but the KTI [Kriminaltechnisches Institut] was probably involved.” (The Origins of Nazi Genocide, 1995, p. 139) None of this scholarship does make any mention of Soviet gas vans.

In 1990 the Russian journalist Evgeny Zhirnov was shown an investigative file on Isay Berg, section chief in the Moscow NKVD who had been tasked with the preparation of the Butovo firing range for the mass execution of people from greater Moscow. Berg was to ensure that these executions occurred without interruption. In this file were transcripts of an investigation against Berg from 1938 and a reopened investigation in 1956. According to some of these documents Berg devised an airtight van in which prisoners were gassed with exhaust fumes during their transport to Butova. Zhirnov published about this in the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya pravda in October 1990. Yevgenia Albats referred to that story in her book KGB (1995) drawing a direct line between Soviet and Nazi gas vans. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn picked up this story in his infamous book Two Hundred Years Together, emphasizing that Berg was Jewish and noting that Berg “created the infamous “gas wagon” which later brought so much affliction on the Jews themselves”.

As for the other historians being cited, Catherine Merridale and Timothy Colton, they also rely upon Zhirnov’s 1990 article, but both do not link any Soviet gas van to the Nazi gas vans. Merridale speaks about the varius methods of killing employed by the NKVD, stating: “One policeman. Isai D. Berg, gassed some of his prisoners to death...” Timothy Colton devotes one sentence in his 900+ pages book to this: “Isai D. Berg, a cutthroat section chief in the Moscow NKVD, ginned up a gas chamber (dushegubka) on wheels, an airtight lorry camouflaged as a bread van that suffocated internees with engine fumes on the drive out to Butovo.” (p. 286) Futher citations in the Wikipedia article are to Russian newspapers, including another, more recent article by Evgeny Zhirnov.

I am concerned that one minor aspect in the history of gas vans is overemphasized. In fact, based upon highly opinionated sources like Albats and Solzhenitsyn Wikipedia contradicts the whole body of scholarship on gas vans being used during WWII (cited above). Source is heaped upon source, many referring to the same 1990 article, to create the impression, that the topic of Soviet gas vans is well researched and established, which it isn’t. I put some of the sources under review at the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#An eyewitness account. I may note that the notion of gas vans being a Soviet “invention” has become a staple of Holocaust denial.

I proposed this version [33] which treats the Soviet gas vans as a separate entity and according to their overall significance in a brief section. Thereby I mainly relied upon scholarly sources.----Assayer (talk) 15:48, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• Reply. This is mostly about section "Soviet Union" here. Here is the essence of the disagreement. In this series of edits, Assayer did the following.
• First, Assayer removed claims made by the following several RS, together with RS themselves:

1. Yevgenia Albats, KGB: The State Within a State. 1995, page 101. This is a book by a well known political scientist and a notable expert of KGB/NKVD subjects
2. The man in the leather apron (Russian), by Nikita Petrov, Novaya Gazeta, an article by well known mainstream historian Nikita Petrov published in Novaya Gazeta
3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Two Hundred Years Together (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, ISBN 5-85887-151-8, p. 297. - Claims by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel Prize winner for writing on the history of NKVD and Gulag. Note that the included information (as in this edit) is on the subject of NKVD repressions. It has absolutely nothing to do with Jews or with Berg being Jewish.
4. Александр ЛИПКОВ, "Я к вам травою прорасту…", Alexander Lipkov, Kontinent, N 123, 2005., a secondary RS published in Kontinent
5. On the way to the place of their execution, the convicts were poisoned with gas (Russian), by Yevgeniy Zhirnov, Kommersant, a secondary RS published in Kommersant

• Second, Assayer placed the events related to the usage of gas vans not in chronological order, but in such order to minimize the significance of the gas van usage in the Soviet Union.
• Third, Assayer excluded any mention of the Soviet vans from the lead [34], even though there is a section about Soviet gas vans on the page.

"According entries in standard encyclopedias of the Holocaust...". Yes, sure. The Soviet gas vans were not a part of the Holocaust. Only Nazi gas vans were.

The description/"story" in the 4th and 5th paragraphs of the statement by Assayer (staring from "In 1990 the Russian journalist Evgeny Zhirnov") is original research/synthesis by Assayer. For example, there is no any reason or sources to assume that the claims in books by Albats and Solzhenitsyn were based exclusively on a publication in the tabloid, even if they used it as one of references ([...]). None of these books directly quotes the article in Komsomolskaya Pravda. Instead, the experts tell their own views (Albats: Owning to the shortage of executioners, Chekists used trucks that were camouflaged as bread vans as mobile death chambers. Yes, the very same machinery made notorious by the Nazis - yes, these trucks were originally a Soviet invention, in use years before the ovens of the Auschwitz were built). We are not in the business of speculating how exactly experts or historians on the subject came to their conclusions. We simply say what RS (their books) say.

