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    religious views of Albert Einstein

    The lede of the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein is reverting between-

    Albert Einstein's religious views have been studied extensively. He called himself an agnostic, while disassociating himself from the label atheist, preferring, he said, "an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."[1]

    and

    Albert Einstein's religious views have been studied extensively. He said he believed in the "pantheistic" God of Baruch Spinoza, but not in a personal god, a belief he criticized. He also called himself an agnostic, while disassociating himself from the label atheist, preferring, he said, "an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."[1]

    Einstein said once in a single letter that he was pantheist. People with pantheist pushing agenda are keen on keeping this in the lede, even though it's such a minor part of his religious views. 149.254.56.143 (talk) 21:43, 1 October 2013 (UTC) What do you recommend? I'm happy for that comment to be in the body, and to be more prominent than it currently is in the body. But it feels "too strong" to be in the lede. 149.254.56.143 (talk) 21:49, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Please be clear that your edit without attempt at consensus was reverted and you are now engaging in edit warring. In any case...
    The source is not a "letter". It was his own published material (republished on his 50th birthday also) calling his own conception of God "pantheistic" (as opposed to theistic). Scholars often go much further and simply describe him as a "pantheist" (which is not stated in the lede). "Pantheistic" is one of only a small handful of labels he ascribed to his own beliefs and probably the most specific label. It specifies what Einstein means when he uses the word "God" - a crucial understanding of Einstein's belief and use of the word God. NaturaNaturans (talk) 22:23, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I *entirely* agree with the comments presented by NaturaNaturans above - the comments represent my understanding of the issue at the moment as well - hope this helps in some way - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 00:11, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    NaturaNaturans makes the accusation of edit-warring; ignoring the wikipedia recommendation of BRD. NaturaNaturans is clearly here to push the POV of "pantheism", and inserts this claim into very many articles. Here the claim is too strong for the lede, having a single weak reference. If "many scholars" call Einstein a pantheist it will be trivially easy to find reliable sources, in which case it can stay in the lede. I welcome an independent view point. 149.254.56.220 (talk) 19:04, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Civility, BRD, and edit warring are problems, but those are topics for other noticeboards. Putting those aside for the time being, I'm having trouble understanding the argument against saying he was a pantheist (and, if it's determined he was, then it certainly belongs in the lede of such an article). It doesn't sound like the integrity or reliability of the source is in question. The problem, if I'm reading correctly, is that Einstein only mentions his pantheism once and it isn't written about in a significant number of secondary sources? With that premise, it seems like the only reason it wouldn't be included would be if there are other sources saying he contradicted himself, changed his mind, or meant something different.
    In other words, if the reliability of his pantheism quote isn't in question, and as long as the quote, as a primary source, is only used to make "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge" (i.e. without editor analysis/interpretation -- see WP:PSTS), there would have to be a pretty compelling case, using other sources, against its inclusion. --Rhododendrites (talk) 16:25, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Talk:Jim DeMint

    I am of the opinion that someone from the Heritage Foundation is requesting that non-neutral text at Talk:Jim DeMint be considered for inclusion into the encyclopedia. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 07:11, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    What's the non-NPOV addition that they're proposing? I glanced at the talk page and there is indeed someone claiming to work at the Heritage Foundation (not necessarily a COI) but they were just proposing some fairly mundane early-life bio details. But, I just skimmed it so I might have missed something. --Loonymonkey (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I looked at it as well and agree with Loonymonkey. Seems quite tame. Capitalismojo (talk) 16:05, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Bizarre GAN review

    Hi, all. My GA nomination of Banjica concentration camp was just failed by User:PocklingtonDan due to this editor's claim that the article in question "focuses too much on the Jewish victims of the camp." Furthermore, the editor claims that some statements aren't sourced (on the contrary, every single statement in the article is sourced) and misrepresents some of what is said in the article in order to justify not promoting it. Kindly, if someone other than PocklingtonDan could please look at the article and the GA review. At present, it doesn't look like the user's review comments are talking about the same article as the one I nominated. I'm still not sure if this is some sort of troll attempt (note, the user's been on Wikipedia since '06) but it all seems very strange, almost like a GA review from the Twilight Zone. Can someone please check it out, the user appears to have some sort of anti-Jewish bias judging from the comments (statements that sources have a pro-Jewish "slant or agenda" , etc). Overall, I don't know what to think of this and if anyone can give any input on this I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks, 23 editor (talk) 20:27, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't see any signs you tried to discuss this with the editor. You might try that first to see if you can alleviate some of their concerns. Understandable that you don't like that the article failed, but you may be able to work with them to get it to a pass. Ravensfire (talk) 21:05, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I've contacted them, but for some reason I think their problem isn't with the content of the article but with performing GA reviews in general. I'll re-nominate it, hopefully with another editor reviewing it. 23 editor (talk) 21:10, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    They could be new to the GA process. Some of their comments I think could benefit from some discussion (firing range) but there were others that I did somewhat agree with (calling out the number of Jewish detained and no other breakdown is rather odd. Adding more groups to the breakdown would be informative). Take what you can from the review, hopefully you'll get some discussion going with the editor and end up with a better article at the end of the day. Ravensfire (talk) 21:45, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks more like questionable behavior by PocklingtonDan. See related discussion at WT:Good_article_nominations#GA_Nomination_Spam. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:55, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Its only because of J. Johnson that I am notified that this discussion is going on. I failed your article's GA review on grounds of neutrality, and I still maintain that this was the correct decision. The sources in your article state that around 3% of the inmates were Jewish. Yet you focus on Jewish inmates throughout the article, and the makeup of the remaining 28,000 inmates is given far less treatment. The word "Jew" appears 21 times. The word "anti-fascist" appears 4 times. Yet 97% of the inmates were non-Jews (primarily fascists) according to your own sources. Your article is therefore showing multiple problems - lack of neutral point of view, synthesis - its just fundamentally flawed. You must follow the sources. I explained this quite clearly in your GA review. I have been a wikipedia editor since 2006, I work primarily on articles relating to ancient Rome and ancient history, I am not anti-Semitic and my edit history shows this. Frankly, it is outrageous that you accuse me of anti-Semitism. I simply refuse to treat this topic any differently than any other. I will not pussyfoot around it due to the subject's perceived sensitivity. The situation is simple - the sources do not support your focus of the article on Jewish suffering. 97% of inmates were non-Jewish, and they must be the focus of the article. Simple. I see that Ravensfire for one seems to appreciate what I was driving at. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    My discussion linked to by J. Johnson is in what way sign of "questionable behaviour"? I raised a point of order for discussion, *after* the GA review, that I feared that 23 editor was rushing too many articles through for GA nomination, and failing to bring each of them up to a good standard. This is a genuine concern (he had 6-7 articles for GA review in a week, and none of them were ready for GA in my opinion) -PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I should also note that I responded to the editor and advised them that I would happily re-review the article for them within 24-48 hours should they choose to re-submit it after addressing my concerns. I really don't see there is any issue here - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:19, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I point out that this is the neutral point of view noticeboard. Discussion of your questioned behavior in doing several rapid-fire quick-fails is more appropriately done at the GA venue linked to. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    J. Johnson, if you didn't want to discuss it here, I would suggest that you probably shouldn't have brought it up. There was no mention of "questionable behaviour" (itself a character slander) before *you* mentioned it. I'm not going to let you essentially trash-talk my character on this page and not respond to it in-place, that would hardly be fair. You continue to expand discussion of it here by now claiming that I made "rapid-fire quick-fails". I did nothing of the sort, I made several article fails (3) over the course of several days, and each GA review I did took me several hours (as my edit history shows) and was very fully fleshed out and commented on, compared to the vast majority of GAs. Just because my several hours of review was done in one sitting rather than spread over the course of several days or weeks does not make it any less in-depth or rigorous, or imply that it is a rush job as your wording may suggest. Again, if you don't want to discuss this here, don't bring it up. If you want us not to discuss this here, feel free to remove my and your comments on this matter from this page. But if you leave your off-topic comments in-place, I am perfectly justified in responding to them in-place. Perhaps you would like to revert your comment stream on this matter, so that the thread here can get back on-topic without you leading us off into the bush... -PocklingtonDan (talk) 22:52, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I am amazed at how quickly you go from 0 to 60 in perceived injury. Like, someone wonders if you might have an anti-Jewish bias, and you turn that into an "outrageous" (!!!!) accusation of anti-Semitism. So when you accuse me of trash-talk and character slander because, in the course of a discussion touching on your behavior, I pointed out another discussion where your behavior was questioned — well, I am inclined to greatly discount your baseless fulminations, even to ignoring them. Alternately, I will remind you that your accusation of a personal attack, where none exists, is in itself a violation of WP:NPA. And I strongly advise you to consider that the criterion of slander is false statement, not hyper-sensitivity on your part. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:40, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]


