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Andrew Jackson's ethnic cleansing

There is an ongoing dispute in Talk:Andrew Jackson, and @Oncamera suggested that I post here about @Display name 99's ownership behavior as the "self-appointed guardian" of the article. There are actually a few issues, but they're all related to systemic bias; the article as it is written now is focused on Jackson's impact and legacy as seen by white men, and I have been trying to adapt the content to adequately cover Jackson's (very notable) role in the ethnic cleansing of the United States, but I have been met with significant resistance.

For example, after a bit of back-and-forth, I proposed the following change to the introductory paragraph:

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. While he was championed in his time for his efforts to preserve the Union and advance the rights of working-class white men, his legacy is complicated by his role overseeing the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous populations through the Indian Removal Act.

All of the information here is prominently supported by reliable sources, and none of it is contested. The current text (written by Display name 99) looks like this:

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.

This misleading (using "common" to mean white, for one) and focuses on what Jackson used to be notable for among white men rather than what he is notable for today from a global perspective.

I've gone to great lengths to try to understand Display name 99's reason for excluding ethnic cleansing, but they have not offered much explanation, describing it as a "red line," "biased," and "loaded language," with no explanation other than a book from the '80s that describes an "ongoing debate" about whether ethnic cleansing was the "correct" decision. I believe my introduction is more notable, descriptive, reliable, and neutral than anything they have proposed, but they have been persistently rejecting any change to their text without an explanation that I've been able to understand, so it seems relevant to bring the issue here and get outside opinions. FinnV3 (talk) 14:17, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

There's almost nothing in the article that discusses the complications of his legacy related to the Indian Removal Act or ethnic cleaning. The article does note he was involved with the Indian Removal Act (and this is mentioned later in the lede), but there's no commentary as to the impact on his long-term legacy. As such, it seems correct to not include this in the opening lede paragraph since it is absent in the article itself. --Masem (t) 14:23, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't have time to do an in-depth response to FinnV3's post (I will do so later). However, I would like to note that the complications about his legacy are mentioned in what I see to be sufficient detail in the final paragraph of the lead. They are also mentioned in the "Historical reputation" section. However, I find that the Historical reputation section would benefit with more detail about his legacy on racial matters, and I have suggested to some editors on the talk page ways to do that. I will make a full response later. Display name 99 (talk) 14:25, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree that ethnic cleansing should be discussed more throughout the article. @Display name 99 has also been removing these references. The bit about his "legacy" was an attempt at compromise with Display name 99, who felt that legacy was especially important, but I'd also be happy to mention Jackson's ethnic cleansing outside the context of his legacy. FinnV3 (talk) 14:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I will begin with a response to the allegation of ownership behavior before diving into specifics. I don't consider it ownership but WP:Stewardship. I wrote much of the article, brought it to featured article status, and care about insuring that it remains a high-quality work. But I don't revert edits that other people make just because I'm not the one making them. I alter or remove changes which violate Wikipedia policy and detract from the quality of the article, but I don't stop others from making improvements.

Now onto the specific issues. The sentence in the opening paragraph describing Jackson's presidency reads, as FinnV3 quoted it: "An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union." FinnV3 objected very strongly to a number of aspects of this paragraph. He was adamant that it needed specific mention of Indian removal. I disagreed. The opening paragraph of any article is supposed to be very brief. The opening paragraph of the Jackson article, therefore, should focus in broad terms on Jackson's philosophy, not delving into the details of specific policy. Therefore, in my mind, that sentence is completely fine. It covers the essence of the principles of Jacksonian democracy, which were expanding America's borders, fighting on behalf of ordinary citizens against what was alleged to be a corrupt system in the federal government, and seeking to overcome sectional differences and keep the Union together through opposition to both nullification and abolitionism. By describing Jackson supporting the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy," we implicitly cover his purges of corruption, opposition to expensive federal programs, and the Bank War. By mentioning his work for the preservation of the Union, nullification and opposition to abolitionism are also covered. In the same way, describing him as an "expansionist president" covers his Indian removal policies. I have never seen a need to specifically mention Indian removal when crucial episodes like the Nullification Crisis and the Bank War are also not individually addressed. Indian removal, like these issues, is discussed in detail further down in the lead and in the body of the article. However, FinnV3 had the support of another editor, and in the interest of compromise, I proposed this version:

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president who oversaw the forced removal of thousands of Native Americans, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against what he saw as a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.

This already went further than I thought proper by specifically mentioning Indian removal while not specifically mentioning other issues of great relevance in Jackson's life. FinnV3 rejected it, insisting that "forced removal" be replaced with his preferred term, "ethnic cleansing." Both myself and another editor, Antiok 1pie, are opposed to this language. I readily concede one of Finnv3's key points: several reliable sources on Indian removal describe it as ethnic cleansing, and although many other sources do not use that language, I have not been able to find any which argue that it was not ethnic cleansing. However, I still do not believe that it is best to use that language in the manner in which it has been proposed, and I will repeat some of the arguments that I have made on the talk page to explain why.

Although there isn't a single scholar on the Jackson era from the late 20th century until now that I'm aware of who does not recognize the removal of Indians as orchestrated by Jackson as a humanitarian catastrophe, there is still considerable debate as to Jackson's personal responsibility in the matter. There's evidence that he wanted the Indians to be treated well, and it's not proven that he was aware of mistreatment carried out by soldiers during the relocation process. Additionally, it has been seriously argued in recent studies that as terrible as removal was, Jackson's decision to carry it out really was the best option available, and that had Jackson not undertaken it, encroaching white settlements would have led to a protracted and bloody war between whites and Native Americans which the whites eventually would have won, leading to more Native American deaths than took place during the removal. Therefore, removal, as terrible as it was, was simply the best option that Jackson had. Robert V. Remini is a major historian who published numerous works on Jackson in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, argues that. His studies of Jackson have formed a foundation for all scholarship of him that has taken place since. He largely defends Jackson's removal policies as tragic but necessary. Several other historians have adopted that view, one of whom, Francis Paul Prucha, is mentioned in the "Historical reputation" section of the article. Personally, I agree that Jackson's Indian removal policies most likely did conform to the literal definition of ethnic cleansing. However, the term has an extremely negative connotation. In my mind, it implies that Jackson hated the Indians, wanted them gone, and perhaps even wished to exterminate them. Because of its implication, I do not think that is appropriate to use that language without further context when the necessity and justification of Jackson's actions is not a settled matter and is still debated. My preferred language, "forced removal," is neutral and accurate, and has no implications beyond what is simple fact that everyone can agree on. FinnV3 disputed my claim that "ethnic cleansing" implies hatred, but when I asked him why whether, if both terms are neutral and accurate and don't imply any particular motivations, he wouldn't simply accept my preferred version when I so strongly opposed the other, he did not give an answer that I could understand.

To summarize, I don't think that Indian removal needs to be mentioned in the first paragraph. But if it is going to be mentioned, it should at least be in a way that does not imply something which some reliable sources oppose.

I also don't think that it's appropriate or necessary to say in the opening paragraph that his legacy was complicated by Indian removal. Jackson was extremely controversial during and after his lifetime. But the most intense political issues of his day, and the positions for which Jackson was most heavily criticized in sources written in the 120* years after his death, was not Indian removal. This did not became the thing that he was most criticized for until the 1970s.

FinnV3 has objected to the use of the term "common man" in both the opening and concluding paragraphs of the lead, the former of which summarizes his philosophy and the latter his legacy. Language like "common man" is a critical part of the idea of Jacksonian democracy. Jackson's supporters, both in his time and through scholarly works long after his death, have not described him as an advocate of the "white working class" but for the "common man" or "ordinary Americans." However flawed, inaccurate, or incomplete this may be, that's what they have said, and it's essential to note when assessing his legacy. When describing things for which Jackson has been praised, it is most accurate to use the language in which he has been praised. It is not biased to do so when the article also notes his racial policies and mentions the criticism that he has received for them. Additionally, "common man" is in quotes in the first paragraph. The quotes demonstrate that this was the language of Jackson's supporters, and that their definition of "common man," which was generally limited to white men, should not be taken as the absolute and final meaning of the term. A secondary point is that Native Americans who chose to adopt white habits and live like whites, as well as freed blacks in the North, were also effected in many ways by Jackson's economic policies that he engaged in on behalf of the "common man," and so to replace "common man" with "white working class," or something similar, makes it seem like these people don't exist.

FinnV3 also removed a sentence saying that Jackson was ranked favorably compared to other U.S. presidents. Antiok 1pie reverted him. When shown indisputable evidence that most presidential ranking surveys did place Jackson near the top, and he allowed a proposed compromise version of the sentence to go into the article without complaining, but is now trying to end altogether the practice of including presidential rankings in the leads of articles.