• The NPOV-based solution is to include all significant views published in RS, such as claims cited by Assayer in the beginning of this thread, along with RS he wants to exclude, as I suggested on talk [35]. My very best wishes (talk) 16:34, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
• "It has absolutely nothing to do with Jews or with Berg being Jewish." How can anyone say that when the entire subject of the book is Jews in Russia? GPRamirez5 (talk) 10:33, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

This is also being discussed at RSN. As I mentioned there, the story is briefly mention in at least one rs, and traces to a 1990 article in Komsomolskay Pravda, which frequently publishes anti-Semitic material. But the vast majority of literature about Stalin's murders, and all the books by the leading experts, ignore it entirely. TFD (talk) 14:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

"vast majority of literature about Stalin's murders" does not mention it. Yes, sure, because this is a low-significance "local" subject, i.e. something related to delivery and execution of a small (presumably) part of prisoners specifically at the Butovo firing range. We can only use sources that tell something on the subject (of the soviet vans), but can not use sources which tell nothing on the subject. You say "Komsomolskaya Pravda frequently publishes anti-Semitic material". Said who? Sources? I did not see any such materials in this newspaper. And even if it does, it was not used on the page and not among RS listed just above. My very best wishes (talk) 20:40, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Assayer wrote:
"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn picked up this story in his infamous book Two Hundred Years Together, emphasizing that Berg was Jewish and noting that Berg “created the infamous “gas wagon” which later brought so much affliction on the Jews themselves”. ... I am concerned that one minor aspect in the history of gas vans is overemphasized. In fact, based upon highly opinionated sources like Albats and Solzhenitsyn Wikipedia contradicts the whole body of scholarship on gas vans being used during WWII (cited above)."

1. Solzhenitsyn and his book, "Two Hundred Years Together" faced, and were defended against, accusations of antisemitism. That may be seen in the articles on those subjects, though they are slanted towards the criticisms. For examples of outside source see [36],[37], [38] and [39]. The descriptive adjectives used by Assayer, infamous and opinionated, are biased.
2. The description of the brief mention of Berg in "Two Hundred Years Ago" is inaccurate and misleading. The mention is in a passage about the reaction of Jewish emigrants: "Who would have guessed during the fiery 1920s that after the enfeeblement and downfall of that “beautiful” (i.e., Communist) regime in Russia, those Jews, who themselves had suffered much from communism, who seemingly cursed it and ran away from it, would curse and kick not communism, but Russia itself – blast her from Israel and from Europe, and from across the ocean!?" Solzhenitsyn goes on to say that ex-citizens of the Soviet Union, Russian and Jewish, both need to share contrition for what happened in the Soviet Union: "We, brothers or strangers, need to share that responsibility. It would have been cleanest and healthiest to exchange contrition for everything committed." He writes: "I will not stop calling the Russians to do that." He goes on: "And I am inviting the Jews to do the same. To repent not for Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev; they are known and anyway can be brushed aside, “they were not real Jews!” Instead, I invite Jews to look honestly into the oppressive depths of the early Soviet system, at all those “invisible” characters such as Isai Davidovich Berg, who created the infamous “gas wagon” which later brought so much affliction on the Jews themselves, and I call on them to look honestly on those many much more obscure bureaucrats who had pushed papers in the Soviet apparatus, and who had never appeared in light." Solzhenitsyn is calling on Jews to share in the act of contrition by not concentrating on major figures such as Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, but minor ones. As an example of a minor figure he names Berg. Berg's Jewishness is not being emphasised as Assayer claimed.
3. The history of the use of the gas van in the Soviet Union was probably unknown to historians of the Nazi Holocaust. It is not surprising that what they wrote has been contradicted.
4. Assayer writes about the "whole body of scholarship on gas vans being used during WWII." The Germans first investigated the viability of euthanasia in late 1936 or early 1937. The committee responsible was re-activated just before the start of the war, when the compulsory registration of severely malformed children was required. Within weeks of the invasion of Poland, German special task forces massacred 13,000 inmates of asylums and clinics in annexed areas there, using shooting or converted removal vans rquipped with bottled carbon monoxide. Afterwards the euthanasia programme for adults extended back into Germany itself. Poison injections were used first, then static and mobile gas chambers. So, gas vans were first used on the Nazi's original euthanasia victims, the mentally and physically handicapped.

