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Bias in the Rupert Sheldrake article

As it stands now, the Rupert Sheldrake page contains numerous examples of incomplete information in violation of neutral POV. To keep things simple, I'm drawing your attention to just one such example.

Sheldrake conducted an experiment to either verify or falsify the claim of a dog owner that her dog was aware, in the absence of any sensory cues, when she was returning home. Sheldrake concluded on the basis of this experiment that the dog successfully demonstrated knowledge of when its owner was returning home. Another researcher, Richard Wiseman, attempted to refute Sheldrake's conclusion by repeating the experiment, and he then published a paper in which he denied any evidence of a telepathic link between the dog and its owner. In a subsequent interview, however, Wiseman conceded that his own experiment generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's experiment and that he was simply interpreting the data differently. But the Sheldrake page leaves out this crucial piece of information, giving the reader the impression that Wiseman actually refuted Sheldrake. When I corrected the article, my edit was reverted by TheRedPenOfDoom and then by Barney the barney barney. After a false start, in which I mistakenly cited the wrong source, I made three edits:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=next&oldid=578929059
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=next&oldid=579545760
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=next&oldid=579642942

The changes in the second and third edits reflect the fact that I was trying to arrive at consensus on the talk page. That discussion, including the link to the Wiseman interview, is located here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Illegitimate_reversals

Despite my attempt to arrive at consensus, Barney reverted my edit and launched an edit warring complaint against me. That complaint is located here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Alfonzo_Green_reported_by_User:Barney_the_barney_barney_.28Result:_Warned.29

Barney alleged that I was "deliberately misrepresenting the opinions of a living person, in this case a distinguished professor Richard Wiseman, that make Wiseman look like he is endorsing pseudoscience." Barney's claim is blatantly false, as demonstrated by the edit he reverted: "In a subsequent interview, Wiseman stated that his experiment generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's and that more experiments were needed to definitively overturn Sheldrake's conclusion that Jaytee had a psychic link with its owner." Though clearly I was not claiming that Wiseman endorsed Sheldrake's view, I received a warning by Bbb23 that even a single edit on this page could result in me being blocked.

Rather than work with me to achieve consensus, TRPoD and Barney are reverting my edits without any attempt to resolve the bias in the current version. According to NPOV editors "should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another." Please ensure that editors seeking to provide complete information on the Sheldrake page will be supported by Wikipedia administrators, not threatened or told to go edit some other page. Alfonzo Green (talk) 20:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Alfonzo Green (talk · contribs) is on a warning for trying to insert potentially libelous material misattributing the views of Richard Wiseman into the Rupert Sheldrake article having not gained consensus on the talk page. Editors are also reminded of WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE and the WP:ARB/PS. I suggest via WP:BOOMERANG that Alfonzo Green takes a voluntary break from editing this before a sensible admin enforces the inevitable, AGAIN. WP:CONSENSUS is WP:NOTAVOTE. ping Vzaak (talk · contribs), TheRedPenOfDoom‎ (talk · contribs), QTxVi4bEMRbrNqOorWBV (talk · contribs) Barney the barney barney (talk) 22:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Barney claims I tried to "insert potentially libelous material misattributing the views of Richard Wiseman." Why persist in making a claim already proven false? Again, according to my edit, Wiseman stated that his experiment generated the same data as Sheldrake's. Is Barney so confused that he thinks replicating another researcher's data constitutes endorsement of the that researcher's interpretation of the data? And what about the second part of the edit, in which I note that Wiseman advocated more experiments specifically so as to overturn Sheldrake's conclusion? Barney's claim is simply nonsensical. I bring this up because I want administration to understand that this is not a dispute between two reasoning people. This is a dispute between one person seeking reasonable consensus and another person who will say anything, no matter how absurd, in order to block it. This applies to every single point Barney makes. His reference to WP:FRINGE makes no sense given the fact that this is an article about Rupert Sheldrake and his views. Regardless of how fringe those views may be, we must present them - - and responses to them - - in an unbiased way. To include a supposed refutation of one of his views without noting that the supposed refuter later backed off from his claim is obviously biased. Equally obvious is the fact that WP:UNDUE would apply only if an editor attempted to include Sheldrake's conclusion about Jaytee in an article about psychology or dogs. Barney has been told this repeatedly on the talk pages yet continues asserting the same point, demonstrating that his concern is not reasonable consensus but keeping the Sheldrake article as anti-Sheldrake as possible. WP:ARB/PS is a request for arbitration in cases having to do with pseudoscience. Sheldrake has indeed been accused of pseudoscience. He has also been praised as a cutting edge theorist. The fact that Sheldrake engages in repeatable experiments that could potentially falsify his hypotheses demonstrates he is in fact practicing science. Repeating the Jaytee experiment demonstrates that Wiseman regards Sheldrake's work as legitimate, if flawed. By citing WP:BOOMERANG Barney demonstrates an inability to recognize his own error, specifically his bogus edit warring complaint against me, which is now boomeranging against him. He points out that consensus is not a vote, yet it's precisely because the anti-Sheldrake clique constitutes a majority of editors on the Sheldrake page that they've been able to intimidate other would-be editors and dominate the page. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The are two torpedoes here, either one of which would sink this boat.

The first torpedo is that the interview in question is not from a reliable source. It is a self-published blog which promotes energy healing, talking with spirits, alien contact, the whole bit. It has been accused of deleting portions of an interview which didn't fit with the agenda of the website,[1] and is known for sandbagging guests.[2] It is about the farthest thing from a reliable source that one could get. That quickly settles the matter, and there is no need to read further.

But for the curious, the second torpedo is that Wiseman completely rejects Sheldrake's post hoc analysis of Wiseman's data in service of support for dog-Homo telepathy, as stated in Wiseman's response paper (RS=Rupert Sheldrake, Jaytee=telepathic dog, PS=the dog's owner Pam Smart),

In short, we strongly disagree with the arguments presented in RS’s commentary. We believe that our experiments were properly designed and that the results did not support the notion that Jaytee could psychically detect when PS was returning home. Moreover, we are not convinced otherwise by RS’s reanalysis of our data and reserve judgment about his own experiments until they are published in a peer reviewed journal.[3]

Moreover, in the very same interview in question, Wiseman rejects Sheldrake's experimental methods, saying "I'm not that impressed with the data that Rupert's collected", "I think there are some methodological problems with it", "don't look to me quite as methodology rigorous as you would need", "things need to be done with a little bit more rigor and in this instance, that hasn't happened".[4]

Alfonzo is strongly editorializing in saying that Wiseman conceded or that experiments are needed to overturn, much less "definitively overturn" this claim of a psychic dog. Sheldrake's experiments are not viewed highly by Wiseman, nor by the scientific community for that matter. vzaak (talk) 23:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Also note that I previously alerted Alfonzo to the non-reliable-source issue,[5] and he responded to me before posting to this noticeboard,[6] so there was no need for others here to sink their time into this. (His response in that link continues the conspiratorial thinking throughout, calling Wiseman "disingenuous", "conceding", etc.) vzaak (talk) 23:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Alfonzo Green is correct that I am making no efforts to come to a consensus that would in anyway misrepresent Wiseman's comments in a way that "concedes" he sees any potential psychic phenomena in these experiments. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Alfonzo seems to be correct, that Wiseman has conceded *something*: namely, that Wiseman's *own* experiments of 1995 do not manage by themselves to overturn Sheldrake's claims. In Wiseman's original ~1995 paper, that was claimed. It is absolutely positively true that Wiseman *still* holds the position that no telepathy happened in any of the 1994/1995 trials (either by Sheldrake or by Wiseman), but he now points to methodological concerns as the reason, which is different from his stance in the 1990s. Methinks the current language Alfonzo is suggesting on the talkpage is totally fair. (Barney's original reverts were correct though -- the original language that Alfonzo used *could* have been misinterpreted, and thus constituted a possible BLP violation.) The problem on the talkpage at the moment is the one vzaak points out: I'm not convinced we have a *source* for the revised-neutral-language, that Wiseman has in fact changed the reasons underlying his current position (the position itself is unchanged and the current language so notes). Alfonzo: suggest you withdraw this noticeboard alert, please, and return to the talkpage for another week. Progress is slow, but we are making progress there. Thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The source of the Wiseman material is an interview, both in audio and transcript form. The words are Wiseman's own. In effect the source is Wiseman himself. Skeptiko is just a vehicle by which Wiseman chose to concede that, contrary to the impression he gave in his published paper, he did not refute Sheldrake but generated the same data and chose to interpret that data differently. That said, in a good faith effort to achieve consensus, I replaced "conceded" with "stated," as the attempted edit above reveals. Pointing out that Wiseman sought to "definitively overturn" Sheldrake's claim was also a concession to editors who asserted that I was misrepresenting Wiseman as somehow endorsing Sheldrake. As to Wiseman's statements cited by Vzaak, none of them directly challenge my edit. How does whining about Sheldrake's methodology change the basic fact that Wiseman replicated Sheldrake's data and then turned around and claimed to have refuted his claim? Our job is to report the dispute between Sheldrake and Wiseman, not intervene in the dispute by portraying it in a way that's favorable to one side. Again, consult NPOV. The reference to "conspiratorial thinking" appears to be an attempt to smear me by association with conspiracy theorists. Aside from the fact that this is completely out of the blue, guilt by association is a well known logical fallacy akin to ad hominem. Alfonzo Green (talk) 22:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