    • @23 editor: I just watch this page but if you all want the opinion of an uninvolved editor, I have to say that @PocklingtonDan:'s review is well-thought out, extensive in the explanation of the few issues there are with the content, and quite balanced. GA involves other experienced editors because they have a better grasp on how to balance an article (among other things) and I'd agree that the article is quite good, but still a bit POV-y around the edges with the emphasis on the Jewish aspect. Kudos to both of you, always AGF, and here's hoping that the issues can be resolved so GA is attained, and eventually even get it to FA. So there §FreeRangeFrogcroak 23:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    NPOV tag on article with currently hot topic in the news

    A few days ago the article Washington Redskins name controversy was tagged for not being neutral. I am the major contributor to this article, but not by intention. I edit the article on the larger issue Native American mascot controversy and only add to the other article when I run across something specific to the "Redskins" that I cannot integrate into the main article. An editor who has not contributed to the article added the tag, but has not done nothing else. No one else has participated in the discussion, so I plan to remove the tag after one week, but I welcome other input. The problem is that the issue may have two sides, but only one is substantially represented in reliable sources. FriendlyFred (talk) 21:24, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Babur and Ali-Shir Nava'i

    User Lysozym has been aggressively reverting my edits on Babur to keep the following version:

    Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur (14 February 1483 – 26 December 1530; sometimes also spelt Baber or Babar) was a conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty in the Indian Subcontinent and became the first Mughal emperor. He was a direct descendant of Timur, from the Barlas clan, through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother. Culturally, he was greatly influenced by the Persian culture and this affected both his own actions and those of his successors, giving rise to a significant expansion of the Persianate ethos in the Indian subcontinent.[1][2]

    I've been proposing the following version (which I have modified several times taking into consideration other editors' comments):

    Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur (14 February 1483 – December 1530; sometimes also spelt Baber or Babar) was a conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty in the Indian Subcontinent and became the first Mughal emperor. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father and a descendant of Genghis Khan through his mother.

    Babur was also a poet and a writer. He wrote both in Persian and his mother-tongue Chaghatai Turkic.[1][2] His memoirs Baburnama, which were originally written in Turkic,[3] have been translated into many languages.

    Babur is regarded as a great leader and is held in high esteem both in the Turkic- and Persian-speaking worlds. While some sources claim that he was mostly influenced by and spread the Persian culture,[4][5] others hold that he mainly contributed to the expansion of the Turkic culture.[2] Soviet and Uzbek sources regard Babur as an ethnic Uzbek, but most scholars refute this view.[6]

    As you can see, Lysozym has been pushing for a one-sided account of Babur's life. His justification is that the Encyclopedia of Islam and Encyclopædia Iranica are the only reliable sources on this subject. Lyzosym's version clearly puts a Persian hue on Babur and his empire. While some sources support this, others such as Encyclopædia Britannica hold that Babur's empire was Turkic in nature. The issue has been discussed at some length on the article's talk page. I've done my best to correct and modify my edits taking into consideration other editors' comments.

    I believe that as long as there are opposing views on a matter, we cannot say that one of them is right and the other is wrong, especially when there are huge amounts of literate supporting both sides. Lyzosym has called me a "nationalist" and a "nothing but a POV pusher", so I decided to hear what other editors think on the matter.

    Lysozym has also been revering my edits on Ali-Shir Nava'i. See this edit for example. I don't think the version suggested by him is neutral. Lysozym thinks the article should clearly state that Nava'i was an ethnic Uighur when there are opposing views about this. Nataev talk 10:28, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]


    Can you point to good secondary sources (not encyclopedias) that attest to the Turkic nature of the Mughal empire? That would help determine how much weight the different views should receive. Better yet, some kind of really solid literature review in an authoritative book on the subject. TheBlueCanoe 03:22, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I forgot to mention that Lysozym has been deleting material from the body of the article as well. His version is the following:

    Babur is considered a national hero in Uzbekistan[41][42] and Kyrgyzstan,[43] and is held in high esteem in Afghanistan. In October 2005 Pakistan developed the Babur (cruise missile), named in his honour.

    F. Lehmann has said that

    His origin, milieu, training, and culture were steeped in Persian culture and so Babur was largely responsible for the fostering of this culture by his descendants, the Mughals of India, and for the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and historiographical results.[14]

    I've been proposing the following version (which cites additional sources to support what I wrote):

    Some sources claim that Babur was influenced by the Persian culture and gave rise to the expansion of the Persianate ethos in the Indian subcontinent.[44][45]

    For example, F. Lehmann has written: His origin, milieu, training, and culture were steeped in Persian culture and so Babur was largely responsible for the fostering of this culture by his descendants, the Mughals of India, and for the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and historiographical results.[17]

    Other sources hold that Babur mostly contributed to the growth of the Turkic culture.[2][46] Although all applications of modern Central Asian ethnonyms to people of Babur's time are anachronistic, Soviet and Uzbek sources regard Babur as an ethnic Uzbek.[47][48][49][50] At the same time, during the Soviet Union Uzbek scholars were censored for idealizing and praising Babur and other historical figures such as Ali-Shir Nava'i.[51] Babur is considered a national hero in Uzbekistan.[52][53] Many of Babur's poems have become popular Uzbek folk songs, especially by Sherali Jo‘rayev.[54] Some sources claim that Babur is a national hero in Kyrgyzstan too.[55]

    Babur is also held in high esteem in Afghanistan and Iran. In October 2005, Pakistan developed the Babur Cruise Missile, named in his honor.

    Still, I will find more secondary sources to support what I wrote. Nataev talk
    I've cited Dilip Hiro who writes: "Babur regarded himself a Timuri Turk." Also, I've written that according to Hiro (and others) Babur considered Uzbeks as his enemies. I think this proves that I'm not trying to push my personal point of view. Nataev talk 12:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    The version I am restoring is a consensus version that was written a few years ago by User:Sikandarji who is an academic expert on South Asian history (unfortunately, he is not active anymore). It is based on the authoritative academic reference works Encyclopaedia Iranica and Encyclopaedia of Islam (please note that Nataev is not only refusing these academic sources, he is even deleting them from the intro, trying to mislead the readers by stating that there is some kind of academic dispute on this issue; well, there is none - there is the overwhelimg majority of scholars on one side, and unreliable (mostly nationalistically motivated) sources on the other side, like the ones preferred by Nataev). User:Nataev, on the other hand, obviously does not know/does not understand/does not want to understand WP:RS. The sources he is citing are not reliable according to WP:RS. The improtance of WP:RS has been explained to him by at least 3 different users. But he either does not undestand or does not want to understand. He also does not understand that a generalist encyclopedia like Britannica is vastly inferior to highly specialized academic reference works such as Encyclopaedia Iranica. His claim that Babur was an Uzbek is not only his own POV based on unreliable sources, it is also 100% wrong. This claim is being rejected not only by all reliable and respected experts, but also by Babur himself in his autobiography (Baburnama). A link to a relevant (translated) passage has been given in the respective talkpage. Wikipedia is not about the quantity of sources, but about the quality of sources. And ALL reliable academic sources agree that:

    • Babur was a Turkicized Mongol (meaning that he was a Mongol in origin, but his tribe was linguistically Turkicized)
    • Babur was fighting the Uzbek invasion of his native land
    • Babur was defeated by the Uzbeks and had to flee further south
    • Babur invaded India with the help of local tribes (and much support from Safavid Persia) and founded the Mughal Empire
    • Babur was culturally highly Persianized; the Persianization of the Mughal Empire foung its climax during the reign of Humayun and Akbar the Great when Persian not only became the sole official language of the Empire, but also of the Mughal family itself