    ←   ZScarpia   21:59, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@ZScarpia: I do not understand why did you conclude that Berg's ethnicity was not being emphasised. Honestly, if Berg's ethnicity was not emphasised, then what was the reason to mention his name? Just imagine his name was Ivan Ivanivuch Ivanov - that would have made mentioning of the gas van story absolutely pointless. In reality, as many sources correctly noted, all those ethnic Jews mentioned by Solzhenitsyn broke all connections to their Jewish ethnicity. They all self-identified themselves as Soviet citizens, and even the very pointing at their ethnic origin is a manifestation of antisemitism.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:30, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Would it help if I quoted the whole passage from Two Hundred Years Together? The context is that the necessity of everyone showing contrition is being written about. On the Jewish side, Solzhenityn says that it is not the acts of major, well-known characters who should be looked at, but those of minor characters. As an example of a minor character, he gives Berg. Assayer implies that Solzhenitsyn is writing about the vans and pointing out that its developer was Jewish, whereas it is the other way around, Solzhenitsyn picks out Berg as an example of a minor Jewish character involved in Soviet oppression and then identifies his role.     ←   ZScarpia   22:46, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

From "Two Hundred Years Together":

"Two Hundred Years Together": Quote 01

Who would have guessed during the fiery 1920s that after the enfeeblement and downfall of that “beautiful” (i.e., Communist) regime in Russia, those Jews, who themselves had suffered much from communism, who seemingly cursed it and ran away from it, would curse and kick not communism, but Russia itself – blast her from Israel and from Europe, and from across the ocean!? There are so many, such confident voices ready to judge Russia’s many crimes and failings, her inexhaustible guilt towards the Jews – and they so sincerely believe this guilt to be inexhaustible – almost all of them believe it! Meanwhile, their own people are coyly cleared of any responsibility for their participation in Cheka shootings, for sinking the barges and their doomed human cargo in the White and Caspian seas, for their role in collectivization, the Ukrainian famine and in all the abominations of the Soviet administration, for their talented zeal in brainwashing the “natives.” This is not contrition. We, brothers or strangers, need to share that responsibility. It would have been cleanest and healthiest to exchange contrition for everything committed. I will not stop calling the Russians to do that. And I am inviting the Jews to do the same. To repent not for Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev; they are known and anyway can be brushed aside, “they were not real Jews!” Instead, I invite Jews to look honestly into the oppressive depths of the early Soviet system, at all those “invisible” characters such as Isai Davidovich Berg, who created the infamous “gas wagon” which later brought so much affliction on the Jews themselves, and I call on them to look honestly on those many much more obscure bureaucrats who had pushed papers in the Soviet apparatus, and who had never appeared in light.

"Two Hundred Years Together": Quote 02

Among the major communist functionaries who perished in 1937-38, the Jews comprise an enormous percentage. ... Nowadays entire directories, containing lists of the highest officials of the Central Apparatus of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD who fell during the Ezhov’s period of executions and repressions, are published. There we see many more Jewish names. But only accidentally, thanks to the still unbridled glasnost that began in the beginning of the 1990s, we learn about several mysterious biographies formerly shrouded in secrecy. ... And from the astonishing disclosure in 1990 we learned that the famous mobile gas chambers were invented, as it turns out, not by Hitler during the World War II, but in the Soviet NKVD in 1937 by Isai Davidovich Berg, the head of the administrative and maintenance section of the NKVD of Moscow Oblast (sure, he was not alone in that enterprise, but he organized the whole business). This is why it is also important to know who occupied middle-level posts. It turns out, that I.D. Berg was entrusted with carrying out the sentences of the “troika” of the NKVD of Moscow Oblast; he dutifully performed his mission, which involved shuttling prisoners to the execution place. But when three “troikas” began to work simultaneously in the Moscow Oblast, the executioners became unable to cope with the sheer number of executions. Then they invented a time-saving method: the victims were stripped naked, tied, mouths plugged, and thrown into a closed truck, outwardly disguised as a bread truck. On the road the exhaust fumes were redirected into the prisoner-carrying compartment, and by the time the van arrived to the burial ditch, the prisoners were “ready.” (Well, Berg himself was shot in 1939, not for those evil deeds, of course, but for “the anti-Soviet conspiracy”. In 1956 he was rehabilitated without any problem, though the story of his murderous invention was kept preserved and protected in the records of his case and only recently discovered by journalists) Sources: G.V. Kostirchenko. Taynaya politika Stalina: Vlast i antisemitizm [Stalin’s Secret Policy: Power and Anti-semitism]. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnie otnosheniya [International Relations], 2001, p. 210. E. Zhirnov. “Protsedura kazni nosila omerzitelniy kharakter” [A Horrible Execution] // Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 28, 1990, p. 2.