That's not what I'm reading in the interview. Never mind Skeptiko's dubious reputation as a source: what Wiseman says is that he and Sheldrake subsequent to the first trials ran tests separately, and got divergent results. And then he says that be cannot utterly reject Sheldrake's positive results because of a lack of information about the experimental setup. This strikes me as a very odd response, because my reaction (and I think most students of experimental technique would agree with me) is that Sheldrake's trials lack authority because of irreproducibility. If only he can get positive results, then it stands to reason that he is (consciously or not) doing something to queer the test. But at any rate Wiseman's response is not as strong an endorsement as you're trying to get into the article; he doesn't say that more trials are needed to "overturn" Sheldrake's conclusions. What he says in fact is that, well, maybe there's something there, he cannot be utterly sure there isn't, but that the trials done thus far aren't rigorous enough. Mangoe (talk) 23:36, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Mangoe, please see the ca.2000 Wiseman paper vzaak provides, which I quote below, where Wiseman says the data-patterns match (which I'm taking as almost-but-not-quite-reproducibility... Wiseman only did 4 trials after all). Agree that we should not make Wiseman sound like he thinks the Sheldrake-trials are now valid... in fact, he still does not think that. (We have also argued the 'something there' quote on the talkpage to death... Alfonzo leans to your reading, that 'something [kinda-telepathic] there' but TRPoD has convinced me via other Wiseman context-snippets that Wiseman means 'something [methodologically flawed] there' which is totally different.) HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Wiseman sets up the flaws with the experiment: "Well, yeah, I mean, I suspect it’s quite problematic because it depends how the data is collected," he goes into the flaws with the experiment. He comes out with "I think as is so much of [Sheldrake]'s work, it’s very easy to look at it and go, yeah, a priori, that looks like there’s a cased something there, but things need to be done with a little bit more rigor and in this instance, that hasn’t happened." His position is completely: "I see nothing in this experiment that convinces me as scientific evidence. If he wants to do another experiment with more scientifically rigorous conditions, I will look at that as well, but he hasn't. " Presenting it as anything else cherrypicking out-of-context statements to push a POV. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:46, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I responded to these points earlier. For anyone who really wants to delve into the matter, reading Wiseman's response paper[7] is essential, as it clears up some apparent confusions in the timeline by this user. The user is making all sorts of inappropriate inferences from primary sources, weaving a narrative that Wiseman is being disingenuous; this is charitably called conspiratorial thinking. vzaak (talk) 23:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah. The confusing part was that this is a ca.2000 paper by Wiseman... I did not realize that Wiseman had ever responded publically to Sheldrake's ca.1999 re-analysis claims. So yes, Alfonzo, you (and myself until just now) are both confused about when Wiseman admitted the patterns matched -- methinks the ca.2007 skeptico interview is at fault for our misunderstanding, rather than any conspiracy-theories about Wiseman that either myself or Alfonzo are prone to hold.

    Here is the relevant quote from Wiseman's ca.2000 paper that Vzaak links to: "...he [Sheldrake] had re-analysed our [Wiseman's] videotapes of Jaytee [the dog] and found the same pattern in our first three experiments [that was seen in Sheldrake's 200 experiments]. We [Wiseman] do not believe that RS’s [Sheldrake's] re-analysis of our [Wiseman's] data provides [suitably] compelling evidence for the notion that Jaytee [the dog] could psychically detect when PS [the dog-owner] was returning home. First, it appears that RS's [Sheldrake's] observed patterns could easily arise if [goes into various methodological concerns]...."

    So we now *do* have a source (and can ignore skeptico which does not add much methinks), at minimum per WP:ABOUTSELF plus prolly from where-ever Wiseman mailed this paper for publication, which shows that Wiseman agreed in ~2000 that the patterns matched, just disagreed that this was compelling, due to methodological concerns. Alfonzo, that is what you were after, right? I think this is it. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

This is not complicated, people. Wiseman repeated Sheldrake's experiment and got the same results, but he chose to interpret the data differently. As he states, "the patterning in my studies are the same as the patterning in Rupert’s studies. That’s not up for grabs. That’s fine. It’s how it’s interpreted." He goes on to say that he didn't run enough trials to determine if the dog "was picking up something" but that "Rupert has that sort of data" and that "by looking at his data... there may well be something going on." He concludes that more experiments are needed to settle the issue. As he says, "I would sort of tick the 'more experiments needed' box, under slightly more rigorous conditions."

The complete text is here: http://www.skeptiko.com/11-dr-richard-wiseman-on-rupert-sheldrakes-dogsthatknow/. Instead of accusing me of cherry picking quotes, an easily refutable charge, why not work with me in trying to get the material right so it can be added to the article? Why simply revert my edit and refuse to work with me unless you want to keep the Sheldrake page slanted against Sheldrake? Keep in mind that the source here is not Skeptiko but Wiseman by way of Skeptiko. It's better than Wiseman's paper because it's more recent and more informative. Nowhere in that paper (which is already cited in the article) did Wiseman fess up to the fact that he actually did replicate Sheldrake's data, instead merely noting that Sheldrake claimed to have "found the same pattern." Only in the interview does he admit to the embarrassing truth.

There's no ambiguity here and no reason for further discussion. Alfonzo Green (talk) 00:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Are you proposing to add something like 'Wiseman conceded that "there may well be something going on"' based on this interview? That would cause readers to think that Wiseman is agreeing that Sheldrake's data gives evidence to show that the dog has psychic powers, and that would be a complete misinterpretation of what Wiseman actually said. In the two paragraphs preceding that off-the-cuff comment, Wiseman outlines how a dog may pick up patterns that give clues about when the owner will return, and a likely interpretation of Wiseman's comment is that the data shows the dog is doing something non-random, but that non-randomness may be due to uninvestigated issues that could have provided clues to the dog. WP:REDFLAG applies to claims made in an article, and if someone suggests a dog has psychic abilities, very good sources would be needed to support the claim—in that context, it is not satisfactory to pick a few words spoken by Wiseman (possibly from politeness) and present them as a suggestion that Wiseman thinks the dog may have strange powers. Johnuniq (talk) 09:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

My last proposed edit makes no mention of the "something going on" line. "In a subsequent interview, Wiseman stated that his experiment generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's and that more experiments were needed to definitively overturn Sheldrake's conclusion that Jaytee had a psychic link with its owner." Your comment is irrelevant to my complaint, as are all the comments below. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that Wiseman doesn't think that the evidence that Jaytee was psychic is convincing. The onus really is on Sheldrake to prove that dogs are psychic, get the results published in a peer reviewed journal (not Rivista di Biologia, or his own book, and for his work to become generally accepted and allow others to positively build on his work). Jaytee is almost certainly dead now, but according to Sheldrake's surveys, such dogs should be easy to find. In the meantime, Sheldrake's ideas of "morphic resonance" do not provide a credible mechanism that is consistent with scientific theories or other evidence. Steven Rose has previously accused Sheldrake of being "so committed to his hypothesis that it is very hard to envisage the circumstances in which he would accept its disconfirmation"[8]. Barney the barney barney (talk) 09:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Sheldrake's morphic fields would mean they are not only easy to find, but getting easier to find and getting better at knowing when their owners are coming home to be giving more and more conclusive results! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:51, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Alfonzo, Wiseman's response paper[9] contradicts much of what you've stated here. On the Sheldrake talk page you said Wiseman was disingenuous in the paper.[10] However if you read the paper without that assumption, you'll see it is consistent with the interview. You have built a narrative around this claim of Wiseman being disingenuous. vzaak (talk) 14:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I was just looking at FTN. Alfonzo, in response to Barney the barney barney you say: "Sheldrake draws hostility from materialist ideologues because he's skeptical of the idea that causation is limited to contact mechanics. Once we recognize the possibility of action at a distance, already well established in physics, we no longer need to rely on genes to carry a blueprint from parent to progeny. Organisms might be able to connect both across generations and across space without material intermediary. What Barney represents is a fear of science, a fear that scientific investigation will reveal that his pre-scientific prejudices will be proven wrong."[11]

It looks to me that this ties into the narrative you've built for Wiseman. vzaak (talk) 15:29, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to draw the distinction between the statements "there is proof that Jaytee was not psychic" and "there is no indication that Jaytee was psychic" - the two are different, and the first one is actually extremely difficult to prove since, you know, he could have been psychic but sometimes didn't bother to go to the door to indicate this. Barney the barney barney (talk) 15:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I wish that dog had been called Barney, or Roxy even. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 15:43, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Please stop adding irrelevant commentary to my complaint and let the administrator do his/her job. If you want to make general points about Sheldrake and Wiseman, you can do so on the talk page under Illegitimate reversals. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Huh? It is very relevant to show that the claim of "Bias in the Rupert Sheldrake article" is not correct. At Wikipedia, editors are expected to engage in the discussions that occur by thinking about points raised and responding to them. Johnuniq (talk) 22:22, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Alfonzo should have said 'repetitive' rather than irrelevant. Pretty much the exact same points seen above, that are being re-made here at the noticeboard, are all from people already very-actively-participating over at the talkpage, and are repeats of exactly what they said over there. This noticeboard discussion should wait for different people to comment, which is hard when it is filled to the brim. Not that I'm free of sin.  :-)   Stone, meet glass house. Johnuniq and Mangoe, please advise, is this new&improved phrasing fair to both Wiseman, and also to Sheldrake, without BLP violations on either side of the conflict:

((existing sentences go here... see below)) Subsequently in 1999, Wiseman stated[3] that his re-analyzed 1995 trials generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's. However, pointing to methodological concerns, Wiseman still maintained[3] his original conclusion, that additional experiments (performed more rigorously to eliminate artefacts) are absolutely required, and that current data (even when re-analyzed) still provides no conclusive evidence to support claims that any telepathy-like behavior exists/existed. Wiseman also went on to say that he reserves judgment about Sheldrake's experiments, until such time as they are published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The source for these is Wiseman's own 1999/2000 scientific paper, link provided by vzaak (see above). For contrast, here is what the mainspace article said when[12] Alfonzo filed his NPOV complaint; since then tweaked slightly.