    Babur's contribution to "Turkic culture" (whatever that may be) was his biography, written in Chagatai language, his mother-tongue. Besides that, there is no other contribution (if Nataev thinks otherwise, he should present a proof). Here, I would like to point out the excellent German article on the Mughals (de:Mogulreich) where the question of identity and language is highlightened and supported with many scholarly sources. There is absolutely no doubt that the Mughal Empire - founded by Babur - was essentially Persian in terms of courtly culture, language, literature. Nataev is a notorious POV pusher. Not only in the Babur article (as I have described), but also in the article Ali Shir Nava'i. Here, too, he wants to "Uzbekize" a man who had nothing to do with Uzbeks. Nava'i was - evidently! - an Uyghur. All academic sources agree on this point. The only one who does not accept this is Nataev. --Lysozym (talk) 16:52, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    And Nava'i's Uzbekization is interesting - part of a Soviet renaming of a language. Hopefully I've made that clear in the article and I think the talk age (can't recall without changing). He's definitely not an Uzbek, even if politicians called him one many decades ago. Dougweller (talk) 18:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Dilip Hiro is a journalist,[1] not a historian, therefore he is not a reliable source. --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree. And Nataev calling another user a sock doesn't suggest good faith editing. Dougweller (talk) 19:44, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems like you all disagree with me. Then let's just keep the current version of the lead section. I'm happy that the paragraph about Babur's legacy has been left as it is. Maybe the fact that Soviets approached Babur as an Uzbek isn't important enough to be mentioned in the intro. Still, we do need to say something about it in the body of the article. I'm OK with the current version. Dougweller, I didn't call anyone a sock. Why do you say that? Lysozym, don't cross the border. "Nataev is a notorious POV pusher" − it's ironic to hear this from a user who had an account called Tajik. I haven't yet become notorious. You seem to think you're the only expert on these topics. "He also does not understand that a generalist encyclopedia like Britannica is vastly inferior to highly specialized academic reference works such as Encyclopaedia Iranica." — this is just your opinion. Nataev talk 03:40, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I misunderstood, you haven't called him a sock. However, we should judge editors by their actions, not their usernames, particularly of an old account. It is true that in most cases we should avoid using generalist encyclopedias. Dougweller (talk) 05:57, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    OK! Nataev talk 06:50, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    The legacy section is still not OK. It is not "a claim by some" that Babur's Empire was Persianate in its essence. Babur did not invent the Persianate culture of India, it was already there, once introduced by the Ghaznavids and Ghurids. But Babur's Empire took that Persianization to a whole new level. The very existence of Mughal literature and literary culture, almost exclusively Persian until the 19th century, is the living proof. Leaving that aside, there was no competition between "Turkic" or "Persian" influence. The "Turks", in this case Turkicized Mongols, were already Persianized and Islamized to a high degree. What differed was the language. While Babur himself was still very much "Turkic" and "Mongol" in terms of identity and language, the Turkic influence became almost non-existent after Humayun's 10 years of exile in Persia. When he returned to India, he brought with him many Persian artists, writers, historians, etc. The ballance between "Iranis" (Persians and Persianized Turks like Bayram Khan) and "Turanis" (Central Asian Turks and Mongols, and Central Asian Persians) shifted toward the Iranis.
    Nataev is trying to mislead the readers by claiming that there is some kind of academic dispute on this issue. To underline his claim, he cites to sources as "proof": the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the World Book Encyclopedia. In fact, none of these two actually support his claim. None of these two state that Babur "mostly contributed to the growth of the Turkic culture". I have asked Nataev to cite the relevant paragraph, so far, he is refusing to do so. Stating that Babur was Turkic or Mongol is no proof for Nataev's claim that "mostly contributed to the growth of the Turkic culture". Babur was a Turkicized Mongol, that's fact. But the Empire he founded was essentially Persian in terms of culture and language. The overwhelming Persian influence is still evident in northern India and Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan's national anthem, the Qaumi Taranah, is entirely in Persian. Only a single word - "ka" - makes its lyrics Urdu. Beside that word, all other words and the grammar are Persian. The Urdu language, which became the family language of the Mughals by the end of the 18th century, is another living proof for the essentially Persianate character of the Mughal Empire. --Lysozym (talk) 11:42, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Britannica says "Bābur came from the Barlas tribe of Mongol origin, but isolated members of the tribe considered themselves Turks in language and customs through long residence in Turkish regions. Hence, Bābur, though called a Mughal, drew most of his support from Turks, and the empire he founded was Turkish in character." I've changed the sentence in the legacy section to "However, other sources hold that Babur's empire was Turkic in nature." I'll provide more sources later on. Lyzosym, you're trying really hard to Persianize Babur and his empire. Now this is called POV editing. Nataev talk 03:43, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    See User:Kansas Bear's answer on Talk:Babur. Britannica is a tertiary source. Secondary sources (as per WP:SOURCE) contradict your claims. The fact that you stubbornly rely on tertiary sources and writings of some journalists proves that it is in fact you who is a POV pusher. --Lysozym (talk) 21:38, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    First off, Dilip Hiro is a journalist and a writer. This is what the source that was cited by Kansas Bear says. Engaging in contextomy is not good. Second, I cited Hiro's translation of Babur's own words. Third, I've cited Stephen F. Dale who is "an Islamic historian who specializes in and teaches courses on the history of the eastern Islamic world, specifically India, Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia." He also supports what I wrote in the article. I'll cite more secondary sources later on. Unfortunately I'm rather busy these days. Nataev talk 05:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Dilip Hiro is not a reliable source. As for Stephen Dale: you are cherry-picking whatever part you need. Here is a good review of his book. As for your claim that the Mughal Empire was "Turkic in character": you are still wrong and you have no reliable source to support it. The Mughal Empire was neither Turkic in language nor in identity. Can you name a single Turkic poet or writer of the Mughal court? Can you show a single Turkic inscription on Mughal buildings and architecture?! 500 years ago, "Turkic" and "Mongol" were more or less synonyms and often meant a nomadic way of life. While Babur himself was still pretty much a "Turk" - he spoke Chaghatay and he was a nomad; Criticizing Dale, Siddharth Saxena states: Stephen Dale also misses out on one significant point that even though Babur sawhimself or at least wanted to express his thoughts of being the perfect ruler, in other words a civilised (Persianised) ruler of a sedentary population, his memoirs areessentially the diary of a nomad. For the majority of his life Babur was a nomadicTimurid prince who had been ousted from his homeland (Andijan, Ferghana, andSamarkand) and forced to escape into Herat, and then Afghanistan where much time wasspent raiding and subduing rebellion and his rule was only secure after Shaibani Khandied and the Uzbeks left Kabul alone. It is important to point out that Babur wrote mostof the Vaqa`i when he was in Hindustan. The story of his trials and travails took formalshape after he finally found success in conquering Kabul and Hindustan. The author doesnot dwell on this aspect and in that leaves himself open to criticism despite his assertionsof a generous self-serving bias found in Babur’s writings. - his Empire was that of a Persian-speaking (and later Urdu-speaking), highly cultivated and sedentary dynasty, heavily mixed with Indian and Persian noble families. That is what you fail to understand (or what you do not want to understand). --Lysozym (talk) 19:35, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    "Guerrilla skepticism" and POV-pushing offsite project

    A YouTube video containing a presentation about editing Wikipedia, apparently under the auspices of the James Randi Educational Foundation, with some rather disturbing content. The presenter is Susan Gerbic, whom I believe, without being completely sure, is User:Sgerbic.

    The video is more than an hour long and can't be guaranteed to remain on YouTube indefinitely. But it contains evidence of offsite collusion on Facebook (at 40:44) and elsewhere to impose a skeptical POV on Wikipedia articles. She also gives advice as to how these targeting editors can avoid looking like single purpose accounts (29:20) and brags about running off editors with different views. (32:10 et seq.). The video claims that she has established an offsite network coordinating more than 90 editors (4:22) to impose a "skeptical" POV on a large number of articles. She also says that she has successfully used Wikipedia to drive web traffic to the Randi foundation's website, and started articles about its members. (ca. 50:00 et. seq.)

    Lawyering and improvised rulemaking to prevent paranormal literatures from being cited as evidence of the substance of paranormal beliefs is a longstanding problem. Let's face it, claiming that an astrology textbook is an "unreliable source", being "in universe" because it assumes astrology is worthy of study, is transparent sophistry, and unproductive lawyering of the worst kind. Our page Aries (astrology) contains next to nothing about what astrologers think about Aries, a subject with a vast literature. This POV-pushing offsite project has done readers a disservice. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003!