The reference that I removed was a Vox article written by a non-historian. Internet articles are cited in the article, but they aren't in the Bibliography, especially when they are nothing more than popular opinion pieces written by non-historians, as was the case with that article.

I know that was a lot of writing, but the opposition to so many points in the article necessitated it. I am not trying to own the article and erase the history of Native Americans. There's plenty about them in the article. When two editors voiced concerns on the talk page that the "Historical reputation" section lacked sufficient critical assessments of Jackson, I welcomed them to add some. [1][2] When one of them wanted a pro-Jackson assessment removed because it came from a source that they found unreliable, I consented. However, what FinnV3's revisions would do to the article would result it inflated coverage of racial issues while diminishing everything else, while discussing these racial issues in a biased way that would imply conclusions contrary to many important sources. Display name 99 (talk) 19:40, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• "I don't stop others from making improvements." I disagree, as do other frustrated editors in the history and talk pages.
• "In my mind, it implies that Jackson hated the Indians, wanted them gone, and perhaps even wished to exterminate them." Why? As I pointed out before, the term "ethnic cleansing" is used in the context of coercive child adoption, and adoptive parents guilty do not generally hate their children. Andrew Jackson committed ethnic cleansing, as supported by reliable sources more recent than Display name 99's, and there are no unfair connotations or implications behind this terminology. I do not like your pro-ethnic-cleansing argument, and I don't see why it has any bearing on whether we should describe Jackson's (prominently notable) ethnic cleansing.
• "When I asked him why whether, if both terms are neutral and accurate and don't imply any particular motivations, he wouldn't simply accept my preferred version when I so strongly opposed the other, he did not give an answer that I could understand." A few reasons:

1. "Ethnic cleansing" is more descriptive than "forced removal." It describes an additional dimension to the violence, namely the racial one, and it adds this extra description without adding any extra words. It is also a term commonly used in modern writing that will be familiar to the casual Wikipedia reader, with a more precise definition than simple "forced removal."
2. It's the language used in the sources I read, and all of my sources are more recent than yours. It's also the language used for other similarly controversial political figures on Wikipedia, and I would like Wikipedia articles to be written with a consistent style. I see no reason to use different language for Jackson.
3. I suspect that you have fallen victim to systemic bias. We should not use different language for Jackson than other ethnic cleansers just because he was a U.S. president.

• "Jackson's supporters, both in his time and through scholarly books and articles long after his death, have not described him as an advocate of the 'white working class' but for the 'common man' or 'ordinary Americans.'" That's true of any populist. Why do you want to use the language of Jackson's supporters? I don't think we should use the word "common" to mean white, as Wikipedia articles should be written with a global perspective.
• "Native Americans who chose to adopt white habits and live like whites, as well as freed blacks in the North..." These were relatively uncommon, and I find the word "common" extremely inappropriate here.
• "Most presidential ranking surveys did place Jackson near the top." Keyword: "did". They do not anymore, and Wikipedia articles should reflect current academic consensus.
• "What FinnV3's revisions would do to the article would result it inflated coverage of racial issues while diminishing everything else." What am I diminishing? Why is it more notable than ethnic cleansing?
• "...discussing these racial issues in a biased way that would imply conclusions contrary to many important sources." What is the "bias"? What are the unfairly "implied conclusions"? I still have not gotten a satisfactory response. FinnV3 (talk) 22:02, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

  TL;DR.

  Historian / expert ratings are important. I see no reason not to include them. Whether or not they should go in the lead is debatable. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:15, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

  Right, that's what I've been debating separately, as it seemed like less of a NPOV issue. FinnV3 (talk) 22:30, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

It is a good idea to expand coverage of Andrew Jackson's impact on Native Americans. That's a process that should finish with the lede, not start at the lede. The phrase "ethnic cleansing" can be used if prominent sources use it. Sennalen (talk) 22:37, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I reading through this discussion and looking at the article page I see little to support FinnV3's proposed changes. It very much looks like a POV edit and tries to view historical events through modern eyes. It does not appear that the large volume of RSs on Jackson would choose such a summary for Jackson's biography. Springee (talk) 02:11, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

FinnV3, I'm not going to respond to most of your points here. We've already battled each other for pages on the talk page. We're not going to cover any new ground here, so I think this space should be used mainly to get outside opinions. I will however point out that your statement that historians no longer rank Jackson highly compared to other presidents is false. Yes, there has been a substantial drop in his placement on the rankings, but on the talk page, Antiok 1pie linked to survey which was conducted in 2015 and ranked him 9th. Muboshgu, I trimmed my original post a little bit. I know that there were already replies to it, but I didn't change the meaning of anything, so hopefully it is not thought improper. The post is still very long, but I can't really shorten it much more. Aside from accusing me personally of wrongdoing, FinnV3 challenged three separate parts of the lead. That is a lot to respond to, so I hope that you will understand and try to be patient. Regarding the presidential rankings, I'm not adamant about whether they need to go in the lead or not, but almost every U.S. presidential biography has them there. Millard Fillmore's doesn't for some reason but I think that every single other one does. This article is just following the standard convention. FinnV3 just doesn't like how it says that most rankings of Jackson have been favorable, even though it's 100% true. Sennalen, as I mentioned above, I have invited two other editors who expressed concerns with coverage of Native American issues in the body of the article to make edits there. One of them already has. The term "ethnic cleansing" is used by multiple scholars to describe Indian removal. As such, I would have no problem with a sentence in the section on "Indian removal" or "Historical reputation" in something like "Many scholars have labelled Jackson's removal policies ethnic cleansing.[Citations] However, I do not think that it belongs in the lead, and certainly not in the opening paragraph. For my reasons, I respectfully refer you to my above post. Display name 99 (talk) 03:11, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

It's natural that the Andrew Jackson article might run into an issue of balancing weight between older scholarship, which probably doesn't refer to Indian Removal Act, etc, using the term ethnic cleansing, and newer, one might say more progressive scholarship. Some might call this revisionist scholarship, undoubtedly some more conservative scholars might not agree with the "woke" takes on Jackson. Nonetheless, if they are a substantial minority view, they should be included, and there's a good chance something about the modern controversy or reevaluation of Jackson is suitable for the lede section. That being said, you all need to discuss this productively, and come to a constructive consensus. Display name 99, you are WP:TEXTWALLing, but this is a good starting point for the constructiveness: I would have no problem with a sentence in the section on "Indian removal" or "Historical reputation" in something like "Many scholars have labelled Jackson's removal policies ethnic cleansing.[Citations] You do need to not WP:OWN the article and work constructively. That being said, to FinnV3, you will need to balance and reflect the older, more conservative sources with the newer scholarship. Recent academic consensus doesn't mean that all the old sources go away - they just become reweighted and recontextualized over time. So you'll need some balance, I haven't studied all the work on Jackson in depth, but "ethnic cleanser" I'm guessing is not going to be the first sentence of the lede section. It would probably have to be closer to qualified and contextualized as a controversy shifting over time about what some have called ethnic cleansing. That's my guess, not having reviewed the sources at all. Andre🚐 03:25, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Andrevan, Thank you for your thoughts. The modern controversy and reevaluations of Jackson are already in the lead section. I quote from the end of the final paragraph of the lead:

Jackson has been widely revered in the United States as an advocate for democracy and the common man. Many of his actions proved divisive, garnering both fervent support and strong opposition from many in the country. His reputation has suffered since the 1970s, largely due to his anti-abolitionist views and policy of the forcible removal of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands. However, surveys of historians and scholars have usually ranked Jackson favorably among U.S. presidents.[3][4] FinnV3 was displeased that Indian removal was not explicitly mentioned in the opening paragraph. Despite not thinking it necessary, I offered him a version that did explicitly mention it (I quoted it in green in my original post), but he rejected it because he insisted on including the language "ethnic cleansing," which I did not think was appropriate for the opening paragraph. The dispute isn't about whether modern critical evaluations should be mentioned in the lead. They already are and I agree that they ought to be. It's about whether "ethnic cleansing" is appropriate for the opening paragraph, how to describe Jackson's legacy as an advocate for democracy in light of his racial policies, and the issue of presidential rankings. Display name 99 (talk) 03:49, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Springee, I agree. One of the most recent biographies of Jackson was American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White Houae by Jon Meacham. It was released in 2008, sold very widely, and won the Pulitzer Prise. It is the best-selling biography of Jackson ever written, and still fairly recent. I see it on the shelves in Barnes & Noble. I found an Internet version of the book and did a search for "ethnic cleansing" and "ethnic cleanser." I found nothing in the entire book. I did the same thing for another biography of Jackson published in 2005 by reputed historian H.W. Brands. Again, I found no results. While it's true that I have not found any reliable sources that argue that Jackson's actions were not ethnic cleansing, the fact that neither of these two biographers, both of whom are very reputable historians and whose books were published recently, use the term once in their entire books on Jackson shows that it's probably not a good idea for us to use it in the first paragraph of our article on him. Display name 99 (talk) 04:06, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

• I suspect that it is TOO SOON to use the term “ethnic cleansing”… there simply are not enough historians (yet) who use that phrasing. I suspect this will change over the next decade or so… but for NOW, using it gives UNDUE weight to what is still a fringe view. Wikipedia follows the scholarship, it does not lead it. Blueboar (talk) 14:20, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Deathlibrarian made the argument for inclusion of ethnic cleansing on the article Trail of Tears. This is a repost referencing their contribution and they should be given all credit for the hard work and research they did to find these reliable sources which I believe show that it is not, in fact, TOO SOON to call it what it was, ethnic cleansing. You can find the original text here.

"Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area" appears to exactly match what was done with the Indian removals on the trail of tears, I wouldn't regard it as an unusual claim at all - it seems to me exactly what happened. But happy to provide some supporting referenced quotes for you, all good - references are in APA style, I hope these are ok. There's 20 here, should be enough for wikipedia:

• "The Indian Removal Act stated that the president could force tribes to relocate in exchange for a “grant” of western territory where white settlers did not yet live. (No matter that the western land might already be occupied by other tribes.) This became carte blanche for the U.S. government to commit ethnic cleansing"
• "The ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee nation by the U.S. Army, 1838."
• "But the economic returns on this massive project of ethnic cleansing and displacement were also considerable. In the 1830s-the decade of removal-the federal government made nearly $80 million selling Native American lands to private individuals"
• "To call their expulsion a removal is to sanitise, to banalise it, to avoid confronting it. For what the citizens of Georgia, Alabama and Missisipi in fact undertook, was nothing less than the complete dismemberment, the ethnic cleansing of the society they inhabited"
• "Andrew Jackson was a slaver, ethnic cleanser, and tyrant. He deserves no place on our money." "Leaving aside whether Jackson's acts of ethnic cleansing against Native Americans technically count as war crimes or just ordinary crimes against humanity, his career as a general included numerous actions which would absolutely warrant criminal action today"
• "At What Cost? The Cherokee Trail of Tears: America's Ethnic Cleansing"
• "In modern popular culture, the best-known episode of Native ethnic cleansing is the Cherokee nation's brutal experience, dubbed The Trail of Tears."
• " In fact, it has become such a powerful symbol for the devastating US program of ethnic cleansing known as Indian removal that it is often forgotten how much more extensive..."
• "Andrew Jackson’s administration (1828–36) implemented a policy of ethnic cleansing with a vengeance and the Cherokee Trail of Tears exemplifies the horrors and atrocities of this"
• "...estimates that because of this forced ethnic cleansing, about 20 percent of the 16,000 expelled Cherokees died of hunger, privation, and disease on the “Trail of Tears,"
• " Especially traumatic were the forced removal (ethnic cleansing) of southeastern US Indians over the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the 1830s" Deathlibrarian (talk) 09:12, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
• " Jackson advocated “removal” or ethnic cleansing, so he sided with Georgia’s settler administration against the Cherokee and the Marshall court." Penikett, T. (2012). A ‘literacy test’for Indigenous government?. Northern Public Affairs, 1, 32-37.
• "Both played central roles in horrible acts of ethnic cleansing , Jackson in the Trail of Tears and Jabotinsky in the 1948 nakba"
• "Members of the nations certainly remembered their forced removal at the hands of the federal government, an American ethnic cleansing of the southeastern states implemented just a generation before— and feared the Lincoln adminis- tration would now seek to open Indian Territory to white settlement"
• "The United States may not have written the book on ethnic cleansing, but it certainly provided several of its most stunning chapters -- particularly in its treatment of the American Indian in the transcontinental drive for territory justified under the quasi-religious notion of "manifest destiny.""
• "Ethnic Cleansing and the Trail of Tears: Cherokee Pasts, Places, and Identities"
• "Today is the 160th anniversary of the beginning of the Trail of Tears, an American form of ethnic cleansing that my great-great-grandparents fell victim to"
• "Now a lightning rod for condemnation of the expropriation of Indian property, Jackson was an agent of demographic pressures and a lust for the resources found on tribal lands. The result of this land grab and ethnic cleansing was the Trail of Tears, a highway of the dispossessed, enroute from their homelands to less favorable situations away from the population centers of the European-Americans
• "For the World Viewed as an event on the stage of world history , the Trail of Tears supplies one example of the international , ongoing phenomenon of ethnic cleansing "
• "Others prefer the term genocide, or ethnic cleansing. The terms genocide, death march, and ethnic cleansing all imply that the US government expected many Native Americans to die along the way—even before the journey began." Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:02, 22 November 2021 (UTC)}}

I provided the exact contributions above for clarity. I wanted to make sure that attribution to @deathlibrarian was noted. As pointed out in the above discussion by @Display name 99, they have not been able to find any modern reliable sources which dispute the ethnic cleansing terminology. The two stated biographies simply do not refer to the forced removal as ethnic cleansing but do not dispute the claim of it being such. The fact it is not mentioned in Andrew Jackson's biographies does not outweigh the overwhelming evidence presented from independent reliable sources, likewise, neither does the fact it was omitted by two historians outweigh the historical viewpoints of other historians despite @Display name 99's calling them "very reputable". Even those sources which stop short of calling it genocide still refer to it as ethnic cleansing. That is the minimum at which it should be referred. --ARoseWolf 15:20, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I have to concur with ARoseWolf and Deathlibrarian, a lot of sources are using this terminology. Is there any rebuttal? Andre🚐 15:22, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't have time to look through all those sources but they do appear very recent (in context of this event) and how many are strong sources for such a claim. The first one is Teen Vogue. Springee (talk) 15:55, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

If you don't have time, don't characterize all of them based on a cursory glance. There is at least one from 1995, and a number that appear to be academic sources. Andre🚐 15:57, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

A long list is presented with a claim that it proves a point. However the first source on the list is Teen Vogue Another source in the list is a book review where the reviewer chooses to use "ethnic cleansing" once, towards the end of the review published by "Southern Spaces" (no idea who they are). If the intent is to say, "each source in this list has used the term", fine. However, if the claim is "this is a list of strong RSs using the term thus we should too" and the list contains crap sources like Teen Vogue, how should we take it? I take it as a keyword search rather than a representative literature search. Springee (talk) 21:22, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not defending Teen Vogue, but there are at least a handful of decent usable sources in the list that was offered. We could try to be a bit charitable and recognize it as a good faith effort. Instead of picking the one that's easiest to dismiss, you could try a "steelman" and pick the one that looks the meatiest and most appropriate and proceed from a place of constructiveness. Andre🚐 21:28, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I will defend Teen Vogue as being at least equivilant to most other politically-oriented high-quality magazine or news sources. It has received substantial secondary coverage highlighting the quality of its reporting, eg. The pivot in editorial strategy has drawn praise on social media, with some writers commenting that Teen Vogue is doing a better job of covering important stories in 2016 than legacy news publications.[3], Teen Vogue received national acclaim for its political journalism, yet profit did not immediately follow.[4], [5]. It is clearly WP:BIASED on many topics, especially politics and fashion - something all those sources emphasize is that it carries a very specific sort of politics, and potential conflicts exist when discussing fashion - but largely it's treated as something closer to eg. Jacobin, ie. a credible high-quality source for that politics, so I don't think it's appropriate to dismiss it simply because it's Teen Vogue. (It's also important to note that this is a relatively recent development.) That doesn't mean it's the ideal source to use here - better ones can clearly be found - but that's more because it's a magazine and is WP:BIASED in a way that would require attribution, rather than because it is an at-a-glance obviously ridiculous source or something of that nature simply because it has "teen" in its name. --Aquillion (talk) 06:37, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

There are so many WP:WALLS in this discussion and on the Talk Page that I'm going to have to take a day off of work to understand all the arguments here. I so wish editors would practice brevity. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 15:52, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Deathlibrarian, ARoseWolf, Andrevan and Pyrrho the Skipper I will try to restate my arguments for the opening paragraph in brief, bullet point format.