Wiseman et al independently conducted an experimental study with Jaytee, a purportedly telepathic dog mentioned in the book, and concluded that the evidence gathered did not support telepathy. They also proposed possible alternative explanations for Sheldrake's positive conclusions, and questioned whether laypeople had the ability to conduct experiments without inadvertently introducing artefacts and bias due to inexperience with rigorous experimental design.[50][62]

My interpretation of the connotations in the current mainspace sentences are (methinks) what any reader would interpret: Wiseman, a *real* scientist, did a *real* experiment (elide "only 4 trials") on the 'purportedly' (WP:EDITORIALIZING) telepathic dog. Wiseman concluded (elide in 1995) that the evidence did not support telepathy. (Elide any mention of Wiseman's changed stance, of the patterns matching, and of the methodological flaws being bidirectional.) Finally, Wiseman said Sheldrake's trials (imply *only*) were flawed, because Sheldrake is not rigorous, and Sheldrake is a layman-not-a-scientist.

  To remove the bias in these sentences, we have to point out that Wiseman's trials had the same pattern as Sheldrake's trials (methinks we can skip who pointed out that fact to whom). Next, we have to say that after 1999/2000, Wiseman now "reserves judgement" on Sheldrake's trials (methinks we can skip that this is a change from Wiseman's earlier position that Wiseman's 4 trials proved Sheldrake was a charlatan). Finally, wikipedia should not pick winners and losers, whether than means amongst WP:BLPs, or amongst conflicting WP:RSes. The sentence that implies Sheldrake is a layman, and Sheldrake's experiments *alone* suffered from experimental artefacts, is very misleading. HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Alfonzo Green, your complaint contradicts bare facts in the interview and in the response paper. It was pointed out to you that Wiseman says that he and Sheldrake were "addressing two different questions" and "testing two different claims".[13] You responded by saying that "Wiseman appears to be trying to fudge the issue with his statement that he and Sheldrake were testing different claims".[14] You were also directed to the response paper which is at odds with your conclusions.[15] Your response was that Wiseman was disingenuous in the paper.[16] In both the interview and in the paper, you dismiss statements which run counter to your narrative by claiming that Wiseman is not being truthful. This is absurd. vzaak (talk) 00:44, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Vzaak, are you putting my comment of 01:07 immediately above in the same bucket, as contradicting what sources say, or in any way misrepresenting either side of this in-real-life conflict between two scientists? Do you think that mainspace, as currently written, has zero bias whatsoever, with no connotations that could conceivably, in any way, be interpreted as anything but neutral? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:11, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:EXHAUST This is a problem not only here but on the Sheldrake talk page where certain editors are blocking consensus by contributing excessive, repetitive or pointless commentary. Alfonzo Green (talk) 20:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

well, i think we can all agree that there have been walls of meaningless text generated and that progress on the article is minimal. we probably disagree who is the responsible party(s) for discussions going round and round in circles. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:12, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

A meta-comment on the form of the data

Even disregarding the disagreement over what Wiseman said and meant, there is a big WP:UNDUE problem here; the disagreement only exacerbates it. What all of this talking and talking and talking comes down to is trying to squeeze in the claim that one researcher may have said something that could be interpreted as saying that Sheldrake's ideas may not be entirely unfounded. This is way too weak to justify inclusion. If a bunch of people, working independently, manage to come up with definite results ratifying Sheldrake's claims, and those studies are accepted by others, then there will be something to go on. But this is trying to make a building out of a bolt lying in the grass; even if Wiseman intended the positive interpretation being attributed to him (which is very doubtful), he wouldn't represent anything more than a very preliminary hint at ratification. This isn't even up to the level of a an in vitro drug study, which we do not accept as notable. Mangoe (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• support -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:35, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

As it stands now the commentary on Dogs That Know implies that Wiseman refuted Sheldrake. In fact Wiseman replicated Sheldrake's results and merely interpreted those results differently. This MUST be included or the commentary is biased. The disputed edit says NOTHING about Wiseman supporting Sheldrake's ideas. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

He did NOT "replicate results" . Wiseman, in the interview you keep clinging to, clearly states that they did their experiments differently. When you do scientific experiments differently, you are not replicating the results. Period.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:03, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that results were not replicated, however, I hesitate to mention this ... but ... did TRPOD just mention ... scientific experiments? Surely not. I always believed that Shelly stopped doing science in the eighties. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 04:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. This meta-issue, as Mangoe knows very well methinks, is the crux of all the NPOV difficulties at the Sheldrake BLP, including whether or not Sheldrake can be called a biologist slash scientist (which the bulk of the sources say -- across all five decades), and of course whether Wiseman's completely well-sourced quote that "the patterns match" can be excluded somehow. This is a tactical strategy known as WP:IDONTLIKEIT, also recently dubbed "the long grass of extreme sceptism" by an uninvolved editor who briefly visited the Sheldrake talkpage before immediately vacating the area.

an enquiry in which we travel into the fringes of the long grass of extreme sceptism

Compare the diffs of the Sheldrake BLP page and the morpho-theory-page from before summer 2013, with the merged-into-one page we have now. Compare the deWiki pages to the enWiki pages. Compare the BLP pages of similarly-controversial figures like Hapsgood (professor that believed the pole-shift theory and dubiously-ancient figurines might mean humans and dinosaurs co-existed), and with other phytomorphologists (Sheldrake's branch of biology), and with Penrose (physicst that believes consciousness has an as-yet-unknown quantum-level explanation... just like Sheldrake). None of *those* pages have WP:BLP violations, or even generic WP:NPOV violations. But the Sheldrake combo-page is a WP:BATTLEGROUND basket-case.    There is no organized conspiracy here, despite what Sheldrake and Chopra and Weiler assert on their oxygen-of-publicity blogs, and to the BBC; there are just some individual editors that incorrectly believe WP:FRINGE, which is *specifically* about excluding seemingly-reliable-sources such as the peer-reviewed journal of sasquatch science, *specifically* because that journal is not in fact reliable *as* science and is not in fact recognized by biologists, can be abusively broadened to Every Field Of Scholarship Evah. There is a recent thread over on the WP:FTN where a misguided editor is trying to use WP:FRINGE to eliminate coverage of specific *religious* topics, involving whether or not certain Bible prophecies can be interpreted as referring to Muhammed of Islam.    The misguided editor's argument is identical to what we see on the Sheldrake page, and in this noticeboard thread, and in all the previous noticeboard threads. The *real* experts in the *real* sources know The Truth about Sheldrake, and as long as I can cherrypick which sources are *real* and which sources are *pseudo* then the article will WP:RGW and get out WP:The_Truth to the poor gullible readers, making me a hero! Whenever a *real* source makes the *mistake* of saying something that accidentally might not 100% support the sceptic POV being propagated in mainspace, such as Wiseman admitting "the patterns match" in the case of Sheldrake (and such as unspecified "very few real sources" over in the islam-suks-christians-rulz thread), it is blatantly excluded based on rationalization using WP:UNDUE, or on some other tortured grounds.    I fully agree with Alfonzo that mainspace right now misleads the reader into thinking "Wiseman totally proved Sheldrake is a retarded-layman plus overturned his fraudulent claims" ... when the reliable sources, straight from the horse's mouth, which Vzaak quoted above and which is already used in mainspace, say nothing of the sort. Wikipedia has to mirror the sources, that is what pillar two means. Editors cannot pick-n-choose which sources we like, beyond separating the reliable from the unreliable. If you don't like what the reliable source said, then go find some other reliable source that diasgrees, and then the article can neutrally describe the conflicting sources. But wikipedia cannot decide who wins the conflict. If you don't like some *part* of what some reliable source said, and wish to exclude it, then take a cold shower, you are suffering from the blinders of POV. Rumor has it that there is no such thing as the sceptic POV... anybody who believes that needs to re-read the diffs I mentioned at the top.

   At the end of the day, I fully agree with TRPoD that we should phrase our language carefully, because "replicate" is flat out incorrect, and some other Wiseman quotes about "something going on" need care because they too could easily mislead the reader into thinking Wiseman meant something he actually did not. We need to mirror the sources correctly and say what Wiseman actually said and actually meant. But, that includes the undeniable fact that Wiseman now agrees with Sheldrake that "the patterns match" ... and excluding *that* factoid, but not Wiseman's earlier 1996-ish stance, is utterly non-neutral.