    No, WP:BALANCE and WP:RS prevent paranormal literatures from being cited as evidence of the substance of paranormal beliefs. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:04, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this has been brought up before. The youtube video is from 2013 but the themes are similar. Otherwise, concur with TheRedPenOfDoom. EDIT: Many fringe/psuedo-science articles start off with a massive POV in support of the article's subject with no (or minimal) critical commentary added. These article have fervent supporters that frankly don't care about Wikipedia policies or guidelines, just pushing their brand of dreck. Having more editors that can help present a balanced view is always a good thing. Ravensfire (talk) 23:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Considering the amount of content - and the number of editors - which present fantasy, snake oil, and other follies as though they were fact, an influx of "skeptical" editors is likely to be a net positive. Of all the real-world ideologies that might drive people to edit en.wikipedia, few are so well aligned with WP:V.
    However, if you have specific examples of problematic editing, it would be good to look at diffs and see if there's any improvement we could make. bobrayner (talk) 23:16, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    So long as it is the skepticism that is in line with science and on topic, I don't see what the problem is. If it is the pseudo-skepticism that treats anyone's studied beliefs on matters outside of empirical science as automatically inferior to one's ignorant misconstruing of the subject (perhaps by "revealing" "shocking" "secrets" about some such beliefs through holding the believer to standards of evidence that make it hard to prove the earth is round while freely citing 19th century fringe sources or just completely throwing anything out the window when it doesn't suit one's argument), then it would be as much of a problem as any other zealot forcing their personal views on any topic. But, I'd have to see evidence of that first. So far (3:20-ish), I'm seeing that she wants everyone to continue to work within the guidelines of the site. "Islam is a monotheistic religion traditionally founded by Muhammad in the 7th century" is a rather objective statement. "Islam is a monotheistic superstition made up in the 9th century by raiders who wanted some mythical figure to unite under like those idiot Christians" would just as POV as "Islam is the true religion established by God's final Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.)," or "Islam is a non-Christian terrorism cult worshiping the moon demons Allat, Muhammad, Termagant, and Baphomet," but I've yet to find anything in the video suggesting that they'd be doing anything along those lines. And as a related video states, "skepticism is a method, not a position," and it's a position that Wikipedia endorses. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:55, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I do think that this version, for instance, of the article on Aries (astrology) contains more of the sorts of information you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia article on Aries in astrology. It is properly referenced to respected astrological writings. The claim that those sources do not reliably describe what astrologers believe about Aries, or that they are unreliable "in universe" sources because they assume, however falsely, that astrology is true, is quite simply rank nonsense. Nobody goes around claiming that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is an unreliable "in universe" witness to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
    The lawyering away of astrological sources for what astrology teaches is simply gaming the system. I also find it mildly surprising that here we have evidence of an apparently large scale POV pushing and off-site canvassing effort, boasting about driving away editors, and apparently many people don't find that problematic. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 00:56, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you provide evidence that this (what appears to be) WP:V-focused recruitment drive is connected to the difference in the astrology articles. Also, the Catechism would be problematic to use as it is a primary source. An academic work summarizing and clarifying the Catechism would be appropriate to cite as an example of Catholic beliefs as their beliefs. The version of Aries you prefer is horrifically POV, akin to citing Chicken Soup for the Catholic Soul in the article on bread to note that bread consecrated by a priest is the flesh of Christ. If you look at the article transubstantiation, it presents the idea as a religious doctrine instead of as empirical science, even explaining the philosophy that keeps it away from the realm of testable chemical changes, all while citing academic instead of popular sources. The version of the Aries article you pointed to, presented the ideas as scientific facts that can (and have) been tested (and shown to be bunkum). What is needed is a summary of academic works explaining the different claims about Aries, as well as how they (don't) hold up under scientific scrutiny, rather than how-to works written to give credit to fortune telling charlatans. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:30, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    The claim that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a "problematic" "primary source" simply underlines that a double standard is at work here. It is, in fact, heavily relied on in articles about Roman Catholic beliefs, including Catholic Church itself, in which most of the citations are to it. If the Catechism is an unsatisfactory witness to Roman Catholic beliefs, editors need to get busy removing it. Somehow, I don't see that happening. (Claims that the Catechism is a "primary source" speak mostly of unfamiliarity with its contents, as well.)
    The better version of the article on Aries in astrology presents nothing as "scientific fact". Science is quite irrelevant to the substance of astrological beliefs, as I think we agree. The scientific POV is simply as out of place in an article about what astrology has to say about the zodiac sign Aries. The simple question is whether astrological beliefs can be referenced to historically important astrological textbooks and literature. I think they can.
    More importantly, this isn't about verification of statements in any article about astrology. It's about a project dedicated to offsite canvassing to impose a specific POV on articles. That used to be something of a big deal around here; times have changed, I suppose. A belief that astrology is wrong and that it ought to be discouraged does not justify turning a blinkered eye to a huge body of former learning and contemporary folklore. The astrology articles are only relevant to show that the aims of this project are at odds with building the encyclopedia. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:21, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Offsite canvassing to improve the encyclopedia is needed and wanted. --Ronz (talk) 15:45, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:CANVAS, a longstanding behavioral guideline, disagrees. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:18, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm uneasy about this. If this was a group of Fundamentalist Christians coordinating through Youtube to combat the a perceived secular bias in a number of Wikipedia articles would it be treated so breezily? I see the following questions here:
    1) Are any of the accusations made a breach of rules? Specifically:
    Offsite collusion. Encouraging and then hiding single purpose accounts. Running off editors with different views. Establishing an offsite network to impose a POV on articles. Using Wikipedia to drive web traffic to the Randi foundation's website. Starting articles about Randi foundation members.
    2) Is an underground POV pushing network problematic in itself?
    3) Should there be different rules for different POVs?
    4) Does it become more or less problematic if it comes into the open?
    5) Does WP:CANVASS apply?
    JASpencer (talk) 17:56, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    This, more than anything, surprises me. It has always been my understanding that offsite canvassing and coordination of edits in service of a particular point of view was at minimum strongly frowned on, as is the attempt to create, coordinate, and conceal a number of single-purpose accounts. (I looked at some of the Randi foundation articles, and most of them made a fair case for notability; none seemed to be particularly problematic.) But criticize this enterprise, and a small army appears to proclaim that none of these things are problems. I suppose I'm just getting too old to get it. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 03:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    If you'd like people to investigate problematic editing, could you provide some diffs that you think are problematic? bobrayner (talk) 05:12, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    "Science is quite irrelevant to the substance of astrological beliefs, as I think we agree." - Wrong, science has tested astrology and found it to be utter bollocks. It did so centuries ago. It is not a matter of non-overlapping magisteria, it is scientifically false, it is anti-scientific, it is, as far as Wikipedia, wrong, superstitious, backwards, and something that should be dismissed as a lying and foolish sham. Astrology does not equate to common and untestable religious beliefs, such as "God(ess/s) exists," "God(ess/s) chose to answer that one prayer I made last week (but perhaps not the others)," "God inhabits bread and wine in a way totally unperceptible to any and all human senses when a priest blesses it," "Tenzin Gyatso used to be Thubten Gyatso," etc.
    As for the supposed double standard re the catechism, if you actually read anything I said, I pointed out that the transubstantiation article primarily cites academic works instead of a $20 "course" in transubstantiation titled "I am Priesthood and you can too!", so there is no double standard compared to an article that cited popular works by fortune tellers. If the Aries article cited academic works such as S.J. Tester's History of Western Astrology or Roger Beck's Brief History of Astrology, I wouldn't have any problem with fuller descriptions that listed beliefs as beliefs. If the Aries article was well supported by such sources and neutrally phrased, and if there was a centralized and coherent ratification of the most basic assumptions of all astrological beliefs that all astrologers must believe or else not be astrologers, then it might be used in relevant articles on occasion. Even still, random unacademic works for a popular (and credulous and superstitious) audience, be it astrological, Catholic, Hindu, atheist, or fans of Insane Clown Posse, do not belong on this site as proper sources.
    And I second (or rather third or fourth) the motion that many have brought up: show us direct proof (in the form of diffs) that this recruitment drive has resulted in any problematic editing. You haven't been doing that, and it's starting to come off as a bad-faith conspiracy theory against new editors hoping to fulfill WP:V and WP:NPOV against your own pro-superstition/anti-science POV. Ian.thomson (talk) 12:19, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    This is exactly the problem in a nutshell. Whether astrology is nonsense or pseudoscience or whatever makes no difference for WP:V; it's nonsense with a vast literature. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia only of science, and the scientific viewpoint has no special privilege here. What we have here is a failure to engage its own sources on their own terms, born of a colossal failure to make the necessary assumptions. This is a problem going on over many years, over hundreds of edits and dozens of talk pages and notice boards. The attempt to impose a specific POV on Wikipedia by lawyering away astrological classics, or assuming that they must be science or pretending to be science, is why this offsite project to impose a specific POV on Wikipedia is a problem. And, as usual, it's backed up by the usual sequence of ad-hominems (pro-superstition/anti-science POV... random unacademic works for a popular (and credulous and superstitious) audience).