• Yes, many high-quality sources do call it ethnic cleansing. However, the term has a highly negative connotation. Some historians argue that removal was necessary to protect the Indians from encroaching settlers. Basically, it was terrible but it had to happen for the Indians' own good. Even one historian (Richard B. Latner) who criticizes Jackson's removal policies still writes that Jackson had humanitarian concern for the Indians, only that it was misguided. Using the term "ethnic cleansing" without any context implies that Jackson hated the Indians and possibly wished to exterminate them, which runs counter to these sources' arguments and thus violates NPOV.
• The three main biographers of Jackson within the past 50 years-Remini (three volumes published in 1977, 1981, and 1984), Brands (2005), and Meacham-(2008) don't use the term once in their entire works on Jackson. Thus, we shouldn't use it in the opening paragraph of our article about Jackson. Enough reliable sources do use it where it probably could be mentioned somewhere in the body of the article (either in the section on removal or the Historical reputation section), but putting it in the first paragraph is undue weight given that these important sources don't use it at all. Remember, this isn't an article simply about Indian removal. It's an article about Andrew Jackson, and so while sources about Indian removal are very important, we should follow most closely what Jackson biographers have written.
• I don't think that Indian removal needs to be specifically addressed in the first paragraph at all. No other specific events or issues in Jackson's life and presidency are mentioned, and so I think that specifically mentioning it in any way constitutes undue weight. But if it is going to be mentioned, which I am willing to agree to if necessary in the interest of finding a resolution, it should be in language that does not suggest anything contrary to what all reliable sources agree upon. That is why my chosen language, "forced removal," is better.

Hopefully that makes things easier for everyone. Display name 99 (talk) 16:35, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

So, I have some concerns that your statements are substituting your own POV on Jackson for what the sources say, in your first and third point. Indian removal is definitely a huge part of Jackson's legacy, and many sources do cover that aspect of his life and presidency. I don't think you can keep it out altogether. Andre🚐 16:39, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

We can say exactly the same about the victory at New Orleans, purges of corruption in the government, the Bank War, and the Nullification Crisis, and yet none of these are mentioned in the opening paragraph. Obviously if enough editors disagree, it will have to be mentioned in the first paragraph. However, the manner in which we do so should stick to the bare facts and not imply any conclusions that not all sources agree upon. Display name 99 (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I didn't say it should be in the first paragraph. We clearly do have the bank and the crisis stuff covered in the lead section. Andre🚐 17:03, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Andrevan, okay, but FinnV3 says that it should, and I was saying that it shouldn't be mentioned in the first paragraph, so it seemed to me like you were disagreeing with me. Indian removal and its legacy is already discussed in the third and fourth paragraphs of the lead. Does there need to be more there? I think it's enough already. I've already said that I would be fine with "ethnic cleansing" being mentioned in the body of the article. So if you agree that it doesn't have to be in the lead, it seems that we would not disagree on the issue. Display name 99 (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary. The terminology questions and the placement of the Trail of Tears should probably be three different conversations. I don't know where I land on the terminology yet (I will say biographers can have a tendency to venerate their subjects), but I think the Trail of Tears is a big enough part of Jackson's legacy to be in the first, or at least second paragraph, because it was perhaps his biggest legislative accomplishment and essentially put in motion the broader actions that affected the entire native American population in the decades that followed. It's currently buried way down in the lead, but it's an enormous part of his legacy. A U.S. president recently tried removing him from the currency due to the Trail of Tears, which millions of Americans supported. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 17:12, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Display name 99, nowhere in policy does it say we with hold negative information from any biography simply because we feel the information is too negative. We follow reliable secondary sources. While some sources may contain bias and we should scrutinize those sources more heavily to ensure they are not disproportionately targeting subjects, whether current or historical, we still follow the sources. To call it forced removal when sources call it ethnic cleansing is not maintaining a NPOV.

• Yes, ethnic cleansing carries more weight than forced removal because that term is understood by today's culture better, but the article is written for today's reader, not a reader from the mid-1800's. There is nothing saying that articles won't change or that additional information can't be found or produced that might change our understanding of events surrounding this subject. Wikipedia allows for the continued alteration of articles as reliable sources dictate, otherwise, once an article was created no one would be allowed to edit that article. Though it may be slow to change, Wikipedia is living, it is not static.
• Only allowing for selectively using certain reliable sources because those sources written from the point of view of a biographer while rejecting other reliable sources that might be more critical of their actions is fallacy.
• The ethnic cleansing and forced removal of Native Americans dominated Andrew Jackson's presidency and was a lasting part of his legacy that affects Native cultures even today. Regardless of any of these personal views, we may or may not agree on a lot of things, we reflect what reliable sources say. --ARoseWolf 18:24, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

ARoseWolf, it's not that it's too negative but that, without context, it suggests that something that not all reliable sources agree on. As for your sentence To call it forced removal when sources call it ethnic cleansing is not maintaining a NPOV., not all reliable sources say that. Please don't just take the sources that you want and imply that they speak for all of them.

Again, you're distorting my arguments. I didn't say that we reject all sources not biographies. I only maintain that when making broad assessments of Jackson's legacy, biographies should receive precedence. Aside from the three biographies already mentioned, a fourth one, written in 2005 by Sean Wilentz, also does not use the term ethnic cleansing. There's another biography of Jackson that came out in 2022 by David S. Brown. It mentions the term "ethnic cleansing," but only in reference to "labels" that have been applied to the policy. It does not call it ethnic cleansing. The fact that none of the five most recent major Jackson biographies (Remini, Brands, Wilentz, Meacham, and Brown) call the removal ethnic cleansing, and that four of them don't even mention the term at all, makes a very strong case that we should not use it in the opening paragraph. Further down in the article, yes, we can. But I strenuously object to it in the opening paragraph.

It is historically inaccurate to say that the removal of Native Americans dominated Andrew Jackson's presidency. It was a major aspect of it, of course, but there were numerous policies which he undertook which had little or nothing to do with it. The Bank War and the nullification issue still would have occurred if not for the Indian Removal Act. Much of the removal didn't even occur under his presidency. The removal of the Cherokee happened in 1838, after he had already left office. I also know that it is a lasting part of his legacy, which is why it is mentioned prominently in the final paragraph of the lead which asseses his legacy, as well as under "Historical reputation." Display name 99 (talk) 18:55, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

You were shown twenty reliable sources which call the policy enacted under his presidency ethnic cleansing. And you stated yourself that you can not find reliable sources which argue against calling it ethnic cleansing. You say that omission from biographies overrules other reliable sources because they are biographies written by "very reputable" historians. Well, that seems a very narrow and non-neutral point of view. Please provide the Wikipedia policy which states that biographical sources about a subject should receive higher weight than other reliable sources. It was and is not just a lasting part of his legacy, it was and is a prominent part of his legacy. It is a huge part of his notability to past and current generations. If there were not overwhelming support for calling it ethnic cleansing in reliable sources I would concur with your assessment, however, your refusal to take into account the reliable sources, or refuse to point to policy which supports your POV, makes it seem that you are pushing a personal POV rather than following the sources and giving them due weight in accordance with Wikipedia policy. In order for information to be included in the lead it has to be in the body of the article so of course it is going to be detailed in the article. The lead is a summary hitting the most notable aspects of a subject's life. Finally, it's false equivalence to reason that because the policy enacted under Jackson continued under following presidents and that some historians gave their opinion that it was ultimately a good thing for Native cultures to be removed that those two somehow mean ethnic cleansing is the wrong terminology and shouldn't be in the lead paragraph. Twenty reliable sources disagree and those are just a sampling of the overall sources that can be found. --ARoseWolf 20:11, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually Jackson was a forceful proponent of Indian removal.[6] Jackson personally faced the Creek on the battlefield. Jackson had a paternalistic view of the Natives similar to the White Man's Burden and Manifest Destiny. This is all stuff from any modern high school American history text. I do not think that biographies have absolute precedence or that they all have to agree on something for it to be in the lede section. You need a balance of biographies, journal articles, history texts, and even some other kinds of media like modern discussions in news or magazines. Academic sources get more weight, primarily journal articles and history books (which are not always or primarily biographies per se). Unanimity is also not a requirement.

I'm not arguing that ethnic cleansing needs to be in the first sentence or the first paragraph necessarily, but I think before we talk about where and how to treat it, @Display name 99 should acknowledge some of the general scope and shape of the facts we should cover in the article.