    ←   ZScarpia   22:57, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@ZScarpia: You are still not understanding. The very fact that Solzhenitsyn divides people on "us" (Russians) and "you" (Jews) is antisemitism. Why he is calling "Russians" and "Jews" separately? I think the analogy to this situation would be when some American writer of WASP origin would called "White Americans" to repent for something, and then addressed separately to Americans of Italian or Jewish origin.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:45, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I suspect that Russian is being used in the ethnic sense. See the Ethnic groups in Russia article, where Russian and Jewish are two of 186 designated ethnicities in Russia, with Russians forming 78% of the population. For comparison, there are articles on ethnicity and ethnic groups in the United States here and here.     ←   ZScarpia   08:29, 7 October 2019 (UTC)   [Apologies if I've sidetracked the discussion at great length to little useful purpose]

No, you by no means sidetracked it. Just imaging if some American writer proposed some American ethnic group (e.g. Italians, Jews or Chinese) to repent for something?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:02, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

"The very fact that Solzhenitsyn divides people on Russians and Jews is antisemitism". No. Subjects like History of the Jews in Russia are completely legitimate and not antisemitism. My very best wishes (talk) 15:09, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

• This is just ridiculous. Someone with a family name "Berg" can be 100% ethnic Russian or 100% ethnic Armenian or whoever. But regardless, the ethnicity of the subject is completely irrelevant because the included text does not say anything about his ethnicity: [40]. Even if we had a page about him like on ruwiki (see ru:Берг, Исай Давидович), his ethnicity would still be irrelevant and should not appear on the page per MOS:ETHNICITY. My very best wishes (talk) 23:17, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• "Assayer implies that Solzhenitsyn is writing about the vans and pointing out that its developer was Jewish, whereas it is the other way around, Solzhenitsyn picks out Berg as an example of a minor Jewish character involved in Soviet oppression and then identifies his role" This is a distinction without a difference. Either way, Solzhenitsyn is invoking Berg because he is Jewish. The longer passage only demonstrates that Solzhenitsyn is implying collective Jewish responsibility for the gas vans.GPRamirez5 (talk) 23:19, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Are you saying that the claim of collective Jewish responsibility should be included on the page? I do not think it should be included, and it was never included on the page per WP:FRINGE. The included claim was about gas vans used by the NKVD. That one is a "majority [of sources on the the subject of soviet gas vans] view" or just a matter of fact. My very best wishes (talk) 00:12, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

That Solzhenitsyn implies Jewish responsibility for the gas vans and calls for their collective repentance, makes him WP:FRINGE even by your logic, doesn't it? Even the large majority of reaearch on the Great Purge does not mention gas vans. You cannot assess the significance of a Soviet gas van by confining yourself merely on sources on the the subject of soviet gas vans. This is not only about Soviet gas vans, and the implicit equation of Soviet and Nazi gas vans which is misleading. I am reminded of WP:FLAT, since I have been subject of personalisation and of reversed burden of proof, whereas the definition of RS is being stretched.--Assayer (talk) 19:40, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think this specific claim is fringe. But it does not make the entire book "fringe". It can be cited as an attributed opinion by Solzenitsyn even on the subject of Jewish history, although I would rather not do it. And it is definitely an RS of the subject of NKVD repressions. Consider another famous Nobel Prize winner as an example: would the racial views by James Watson disqualify his books in Molecular Biology? Of course not. My very best wishes (talk) 21:23, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Some comments:

• Though, on the surface, the issues look fairly simple, it has swelled so enormously, with huge amounts of reading, that it's really too complicated to deal with at the NPOV noticeboard. It needs mediation if anything. I think it would be better to return this to the article's talkpage.
• From what I can make out, it looks likely that one gas van was used in the Moscow area in the late 30s, preceding their use by the Germans, in undetermined but probably small numbers, from the latter part of 1939. The question of the "invention" of gas vans was a contentious issue. I'm not sure whether it still is. "Invention" can be a fairly ambiguous term and is often used inaccurately. Things can be "invented" independently in different places and "re-invented" in time. We can say that the earliest reports of the use of what we might term a gas van were in the Soviet Union. However, the assumption in the Russian sources that the Soviet use of a gas van had any affect on their use in the German's euthanasia programmes appears extremely tenuous, with no supporting evidence. We can say that there are sources that say that the gas van was "invented" by the Nazis, but, in the sense of where they were first used, that appears incorrect.
• The original publication of details of the Soviet gas van was in an article titled "A Horrible Execution" by E. Zhirnov in the 28 October 1990 issue of Komsomolskaya Pravda. Besides Solzhenitsyn, authors who have subsequently mentioned it have been Yevgenia Albats, Robert Gellately, Catherine Merridale and Timothy J. Colton. Something I'm unsure about is whether the subsequent writings have added any extra information to what was known or whether they have just been repeating what Zhirnov wrote.
• Has consideration been given to starting child articles, one for the German use of gas vans and another for the Soviet's? Perhaps that might help to solve the current dispute?
• I think we all agree that "Two Hundred Years Together" isn't a great historical source. As far as I can see, Solzhenitsyn repeats gas van material from only one source, Zhirnov. Would it be true to say that the only reason we're referring to "Two Hundred Years Together" is because Zhirnov's Komsomolskaya Pravda article is unobtainable?
• Solzhenitsyn and "Two Hundred Years Together" have had their detractors and defenders. The way both have been described, including in the introduction, has been from a very non-neutral, negative point-of-view. The problem that stems from that for me is that I have no confidence that anything else written is fair or accurate. It's also evident that a very skewed interpretation is being put on what Solzhenitsyn wrote. Hopefully, since he appears to be merely repeating Zhirnov, we will be able to bypass referring to "Two Hundred Years Together". Editing in contentious areas means allowing "the other side" to use authors or sources you don't like in order to detail other viewpoints. I've had to put up with the use of authors I've considered liars, propagandists, charlatans, bigots, chauvinists, racists, fanatics or extremists many times, so I don't really appreciate other editors blocking the use of authors for point-of-view reasons or insisting on describing them in a non-neutral way.

    ←   ZScarpia   22:39, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

• No, the issue is indeed very simple. We are on NPOVNB, so let's just follow WP:NPOV. If a book about KGB by notable expert on this subject (e.g. Albats) tell something, we include this claim to the page. If another RS claims something, we include it too. Note that all sources tell essentially the same; the differences are only in details. IMy very best wishes (talk) 23:41, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

in my previous comment, there are a number of points I've asked for clarification of or more details on. It would help me if that was provided.     ←   ZScarpia   00:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Sure:

1. The article by Zhirnov was published in Kommersant in 2009, not in Komsomol'skaya Pravda in 1990 (see refs above, Журнал "Коммерсантъ Власть" №44 от 09.11.2009, стр. 56). Let's forget about Komsomol'skaya Pravda, we do not need this source, I can not check it, it is not available online
2. the assumption in the Russian sources that the Soviet use of a gas van had any affect on their use in the German's euthanasia programmes appears extremely tenuous. Indeed, none of the sources claims it, and it is not claimed on the page.
3. it looks likely that one gas van was used in the Moscow area in the late 30s. No, according to Albats and Golovkova (Konyinent) those were multiple trucks.
4. I'm unsure about is whether the subsequent writings have added any extra information - Yes, they did, especially the publications by Petrov and Golovkova ("Kontinent").
5. No, the publications by Petrov and especially Golobkova (Kontinent) clearly did not use KP (Golovkova tells about her source and it is entirely different), and Albats very clearly makes her own claims. My very best wishes (talk) 00:24, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
6. I did not read this book by Solzenitsyn, we could omit it easily. However, per WR:RS we should use the book by Solzhenitsyn, rather than article in Komsomol'skaya Pravda because it is a lot more reliable source per WP:RS - a book by a Nobel Prize winner. My very best wishes (talk) 00:24, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

ad 1 Zhimov published an article in Komsomol'skaya Pravda in 1990 and in Kommersant in 1990. Did anyone actually read the piece from 1990?

ad 2 The assumption currently being made is, that gas vans are trucks reequipped as a mobile gas chambers, that these gas vans have been used by the Nazis on a large scale, but first by the Soviet secret police. This establishes a narrative which is untenable and sourced to Yevgenia Albats who claims, gas vans were a Soviet "invention", and Solzenitsyn. Other sources which make that claim are Holocaust deniers and thus obviously fringe.

ad 3 Some sources speak of one gas van (Colton, Merridale), others use plural. One historian, Robert Gellately, called for further research.

ad 4 Golovka added more details. It is being debated how reliable an interview is. She has published about it, but that source has not yet been assessed. A blog post utilizing her publication is vehemently disputed by Mvbw.

ad 5 Petrov wrote mainly about Vasily Blokhin. It’s a newspaper article. I did not see any sources given. Golovkova relates information by an unknown eyewitness. Albats very clearly did only use one source, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, but drew her own conclusions.

ad 6 Solzenitsyn makes use of just one source Komsomol'skaya Pravda It seems that Mvbw thinks that sources has been somehow vetted by a Nobel price, that was awarded some 30 years before 200 Years Together came out.