    There is a place for the scientific case against astrology; it's made at some length at Astrology itself, and it does not belong in Aries (astrology), which ought to be about what astrology claims about Aries, whether those claims are true, false, or nonsensical. The sources are in fact fairly low lying fruit, if new and fanciful objections were not constantly being invented as to why any of the sources from mainstream publishers and recognized classics can't be used as sources, contrary to WP:RS. Insisting on academic sources for a pop-culture subject is exactly the kind of lawyering to impose POV that I'm talking about. So's the predictable demand for thousands of edits, when the problem is staring at you right in the face on this page.
    I'd also point out that Ian.thomson's statement here would appear to contradict the letter and spirit of the old arbitration decision on paranormal subjects, which recognizes that In addition to firmly established scientific truth, Wikipedia contains many other types of information. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" (from Wikipedia:Verifiability). The use of offsite campaigning on these subjects is also condemned there. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:22, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    According to Gerbic's talk, "Guerrilla skepticism is the act of inserting well-documented, well-resourced well-cited information into Wikipedia and to pages that really want to have improvement" (at 3.00 mins). She also says "we want to follow all the guidelines" of Wikipedia. Sounds terrifying. This is not "rather disturbing content" at all. There is nothing at all that resembles "bragging" about running off editors (supposed to found at at 30.10). That's such an outrageous misrepresentation of what she says, I find it difficult to accept it as a good faith summary. She is answering a question about "how your edits get pushed off the page" (in other words why do other editors revert contributions). She just says that most of her edits don't get reverted, but that she failed to get her edits on what sounds like "the "Bill Marr page" (referring to Bill Maher?). That's it. No bragging. No reference to "running off editors with different views". There's nothing at 29.20 about single purpose accounts. Yes, they are trying to improve articles on the Randi foundation's activities. There's nothing wrong with that. The most "disturbing" thing about the presentation is her hat. Smerdis of Tlön's misrepresentations are far more disturbing. Paul B (talk) 14:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Whatever spin you want to put on it, at least I was not so unkind as to mention the hat. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 17:10, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Your point that astrological beliefs about the properties of Aries (etc) should be described in perfectly valid. If a particular book is indeed an astrology "classic", it should be possible to demonstrate its notability and to place it in a historical context of continuities and changes in astrological lore. Paul B (talk) 18:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)No, Smerdis, whatever anti-scientific spin you want to put on it, the hat and your paranoid fear that outdated superstitions will be presented as something other than fact are the only things wrong here.
    Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal meant by that portion of the final decision that statements of fact outside of science and not contradicting it (non-overlapping magesteria) are also present in the site. This is demonstrated by reading the rest of the RFC:
    And from Wikipedia:FRINGE:
    As for the claim that I insist we need academic sources for pop-culture subjects, don't put words in my mouth, it's just one more thing that makes it hard for me to assume that you're acting both competently and in good faith. Astrology isn't a pop culture subject, it is pseudoscience. Harry Potter is a pop-culture topic, it presents the subject as fiction, and the article follows suit while citing academic and journalistic sources for any real world information. It does not cite "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" or fanfiction for information about the general topic. Astrology makes claims about our world that are just as false as claims that the Jewish lizard Masonic Pope is out to take over the the flat but hollow world. It requires academic sources (as there's little respected journalism reporting on astrology, except maybe a few puff pieces from when Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet), and there are academic sources out there (I presented a couple) that present astrological beliefs in a neutral manner (instead of being completely credulous).
    And again, you are completely ignoring the request to present any real evidence (beyond conspiracy theorism and an anti-scientific POV) that this recruitment drive has resulted in any POV-pushing. And my assessment that you're pressing an anti-scientific POV is WP:SPADE, not WP:NPA. You do not want an increased scientific and skeptical focus on the site. That is an anti-scientific POV. We haven't asked for "thousands of edits," we have asked for ONE. You have presented nothing. Don't throw slippery slopes as an excuse to get out of presenting any evidence to your accusations.
    As for suggesting that Aries shouldn't handle the scientific assessment, that contradicts Wikipedia:NPOV#Point-of-view_forks. Heck, this whole witch hunt of new users dedicated to following WP:V contradicts Wikipedia:NPOV#Giving_.22equal_validity.22 and WP:AGF. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Wow. Now you can see what people trying to expand those articles are up against. First, I'm not conducting a "witch hunt" against new users. I haven't attempted to identify any new user drawn by this campaign. What concerns me is the attempt to impose a particular POV, and the delight apparently taken in running off and frustrating editors whose opinions differ.
    My "paranoid fear that outdated superstitions will be presented as something other than fact are the only things wrong here?" Sheesh. I'm just trying to get the "outdated superstitions" to just be presented. There are plenty of places to point out that astrology is pseudoscience, astrology being one of them; astrology and science another. But in an article on Aries (astrology), it ought to be possible to mention that astrologers claim that Aries are headstrong, and that this relates somehow to astrological beliefs that Aries corresponds to the element of fire and the planet Mars. And as far as I'm concerned this is a reliable enough source to back up those assertions; if more bulk were needed, again, I'm talking about really low hanging fruit here. And this isn't an "anti-scientific POV", its simply recognizing that our world contains easily accessible documentation for what astrologers believe about Aries. It's the table-pounding that these are somehow scientific claims that need academic sources that is completely wrongheaded here, and represents tendentious editing, gaming the system, to impose this POV on articles. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 20:29, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Let's be absolutely clear. The pov that you are against isn't a problem. The canvasing you are against isn't a problem. These things are actually wanted and needed. They improve our articles and our editor base.
    Now if you have specific NPOV concerns with specific articles where there's already some attempt at resolving the problems, then by all means write up a report here to get others involved.
    Finally, I agree that the Aries article could be improved. However, if you have any specific NPOV-related concerns about specific content there, it's lost in this report. --Ronz (talk) 22:15, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    The POV manifested by Ian.thomson is a problem. Offsite canvassing is also something that used to be strongly frowned on here. Attempts to impose a specific POV on a wide spectrum of Wikipedia articles is a problem.
    This discussion, I think, is evidence enough that there are editors who actively campaign to remove references to astrological and other paranormal literatures. Conspiracy or not, they carry on in a quite overbearing manner. They distort policy and make ridiculous demands of sources -- specifically demanding, for instance, that astrological beliefs can't be sourced to astrological textbooks because every such textbook assumes that astrology is worthy of study. Because their POV judges that impossible, no astrology text can verify astrological beliefs. This is a caricature of Wikipedia policy, and gaming the system. And they seemed to be moved mostly by moral dudgeon; no one should believe in astrology, so by God (oops, he's 'in universe' too) nobody is going to learn anything about astrology on Wikipedia.
    Disagree, and you are an enemy of science and a destroyer of standards. I think there's plenty of evidence for these charges right here. To be honest, my interest in astrology amounts to little more than finding it picturesque; but moral dudgeon annoys me. Some two years ago I began an essay on this very problem. The result was predictable. Now it comes to light that according to the video, there seems to be an offsite project devoting to imposing this POV. Yes, that's a problem. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 23:08, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    If you'd like people to investigate problematic editing by "guerilla skeptics", could you provide some diffs that you think are problematic? bobrayner (talk) 12:34, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    You're asking me to document years of abuse across dozens of articles. Here are some examples of deletion of sourced material in just the Aries (astrology) alone article alone for bogus and improper reasons since 2012. The same story is told across hundreds of pages; see Talk:Astrology and its archives.
    This is just a small example of the bad faith dismissal of astrological textbooks and classics as "unreliable sources" and the characterization of astrological content as "in-universe cruft". These edits were made to push a particular POV, and make no sense in its absence. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    the dismissal of non reliable sources as non reliable sources is a perfectly legitimate position. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:16, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    and I am not sure what your links from 2010-2012 have to do with showing that a group that appears to have formed in 2013 has conducted inappropriate editing. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for those (old) diffs, lhcoyc; but I'm confused. Do you have some reason to believe that Wiki13, IRWolfie-, Dominus Vobisdu, Allens, and 79.166.190.197 are "guerilla skeptics" or acolytes of Susan Gerbic? bobrayner (talk) 14:43, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know whether any of those editors collaborate with Susan Gerbic. They do seem to share a common POV that dismisses all astrological sources; that POV, and tendentious editing to establish it as orthodoxy, is the underlying problem. This has been going since at least 2011. And as I said, this has been going on a long time, and is one of the reasons I'm no longer as active here as I used to be. (You can tell Susan that she can put another notch in her hilt.) - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:33, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Request for a review of a neutral point of view related issue