   This article is specifically about Sheldrake, the BLP, and must neutrally describe him, mirroring the bulk of the sources, most which say biologist-or-scientist, and a very few (but all perfectly reliable!) which say not-a-scientist. For the bio-detail-portions, WP:FRINGE has zero applicability. Right now mainspace does not mirror sources, it picks winners and losers. Because of the merge-decision, this same article is *also* about Sheldrake's scientific-theories, pseudoscientific-concepts, and philosophical-slash-religious-ideas. WP:FRINGE applies solely and only to the center category, never to Sheldrake's religion, never to Sheldrake's philosophizing (even when he philosophizes about the process of scientific funding & discoveries), and Nevah Evah to downplaying Sheldrake's several decades of scientific work. Right now, the article is non-neutral. Until this fundamental disagreement, about whether NPOV-means-mirror-the-sources-pillar-two can be somehow trumped by "NPOV"-means-exclude-sources-we-dislike-because-wp-fringe, the article and the article-talkpage will remain basket-cases, tempers will continue to run high, and noticeboards will repeatedly be filled with Sheldrake-alerts.

   TLDR: mirror the facts and the weights found in reliable sources -- quit trying to cherrypick the *really* reliable and *really* weighty facts-n-sources, excluding is non-neutral. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

and in mirroring Wiseman's comments about the psychic dog, anything other than ZERO WEIGHT to the suggestion that Wiseman believes experiments have shown it exists or the possibility that it exists is too much. [17] Wiseman didnt spend 6 pages saying that Sheldrake had blatantly misrepresented Wiseman's work because Wiseman has any belief that there is evidence of psychic dogs. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:18, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely. We violently agree. Wiseman has firmly held to the same conclusion: no evidence of any psychic phenomena. And we must make sure the language we use conveys that position. But in Wiseman's own words, the statistical patterns did match (which -- yes -- is not the same as replication). Right now, mainspace does not convey this, nor clearly convey that Wiseman's current stance on Sheldrake's 1994/1995 experiments is 'reserve judgment until such time as they are published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal'. Those are the portions being omitted, which methinks are most crucial. Do you disagree? Additionally, methinks that the layman-rigorous-thing suffers from editorializing, and could use a rewrite by David for clarity; unless Wiseman really *did* call Sheldrake a "non-rigorous... layman" in which case we need to *quote* Wiseman saying that, not imply it by connotation from our own prose. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

the "pattern" on my clothing may match the "pattern" on your clothing but to assign any type of meaning to that is ridiculous because I am wearing a plaid shirt to imitate Elmer Fudd hunting and you are wearing a plaid kilt because you are a member of Clan Campbell. The grasping at one passing phrase when ALL OF THE REST OF THE WISEMAN INTERVIEW AND ALL OTHER PUBLISHED WISEMAN COMMENTARY is to refute the Sheldrake experiment. It is the EPITOME of NPOV violation to place such UNDUE emphasis on that phrase out of context. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:24, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstand WP:UNDUE. It is *never* a license to delete Reliably-Sourced-material. Evah. You are correct that the Wiseman-quotes regarding "something going on" are too likely to mislead the readership, to be in the wikipedia article... but only because other equally-valid Wiseman quotes exist, which fully provide Wiseman's position on the matter. Wikipedia defines NPOV as reflecting what the sources say, without undue weight; you are zeroing out certain parts of certain sources. That is POV.

  Wiseman in fact no longer believes he has refuted the 200 Sheldrake trials, with the 4 Wiseman trials. But just because Wiseman did not refute Sheldrake, does not therefore mean Sheldrake wins; all it means is that Sheldrake does not outright unmistakably lose. Wiseman still has very valid methodological concerns; Wiseman still 100% says neither the Sheldrake nor the Wiseman experiments lend any evidence whatsoever in favor of telepathy, and Wikipedia must make it crystal clear to the reader that this is the case: Wiseman says absolutely zero evidence for telepathy exists, in 1995 and 1999 and 2007 and still today in 2013 (pending far-more-rigorous-proof ... and we also have a perfectly-Reliably-Sourced quote from Wiseman on *that* subject). But the bare fact is, when Sheldrake published that the 1995 patterns matched, and then later Wiseman in his published reply confirmed the 1995 patterns matched, at that very moment, the factoid surpassed WP:SELFPUB to attain WP:NOTEWORTHY status, and thus it belongs in wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:26, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE (and the rest of NPOV and Wikipedia:V#Neutrality) ABSOLUTELY allows us to not include content even it if it reliably sourced. Evah, and Always. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:05, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

No -- you are simply wrong. WP:UNDUE allows moving content to the correct article for that content. So that you don't have to click which the link you keep posting, here is the first paragraph of WP:UNDUE.

first paragraph of WP:UNDUE, emphasis and one parentheticals added

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources ((as judged by wikipolicy not as judged by any individual wikipedian)), 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 as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views. For example, the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority; to do so would give undue weight to it."

Because only a "tiny minority" of scientists believe morphogenetic fields explain phytomorphology, that concept is not covered in biology, phytomorphology, or morphogenetics. Instead, that concept is covered in the article on morphogenetic fields. And in *that* article, we must fairly represent all signficant viewpoints, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in published reliable sources. That's a direct quote from policy, btw. If there is an article about a tiny-minority-viewpoint, you cannot delete Reliably-Sourced-sentences *giving the viewpoint* from the article about it. WP:MAINSTREAM and WP:SPOV are not policy. If you believe there is a policy justification for deleting Reliably-Sourced-sentences about a topic, from the article-about-said-topic, please post the snippet here. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:32, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

VOSS Solutions needs rewrite

• VOSS Solutions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Related discussions

• User_talk:Ronz#Inquiry_about_VOSS_Solutions_article
• Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_68#Editor_Johnmoor - the creator of the article
• Talk:Grammarly Grammarly NPOVN - an article created by the same editor that has been cleaned up

Basically, this article was created by a paid editor who has little or no understanding of what are proper sources and what deserves mention in encyclopedia articles. I've trimmed back the article a bit, but it's only a start. Could someone look it over, help improve it, make suggestions on how to best address problems like this given that there are many more from the same paid editor needing the same type of help. --Ronz (talk) 22:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Daily Mail

Currently has a discussion over how much to expand the "lawsuits section" with one editor opining that it is incumbent on Wikipedia to expose the "modus operandi" of that newspaper. I admit that my own opinion is that this is a matter of determining proper weight on a topic, and that it is not up to us to make sure that readers know how horrid the newspaper might be. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Neither this noticeboard request nor the underlying RfC is phrased in a neutral manner. Both seem to be phrased as an attempt to discredit your opponent's viewpoint right off the bat. If you're interested in serious outside input, please make an effort to rephrase these in a more neutral fashion. MastCell ^Talk 18:26, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The notice uses the precise and exact language used by the other editor -- that you find it "not neutral" implies that you find his position "not neutral" -- Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

You've quoted two words from your opponent's post, and provided your own framing for them. That makes it very hard to evaluate whether you've accurately represented his viewpoint, or taken the words out of context. Your own viewpoint is presented in terms so vague as to be meaningless. Yes, you believe in neutrality and due weight, as we all do, but your post gives us no insight into the actual content under dispute, nor have you provided any links to relevant discussions. Your initial post is not constructed in such a way as to facilitate serious outside input. I've also taken the liberty of notifying the other editor in the dispute that you've posted here, in the hope that he can clarify his viewpoint. MastCell ^Talk 22:10, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Gawrsh! I quoted a bit more than "two words" (to give "the Mail's modus operandi full justice"_ and I suggest that before making aspersions on any editor, that you check out what the quote was. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:30, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• Suggest an uninvolved admin close this and the RfC pending a more neutral framing of what seems to be a whole basket of problems at the article. I agree with MastCell that this and the RfC are unlikely to lead to progress, because of how they are framed. I would go further and say we are well into POINT territory here. --John (talk) 22:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Drmies suggested I reword the RfC which I have done. Seeking to arbitrarily close a valid RfC is "not done" as far as I can tell. Cheers and have a nice holiday. Collect (talk) 23:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The effect of listing libel awards is that the paper appears to be unconcerned about accuracy. That is implicit original research. If the paper is acting unprofessionally, then the neutral approach would be to establish that through secondary sources that make that point, and explain how they compare with other papers. Unless that is provided, it is hard to justify the inclusion of these cases. TFD (talk) 04:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Especially since the "list" proffered includes one where a psychic was accused of not being a true psychic (which was hard to "prove" by court standards, even if many would consider a psychic on stage who repeats words uttered by "unrelated workers" a few minutes to be of interest, and might produce a different result in the courts of other nations, and one suit was about photos which were sold by a person who did not have right to them. Collect (talk) 23:28, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

RfC Notice: Living members of deposed royal families and the titles attributed to them on WP

I have opened an RfC on articles about living members of families whose ancestors were deposed as monarchs of various countries and the titles and "styles" attributed to these living people, often in a misleading way and inaccurate way in my opinion. Please join in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies "Use of royal "Titles and styles" and honorific prefixes in articles and templates referring to pretenders to abolished royal titles and their families"[18]