The view of Jackson has undoubtedly shifted over time. Jackson was a widely highly ranked president until relatively recently. Jackson's popular sovereignty movement and his war on the Second Bank of the United States has been criticized by more modern historians as proto-populist: white working people saw Jackson as their hero, because he opposed the rich man’s bank. Biographies can tend toward hagiography. Jon Meacham is a very safe and moderate type of historian. We need to balance the Meacham views with a modern view that owes more to Howard Zinn[7], the Indian Removal bill came before Congress and was called, at the time, “the leading measure” of the Jackson administration and “the greatest question that ever came before Congress”, Andre🚐 20:16, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Most importantly, the article should describe what actually happened that he had a role in and his role in it. Not in trying to fight in (and at best push the envelope on the meaning of the term) an un-informative value-laden term. Second, that is something that the overall US government had been doing since the beginning of it's existence, and also did long after Jackson was gone. Trying to word it like this was a particular initiative of Jackson is misleading at best. North8000 (talk) 19:43, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, getting the raw facts right is far more important than trying to push the latest descriptor into the article. Springee (talk) 21:23, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Jackson does, historically, represent a change in policy toward Native Americans and the Trail of Tears, great expansionism, etc., that's a historical fact. Trying to hand-wave this as something that the US gov't has always done is misleading. Jackson has a personal stake in both fighting Native Americans on the battlefield, and helping bring about the policies of their displacement. That doesn't mean the phrase "ethnic cleansing" has sufficient sources to be in the first graf, but let's not whitewash Jackson's presidency on this board. Andre🚐 21:30, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

At its most basic, he (1) removed one race of people from their homeland (2)it was done in less than human conditions, so many of them died in the process (3) another race then moved into that area and used it. This fits all the definitions of ethnic cleansing. IN addition, there are many references (posted above) that refer to it as ethnic cleansing. How anyone could ignore all those references, and come to the conclusion that we shouldn't be using ethnic cleansing as a term in this article, is beyond me. I'm personally not from the US, so I look at this guy neutrally, and I can't work out why this wasn't referred to as ethnic cleansing before now.From an outsiders point of view, Jackson seems to have been given a free pass by historians for positive things he has done, while what he did to the native Americans seems to have swept under the carpet. Deathlibrarian (talk) 01:55, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

That logic is the very definition of original research, which we can't do. We need quality sources that describe it as ethnic cleansing. And if no one has called it that, we definitely cannot do that either. --Masem (t) 01:58, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

We do have sources that describe it as such, the question is not whether there are any. There exist some, the question is how many, and whether that is sufficient, and how we should describe or attribute the information. It's going to be in the article in some capacity but how is yet to be determined. Andre🚐 02:03, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The question is then one of DUE (and this relates to the weight of modern sources vs older ones, that @Hob Gadling: asks below.

We have an established (pre-1990) take on Jackson and his stance on how he dealt with the native Americans. We have a more novel stance (the ethnic cleansing) that some sources have given. What is really needed is to evaluate all modern reliable academic sources (eg not Teen Vogue) that goes into depth about Jackson and that specifically calls his motives as ethnic cleansing, and weight how many say that to those that continue to state the older stance. If there is a clear majority using the "ethnic cleansing" is absolutely makes sense to include in the lede, describing as a modern stance in addition to the older stance. If there is not a majority but still well covered, that's only DUE for inclusion in the body, but not the lede. We need to wait for a "tipping point" where modern academics accept the "ethnic cleansing" view, just as we'd wait for a majority of scientists to accept a new quantum theory over a well-established one. Masem (t) 00:13, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

There is a list of twenty sources above that specifically refer to it as *ethnic cleansing* (and please it would be good if people stop bringing up the teen vogue reference, its a distraction from the argument, there is still another 19 references there) Deathlibrarian (talk) 00:07, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

How many recent sources that discuss Jackson don't use "ethnic cleansing" when discussing this topic? Have we verified these are all strong sources vs just academic sources that use the phrase but don't really analyze the subject? What about authors of works from the 1970s and 1980s that don't use the term. Do we assume they would if the term were common at the time or assume they are content with their terms of choice? This is always a difficult thing to establish not how many sources do use something (generally a key word search) but how many don't and then by inference is that a rejection of the recent term, a lack of awareness etc. I understand that the number of returns from a google search is always suspect but a 1990 and later google scholar search of "Andrew Jackson" returns 30,100 hits. "andrew jackson" "ethnic cleansing" returns 1,440 hits (interestingly google did not suggest "ethnic cleansing" when I typed Andrew Jackson. "andrew jackson" "indian removal" resulted in 7,450 hits. Of course there could be a 100% overlap between this and the second search. It's also worth noting that the cited by count for the middle search looked much less promissing than that of the latter search. Springee (talk) 00:27, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

This is a red herring, you don't use a Google search test for someone from the 1830s. The question is how he's described in academic text, journal articles, history books and the like. Andre🚐 00:29, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I did include a disclaimer but please note I said Google scholar, not a general web search. Springee (talk) 00:45, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Let me see if I can more effectively explain part of my position this way. The opening paragraph of the lead describes in brief, very broad terms the main things for which a person or thing is most notable. A study of a specific issue such as Indian removal, no matter how high the quality is, does not serve to provide a general assessment of the main reasons for why Jackson is important. It cannot compare Jackson's achievements in preserving the Union through the Nullification Crisis to his expulsion policies because it doesn't exist to do that. It exists to describe a specific issue, and that only. A biography of Jackson, however, will. Specialized studies of individual issues should absolutely be used in Wikipedia. But when looking for help in reliable sources to answer the question of how to summarize a person's achievements and legacy in just a few sentences, we should look first to biographies, because a biography seeks to answer those questions. This means that if no biographies call Jackson's Indian removal policies "ethnic cleansing," it would be best not to use that term in the opening paragraph. No, I don't have a policy that supports this. It just seems like good sense. Making that argument, ARoseWolf, doesn't mean that I'm trying to push my own personal POV. Look at the latest comment by Deathlibrarian: "Jackson seems to have been given a free pass by historians for positive things he has done, while what he did to the native Americans seems to have swept under the carpet." This editor clearly has their own personal agenda and is making no attempt to hide it. Are you going to call them out on it? Display name 99 (talk) 04:37, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I would argue that the first paragraph of the Abraham Lincoln article summarizes the "specific" issues (such as slavery), during his presidency, that he is notable for Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy. So why not the same for Jackson? Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 15:50, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that article does do that. Just because the Lincoln article does it doesn't mean that this article must (the Lincoln article is a good article, whereas the Jackson article is a featured article). However, we certainly can do it if people think it's a good idea. I could live with something like this:

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man"[1] against what he saw as a "corrupt aristocracy"[2] and to preserve the union of states. Although often praised as an advocate for the working classes and for his work in keeping the states together, Jackson has also been criticized for alleged demagoguery and for his racial policies, particularly his role in the forced removal of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands.

We could then mention "ethnic cleansing" somewhere in the body of the article. Display name 99 (talk) 16:17, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that's good. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 22:00, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I undid this [8] edit by FinnV3. It replaces citations to historians already in the article with new works without explanation. Some of the citations are without page numbers. The language is EXTREMELY partisan. Is "satisfying Jackson's 'hunger for vegeance'" really necessary? Even if the source uses it (I couldn't find it; the citation lacks a page number), is that how Wikipedia articles are supposed to be written? Display name 99 (talk) 21:48, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

It's quoting Jackson directly. Fixed missing page numbers. FinnV3 (talk) 23:32, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Here's the full quote:

We have seen the ravens & the vultures preying upon the carcases of the unburied slain. Our vengeance has been gluted.

I think it does a good job of succinctly capturing Jackson's motives, but it seemed too long to use the whole thing. Open to suggestions. FinnV3 (talk) 23:42, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Fine to quote directly, if necessary, but the way it's currently written is not Wikipedia-appropriate. Wikivoice cannot say it "satisfied his hunger for vengeance." Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 23:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree, the quote of the hunger for vengeance is a little selective, but I do think there's good general understanding that Jackson was a bit of a bloodthirsty guy at times. Not that I want the article to put it that way, but it's worth it for @Display name 99 to acknowledge that basic truth if @FinnV3 can acknowledge that we need to frame it a bit differently to capture the way reliable 3rd part independent sources described him and his vengeance-seeking-ness and subsequent actions. He appears to be waxing a bit poetic here, it wouldn't be encylopedic to quote him like that out of context, and people were a bit different when they wrote stuff in the 1830s. Andre🚐 23:57, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Fair, it doesn't fit the context super well, feel free to remove it. FinnV3 (talk) 00:07, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I will remove it. I also think that we should remove "determined to exterminate them." We already know that he was going south to destroy the Red Stick resistance. Saying that is just sensationalism that serves no purpose. Also, this article is extremely long. It's over 17,000 words. Can we for that reason alone consider removing descriptors that aren't necessary?