Finally, Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion.--Assayer (talk) 01:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

If you did not even read the original in Komsomol'skaya Pravda (I did not), let's just forget about it. "A blog post utilizing her publication is vehemently disputed by Mvbw." Are you really suggesting to use this blog for sourcing instead of multiple RS noted above? My very best wishes (talk) 01:48, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I may note that My very best wishes significantly edited their original contribution more than 11 hours after it was posted without indicating the changes.[41] I responded to the original version.--Assayer (talk) 14:02, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

E. Zhirnov, „Protsedura kazni nosila omerzitelniy kharakter“ (A Horrible Execution), Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 28, 1990, p. 2. This sources is cited by Albats, Colton, Solzhenitsyn, and Robert Gellately. In his comparative work Lenin, Stalin and Hitler (2007) Gellateley notes: "While Lenin and Stalin created more concentration camps, the Communists did not create killing centers. The Soviets sometimes used a gas van (dushegubka), as in Moscow during the 1930s, but how extensive that was needs further investigation.(39) They used crematoriums to dispose of thousands of bodies, but had no gas chambers." (p. 460) (i.e. direct contradiction of Albats and article lead). Note 39 is KP, Oct. 28, 1992 [sic], 2. On p. 367 he notes: "The killers sought and found a still more efficient and secretive killing process; they invented the first gas van, which began operations in the Warthegau on January 15, 1940, under Herbert Lange." Merridale cites Colton. Only a few researchers turned to the orignal files. (investigation against Berg). The vast majority of sources in the current version of the article in question, however, simply repeat one source over and over again.--Assayer (talk) 13:56, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

It's hard to tell what the exact issues are here. What I think is: (1) If there is a good source that the NKVD used a gas van in the 1930s, there is no reason it shouldn't go in the article on gas vans. (2) One should not write that the Soviets invented the gas van in a way that might lead readers to think that the Nazis copied it from the Soviets, unless a strong source is found for that (by which I mean a source that cites a Nazi document, not just a source which infers it from the chronology). Neither country invented execution by gas (see USA 1924) and it doesn't take a genius to think of doing it on wheels. (3) Solzhenitsyn might think that the (alleged) Jewishness of the Soviet inventor is significant, but we have our own criteria for significance and should not follow Solzhenitsyn's lead. It would be best to only use sources other than Solzhenitsyn. Zero^talk 03:18, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with everything here. Speaking about (2), yes, we can not state this as a matter of fact, but only as a directly cited view attributed to an academic source. My very best wishes (talk) 14:01, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I do not argue that we should not mention a Soviet gas van altogether, all the more, since this story is on the Internet and should be addressed. I argue against the way that it is currently presented. You'd have to read about Soviet gas vans first, before you will read about Nazi gas vans for simple reasons of chronology? This rather implies a continuity which did not exist. Significance is more important here. --Assayer (talk) 13:56, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

BBC News: China and Taiwan clash over Wikipedia edits

Quote from BBC News:

"Ask Google or Siri: 'What is Taiwan'? 'A state', they will answer, 'in East Asia'."

"But earlier in September, it would have been a 'province in the People's Republic of China'."

"For questions of fact, many search engines, digital assistants and phones all point to one place: Wikipedia. And Wikipedia had suddenly changed."

"The edit was reversed, but soon made again. And again. It became an editorial tug of war that - as far as the encyclopedia was concerned - caused the state of Taiwan to constantly blink in and out of existence over the course of a single day."

Source: BBC News: China and Taiwan clash over Wikipedia edits

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:20, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Criticism of Swaminarayan sect

Four or more editors have been pressuring at the Talk:Criticism of Swaminarayan sect want to include all of the justification from the sect. They tried to give it so by giving more weight to apology and justification. As WP:Criticism states criticism article is for negative viewpoints of the particular philosophy and religion then why justification from the sect can be included in the article? Like, Criticism of Marxism exists and there is no such balancing and inclusion of the arguments regarding justification from marxists. Same with Criticism of Islam, Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of Buddhism and Criticism of Religion. If the article will go for balancing the thoughts and inclusion of justification from apologetic then how it will serve the purpose of the criticism as per heading? I tried to let them understand that this is sub POV of Swaminarayana sect in which negative points are included by keeping NPOV in mind but none of them is agreeing on the issue and most of them are not even extended confirmed and pressurising to include positive viewpoints. I had made the page by looking at the pages stated above and if all the things will be added in this article then how it will be different from original POV article i.e. Swaminarayan sect. I am looking for the comments of more experienced editors and administrators regarding this page. -- Harshil ^{want to talk?} 18:55, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

That one should go to AfD I think. This is not anything notable. My very best wishes (talk) 00:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