    I have posted a report on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, it may be viewed here. Yambaram (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Resolved

    I looked at the addition that this user made by checking their user contributions for that board around the time of this posting; I see that this request seems withdrawn. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:39, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Request for comment on NPOV-related issue on Stormfront (website) talk page

    I'm posting this here to publicize my RfC which can be found here: [2] The dispute is that I believe the lead of the article is lacking neutrality by omitting two RS, one of which is used in another article (Jared Taylor) in exactly the same manner as I am proposing.--Kobayashi245 (talk) 20:19, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    3rd party eyes needed at No Gun Ri Massacre

    There seems to be a problem developing (reoccuring) with views regarding the accidental killing the refugees at No Gun Ri during the Korean User. From what I can see User Cjhanley appears to have reliable print sources on his side but I am not familiar with the details of the article and not involved in either article or Talk page. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:36, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Some of Cjhanley's sources appear to be reliable, and others have serious documented deficiencies. I welcome a set of fresh disinterested eyes. WeldNeck (talk) 18:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    You know very well, WeldNeck, that the issues, which were raised by me, involve your sudden deluge of POV untruths, and deletions of factual material, aimed at whitewashing the U.S. military's killing of refugees at No Gun Ri, and in the process wrecking a solid, well-established article. Please see the summary here. Charles J. Hanley 12:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC) Cjhanley (talk • contribs)
    You are tilting at windmills Mr Hanley. I could think of nothing better than another set of eyes on the article to help mediate this. But dont think for a moment that you wp:own this article, because you dont. WeldNeck (talk) 14:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Ten Lost Tribes

    The Ten Lost Tribes article has come to have a non-neutral tone, which is not uncommon with religious topics. Instead of neutral descriptions of both the religious and secular viewpoints, it has become decidedly one-sided with POV edits such as "fanciful accounts", removing sourced content with the edit summary "utterly false", changing section headings to "lore" with the ES "the tribes exist as fiction only, not in reality", and so on. Block quotes espousing one view are included in the lead section, but a consensus at Talk:Ten Lost Tribes#RfC: Should block quotes be included in the lead section? shows the community feels the quotes violate WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE in the lead. More eyes looking at this article would be helpful in helping it become more neutral. Bahooka (talk) 21:02, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    It has been pointed out to Bahooka on several occassions (including in edit summaries and on the article talk page) that the academic viewpoint is the mainstream viewpoint,and that Tudor Parfitt is the scholar summarizing the mainstream viewpoint.
    Bahooka has insisted on pushing a religious POV on this article to promote his religious views over the mainstream academic view, with his latest attempt being to insert "Religious" for "Apocryphal" at the beginning of a sentence describing the appearance of early accounts of lost tribes. Please refer to the Talk page discussions as well as the edit summaries.
    The religious POV has been afforded a voice, and the article still has problems with the use of primary religious sources in an improper manner, thus the WP:OR and "Religious text primary" tags.
    For the sake of convenience, here is a relevant post from the Talk page

    First of all, please read the quotes from Parfitt in the "Japan" section

    Tudor Parfitt writes that "the spread of the fantasy of Israelite origin... forms a consistent feature of the Western colonial enterprise"

    "It is in fact in Japan that we can trace the most remarkable evolution in the Pacific of an imagined Judaic past.

    The point of introducing the term fanciful" in that sentence is because the stories are all far-fetched fabrications based on fantasitical misinterpretation or extrapolation of biblical tales.

    Using only the term "Accounts" makes it seem like the subject of the sentence is based on actual historical events instead of fictional fabrications based on biblical stories that are somewhere between myths and pseudo-history.

    --Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 21:36, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    I've just added a refcite to the article for a book published by Oxford U in support of the term "aprocryphal", as well as several others on the Talk page. That should suffice to demonstrate which POV is the neutral the NPOV here.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 15:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology

    This article appears to have been written by the subject of the article. For instance, "90% of BFIT graduates find a job or continue their education" (in bold letters) and "Our Graduates...".

    "Our"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.98.172 (talk) 14:02, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Some text was copy/pasted. Fixed now. Ditto other potential NPOV issues. Still needs citations but no longer NPOV issue. --Rhododendrites (talk) 22:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC: Peter Sellers article regarding the use of word "Jewish" of a character

    There is a RfC regarding the use of the word "Jewish" to describe a conman character in several 1980 Barclay's Bank commercials.

    Discussion at Talk:Peter Sellers#Request for Comment: Use of term .22Jewish.22 to describe conman character. --Oakshade (talk) 21:19, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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,[3] and is known for sandbagging guests.[4] 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.[5]

    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".[6]

    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)[reply]

    Also note that I previously alerted Alfonzo to the non-reliable-source issue,[7] and he responded to me before posting to this noticeboard,[8] 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    I responded to these points earlier. For anyone who really wants to delve into the matter, reading Wiseman's response paper[9] 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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"[10]. Barney the barney barney (talk) 09:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    Alfonzo, Wiseman's response paper[11] contradicts much of what you've stated here. On the Sheldrake talk page you said Wiseman was disingenuous in the paper.[12] 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)[reply]
    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."[13]
    It looks to me that this ties into the narrative you've built for Wiseman. vzaak (talk) 15:29, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    I wish that dog had been called Barney, or Roxy even. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 15:43, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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[14] 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)[reply]

    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".[15] 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".[16] You were also directed to the response paper which is at odds with your conclusions.[17] Your response was that Wiseman was disingenuous in the paper.[18] 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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    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. [19] 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)[reply]

    Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia, originally Wiki-PR

    See also: Talk:Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia#POV of this article

    I am extremely concerned about what appears to me as an incredibly biased and frankly hit piece on a particular company. Indeed, I find even the article rename moving to its current title is more or less adding to that extreme bias but the article content itself is most definitely not up to Wikipedia standards.

    I'll admit that this company is somebody who has stirred up a whole lot of trouble with Wikipedia and is causing heartburn to admins and ordinary editors alike, with no less than a half dozen discussions found elsewhere, formal policy statements coming from the WMF, and even discussion on Jimbo's talk page about what this company is doing. For this reason, I'm not even remotely sure that a neutral article could potentially even be written on Wikipedia at the moment as most editors who are likely going to be involved will almost right at the start have an incredibly strong bias going in. None the less, I think we as editors on Wikipedia ought to at least try to write up something that is reasonable.