Andrevan, I have read thousands of pages of history on Andrew Jackson. I know who he was. Here is my personal view of him. I respect and sympathize with him for battling financial corruption, helping ordinary white Americans fight upper-class privilege, and for his stance during the Nullification Crisis. I also admire his iron will and determination. But I also know that he was a bull-headed, quite often arrogant, fiery tempered, racist, violent man. I'm not trying to whitewash his character and make him look perfect. I've fought editors in the past who tried to unduly minimize slavery and Indian removal. [9] I've removed pro-Jackson edits that I felt were improper. [10] [11] [12] I've added emphasis on slavery and Indian removal where I felt it was lacking. [13] I'm not a blind Jackson partisan. I care about maintaining a balanced article, and I will protest against anyone who is trying to tilt it too far one way or the other. What I believe that we have now is an editor who strongly dislikes Jackson and is determined to unfairly insert their own perspective into the article. I am protesting that just like I protested against obscuring Jackson's racial policies. Display name 99 (talk) 00:28, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

That's good. Let's AGF. We're going to AGF that you aren't trying to protect Jackson from a modern read, and you also understand why Finn is advocating for more coverage for the Native American perspective, and the modern view of Jackson's racism, and extreme disregard for their land and rights. It's not because Finn just hates Jackson, it's because Jackson legitimately did some pretty awful stuff, and history has revisited its view of him recently, compared to how used to be viewed. Now we can be constructive, and evaluate constructive ideas for how to introduce a bit of modern balance into the article, starting with the body and not the lede section. Let's start with "bull-headed, quite often arrogant, fiery tempered, racist, violent man," since that's common ground, and see if we can find a source that offers some information that the article might be missing now that tells part of the story about him. We don't need to start with specific language. The racism that he felt and his pragmatic views on U.S. territory led to the Trail of Tears eventually - right? So what's one incremental piece that gets us a little more modern context that way. Andre🚐 00:54, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I revised FinnV3's recent edit to the Creek War section. I basically just combined some of the old language with some of the new, and restored previously existing citations that he unnecessary deleted. I still, as mentioned, take issue with the part about extermination. I also object to labelling the Battle of Horseshoe Bend a massacre. Here is what Remini says in the first volume of his Jackson biography, page 215: "Still the Creeks would not surrender. When Jackson sent a flag and an interpreter to their last stronghold on the bluffs to ask them to throw down their weapons, the Indians responded with a blast of gunfire that killed one member of the party. At that Jackson leveled his artillery at them, pounding the cliffs with cannonballs. To no effect. The Indians would not surrender. Jackson then ordered lighted torches thrown down the cliffs. The brush and fallen trees quickly caught fire; the area became an inferno. As the Indians dashed from their hiding places, the soldiers picked them off one by one." Jackson gave them the opportunity to surrender, and they refused, so of course they were going to be killed. It seems unnecessary and probably a little unfair to call that a massacre.

As for the rest of the article, I still believe that it already presents a balanced view of things. I think that the lead section is mostly good already. But in case others disagree, I posted this version of the opening paragraph just a little above, which Pyrrho the Skipper said he was fine with: Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man"[1] against what he saw as a "corrupt aristocracy"[2] and to preserve the union of states. Although often praised as an advocate for the working classes and for his work in keeping the states together, Jackson has also been criticized for alleged demagoguery and for his racial policies, particularly his role in the forced removal of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands.

As for the term "ethnic cleansing," FinnV3 added it to the end of the section on the Creek War. As mentioned, I am not strenuously opposed to adding it elsewhere in the body. But I do not think that it belongs in the lead. Display name 99 (talk) 01:31, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that the essay Wikipedia:Presentism probably is useful here. Yes, historically, there's ties between Jackson and Trail of Tears and all that, but the stance that what he did was "ethnic cleansing" based on the sources listed above seems to be a very novel aspect. I'd also point out that at least by the quotes given, they are not associating Jackson with ethnic clensing, but the entire attitude throughout the gov't and populace, and that it does not seem Jackson should be claimed for that; otherwise, trying to include it now on Jackson is coatracking. Until that stance that Jackson led the ethnic cleansing effort is reflected throughout academic sources, it should be treated as a minority view, and definitely should not be emphasized in the lede (though the other way historians describe Jackson regarding native americans should still be documented) Masem (t) 02:20, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Of course it is a novel aspect, since the term "ethnic cleansing" as a serious category used by scholars did not exist before the 1990s. It is actually a rather horrible euphemism invented by the "cleansers" themselves, equating humans with dirt, but it seems that it has turned into an accepted scholarly term since then because it is also a rather transparent euphemism that captures the vile attitude of the people who do it. Of course, sources older than the 1990s should not be taken into account when deciding whether to use it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:12, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

You must weigh the volume of modern (post-1990s) sources that use "ethnic cleansing" specifically regarding Jackson to the volume of sources pre-1990s (but well after Jackson's death). If it is a modern term and still taking time to come to be used throughout quality academic sourcing about Jackson, in contrast to the weight of earlier sourcing that doesn't call it that, we stick with the old way, giving the "ethnic cleansing" aspect minority view weight. On the other hand, if the volume of newer sources outweighs the volume of older sources, that would be different. I complete understand how "ethnic cleansing" is a modern take on what happened to the native Americans, but that means it doesn't have the weight of decades of scholarly acceptance necessarily to represent how we should take it. Masem (t) 12:25, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it is pretty silly to call the content of newer books a "minority view" relative to older books just because there are more older ones. By that reasoning, any idea that replaced another, e.g. quantum mechanics, was a "minority view" until the point in time, decades after it was accepted by all experts, when there were more books written endorsing it than in all earlier centuries together, before anybody thought of it. I think this question - whether older sources that did not even know the term should be counted when deciding whether to use it - should be decided not by us laypeople but by actual historians, because of WP:CIR. Any historians here? I will bow to their expertise because I know the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I see no reason why Masem's badly justified opinion should count more than my reasoning. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:19, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Hob Gadling on this one. Andre🚐 17:26, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I think @Andrevan: and @Display name 99: are both remaining level-headed and assuming good faith here. I will reiterate, for what it's worth, that DN99's opening paragraph suggestion is an improvement to the current one, and will support its inclusion at once. I think that should be done before we discuss what to do with terms such as "common man" and "ethnic cleansing," which are bound to be much bigger discussions. For those bigger discussions, each should probably be its own RfC, as more independent input is usually a good thing. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 02:21, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Sure, go for it, no objections here. Andre🚐 02:23, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

References

OK, changed. As for RfCs, these can be painful and tedious. We're already gotten quite a few opinions already, on the article talk page and in this forum. I'm not sure that adding a few more would really change the direction of things. If most people are okay with the new version of the opening paragraph, I think that it would make sense to leave it and simply move on to discussing the other issues. I don't want more controversy if we don't need it. If we can't come to agreements about the other stuff, we can do RfCs for those. Display name 99 (talk) 02:37, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Nicely done, I agree it's an improvement. Maybe we could take the discussion back to the article talk page. Andre🚐 02:41, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The Indian removal is one of the main actions of Jackson remembered today, although not the only one. However, I question why you want to call it "ethnic cleansing" which is a term that developed in the 1990s, probably as a translation of a Serbo-Croatian expression. While I can see similarities between the Indian removal and violence in the former Yugoslavia, I also see differences.

Also, can editors please keep replies brief.

TFD (talk) 05:00, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the current lead is better than the original one, but there are still some unresolved issues:

• Jackson's support of the white working class is mentioned twice, but his ethnic cleansing is only mentioned once. This seems redundant and unbalanced, especially when the ethnic cleansing is the main thing he's known for.
• Jackson's support of the white working class uses weird language to hide the racial aspect: whites are the "common man" or the "working classes," when a lot of the working class was enslaved non-whites, who Jackson actively kept enslaved.
• I would still argue that "ethnic cleansing" is more descriptive because it does a better job describing Jackson's goal of ethnic homogeneity, while "forced removal" is less clear about the fact that it was pretty much all Indigenous people who were forced out. The term is factual, general, and has been used to describe Jackson's policies both before and during the presidency, and I see no reason to call it a "minority view," given how widespread the usage is. FinnV3 (talk) 10:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest reviewing the wp:Presentism link provided my Masem. I think your recent edits look like attempts to push terms you prefer rather than terms that are widely used. Additionally, as others have pointed out those terms may not accurately fit the context of the historical events. As for your specific points here, yes, I suspect "common man" did mean "white working class" though at the time I'm not sure people would have considered that to be a homogenous group. Highlighting things as you are trying to do take it out of the context of the time. Finally, forced removal is the more common term and the established term. Looking at the edits you are making at the article it seems you are doing more pushing vs using the talk page to get consensus. It would be best if you would propose your changes, verify they have consensus then make them vs what you are going now. Springee (talk) 11:19, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:PRESENTISM is about "judging historical events by current standards." I am not trying to make any judgment, just provide a better description. I'm not trying to "push terms I prefer rather than terms that are widely used." I'm trying to replace terms preferred by Jackson's supporters with terms that are widely used. FinnV3 (talk) 12:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

See WP:OWNBEHAVIOR and WP:BOLD. It would be tedious for me to get consensus on every single edit. If you have issues with my edits, please bring it up here or on the talk page. FinnV3 (talk) 12:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Nettless made some edits to the Creek War section which removed some seemingly biased language, as well as corrected a few statements added by FinnV3 which weren't in the sources that he cited. I removed the Jackson vengeance quote. It adds little if anything to the article, which was already perhaps exceedingly long and is only getting longer with all of these edits. If the point of the quote is to portray Jackson as savage and violent, I can easily quote Indians as well to give the same impression. Here is what Tecumseh had to say about whites: "Let the white race perish!" he raged. They seized your lands, corrupted your women, and trampled on the bones of your dead...Burn their dwellings — destroy their stock — slay their wives and children, that the very breed may perish." (Remini, 2001, p. 3) Labelling a battle a massacre in which the side that was supposedly massacred refused an offer to surrender, even killing a member of the party sent to offer surrender, personally strikes me as a little ridiculous. But trying to put my own feelings aside, saying that some historians label the battle as a massacre is unnecessary when there are so many others who don't and, again, given the length of the article. Display name 99 (talk) 12:51, 10 August 2022 (UTC) I also think that we should remove the mention of some Indians being killed while trying to flee. Killing soldiers who are attempting to retreat instead of surrendering is common behavior. It happens all of the time. Additionally, I feel like if we're going to include that, we should also include the Red Sticks refusing the offer of surrender. Display name 99 (talk) 12:56, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