Section Blanking Reason NPOV

Talk:Cholangiocarcinoma section Notable victims section is the talk section that refers to this dispute about the Cholangiocarcinoma article. A little bit of history about this article: It became a FA in 2008 with the version edited by user:MastCell being the FA that was used. Sometime after that various editors added the Notable Victims section to the article. Looking at article views, there was a spike in views on November 19, 2013. And at that time another name was added to the Notable Victims section. As it turned out, that person Peter Wintonick had died from the disease on November 18, 2013.-Which is what I probably accounts for the increase in article readers. A few days later another name was added. After that, User:Yobol blanked the entire Notable Victims section. I reversed the section blanking. User:Ronz came by and undid my reversal stating that there was a WP:NPOV (again) problem with my edit. I looked closely at the list, and deleted one name due to lack of information, and I also deleted the word, "legendary", which had been applied recently to the two newer entries, along-with the entry to the legendary Walter Payton, in an effort to apply NPOV to the list. Somehow I became mixed-up with this group of editors while I was trying to learn more information about why seaweed is added to cream. I met up with this trio of prolific editors-(over 72,000 by Ronz) on the article Raw milk , which I did not realize was a contentious topic and of interest to various factions. The edits from Ronz which have been personally aimed at my edits in several topics, have varying degrees of comprehensibility from very helpful to does not make any sense. The assertions of NPOV on my part--being one that is incomprehensible to me at this point. There is more that I could say about editing behaviors of Ronz {{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive747#User:Ronz_behaviour}} and Yobol who have both been publicly criticized in the past by the founders of WP http://wikipediocracy.com/2013/09/02/on-the-moral-bankruptcy-of-wikipedias-anonymous-administration ,but for the purposes of this question I'll stick to the question of neutrality on the Talk:Cholangiocarcinoma article. Thank-you for any comments.24.0.133.234 (talk) 18:59, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I would like to note that Yobol is not mentioned in that blog post, except in the comments. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:07, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank-you for taking the time to read this and to examine the link and to add your notice24.0.133.234 (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Political parties & infoboxes during election campaigns

I'm not sure if there is an easy answer to this but I opened at discussion at Talk:Delhi legislative assembly elections,_2013#Infobox criteria regarding the possibility of Wikipedia giving undue prominence to certain political parties during an election campaign. There are various criteria that could be used to select which parties appear in an infobox during the campaign but I have a gut feeling that it should be all or none: we're not supposed to take sides and, well, elections do sometimes produce unexpected outcomes. Would it not be best just to have a simple alphatbetically-ordered list of all the contesting parties in the box, at least until the results are announced? - Sitush (talk) 11:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the infobox should show none of the parties because it is too small to show three or more without crowding the page. The body of the article contains all the needed information. Binksternet (talk) 12:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The "all or nothing" principle looks good.

On articles about elections in other countries, I have met editors who only wanted to list "major" candidates &c - where they had written their own definition of "major". I'm not comfortable with editors picking and choosing like that. bobrayner (talk) 13:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd originally removed all mentions of parties and I also left a note on the talk page back in October. However, the box crept back in, Lihaas reverted my renewed attempt to remove the stuff and the practice is apparently also evident on other Indian election articles. At least here we can perhaps establish a consensus for the future. I'd prefer no mention but if we must mention then it should be all of them, not some. I'm not even sure that showing a multitude of parties after the election is a good thing, mainly because it can cause the infobox to swamp the top of the article - but that more an aesthetic issue rather than a POV issue. - Sitush (talk) 13:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Why do we have to cram everything into an infobox anyway? bobrayner (talk) 13:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I've no idea - dumbing down for the Facebook generation? - Sitush (talk) 11:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Cramming down is the main purpose of all infoboxes. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 04:55, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Binksternet that showing none is a good fallback position... but mathematically speaking, in any first-past-the-post voting system, which are dominant in the UK and the USA, there are going to be two major parties (exactly two), at most points in history. The media will tend to cover those two major parties, and give short shrift to the "third party" folks... as the term itself suggests! Australian elections are different, and I believe that India has a voting-system more like the Aussies than like the UK.

  Point being, in some countries there will be a definitely-visible trend in the Reliable Sources to cram everything into three boxes, the OneSideMajorParty, the OtherSideMajorParty, and TheRestOfEm. Wikipedia editors should not be responsible for coming up with -- nor permitted per pillar two -- their own lists of which parties are "major" and deserve infoboxen status. On the other hand, I don't want wikipedia editors imposing their all-or-none views on the Reliable Sources, either, and for exactly the same WP:NPOV reason.

  Anyways, rather than make some particular consensus-driven specialty-rules for individual political races, or individual countries, I suggest sticking to pillar two, and thus sticking to what the WP:RS that cover the politics in question, actually do. In most political races in the USA or the UK, that will mean that two or three parties almost *always* get the bulk of the press, and therefore belong in the infoboxen; in rare races, where four or five folks are contenders, we put them all in there, see for instance the primary-campaigns of non-incumbent POTUS campaigns in the past decade.

  By contrast, in countries with plurality voting, there will be a fuzzier rule, but still the same rule: if the bulk of the sources emphasize a subset of the parties as Major, then those parties go into the infoboxen, since that is what WP:DUE says. If this is not possible, for layout-related-reasons, then it is possible to put *none* of the parties in the infoboxen, and instead just have a hyperlink to the article-subsection where we have a table or somesuch which explains the long list. But editors should never be deciding who goes in the infoboxen, who is out, which parties are major, which are not. We should follow the sources. p.s. User:Gerda_Arendt may has something to say here. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 19:45, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Swami Nithyananda

user name Acnaren has been consistently pushing POV, deleting referenced sources , engaging in revert wars on the article. The current article of nithyananda reads

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swami_Nithyananda&diff=584296268&oldid=584292834

The term godman is being deleted, But it is to be noted that other articles like Asaram Bapu use the same term, And there are many veteran editors who found nothing wrong with using the term. Also please note that the reference provided to national daily newspaper has been deleted and replaced with a self-published source.

The user seems to be using wikipedia as a promotional basis for nithyananda. All of the promotional text is unreferenced. He puts "Clean up needed" tags on referenced material. The article has already been cleaned up of most POV by Sean.Hoyland, But the POV pushing seems to continue unabated. Request Acnaren to discuss any further edits before making changes. The entire biography provides no references, But i have not raised a dispute about it so that the article can be neutral.

Lokayata91 (talk) 04:51, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

On the godman vs guru issue, as I said on my talk page 'I doubt that "godman" is a term familiar to most readers'. It can be sourced of course, but I would expect that it can only be sourced from Indian newspapers because it's a local colloquialism...'local' being misused by me to describe a gigantic country with 1 billion+ people. For example, the non-local source[19] cited next to the term in the lead of the article does not use it. It uses 'guru' instead. I don't think it matters very much which term is used, both terms can be linked to Wikipedia articles and both terms can be sourced, possibly to different extents. Someone could survey a large-ish sample of sources to see which term is used most for this person, but it hardly seems worth it. The article could say something like 'variously described as x[refs], y[refs] and z[refs]'. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Since surveys are impossible , i vote in favor of using both godman and guru in the article. Swami Nithyananda is a godman, guru, Mahamandelswar and founder of nithyananda dhyanapeetam! But the use of words like "spiritual guardian" and "Spiritual mystic" is promotional text, right?

Lokayata91 (talk) 05:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I have genuinely never really understood what the word "spiritual" actually means in any context, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of word that should be used to describe someone without attribution in Wikipedia's neutral narrative voice. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:01, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Using "variously described as" looks so silly. You should then start every wikipedia BLP or any Biography for that matter with that phrase. I am changing that to say just "is". Btw Swami Nithyananda is not described as the Mahamandaleshwar of the Nirvani Akhada. Thats a title he has been given. Also if you see similar pages for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_sri_ravi_shankar and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggi_Vasudev you can see the term spiritual leader has been used. Spirituality is a commonly understood word. I don't know why that is self serving? The term godman is defined as a derogatory term. Using that as an introduction is outright malicious. I am suggesting changing the first line to this based on the other two biographies: 'Swami Nithyananda also known as Paramahamsa nithyananda is a spiritual leader, yogi and guru. He is the Mahamandaleshwar of the Nirvani Akhada and founder of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam, a spiritual movement headquartered in Bidadi near Bengaluru, India' Acnaren (talk) 07:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Godman "outright malicious" ? It's a term used by many RS to describe the subject of the article, so dismissing it completely because you don't like it is not really an option available to you. Also, citing other Wikipedia articles as if they matter doesn't really help. The Swami Nithyananda article has to reflect the contents of reliable sources that discuss Swami Nithyananda according to our policies and guidelines. You can't tell what that should look like by looking at articles about other people, so no, you won't be changing the article to look like other articles because you don't have consensus or a policy based reason to do that. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:14, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Yet another SPI accusation against me..! Dude, Using SPI against me will not make me go away.

Describing Nithyananda as Paramahamsa is against wikipedia policies as well. Who gave him the title paramahamsa? Where are the sources?

Lokayata91 (talk) 12:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Guidance on Badoo page Neutrality

Hi I'm asking for help evaluating the neutrality of the Badoo page. I have read the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ and associated articles. I chose to edit the page in an effort to gain experience as an editor and have made best efforts to do so and act only in good faith. I view the page as being negatively biased as so have attempted to make the page neutral. I fully acknowledge that some of my early attempts were clumsy, but again they were made in good faith. On the basis of feedback on my suggested edits I feel that I vastly improved the content and sources used in the article. Rather than engaging on the content in order reach consensus, I feel that I have received personal accusations of bias, churnalism or soapboxing, flat rejections with little explanation or have simply had suggestions ignored. I don't feel this is fair. It is clear from comments made by several editors that they have personal views on Badoo and its founder and this is making improving the page extremely difficult.