    At this point, even my tagging of the article as having POV issues is getting reverted with what I perceive to be blatant article ownership. I would at least like to get some additional eyeballs onto this article from outside or see if it might just be better to bag this whole article and throw it into the deletion dust bin. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:47, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    • Procedural question: If we discuss this in two places there is a danger of two consensuses forming, which may be diametrically opposed. Is the usual procedure to use this as a notification and thrash it out at the article talk page, or to move the discussion venue to this noticeboard?
    The reason I ask is that there is a whole slew of material there, and we would need to include that here (etc, etc, etc). Either venue is fine, but I think we will all agree that one discussion on this is essential. Fiddle Faddle 18:48, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    See the example of Peter Sellers (above), which with a brief posting attracted some outside opinion to the talkpage in question. However, in cases where the talkpage in question is a basket-case, sometimes the noticeboard becomes the *new* talkpage, see the example Rupert Sheldrake (also above). Your talkpage is not messy; suggest you leave this posting just like it is, but post one-sentence "bumps" every few days if you are not getting closer to consensus over on the talkpage. HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:02, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    If the reliable sources available for an article are monolithic in their viewpoint, then that is the sole viewpoint that will be displayed by the article. That necessarily follows from the neutral point of view. If you want to argue that the article is non-neutral, you'll have to point out: A) Editorializing on the part of the article editors; B) the use of unreliable sources; C) the use of sources which present insignificant viewpoints; D) the failure to use reliable sources that present different but significant viewpoints; or E) editors simply making things up. Based on this post and what I see on the article's talk page, you are not complaining about neutrality but fairness. Well, Wikipedia isn't fair. "Bad" facts don't get balanced by "nice" facts. Pros do not get balanced by cons. If every reliable source to write about a subject does so in the negative, then so will Wikipedia. Refusing to do that would be non-neutral. It is not our job to avoid hurting a person's feeling or a company's bottom line when everything written already lines up with NPOV and other policies. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:49, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Working on it. :-) &nbps; The problem is not really WP:NPOV generally, so much as WP:UNDUE specifically. The source of Vice.com does not strike me as at all reliable for this grade of accusation, and although DailyDot talks a good editorial-game, the freelancer who wrote the actual article does not grok checkuser. But the main trouble is WP:COATRACK, namely, pretending that this is the only thing the company (and founders/owners/mgmt thereof -- as a small biz there are WP:BLP concerns) has ever done, pretending that they have actually done "it" specifically (cf my checkuser concerns about defining "it"), but most importantly, acting like this is the Only Evil Company Evah to dare take money from clients for the purpose of polishing their internet brands. Even the sources cited in the article all say this WikiPR thing is neither new nor uncommon. WP:RECENCY slant methinks.
      Anyways, I'm not seeing attack-page oh-nohz, since the editors have been careful to cite sources, but there is definitely a wee bit of quote-cherrypicking from the reliable sources, a bit of stretching the WP:RS rules to include something borderline in a semi-BLP article which I think is a bad idea, and in general failing to provide the larger mainstream context, not just wiki-navel-gazing. The article will still end up showing wikiPR in a bad light, because I don't think they've *gotten* positive press. But that's different from taking the serious accusations of a freelance-journalist at face value ("I emailed a couple dozen of WikiPR's 12k clients and *four* admitted that they paid WikiPR for unspecified services"). Where's the quote from Jimbo which says that paid editing is just fine, as long as restricted to the talkpage? The main sock was Morning277, editing since 2008; the company was only founded in 2010; there is obviously conflation of multiple organizations here. Anyhoo, please visit the article talkpage, it's pretty short, and the article is just a couple hundred words. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Because you said it was a coatrack, and that page says "Articles about one thing shouldn't mostly focus on another thing", please allow me to be confused about what the other thing is other than the title of the article. Could you clarify? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:49, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Title is part of the NPOV issue. It *should* be called_and_about "Wiki-PR", the company founded in 2010, and the small group of BLPs associated therewith. There will be a short paragraph about the company; then a short paragraph about their Notability slash Notoriety, but softened by the larger context (other non-wikipedia-specialist PR firms... which also pay people to edit wikipedia... some quotes about the Bright Line Rule which says paid editing of talkpage-space is encouraged ... that sort of thing). However, my assertion is that as part of WP:COATRACK, in this case, editors have extended various noticeboard battles about *other* PR firms (and the topic of paid editing in general), such that there is a laser-focus in the current article on the Morning277-sockpuppet-case... which, as the dates mentioned above clearly show, *cannot* be merely about Wiki-PR, the company-slash-eeps-thereof. If we want an article on "accounts accused of being linked to terrorism morning277" then we have one, but it's in noticeboard-space, not mainspace. I'm still working on my rephrasing-suggestions, but does that clarify where I see the coats-of-the-morality-of-paid-editing-in-general, being piled on the Wiki-PR coatrack? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 13:15, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    It sounds like you are basing your argument off of the detailed intricacies of your Wikipedia knowledge and not the reliable sources that have published on the topic. We only use reliable sources. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:59, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, my knowledge of the five bazillion pages of WP:PG is not really detailed enough, and I've only read some of the sources cited top-to-bottom, but this article strikes me as a small-biz-with-a-controversy, and that falls into WP:BLP territory. We have to tread very carefully, and make very damn sure our sources are saying exactly what we portray them as saying, and avoid lies of omission (e.g. not give the reader the mistaken impression that WikiPR is the *only* PR firm to ever dare pay editors.) There is plenty of caveat-territory in the DailyDot article, eh? But only the Bad Stuff makes it into the mainspace article here... and I'm not too sure the DailyDot freelancer-and-editorial-staff fully understands that every webserver in the universe records the user-agent strings in a textfile, or groks that checkuser is actually *nothing* like CSI: Miami. That worries me. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:30, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Re: the comment above - I disagree strongly re: the reliability of the VICE article. Obviously I have a bias since I was involved in it, but the author is someone who is regularly published in numerous reputable publications (The Guardian, The New Statesman, etc.) None of the claims the vice article are used for are extraordinary, although it should be disclaimed that Viacom was only a claimed client and wasn't a confirmed one. Priceline's spokesman directly confirmed they used Wiki-PR, as did CTU. Most of the other claims the article is used for are straight fact. Without reason to disbelieve its veracity, it is certainly a RS - reputable author, editorial oversight, not even any particularly exceptional claims, etc. (Viacom is actually a client which I'm sure will come out on-wiki eventually, but right now it would be OR to list them as anything other than a client Wiki-PR claimed to have.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm still looking at this, but if the *author* of the article in Vice is regularly published in *other* reliable sources, and has some relevant expertise, then I'm happy to accept their Vice article at face value. But I want specific inline cites directly *on* the names of the companies wikipedia is accusing of sockpuppetry under Morning277, such as priceline. Oh... wikipedia is not so accusing them? MAKE THAT VERY FRIGGIN CLEAR in the article then. Please.  :-)     p.s. Do you disagree the article should be about Wiki-PR the company founded in 2010, with the top half non-controversial corp-data, and the bottom half specific to the controversy?
        p.p.s. While I am pretty unhappy at the way the article subject is being handled (think it is WikiNews stuff for the most part as yet), I'm not unhappy with the folks like you and Dennis Brown that are keeping wikipedia free of socking. Thanks so much for that hard work. Still, as you well know, Morning277 was in 2008, and wikiPr was in 2010, and saying they have a "network" of admins *could* just mean they have posted on talkpages of admins before... NOT that admins are on their payroll and accepting bribes to directly edit mainspace for ca$h. We must be very precise in our language, and watch the connotations of that language. HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:30, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

    I wonder if there is a more impartial way of writing this lede. First, we took a great deal of time to address some of my concerns and a great deal of discussion has passed but after looking a little further I still have to ask if the lede is impartial enough for a Wikipedia article. There is currently a debate about whether to include the use of the linked term "Americans" instead of "citizen". I also wondered about the link for "right to bear arms".

    It has taken a great deal of time to hammer out the introduction for the lede but I still have to wonder if we have some POV forking going on. I think we should be linking the phrase "right to bear arms" to the article: Right to keep and bear arms which was begun on 15:34, 30 April 2003‎ and not to, what looks like a POV fork to a new article: Right to keep and bear arms in the United States which was begun 18:51, 20 September 2013. Now that the term American has been placed into the article with no clear consensus, it has been linked to Americans ( begun 13:44, 15 October 2008‎ ) which seems to be a POV fork of American (word) which was begun 01:23, 11 September 2001‎. I wander if this is too U.S. centric and not encyclopedic value? It's almost political, pamphlet like glittering phrases.

    Is an RFC to get more eyes on this the best move or a Village pump discussion, or the Dispute Resolution Notice Board? Or am I just over thinking this?--Mark Miller (talk) 10:03, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    It is not clear that the amendment means Americans when it refers to the people. See this Stanford Law Review article which outlines the dispute. The whole approach has been wrong, using primary sources treating majority opinions as authoritative, rather than relying on secondary sources and following weight. Even then, I do not think the article accurately describes the majority opinion.
    I do not see any way forward. Most of the editors are strongly committed to specific interpretations of the amendment, but do not represent them accurately. Dissenting editors who have appeared seem mostly to be equally committed to an alternative view. Editors who have experience in legal issues tend to avoid it.
    TFD (talk) 20:26, 8 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Scalhotrod created Right to keep and bear arms in the United States and he states his intent as being a WP:Summary style split to reduce the US section of Right to keep and bear arms. WP:AGF compels us to take that on face value and bring up any specific concerns with that editor. A link to that article could never be a WP:POV fork, although it might be a poor choice of articles in your opinion. I think it is reasonable since the Second Amendment article is talking about the US right, but I can respect other people having a different view. Please detail your concerns for the other editors. Likewise your comment about the link to Americans: the link itself cannot possibly be a POV fork; it may not be the best link and WP:AGF compels us to discuss the details and assume the other editors also have reasonable views but will listen fairly. Celestra (talk) 01:45, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Whatever the reason for its creation, it is a fork. There is nothing that should be or not be in one article that should or should not be in the other. The correct solution is to merge the two. TFD (talk) 02:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree those articles are forks and need to be merged into the main articles. The neutrality of the article is challenged for specific points and it would seem that a formal RFC would be the next best step forward.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:34, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    It is certainly a content fork, like any summary-style split. A content fork is not a bad thing when used to move a large, overly-detailed section out of a broadly scoped article, especially in this case, in which each nation has a section and the section on the US has grown out of balance with the rest of the article. The section of the broader article is then replaced by a neutral summary of a reasonable size. The guideline says: "On the other hand, as an article grows, editors often create summary-style spin-offs or new, linked article for related material. This is acceptable, and often encouraged, as a way of making articles clearer and easier to manage." Do you have a specific concern about this particular split?
    Mark, there are at least two requests on the talk page asking for you to expand on your concerns, so it isn't clear to me why you are leaving that discussion. The previous discussion on rewriting the lead earlier this year took over a month, but resulted in some improvement. The discussion you initiated has already caused some improvement and there is still some room for further improvement, IMO. You bring up the issue around which articles make good targets here, but you should present that thought to the other editors. They are much more reasonable than you may think. I, for one, would support changing the link for "Americans" to another article, or simply remove it, if it improves the readers understanding about the subject of the article. Celestra (talk) 19:11, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Preston Brooks