This is a page about Andrew Jackson, not Tecumseh. I'm trying to capture Jackson's motives, not Tecumseh's. I tried earlier to cut Tecumseh out of the story entirely to keep the length down (because he seems kind of out of place in Jackson's story), but my change was reverted. If you think the refusal to surrender is relevant, go ahead and add it. FinnV3 (talk) 13:19, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The description in academic literature of U.S. policies toward Native Americans as ethnic cleansing originated with Gary Clayton Anderson's Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America (University of Oklahoma Press 2014) Anderson believed that these policies bore greater similarity to the "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia than actual genocide, a term that was developed to describe the Holocaust. Anderson has been criticized for minimizing the extent of the deliberate killing of Native Americans and for having a narrow definition of genocide.[14] While a lot of popular literature uses the term ethnic cleansing, I don't think it has gained sufficient support in academic writing to be considered a consensus view or even a major one. Meanwhile, the term genocide was used by the Canadian government to describe its policies toward aboriginal Canadians, which incidentally were milder than those of the U.S., at least during the period of white settlement of Indian lands.

Also, the term "working classes" is misleading. The "workingmen" (which was the actual term used) were skilled journeymen working their way up to master craftsmen who felt threatened by the competition from factory owners and the unskilled laborers they employed.

TFD (talk) 14:07, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

And yet, Wikipedia is not just merely an academic encyclopedia, otherwise we would require only those considered experts in certain fields to both edit and maintain articles like other encyclopedia's. --ARoseWolf 15:05, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Also, I might add, ethnic cleansing was used in reference to Jackson's policies and the removal prior to 2014, even going as far back as the 1990's and before so stating that the term originated with Anderson is a misnomer. It may have become more prominent or widely used after the fact but it by no means originated with Anderson. We have provided sources above which reflect this and there are others when researched. --ARoseWolf 15:11, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Since I was personally asked if I would call out @Deathlibrarian's stance on Jackson or not I will respond. Simply put, no, because their position has no bearing on what the reliable sources say. You are presenting a position that the majority and overwhelming majority of modern sources do not present. You yourself said you can not find a source which refutes the position Jackson's policy conforms to the definition of ethnic cleansing. I disagree. I say there are sources which refute this position. They contend that ethnic cleansing doesn't go far enough. They call it genocide. And there is nothing wrong with an editor having a personal pov so long as they don't allow their pov to enter their editing practice by way of original research. @Deathlibrarian has not exhibited a WP:OWN approach to the article based on a personal pov. If we are trying to gather consensus for the new revised wording then I have to refuse support for it based on the fact that it presents a position in Wikivoice that goes against that of the majority of reliable sources. We should address all aspects of the lead including the use of terminology in this discussion. To do otherwise defeats the original purpose of the discussion. --ARoseWolf 15:45, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

ARoseWolf, although Wikipedia is not an academic encyclopedia, weight in articles is determined by academic opinion. I didn't say btw that the term had not been used before 2014 to refer to Jackson's policies, I said "a lot of popular literature uses the term ethnic cleansing." Popular writers often use terminology with which readers are familiar even if the terms do not exactly fit. A good example is the use of the terms liberal and conservative when describing the politics of states with very different political systems such as the Soviet Union, Iran or Saudi Arabia. I understand what people mean when the say that Gorbachev was one of the liberal members of the Politburo. I would not however describe him as a liberal. TFD (talk) 16:26, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Are you saying that looking at the definition of ethnic cleansing the Trail of Tears doesn't fit? Because if it doesn't fit that then it fits the definition of a genocidal act. I was looking at the majority of reliable sources which I tend to believe take a more cautious approach when defining the Indian Removal Act's enforcement. --ARoseWolf 16:38, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that Jackson was trying to restructure the U.S. along the doctrine of classical liberalism which excluded aboriginal people who did not adhere to it, while Milosevic wanted to create an ethnically homogenous state, which meant expelling people who did not belong to the group and therefore whose loyalty was suspect. So while Milosevic was a reactionary anti-liberal bigot, Jackson was a visionary architect of liberal democracy. When you call his Indian removals ethic cleansing, you are singling out one policy as an aberration, something that violated U.S. values. In fact it was a culmination of policies that had begun with European settlement. In a sense, you are dismissing the treatment of aboriginals as an aberration in American history, when it was an essential part.

I am not saying it was not genocide. That definition fits better in fact than ethnic cleansing. But again that too is a modern concept and the only event before the Holocaust universally seen as genocide was the Armenian genocide, also in the 20th century.

If you view historical figures through modern moral values, most of them would be considered criminal or at least politically incorrect. I don't think it helps to apply modern moral judgments. In any case, it's a minority position. TFD (talk) 02:23, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I have not looked in depth at those sources but the quotes that are using "ethnic cleansing" are not in context of Jackson's personal stance on the matter, but the general opinion/approach that the US took with the native Americans. So you still need to be careful in saying that Jackson or his polices supported ethnic cleansing. Masem (t) 16:04, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Many do take the approach that the Indian Removal Act and the enforcement, called the Trail of Tears, was ethnic cleansing. This was a policy authored and enforced by Jackson and subsequently Buren. Even @Display name 99 doesn't refute this. Jackson had influence over its creation and implementation. It was Jackson himself that called for an American Indian Removal Act in his first State of the Union address in 1829. Jackson is directly linked to this act and its enforcement. It isn't about being cautious. Calling it ethnic cleansing is being cautious. That is the "middle of the road" approach. --ARoseWolf 16:18, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

How many times a day do we inform COI editors who claim to be the subjects of our articles that Wikipedia doesn't care what you say about yourself but what reliable sources say about you. I personally don't care whether Jackson thought what he was doing was ethnic cleansing or not. That is irrelevant and immaterial. Reliable sources say the enforcement of the act was, at the very least, ethnic cleansing. That enforcement was called for, authored, directed, and vehemently defended under Jackson and apparently his biographers as well. --ARoseWolf 16:24, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

You are arguing for inclusion of a clearly novel term (which might be appropriate but has contentious meaning) which didn't exist at the time of Jackson's presidency. It is very unlikely that he considered what he signed or ordered as ethnic cleansing, instead more about American expansion by taking their lands. So you can frame it that modern scholarship has identified that the US policies are now considered ethnic cleansing (assuming sources support that), but you cannot say that Jackson was implementing ethnic cleansing, directly like that in wikivoice. Masem (t) 16:38, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Now we are finally getting somewhere. Call it modern scholarship. That's who is defining it as such. It doesn't change the fact that it belongs in the article and in the lead as a historic part of Jackson's legacy. --ARoseWolf 16:43, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with ARoseWolf on this. Andre🚐 17:08, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I also agree with ARoseWolf - modern references call it ethnic cleansing, and so be it. The Turks certainly didn't use the term ethnic cleansing when they removed Armenians from their land in 1910 and replaced them with Turks, but our article on it does.Deathlibrarian (talk) 16:10, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Some modern sources call it ethnic cleansing. Is it enough to say it's more than a minority? That hasn't been answered. Springee (talk) 17:03, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

ARoseWolf, I made an argument against the use of ethnic cleansing based on the sources. I didn't frame it in terms of my own personal opinion but what the sources say. Deathlibrarian made an argument for its use and criticized historians for supposedly minimizing Jackson's allegedly immoral deeds. I'm trying to conform to the sources by using the most basic language that all of them would use. They put themself above the sources. I think that you are applying a double standard here about who is being biased or not based on your own preferences. No, calling it "ethnic cleansing" is not being cautious. Calling it genocide anywhere in the article in Wikivoice would be wholly unacceptable, because whereas with "ethnic cleansing" it's mostly a matter of examining which reliable sources use the term and which ones are silent, there are numerous reliable sources which explicitly refute the argument that Jackson's removal policies constitute genocide. Two of these historians are listed in the "Changed perspective" section in the article on Indian removal. There are others. Even FinnV3 acknowledged somewhere on the talk page that the use of genocide was more contentious. Calling it genocide in Wikivoice would be wholly reckless. So no, "ethnic cleansing" is not "middle of the road."