Given the most recent posting on the Talk page I decided to turn to the broader community for advice, guidance and instruction. I am here to learn how to become a better editor rather than directly accuse anyone of being obstructive however I feel it would be very helpful to have an 'outside' perspective on the page. Other editors involved in the debate include: Unforgettableid (talk), Adrian J. Hunter(talk), 88.177.158.231 (talk). Some comments made by these editors have led me to have concerns regarding neutrality including:

Revision as of 02:54, 25 November 2013 (edit) (undo) (thank)

Unforgettableid (talk | contribs)

(Lucspook, I'm undoing the 2nd of your 2 recent edits. There's no consensus for it. By citing questionable sources, you perhaps imply Badoo itself is useful. But I suspect those who dislike Badoo have refrained from voting. I've sent you This is your last warning. The next time you use Wikipedia for soapboxing, promotion or advertising, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. .)

I don't have time now for a detailed response, but I was opposed to your changes, just didn't have the time or energy to do anything about them then. Intervening edits were mostly either partial reverts of your edits (removing the more obvious puffery) or small fixes to wikilinks and the like. You keep comparing this article to Facebook, but Badoo has drawn vastly more criticism than Facebook, especially considering its lesser influence. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 13:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The Badoo staff is clever: first the whole "someone sent you a message", using a profile made of information illegally (and I know my consumer and privacy law) harvested on other social networks and then used on their website, and when you follow that link (I had to, because the concerned person recently started suffering from social isolation and could end up in depression) it creates a "profile" automatically. Hopefully, I only gave them fake info and a fake picture.

This is where it gets really funny: you "can" delete a profile, but for that you need your password. To get your password, you need to request it first. When you request it, after going in the account deletion menu, they immediately flag your account as "suspicious" and block your IP from the entire website.

I just tried it with junk email addresses and other Internet lines (= so different IPs) here, and am able to reproduce it. Same with proxies. It's not the cache nor the cookies (tried clearing the cache, using other browsers, other devices on the same fixed-IP line).

Sadly Andrey Andreev is a moscowian in London (= shoddy relations with the russian mobs and the russian oligarchy living in London), so if you ever try to sue him, you'll end up with death threats and tinted windows cars parking in your street until you drop the case. --88.177.158.231 (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Here is an example of a rejection that I don't really understand but I am in total fear of reverting or engaging further as I've been threatened with blocked from editing without further notice by Unforgettableid (talk).

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Badoo&diff=583181114&oldid=583155688

label

I am also proposing to replace these two criticism sections:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badoo#Deceptive_bulk_email
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badoo#Other_criticism

With this Reception section:

===Reception===

Growth

Following Badoo’s launch, it grew rapidly gaining millions of monthly active users . In September 2011, The Economist published an article that explained how Badoo had a shot at becoming "one of Europe’s leading internet firms" and that Badoo seems to have discovered a large new market. .

Badoo was officially launched in the USA on 23rd March 2012 with a campaign led by celebrity Nick Cannon. The launch was a three day project involving four fashion photograpers taking new online profile pictures for 1,000 New Yorkers. The 24 best pictures were chosen through a Facebook ‘likes’ campaign and used on billboards and taxi advertising to promote Badoo’s launch.

Badoo is claimed to be the world’s fourth-largest social network with users spread across 180 countries. According to a Badoo press release reported by London Loves Business, it is growing by 125,000 new users a day. According to the article, in both Spain and Brazil, roughly one in eight people who use the internet are Badoo members.

Spam & Fake Profiles

Some of Badoo's early growth has been attributed to spamming and scamming. There have been user complaints stating that they were signed up without their consent and that Badoo sent spam emails to their entire address book without permission, telling them their friend "has left you a message.". Blogger Daniel Stuckey complains that "The site sends messages to all email addresses it can find through your accounts, with minimal consent, promising that a message from you awaited them at the other end". Rather than their friend leaving them an actual message Badoo sent a template email asking their contacts to join up as well.

Other reported complaints from 2011 accuse Badoo of scraping their profile data from other social networks or dating services and creating fake profiles without their consent. Badoo responded to the complaints by asking users to send their details, via the website feedback page, so they could look into the problems. There have been no recorded complaints to the UK Data Protection Commissioner .

Reviews

Despite the high rating of Badoo's mobile applications, opinions of Badoo.com on TrustPilot, which are based on user reviews, rate the site as 'Very low', with a current score of 1.7 out of 10. Complaints included fake profiles, and spamming of email accounts of signed-up users. However opinion differs and many bloggers enjoy and recommend using the site . In a peer-reviewed study conducted and published by Cambridge University in 2009, it was given the lowest score for privacy amongst the 45 social networking sites examined at that time.

Awards

• Badoo has received or been nominated for numerous awards including:
• Nominated for Best International Startup – Crunchies 2011 .
• Nominated for Best Social Network at the 5th Annual Mashable Awards 2011 .
• Nominated in the Social Networking & Collaboration category at the 2011. [footnote]
• –[Daily Telegraph]]’s Start-Up 100 Awards .
• Nominated as Highly Recommended for the The Europas Hero Award at the European Tech Startup Awards 2011 .
• One of the Top Most Innovative Companies 2012 by FastCompany.

There is plenty more on this page that I believe could be written in a better and more neutral manner but I haven't got that far just improving the above has been so difficult.

As I have stated I'm relatively new to editing, starting this summer and took on the Badoo page as a first project. I may have misunderstood how the editing process works and am turning to the community for guidance on neutrality. I love wikipedia and hope to continue to make a positive contribution but this has been a very rough ride!

Lucspook (talk) 17:15, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

How many scientists and critics?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

WP:WEASEL warns us about "statements dressed with authority", and that are numerically vague. For example, we could provide sources supporting both these statements:

Scientists and critics have lent support to homeopathy.

Scientists and critics have labelled homeopathy pseudoscience.

Do we infer that "a few have", or "some", or "the majority? How do we best resolve this? --Iantresman (talk) 13:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Preferably find a WP:RS that uses some relevant term. Otherwise say "Some" have "Opinion A" and list some. "Others" have "Opinion B" and list some. If listing, I think it's more NPOV to list those who agree first, hopefully giving some indication of what the views in queston are; with critics and criticisms listed second.Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Ian, in order to resolve it, you need to get hundreds, not just the current paltry amount. Consider the vast field that is Science, broadly construed and consider the tiny handful you guys have gathered together. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 01:52, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Presumably you mean hundreds of reliable sources, before we can just say "Scientists and critics have..."? I'm not sure what you mean by the "the tiny handful you guys have gathered together". You mean reliable sources? --Iantresman (talk) 10:35, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem that Iantresman (talk · contribs) isn't acknowledging is that on a WP:FRINGE topic, the majority of authorities on a particular subject will simply ignore it. Thus we have the situation where a small number of authorities have spoken against a particular view, and yet a small number of others have also spoken in favour of it. The anti-viewpoints harshly condemn the fringer, and explain why it isn't correct. Meanwhile, many of the supporters have their own separate issues with WP:FRINGE, (Brian Josephson, Deepak Chopra), and yet their support of the proposition (Rupert Sheldrake's "morphic resonance", rather than homeopathy, btw) is often weak, supporting a fringer's right to free speech or free inquiry rather than arguing that he's right. In this case, it's quite clear from this, plus the lack peer reviewed articles on "morphic resonance" that these ideas are not considered worthwhile of scientific investigation. Also WP:ARB/PS. So WP:FRINGE applies. Barney the barney barney (talk) 13:00, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps shockingly (to him), I agree almost 100% with Barney. Even more shockingly (to all including myself), there is not much more to say. If we have several respected scientists that call a view pseudo (or equivalent term), and some relatively small number of scientists (especially if these are *not* as mainstream-respectable as the first group) who are either cautiously neutral like Sokal, or cautiously positive like Durr, then WP:FRINGE fully applies and we must presume that the Silent Majority Of Mainstream Scientists agrees with the nay-sayers. Phrasing this is tricksy, but not impossible once all agree to the basic concept.

  p.s. Barney, the only mistake you make is conflating when the anti-viewpoints condemn the *theory* and when they condemn the *BLP*. There is no way to apply WP:FRINGE to statements about a BLP, such as their job-title, WP:FRINGE can only apply to statements about a scientific-or-pseudoscientific theory-or-hypothesis-or-concept. p.p.s. There *are* of course some papers that will condemn the idea ("morally offensive pseudoscience!"), and then *also* condemn the BLP ("ugly stupid pseudoscientist!"). WP:FRINGE only applies to the first, and in the second case only normal WP:RS and WP:UNDUE applies, plus a very strong WP:BLP. Your fast-n-loose invented terminology of 'fringer' is insulting to Sheldrake; suggest you redact it and say 'person' per WP:BLPTALK, even if you have an RS. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 20:02, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for comment

Due to no consensus on a previous discussion re: article naming involving WP:NPOV, there is a second discussion open about moving Australia national association football team to Australia men's national association football team. We are seeking outside input. Contributions to the discussion is much appreciated. Thank you. Hmlarson (talk) 01:35, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

RfC Notice: Liberty University inter-collegiate policy debate program

Interested editors are invited to respond to an RfC at Talk:Liberty University concerning the use of a blog article as a source for criticism of Liberty University's inter-collegiate policy debate program. Roccodrift (talk) 03:27, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Bias in climate sections of certain cities

I came across an article that mention about how a particular city has a better climate that other cities. For example in the Las Palmas article it states Las Palmas enjoys the best climate in the world according to a study carried out by Thomas Whitmore at Syracuse University. My question is whether this is neutral point of view or not. I think it is not a neutral point of view for many factors but I am not 100% sure.