"Criticism of..." pages in general

According to [42]. we have pages on

• Criticism of Swaminarayan sect (but no Criticism of Aum Shinrikyo)
• Criticism of Mother Teresa (but no Criticism of Dalai Lama)
• Criticism of Muhammad (but no Criticism of Gautama Buddha)
• Criticism of the Israeli government (but no Criticism of the Chinese government)
• Criticism of Amazon (but no Criticism of Alibaba Group)
• Criticism of Facebook (but no Criticism of Twitter)
• Criticism of The Walt Disney Company (but no Criticism of Monsanto)
• Criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt (but no Criticism of Herbert Hoover)
• Criticism of Family Guy (but no Criticism of the Simpsons)

We also have a bunch of redirects like

• Criticism of Jay Leno (but no Criticism of David Letterman)
• Criticism of the C programming language (but no Criticism of BASIC)

To me, it looks like most (but not all) of the "Criticism of" pages are WP:POVFORKs or WP:COATRACKs for criticism that wasn't allowed into the main article.

I think that most of them should be merged into the corresponding main pages and that all of the "Criticism of" redirects should be deleted as being unlikely search terms.

Before I post an RfC proposing that, does anyone agree or disagree with my take on this?

Are there any opinions on particular "Criticism of" pages that should be kept? I am thinking that...

• Criticism of Christianity
• Criticism of Islam
• Criticisms of Marxism
• Criticism of capitalism

...might be worth keeping. Or maybe not. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:55, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I think it is wrong to say "We have criticism of X as a page but not critical of parallel topic y". Two questions better asked: 1) If we have "criticism of X" as a standalone, do we also have "criticism of parallel topic y" in the article about y itself, and 2) if we have "criticism of X", is there a SIZE issue to explain why it was moved out, and was there a better split of content less contestable that could have been split out first per Summary Style. And there are other factors to keep in mind. For example, Facebook has been a LOT more hot water than Twitter and so I would expect a rather lengthy bit on criticism of Facebook. Enough for its own page, after taking out all the minutee of the coverage? Not sure, but I would not be surprised to see enough for a standalone. --Masem (t) 00:22, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

• I do not think that "criticism" pages are inherently problematic because the criticism of something or someone can be a well-defined, notable and perfectly legitimate subject. Not having pages about something is not a policy-based argument. Some of these page, however, (like Criticism of Swaminarayan sect) should go to AfD on a case by case basis. My very best wishes (talk) 00:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
• Agree with above, “criticism of” pages justified where body of criticism is well defined. Not a problem that some exist and some don’t if existing ones meet that test and non-existing ones don’t, or if non-existing could be made. Nothing prevents creation of criticism of Monsanto page for example — doubtless justifies and welcome to add. Hyperbolick (talk) 00:39, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree that a lack of a criticism article for a related topic it not, one its own, enough to justify deletion since there are several other possible reasons for this. It could be, there is enough criticism for an article but no one got around to making it, the other subject is simply less controversial, the other subject has a shorter article so the it wasn't necessary to split criticism for size purposes, ect. This clearly needs to be decided on a case by case basis.--67.68.29.177 (talk) 03:11, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Assertion that "peer-reviewed journals" means an absent of POV in an article

As seen at Talk:Cultural impact of Michael Jackson#Article recreated again (permalink here), editors have expressed a concern that the newly-created article Cultural impact of Michael Jackson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has a lot of POV and WP:Puffery language and/or reads like a fansite. In that discussion, SNUGGUMS and Popcornduff took the time to detail issues with the article.

In the Talk:Cultural impact of Michael Jackson#Peer-reviewed journals means POV? section (permalink here), the article's creator, Partytemple, has asserted that contested text in the article that is supported by peer-reviewed journals means that the contested text does not violate WP:POV. This is despite what WP:YESPOV, WP:WIKIVOICE and WP:INTEXT state. Popcornduff has tried to enlighten Partytemple to the fact that a source being peer-reviewed does not mean that what the source is saying cannot be an opinion. It certainly doesn't mean that how a Wikipedia editor decides to word something based on whatever source is not an opinion and therefore should be stated in Wikipedia's voice. The discussion continued in the following section as well: Talk:Cultural impact of Michael Jackson#One example of subjective POV (permalink here).

