Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard

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What is the actual point of this noticeboard?

It seems like in actual practice this noticeboard is just a venue for foamed-over article talk page disputes. It doesn't particularly attract intervention by neutral parties, because most of the editors watching this board are the ones already engaged in other disputes here. The participants in the original dispute merely restate their arguments on the noticeboard, no one says anything else, and the matters are eventually archived without closure. Any blatant NPOV edits are more likely to be addressed by administrator intervention, so this noticeboard ends up hosting the more inconclusive disagreements in the hopes that someone else will comment, like a less effective version of 3O or RfC. Couldn't we just do without this page and trust to those more reliable avenues? Ibadibam (talk) 23:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps that there has been no response to this posting after more than a year is a good argument for its validity. I have also experienced the frustration of posting to this and other noticeboards only to have the discussion archived with no significant result. There are over 7,000 articles in the category NPOV disputes. This may be deemed insignificant given that there are almost 5.5 million content pages in English, but it never seems so to the participants in a dispute. In addition to the number, encountering a POV tag that has not been addressed for years is not encouraging to those that would like to have an article progress.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 02:02, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Or maybe it is just that other edds do not agree there is a problem that needs addressing? SZee below, just because you think there is a POV issue does not mean anyone else does. The problem becomes one one edd (or a minority of edds) insist that their POV is the neutral one and refuse to accept anything else (to be fair not always, but that seems to me the most common cause of POV tags and discussions not be given "fair treatment").Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• Also... a NPOV issue raised here may relate to a specific article. Thus the issue is best discussed at that specific article's talk page, and not here. This noticeboard alerts editors to the fact that a potential problem exists, but the actual resolution of the problem occurs elsewhere. Blueboar (talk) 10:46, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the posting here should be a "notice"/link to the talk page rather than a duplication/rehash of the discussion.--WriterArtistDC (talk) 01:39, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Using the NPOV policy as a tool of exclusion

The regular editors here might be interested in this research on how experienced editors use policies as "weapon" to exclude viewpoints and discourage participation by other editors ("incivility" in its original sense, meaning behavior that doesn't build up the community/civil society). The NPOV policy was named as the policy "by far" most likely to be (mis)used this way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9vvwV5KfW4 WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing!! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:50, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• Personally I dislike citing WP:NPOV alone as the reason to dispute an edit because it's often too vague - it doesn't specify why the edit is non-neutral. Virtually every NPOV issue is either going to be about the sourcing, WP:DUE, WP:TONE, or one of the other subsections on that article; it's better to focus on those because they give the other person a more specific idea of what they have to address in order to resolve things. Whereas WP:NPOV is so sweeping that it's often not clear where to start responding, and often carries an implicit subtext of "I find this edit so objectionable that I don't think there's any sourcing that could support it in any form." (Sometimes that is true and no such sourcing exists, but "find better sources for this if you can?" is more constructive because it makes clear to them why it can't be added.) --Aquillion (talk) 19:05, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Ironically, the problem with NPOV as a policy is that its interpretation and application is dependent on one's POV. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:42, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

True, LOL. Though I wouldn't say it's necessarily a matter of experienced vs inexperienced editors. Some of the weirdest, misrepresented "NPOV" arguments I've seen have come from less experienced users (unless they were socks, which is very possible). But it's happened at all levels of experience, really. I've seen quite a few circular, endless debates on here where a user simply refuses to accept a WP:RS source as reliable, and usuable to source NPOV text, because it sources a fact about someone or something that they wish wasn't included in the article. Or they insist on misinterpreting the WP:NPOV policy to mean a source is only usable if the source itself is completely neutral. The policies cover all of this, but it doesn't stop the circular arguments when a user is refusing to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Even linking to the policies makes no difference when it gets to that point. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 20:56, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

What?! Are you saying that an article can actually comply with NPOV if it doesn't align exactly with my own personal beliefs?! Heresy. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

This reminds me of the point about fairness in relation to the technical issue of socks. Editors who are not here for the encyclopedia but only care about promotion or whitewashing about a particular topic are unlikely to ever consider themselves fairly treated, even if they must ultimately be blocked to protect the encyclopedia. While I'm sure that NPOV is often misrepresented, one can't avoid its mention or to correct one's misinterpretation of it whenever necessary. Since it's a core policy and very important, statistics must reflect systemic technical bias. —PaleoNeonate – 01:21, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Every encyclopedia needs a rule for decideing what details are included and what emphasis is used. Hundreds of books for example have been written about Napoleon and it is possible to write a book about him that runs into thousands of pages. But Wikipedia articles are only a fraction of that size and editorial judgemnt is requried to determine what should be included or excluded. There's nothing in the article for example about Napoleon's penis, although it has been covered in the Washington Post,[1], the Independent and Channel 4,[2], NPR,[3] the Huffington Post,[4] the New York Times[5] and other fine sources. It's of particular interest because of rumors that Trump has small hands. But the reason it's not included in his article is that it has not received sufficient coverage in articles about him to put into his article. Are the sources reliable? Absolutely! Now we could change the policy, but something would always be excluded. TFD (talk) 04:07, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Is this the right place for my Question?

I 've added some months ago a well-cited text concerning the number of fatalities of EOKA. My edit was reverted because of "NPOV" concerns by 2 other editors. I have been to 3O, dispute resolution, issued a RfC (all other editors who contributed were in favour of inclusion). But it seems that the RfC won't close, not because of participation, as the last participant was a month ago or so. Should I ask for the opinions of the editors of this noticeboard or not? I feel it will snowball easily because it is a straightforward case. Cinadon36 08:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

RfCs automatically close after 30 days. However I cannot answer your questions without your providing any details. Please provide links to the article, the RfC, and your talk page discussion. You should also post on the talk page that you have taken it to this noticeboard if you have not already done so. TFD (talk) 03:42, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Archived discussion lost?

A while back, I commented on a discussion on this project page titled "Battle of the_Teutoburg Forest"; it is still visible in a link via an old version of this project page. The discussion was "archived", but though the archive bot removed it from project page, it does not now show up in the the archive. Am I missing something? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:24, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Pinging Σ, owner of Lowercase sigmabot III, which performed the archiving. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 00:39, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Could the Tell Abyad discussion be reactivated?

Could we reactivate the Tell Abyad discussion? I have not noticed that there is 21 day rule and have prepared a summery of the dispute for the RfC in my sandboxΣ.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:58, 1 September 2020 (UTC)