1. It is based on the opinions of one author. What defines a good climate is highly subjective and varies person
2. sources may be unreliable and are just meant for promoting travel to that place (not a tourist brochure)

My question is that is this an example of a bias in the climate section? I posted it on the article's respective talk page but there has not been any replies yet. Any comments would be welcome. Ssbbplayer (talk) 03:33, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The quote is possibly valid, if it is a direct quotation, from a reliable source, in a peer-reviewed journal, published in the pertinent field (which is not climatology btw... I'm not sure there *is* a pertinent field here... anthropology maybe?). That said, even if the quote passes the high bar... and in particular, the researcher must have specifically said "Las Palmas" and also "best climate in the world" without any qualifiers or hedging... it is NPOV as written.

  First of all, it does not tell the readers who T.Whitmore actually is, but just alludes to blah-blah-university to give him authoritah. Second of all, the marketroid keyword "enjoys" fails NPOV, even if it *was* in the direct quotation -- just because the Reliable Source is POV, doesn't mean we have a license to *quote* them in POV-pushing fashion. Can you give us the context of the quotation, the title of the piece, and the title of the publication where the piece appeared, and the paragraph on either side? But you may need to be at the Reliable Sources noticeboard, to ask something like "is this blog post by this chemistry grad-student a reliable source for this specific sentence".  :-)   Hope this helps. p.s. I was worried from the question-title that you were going to report some editor who was a global warming adversary-and-or-proponent, and was screwing with the long-term-temp-trend data, subtly corrupting wikipedia's dataset to reflect their climate-model-simulations. Glad it was just a tourism thing! 74.192.84.101 (talk) 20:14, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

If it was pertinent to some point that so-and-so said "... enjoys the best climate in the world", then the quote would be attributed to "so-and-so" and properly (we hope) cited. But as to who/what/where "enjoys the best climate" (and even what the best climate is), that is so personally subjective that I don't see it belongs in the encyclopedia at all. It is not a matter of bias or neutrality of viewpoints, but that the statement is utterly lacking an objective basis. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I cannot even find the article in the journal (try to search it). The references that quote it are from tourism sites so it seems this is POV pushing and obviously, tourism sites are often unreliable. It looks like that removing this statement is perfectly valid after all from what I have seen so far. I will remove the statement now. Thanks for your input on this. Ssbbplayer (talk) 17:02, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

This article in The Telegraph would be a better secondary source. The information itself I assume comes from Whitmore's Pleasant Weather Ratings book ISBN 978-0964578579 rather than a journal. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:16, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Jan Henryk Dąbrowski and the term "national hero"

Greetings. The Jan Henryk Dąbrowski article is currently a GAN, and I am the reviewer. This article describes Dąbrowski in the lead sentence as a "national hero". There is no doubt that Dąbrowski is seen as a hero to most Poles. (His name is inscribed in the Arc de Triomphe, and the Polish National Anthem is named after him.) But I also know that we must avoid peacock terms—"Hero" is not specifically mentioned in the list of peacock terms, but it sounds like one to me. The nominator and I have a friendly disagreement on whether it is acceptable to call him a "hero" in the text, so I thought I'd ask for outside opinions.

Some countries have official designations, such as National Hero of Armenia or Hero of Ukraine, but Poland does not, so the term "hero" is unofficial. It's easy to find RSes that call him a hero, but it's easy to find sources that call him clear peacock terms as well. Is it NPOV to call Dąbrowski a "hero"? (This should also apply to unofficial national heroes like George Washington, I imagine.) – Quadell ^(talk) 17:59, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• I suggest you introduce an {{efn}} cite note [a] with direct quotation from "Michnik 1987" who says in Note 4 of his book on page 164 (quote): "Jarosław Dąbrowski (1836–1871), Polish national hero, died in battle while he was commander-in-chief of the forces of the Paris Commune." Poeticbent talk 07:30, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Citing sources about Jarosław in an article about Jan Henryk? That's interesting. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:42, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

You're correct, Kpalion. Please use Encyclopædia Britannica instead for the cite note (quote): "Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, regarded as a Polish national hero for his part in Tadeusz Kościuszko’s rebellion." [20] Thanks, Poeticbent talk 20:13, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I would not include it in the lead sentence, which should be just actual facts about the subject. But an attributed "he has been called X " in the lead section would probably be appropriate. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:34, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Good catch, User:Kpalion. User:Poeticbent: Regarding EB, I try to avoid using it as a source; also it claims that JHD was seen as a hero only for his Kosciuszko Uprising part, where I think most people would associate him with the Legions instead. I did find a good national hero quote: Marek Rezler (1982). Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, 1755-1818. Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza. p. 3. Generał Jan Henryk Dąbrowski należy do bohaterów narodowych otoczonych w polskim społeczeństwie szczególnym kultem. through for the most part I think it's safer to see stick with just calling him "hero". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:38, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, all. The article has no neutrality issues any longer, so far as I'm concerned. – Quadell ^(talk) 17:52, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

South African farm attacks

I came across this article while patrolling for vandalism. I began to look at the claims and sources and they do not match up well. I have spent about an hour rewriting the lead based on the articles and what I could find, but the article still has plenty of non-neutral content. It is of a serious enough nature that I thought I should bring it here because I don't have the time right now to work on it. For example, the section on the committee report appears to have little to do with what they actually concluded. I am One of Many (talk) 06:26, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

the enfield poltergeist

The current Enfield Poltergeist page has slowly been changed to remove the facts of the past and to add terminological inexactitudes, I have been studying this case for three years and so am completely nonplussed as to why this is being allowed. There are several accounts which seem to want to add American references to a wholly British affair.

JudgeJoker — Preceding unsigned comment added by Judgejoker (talk • contribs) 22:52, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

What kind of "terminological inexactitudes"? Also, I'm not clear as to what a reference's country of origin has to do with its reliability.

Furthermore, edits like this and this aren't acceptable. Please adhere to WP:CIVIL when dealing with others on Wikipedia.

I think if you want help for people here, you're going to need to present some evidence because at this point, I think you're looking at a WP:BOOMERANG situation. OlYeller21^Talktome 05:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

He's editwarring (at around 6RR now, I've warned him). He suddenly appeared yesterday and is accusing others of vandalism and as you can see daring to add American references. Dougweller (talk) 10:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

And by sheer coincidence, I'm sure, 86.6.111.196 (talk · contribs) shows up at the same time helping him and agreeing with him on the article talk page and also complaining about Americans. Dougweller (talk) 10:10, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Norplant

• ''Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty'' (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Dorothy Roberts (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Norplant (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Cynst76 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• JasminNavarrete (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DayziahN (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Stm278 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Stellaiyeo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Delgado kv16 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Cmonica4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Tarahperkins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Michehn3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Stm278 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• YoungColtrane (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Aschin1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Chemgirl131 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I ran into this situation while patrolling new articles. The article I patrolled was ''Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty'' which seems to be a synopsis of a single chapter in a book by Dorothy Roberts. There's no article for the book so I redirected it to the author's article. That redirect was reverted but I just reverted that reversion, left an WP:OR template on the user's talk page, and invited them to a discussion on the talk page of the article. Now that I think about it, the chapter will almost certainly never be notable on its own. The article should really just be deleted.

Digging a bit deeper, I found the Norplant article. Several sections seem to be based solely on Dorothy Roberts's findings and the article seems to have previously had issues with alleged soapbox editing and original research. I tend to stay away from such controversies so I won't say whether the edits were problematic or not. At the very least,

The Dorothy Roberts article has few references. One seems to be a broken link to an online profile, another is an online profile, another is to an article of hers published in the Howard Law Journal, another is to a book she wrote, the last is an article written about her in a student newspaper (here is a replacement for the dead link in the article). Assuming she is notable, much of the unreferenced content found in the Dorothy Roberts article was placed by editors whose only other edits were large additions the the Norplant article.

The editor Stellaiyeo's sandbox, User:Stellaiyeo/sandbox, seems to outline her intentions. Between Norplant and Dorothy Roberts, there seems to be a collection of WP:SPA accounts participating. Every one of those editors have utilized their sandbox to keep notes on their experience and intents, in the same way that Stelleiyeo has.