    A new editor persists in changing the current, generally NPOV view version to one that whitewashes Brooks actions.[20] [21] [22] Edward321 (talk) 01:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Airlines for America

    Intermittentgsrdener has blanked [23] an entire section from the article in question. It's the Criticism Section. Myself and other users believe it belongs there. Others, in part or entirety don't think it should be there. But those people who have the slightest problem with it - usually pro-business types with histories of bias editing (ref: Intermittentgsrdener) - completely strike the section REGARDLESS of there being several calls to use the Talk:Airlines for America page to discus edits on this section. The only time they'll even so much as leave a comment on the Talk page is AFTER they've had the page locked once they've transposed it to their vision of how the article should read. Hubris! I'm getting pretty sick of this. I'm looking for restructuring from this committee to keep the Criticisms section in the article. --50.128.155.168 (talk) 04:36, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

    Feylis

    There has been several edits to the feyli page. Not only has the page been vandalized but also edited to a create a Pro-iranian and Anti kurdish narrative, by creating a tendentious etmylogical and ethnological narrative and deliberately removing any of the articles orginal references to Kurds. The article itself had earlier established a consensus supporting the exposition that proposes a kurdish orgin of feylis, confirmed by feyli wikipedia readers themselves. Which can be viewed in the history of the talk page. However edits have been made these past months disregarding this and previously non-existent sections have been added that purport a luri orgin of feylis. Which is not only factually incorrect and contradiciting to contemporary research on feylis and self-identification of kurdishness amongst feylis in civil society.

    You can see these edits here:


    "Feylis are a group of lurish tribes located mainly in Luristan,Kermanshah and Ilam (Iran).[1] Feyli lurs are a community living in Baghdad and the Diyala Province of Iraq around Khanaqin and Mandali, and across the Iranian border, mainly in the provinces of Luristan, Kermanshah and Ilam. They number an estimated 6.000.000. people. The Fayli are an important community within the wider luri people. Faylee (Faylee, Faili, or Feli) are, according to some, part of the lurish population in Iraq and an integral part of the lurish nation, though others believe they are much more related to Persians.[citation needed] Faylee have themselves shown, over the years, and still show this fact and reality by words and deeds. They speak Feyli, a dialect that belongs to the luri language, which some argue is a dialect of middle Persian. Feyli is spoken particularly on both sides of the border areas between Iraq and Iran .[2]

    The roots of the Feyli go back to the Parthian/Pahlawi/Pahlawanid settlements of the 2nd century BC. Archaeological evidence from the Ilam Province in Iran indicates that some proportions of Fayli might have been Nestorian Christians until the 18th century. The conversion to Shia form of Islam seem to have begun under the Safavid dynasty (1507–1721) of Persia/Iran, Faylis today are primarily Imami Shias like the Persians, kurds and the Azeris, as well as the majority of the Iraqi Arabs.

    In modern times the Feylis have been subject to state persecution.[3][4] They are considered as a stateless people, with both Iran and Iraq claiming they are citizens of the other country.[5] In the mid 1970s, Iraq expelled around 40,000 Feyli's who had lived for generations near Baghdad and Khanaqin, alleging that they were Iranian nationals.[6] in iranica enceclopedia :

    FEYLĪ

    group of Lor tribes located mainly in Luristan.

    FEYLĪ, group of Lor tribes located mainly in Luristan. During the two centuries in which the whole of Luristan was ruled by hereditary wālīs [7] all the tribes in the region were called Feylī, but, at the beginning of the 19th century, the situation changed. Moḥammad-ʿAlī Mīrzā, eldest son of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qājār (1212-50/1797-1834) and governor-general of Kermānšāh, seized Pīš-e Kūh (the eastern part of Luristan), leaving to the wālī only Pošt-e Kūh (the western part). Because the name Feylī had been previously associated with the Solvīzī dynasty, it came to denote only those tribes in the Pošt-e Kūh.[8]

    There is little reliable information on the Feylī of the Pošt-e Kūh (for the most detailed reports, see.[9] The two major Feylī tribes in the region are Kord and Mahakī (for a list of their subdivisions, or tīras, see [10]

    In the 19th century H. C. Rawlinson (p. 107) estimated the population of Feylī in the Pošt-e Kūh at 12,000 families, A. H. Layard (pp. 99–100) at 10,000 families, George Curzon (Persian Question II, p. 274) at 210,000 individuals, H. L. Rabino (p. 40) at 10,000 families. More recently Henry Field (p. 184) has estimated it at 50,000-60,000 individuals and Masʿūd Kayhān [11] at 40,000 individuals.

    Some of the Feylī of Luristan had supported Karīm Khan Zand (1163-93/1750-79) and accompanied him to Fārs (Oberling, p. 85), where their descendants are still to be found. In 1849 they were estimated at 100 families.[12] In time these Feylī joined the ʿAmala tribe of the Qašqāʾī confederation; they were mentioned by Ḥasan Fasāʾī in Fārs-nāma.[13] Since then some Feylī of the ʿAmala tribe have settled in and around Fīrūzābād. In 1956 they numbered approximately fifty individuals.[14] Others have settled in Shiraz, where they live in the Maḥall-e Feylī. These Feylī were mentioned by Kayhān, who estimated their number at 150 families,[15] and by Field, whose estimate was 100 families (p. 222). In 1956 they comprised between 800 and 1,000 individuals (Oberling, p. 86).


    This is not only unreliable, but supports a deviating narrative. Feyli kurdish organizations and also scholars of kurds such as Mehrdad Izady with his well-respected book on kurds "The kurds: the concise handbook on kurds"

    The kurds: A concise handbook on kurds

    One source which the author of these edits cites ironically(belonging to a feyli kurdish political organization) during his edits(but deliberately omits the references of kurds and kurdishness of feylis) contradicts the above narrative and explicitely calls feyllis kurds.

    according to the source which belongs to feyli kurdish organization:

    "Who Are Faylee Kurds and where do they live?

    Faylee (Faylee, Faili, or Feli) Kurds are, as their name tells, an inseparable segment of the Kurdish population in Iraq and an integral part of the Kurdish nation, which is divided among many countries in the Middle East, mainly Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Faylee Kurds have themselves shown, over the years, and still show this fact and reality by words and deeds. They speak a dialect that belongs to the southern Kurdish dialect called Luri which is spoken in the southern areas of Kurdistan proper, particularly on both sides of the border areas between Iraq and Iran (1).

    However, all Kurds speaking this dialect are not called Faylee (2). One can say that Kurds speaking this dialect and living in and around Baghdad as well as some cities and towns in eastern and southern Iraq are called Faylee. There are many and diverse explanations for why these Kurds are called “Faylee”; however there is no plausible, well documented and generally convincing or accepted one.

    Faylee Kurds in Iraq have lived mainly in Baghdad (largely in the Kurdish Quarter (Agdelkrad, a Ghetto) and when they became better off economically they moved to more affluent areas, such as Etefiya, Jamila and Shari’ Falastin) and in lesser numbers in towns and cities near the borders with Iran from as north as south of the historically and demographically Kurdish city of Kirkuk to as far south as north of the southern city of Basra (3). On the Iranian side of the borders, Faylee Kurds (though not referred to by this name) live in the provinces of Kirmashan and Ilam and southward though not called Faylee Kurds. Since the mass expulsions from Iraq in the seventies and eighties there is a large number of Faylee Kurds in Tehran as well" (4)

    Faylee kurds democratic union.


    Feyli kurdish organizations, organized in civil society call themselves kurdish:

    faylee kurds general council

    fayle kurds democratic union

    The author did not establish a consensus before going a head to make these changes. Also several of his cited resources are unverifiable. And cannot be factually examined.

    My recommendation is that the recent edits are reverted by admins and the page locked until the issue of neutrality is resolved

    — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.150.236.238 (talk) 17:57, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply] 


       Template:علی ساکی لرستانی:NPOVN-notice --5.150.236.238 (talk) 16:52, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard&oldid=581114355"