Needless to state, we need other opinions on this matter. I will also alert Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view to this section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, I would think there is something to be said that if peer-reviewed sources said, today, "Mozart was one of the greatest composers of all time." we would be stating that factually, as there's been more than enough time for broad public and academic opinion to be established in a case like this. For Michael Jackson, we may be too close to his death for that opinion to have gelled to be treated as fact. But this should only start when multiple peer-reviewed sources make the assertion as fact, not just one. --Masem (t) 02:01, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Something to keep in mind is that peer review is not the same thing as literature review. We prefer secondary and tertiary sources to primary sources for reasons noted at WP:PSTS and WP:SCHOLARSHIP. I haven't yet checked to see what, if any, sources in the article are peer-reviewed journals, but the opinion of an author of a peer-reviewed journal is still that author's opinion. And regardless, we have wording and presentation standards. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Popcornduff and I seem to have different interpretations of WP policy. My position is not that the article is entirely absent of POV, but that the issues addressed are not violating POV. Flyer22 please do not misinterpret my words. If you have questions about what I mean, ask first. I also would like more editors outside of the MJ articles to offer an opinion on this matter, as I do not think this issue is limited to the Jackson articles. It would help a lot to clarify some understandings of policy. There are many statements in question. I prefer that these issues should be asked to me directly, instead of accusing me editorial bias. I did not distort or exaggerate any of the claims. If they sound egregious, it's because I cited the author. —Partytemple (talk) 02:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

No misinterpretation at all. I read your flawed arguments, just like I read your flawed and deeply troubling understanding of our BLP policy. Nowhere did I state or imply that your position is that the article is entirely absent of POV. But if you think that all or most of the POV issues highlighted at Talk:Cultural impact of Michael Jackson#Article recreated again are not POV issues, I fail to see how that is not you thinking that the article is mostly or completely absent of POV. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC) Updated post. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:31, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I think anyone can see that the article does not comprise of peer-reviewed journals only, which is the material being addressed. And the main statement in dispute was the "child prodigy" statement that was cited with a journal. It would be extremely unfair to me if my words were distorted. —Partytemple (talk) 02:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Without any distortions or misinterpretation, let me make this clear: peer-reviewed journals can and have contained personal thoughts of authors. Same goes for just about any other type of reference one can think of. However, that doesn't mean it's impossible for them or us to neutrally discuss such opinions. Per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, we can say things like "Critics overall felt _____" or "Scholars believe that _______" when sharing stances people have. Now, the Cultural Impact article being discussed above could be vastly improved by attributing some opinions to the authors. I fully realize that not every reference used is a peer-reviewed journal. Regardless of citation type, it is fully possible to insert biased text even when referencing something that supports the opinion conveyed within an article. We're supposed to describe what others have written and their views, but shouldn't make it sound like Wikipedia's own stance. While I fully realize that much of what I've typed here was already written before with different phrasing, I felt it had to be said anyway. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 03:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

SNUGGUMS, I read your comments but I did not know how to respond since there were so many and some of them sound like you weren't sure. We can go through every single one, if you'd like. I can provide the source text, but I cannot reproduce them entirely (because of copyright). And as far as I know, of the many academic literature I read, there are certain statements that have multiple scholars saying relatively the same thing, hence an academic consensus. —Partytemple (talk) 03:26, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I admittedly was iffy on certain parts, though discussion of all my individual points is better for that article's talk page. In cases of academic consensus, see my above comments on WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. In other words, we attribute the shared opinion to the scholars (i.e. "Most/Multiple scholars felt that Jackson ___________"). Hopefully that makes sense. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 03:37, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I will echo what Masem said. There is a policy that says "Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice. Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information, there is no need for specific attribution for the assertion, although it is helpful to add a reference link to the source in support of verifiability. Further, the passage should not be worded in any way that makes it appear to be contested." Attaching attributions would make the statement sound like its contested by reliable sources, hence no academic consensus. But I don't know any reliable sources that say Michael Jackson was not a child prodigy (or other variants of this). Wouldn't using attributions so broadly also be WP:WEASEL? And what about this: "When a statement is a fact (e.g. information that is accepted as true and about which there is no serious dispute), it should be asserted using Wikipedia's own voice without in-text attribution."—Partytemple (talk) 03:51, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Partytemple does not seem able or willing to understand the POV problems even though several of us have tried to explain them. They either misinterpret policy (taking us on strange rambling philosophical debates about how Wikipedia defines opinions and facts, for example) or claim not to understand the problem. They have reverted attempts to make the article more neutral, and repeatedly removed the puffery template despite the consensus on the talk page. They seem unwilling to work with the numerous editors who now have identified POV problems with the article and I am pessimistic about improvement. As far as I am concerned this is now disruptive behaviour as per WP:NOTGETTINGIT. Popcornduff (talk) 12:57, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and let's not get bogged down arguing about any one bit of puffery in the article, such as the specific debate about how OK it is say that Michael Jackson was talented. Scan the article and you'll see there are dozens of WP:POV-violating claims. Popcornduff (talk) 13:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

RfC announce: RFC on the use of the term "conspiracy theory"

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RFC on the use of the term "conspiracy theory" --Guy Macon (talk) 16:58, 7 October 2019 (UTC)