I think this is a class assignment. One of the users states in their sandbox, "The topic my group wanted to focus on". I don't sense any intentional socking. Even though Tarahperkins was blocked for socking, I can't find a single bit of evidence or even an investigation to support that. I only checked out accounts that had redlink userpages. There could be several more. At any rate, I think the situation needs attention. OlYeller21^Talktome 04:20, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; this is obviously a class assignment. Looking at the chatter on the sandboxes, there's a lot of comments on whether the content is still up or not; I speculate that one of their goals is to keep their added content up. I asked them what they're doing here. [21] I'll also xpost to the Administrator's Noticeboard as I have no idea what our policy is on this. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 10:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Reported here: [22]. AFK'ing now. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 10:26, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Best I can tell, it may be related to instructor Wadewitz. Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Students SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:55, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Fight Against the Right

The article Fight Against the Right has a blatant pro-far-right slant/spin to it, essentially presenting a conspiracy theory (known as KgR or Kampf-gegen-Rechts-Industrie in German) current in German far-right circles, I think, trying to denigrate activism/resistance directed against far-right activities (antifa) as alarmist and somehow unlawful/unconstitutional or undemocratic, and the activists as extremists themselves (in the vein of anti-antifa, a far-right strategy). This is not my speciality, though, so I would appreciate if someone more deeply familiar with the subject would examine the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

POV and images content

Arabs attack the commercial center, Jerusalem 2.12.1947

Tel Aviv residents taking cover at the Carmel market from Arab snipers shooting from Hassan Bek Mosque of Jaffa

I have added these 2 images(Diff page) while keeping the POV balance of images (i.e. images that shows Arabs only Vs. Images that shows Jews only). I have noted:"based on help desk advice, there is no image limit per section. re-added 2 images. deleted other 2 images because of POV claim".

USER:Pluto2012 removed it (Diff page). He explained in the talk page :"Pov pushing with the use of images is well known. There is even an article dedicated to this issue (but in the media) related to the I-P conflict... Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict.

The same issues was already exposed on the article about the Six day war.

It is not a question of having an image "for each side". Images must be equilibrated, not introduce bias or useless emotions (ex. pictures of snipers who shot at civils or children around a armoured car...). The notoriaty and the reliability of the picture is also important...".

As for this case I do not agree with him. My purpose is making the article more attractive, such as an occasional reader might be tempted by the attractive images to read it.

--Bear in mind, that I am the only editor who added images (of both sides) to the article during the last half a year.

-- The concensus is automatically against me, since I am the only Israeli editor among regular editors.

Is the addition of those images considered as a POV problem? thanks. Ykantor (talk) 21:54, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I have no views on the use or otherwise of the images; what I'd like to comment on is the caption written under the first image: "Arabs attack the commercial center, Jerusalem 2.12.1947." This rather implies that the figures appearing in the photo are Arabs. The Wikicommons description of the photo is: "Commercial Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem attacked on December 2, 1947 a few days after the announcement of the positive vote at UNO on the Partition Plan for Palestine." Obviously, there has been an Arab attack, but it's ambiguous whether the attack is in progress or is over. There is certainly, however, no statement that the figures appearing are Arab. Also note that it specifies that it is the Jewish commercial centre (British English spelling to be consistent with the flavour of English used in the article), not the commercial centre. The same, misleading, caption is used in one other article where the photograph is used. Pardon me if that's all a bit irrelevant here.     ←   ZScarpia   00:34, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Would you suggest another caption? May we continue in the article talk page? Ykantor (talk) 07:13, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

How about "Arab attack on the Jewish commercial quarter of Jerusalem, 2 December 1947"?     ←   ZScarpia   20:48, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, although it probably was used by everyone (e.g. Jews, Arabs) as all the shops in Mandatory Jerusalem. Ykantor (talk) 21:12, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

For information :

These diffs dates back more than 2 months and nobody reacted.

Since then Ykantor keeps performing forumshopping. He launched more than 6 WP:DNR and even 1 WP:A/E.

Some weeks ago he put more than 20 notices on the talk page of the article 1948 Arab-Israeli War but don't participate to the discussion.

Pluto2012 (talk) 07:49, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Robert Scarano, Jr. – Biography does not adhere to NPOV policy. Content out of date.

Biography does not adhere to NPOV policy. Content out of date. Initial bio paragraph contains no sources and is biased and out of date.

For example, here is the Professional Bio per the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce: What does your business do? When and Why did you join the Brooklyn Chamber? Founded in 1985 by Robert Scarano, Jr., AIA, FARA, ALA, award-winning Scarano Architects, PLLC is responsible for the design of over 400 multi-family and mixed-use properties designed and built in 2004, primarily in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Working with a wide range of developers in both profit and non-profit sectors, such as The NYC Housing Authority and Chamber Members Strategic Construction Corporation and The Kay Organization, Scarano designers achieve a new dimension for the architectural vocabulary that is respectful of the history of a given area, while providing gracious, livable space. In October 2004, the firm completed its unique office roof extension, which has become a visual signpost for travelers on the Manhattan Bridge, instantly identifying Vinegar Hill. - See more at: http://www.ibrooklyn.com/member_promotion/scarano.aspx#sthash.cDDl7IqI.dpuf

Here is an example of one editor removing large amounts of information (see Awards and Professional Honors that were all deleted below) and replacing with entirely different content: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Scarano,_Jr.&diff=prev&oldid=496283904

Awards and Professional Honors

2011 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Merit, Project: 99 Gold, DUMBO, Brooklyn 2011 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Honor, Project: 406 Lorimer, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 2009 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Merit, Project: Satori Condo 2009 Society of American Registered Architects, National Design Award of Honor, Project: Vere 2 2008 New York Enterprise Report Small Business Award, Construction Services Category, Scarano Architect PLLC 2008 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Merit, Project: Satori Condo 2008 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Excellence, Project: 52E4, NoHo, NYC 2008 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Excellence, Project: 364 Myrtle Avenue 2007 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Merit, Project: Manhattan Park Condominium 2007 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Honor, Project: Vere 26 2006 Society of American Registered Architects, National Design Award, Project: The Myrtle Affordable Housing Project 2006 Society of American Registered Architects, National Design Award, Project: Scarano Architect PLLC Offices, 110 York Street 2005 Brooklyn Icon Award Presented to Robert M. Scarano, Jr. by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, April 11, 2005 2005 Metal Architecture Design Award, Project: Scarano Architect PLLC Offices, 110 York Street 2005 NYSAFAH Award for Excellence - Project of the Year - The Douglass, Harlem USA 2005 Society of American Registered Architects, California Council Design Award of Honor, Project: The Arches at Cobble Hill 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Design Award of Excellence, Project: SoHo Residence, New York City 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Design Award of Excellence, Project: 234 West 20th Street, Chelsea, NYC 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Design Award of Merit, Project: 171 North 7th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Design Award of Merit, Project: 142 West 10th Street, West Village, NYC 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Design Award of Merit, Project: "Ella 82", Greenpoint, Brooklyn 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Certificate of Appreciation, Project: Toy Factory Lofts, Downtown Brooklyn, New York 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Certificate of Appreciation, Project: The Douglass, Harlem USA 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Certificate of Appreciation, Project: Silo House, 400 Carroll Street, Brooklyn 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Certificate of Appreciation, Project: The Arches at Cobble Hill, Brooklyn 2005 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Certificate of Appreciation, Project: Scarano Architect PLLC Offices, 110 York Street 2005 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Honor, Project: Clarkson Avenue Housing 2005 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Honor, Project: 354 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn 2005 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Excellence, Project: Ella 82, Greenpoint, Brooklyn 2004 Society of American Registered Architects, National Design Award of Merit, Project: The Arches at Cobble Hill 2004 American Institute of Architects, Boston Society Housing Design Award, Project: 234 West 20th Street, Chelsea, NYC 2004 Association of Licensed Architects National Design Award of Merit, Project: Clarkson Avenue Housing 2004 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Merit, Project: 171 North 7th Street, Brooklyn 2004 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Merit, Project: The Arches at Cobble Hill 2004 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Honor, Project: Toy Factory Lofts 2004 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Special Recognition Award, Project: 2908 Emmons Avenue 2004 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Special Recognition Award, Project: Greenpoint Redevelopment Masterplan 2003 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Design Award of Excellence, Project: 10-09 49th Avenue, Queens 2003 American Institute of Architects, Brooklyn Chapter Special Appreciation Award for Residential Projects 2003 Society of American Registered Architects, National Design Award of Excellence, Project: Medellin Convention Center, Colombia, SA 2003 International Competition for the International Convention Center in Medellin, Colombia, Third Place of 6,230 design entries 2003 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Firm of The Year Award 2003 Society of American Registered Architects, New York Council Design Award of Honor, project: 496 Court Street , Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

Here is one example of many biased statements made within the bio by anonymous IP addresses: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Scarano,_Jr.&diff=prev&oldid=525200973

Real Deal is used often as a source for negative citations but not once from this article: http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/with-100s-of-projects-scarano-remakes-b-klyn/ which is a positive example of coverage from the source.

These are just a few examples. I would like to update the article with current, accurate and unbiasedly sourced content, awards and current member standings.

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erikabogner (talk • contribs) 22:20, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

NOTE: this has also been cross posted at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Robert_Scarano.2C_Jr._.E2.80.93_Biography_does_not_adhere_to_NPOV_policy._Content_out_of_date. Discussion should probably be centralized there. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:26, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Jacque Fresco

Dif of reverted edtis

Talk Page

It has been claimed that these edits were reverted because they have neutrality problems. However no explanation is given despite request. There are many edits that were done individually with different reasons for doing so. However, they have all be blanket reverted. Sorry if this complicates things.--Biophily (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Race (human classification)

Editor Maunus here[23] reverts to the claim that race has no biological or genetic basis. As demonstrated on the talk page this is one POV, a majority POV among US social scientists, and a minority POV among the international biological and medical community. He appears to be reverting and calling for 'discussion' to stonewall this evident fact and maintain the view of his personal academic field (the view of US sociologists regarding human biology), which is based entirely on biological fallacies and maintained for socio-political reasons. SpaceBobber (talk) 02:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)