Also, I want to belatedly address your point that "twenty reliable sources" call it ethnic cleaning. The list above includes 19 sources. Citations 1, 5, and 17 are to popular opinion pieces by non-historians. Citation number 17 is an article about climate change written by a physics professor. Smart guy, I'm sure, but not someone on whom to base our assessment of Andrew Jackson. While sources like this are useful for understanding the public perception of Indian removal, they are not high quality sources for looking at how we should interpret events in the past. That brings the list down to 16 sources. The remaining sources do seem more reliable than the four three I just pointed out, but the lackluster quality of those and the attempt to pass them off as reliable doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about the rest, even though at least some of them do look more serious. Display name 99 (talk) 18:11, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

15 sources is plenty even if we throw out the 3 you mentioned, which I am fine to do. The Teen Vogue is obviously out and the other opinion pieces might be marginal. The climate change physics professor one is really interesting but probably not an expert on American history. If you don't have a rebuttal for the other 16 sources, that doesn't mean you can hand-wave dismiss the entire list. Maybe start with the source that looks the most legit and the least objectionable, that would be a good faith constructive action. Andre🚐 18:15, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I changed it to 16. One of the ones that I singled out was apparently written by a historian, so I removed it. My edit came in after you made your post. Again, I don't disagree that there are reliable sources that call it "ethnic cleansing." However, there are many that don't. Even if we discount all pre-1990s sources in this discussion, as someone above said we should, that still leaves four Jackson biographies in the 21st century, none of which call it ethnic cleansing and only one of which even mentions the term. There are other high quality modern sources as well which don't use it, and so it would be WP:Undue weight to use the term in the lead, especially the opening paragraph. Even Citation 2 on that list, which refers to removal not only as ethnic cleansing but as a genocide, still only calls it "forced removal" in the title. That suggests, again, that "forced removal" is the more widely accepted name and the one that we should give most prominence. Display name 99 (talk) 18:25, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The only sources you have provided are biographies which do not cancel out the overwhelming majority of other sources that do. You keep saying there are other modern high quality sources. Provide them as was done for ethnic cleansing so we can review them. The whole point of this discussion is to provide sources for review in discussion. Simply saying there are sources does nothing. You suggest that "forced removal" is widely accepted as the term but you have provided no evidence of this outside the five biography examples. So, gather the evidence and show us. I suggest something for the article like "for his racial policies, particularly his role in the forced removal of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands, a removal many modern scholars describe as ethnic cleansing." This would address what Masem stated about modern scholars. We can provide a few of the best sources from the list. I will note that the reason more google scholar searches connect "Andrew Jackson" with "Indian Removal" is because the act itself is called Indian Removal Act so one would think that would be discussed more in academia. That does not dismiss the importance of the more modern definition of the enforcement and its affects on the Native cultures involved. Most scholars agree that Native Nations were seen as a obstacle and they had to be removed to open the land up for white settlers. While Jackson was not the first to hold this opinion the fact remains that it was under his administration that the act was passed and it was under his administration that enforcement began. Another former president had a slogan written on a sign and placed on his desk in the Oval Office and it rings true even for Jackson, "The buck stops here". It happened under Jackson's watch. The fact it had been happening in local communities, states and colonies prior to this act is irrelevant to this particular case. Likewise, the fact it continued and even expanded into other forms or fashions like forced assimilation and eugenics programs later in US history does not excuse Jackson's role in this policy or action nor does it justify the thousands of lives lost and ethnic cultures decimated by his enforcement of it. Jackson's opinions, intents or otherwise don't honestly matter when compared with the results. The results were at minimum ethnic cleansing, at worse genocide. That's what many modern historians and scholars are realizing and it has become more prevalent in academia in the last 25 to 30 years because of it. --ARoseWolf 12:58, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Arguably, those seeking to add "ethnic cleansing" have the onus to show that it is a significant scholarly view, meaning they have to consider all modern academic works talking if Jackson and his actions towards native Americans. You have found 15 odd usable sources but what if 100s of mirnern sources still only call it forced removal? You have to demonstrate why this change is a significant view, not just wave your hand at 15 sources to claim that it is significant. Eg a proper DUE analysis is needed from those that want to include it. Masem (t) 14:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we can ever be sure of getting 'all' sources on a topic like this! What is reasonable is to ask for some random selection based on some faily neutral criteria that mention this, rather than ones selected to prove a point, and see what proportion have what view and then go by WEIGHT. NadVolum (talk) 14:39, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Where in policy does it say we should only take into account academic or scholarly viewpoints. If that's the case then we better not have anything but scholars as sources on any articles and we can quickly delete more than half of the articles we currently have on Wikipedia. That's absurd. Wikipedia accepts scholarly viewpoints and non-scholarly viewpoints alike so long as they are reliable. We have determined what is considered reliable and that definition doesn't limit itself to the opinion of professors and academics. Masem, I have seen you in other discussions in the past. You are an extremely intelligent and thoughtful editor. You know that an in-depth analysis of some 400,000+ potential sources, that's just those done with a google scholar search, would take months if not years and is completely unreasonable and not required for volunteer editors. The onus for change was provided in these 20 sources, which was stated as a sampling. You can say these sources were selected to prove a point but then I can rebut that with the fact that the biography sources were provided and used to prove a point too and the same onus that is on those who want to make a change is on the author of any article when they write it so that gets us nowhere. Likewise, trying to claim that the only way any changes can come to any article on Wikipedia is if every possible source that ever existed was examined in-depth and it was determined through deep thorough analysis which term is used most is part of the fallacy being put forward here. The fact is, in this discussion, more reliable sources have been provided which call it ethnic cleansing than those refuting this claim, at this point five biographies and they don't even refute the claim, they just don't call it that. If other sources exist which say, no, it is not ethnic cleansing but forced removal then please provide those sources and your very thoughtful analysis of why those sources are more reliable than those provided already. I kind of have to laugh here though because the very definition of ethnic cleansing is "the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society". Citizens of these states wanted the lands occupied by Native Americans. The Native's were protected by federal treaties as sovereign nations. So the US government, approved of, pushed for and enforced by Jackson but not limited to him, found a way to make that happen. Native Americans were forcibly expelled from their cultural homelands in an act of ethnic cleansing because their land was wanted but they were not. Are we seriously going to argue that this isn't what happened? --ARoseWolf 18:45, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's arguing that's not what happened, just whether it would be neutral and encyclopedic and in due weight to describe it that way in the lede. I also don't think we need to survey all the possible sources. We need to take a representative sampling. It's obvious that many older sources won't use the terminology "ethnic cleansing" for a variety of reasons. That isn't an argument not to include that description. We can debate where the description should go in the article. The lede should summarize the major salient points of the body of the article. Jackson's role in ethnic cleansing is probably salient to the understanding of his impact and legacy. The question to determine is the weight in sources. We've seen at least 15 or 16 sources. That seems like a decent cross-section. Now, are there any sources that do not use the terminology, refute its usage, or describe it in a different way? If so, how do they describe it, is it compatible with, or contradictory, the statements from the ones that do use that term? Andre🚐 19:02, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the survey should be based on the most reasonable sample you can do. You found 20 sources that support it, now the goal should be to look for, say, double that number and then see if you can find further support for "ethnic cleansing". If there are no.more in that 40, the only one third of the sources say it and its a minority view. But if it comes up In ten or more of those new sources, then you have at lease half supporting it, and you are good to go. And we do want more academic sources that at more distant in thought from mainstream news to see if that term applies from the distanced view. It is good for everyone their is heightened awareness of past slights to minorities but that tends to make non academic writers look for slights *everywhere* and tend to over classify on the past. Academics and cultural historians are more careful before accepting modern terminology for past cases. Masem (t) 19:11, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

To put it another way… When assessing how much WEIGHT to give terminology, you have to look at how many reliable sources DON’T use the terminology as well as how many DO use it. Blueboar (talk) 19:52, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

But let's not make an argument from silence or assume that sources which do not mention it at all, are taking a position against it. For example, if sources use a different euphemistic term, or a synonym, or a complementary description, that is support and not a refutation. Andre🚐 20:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

What makes you say "overwhelming majority?" I'm not seeing any evidence of that here. Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars by Robert V. Remini (2001), The Rise of Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz (2006), Separate Peoples, One Land: The Minds of Cherokees, Blacks, and Whites on the Tennessee Frontier by Cynthia Cumter (2007), and The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward Baptist (2014) are all recent, significant history books about the period that deal substantially with Indian removal. None of them are Jackson biographies. All three books mention "forced removal," or something similar, but none of them use the term "ethnic cleansing." What is so special about ethnic cleansing that it must be given greater prominence than forced removal? It still seems like the latter, not the former, is the one most widely used by sources. Thus, I see no compelling reason to give preference to ethnic cleansing. Display name 99 (talk) 18:06, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Both are commonly used terms; neither is WP:FRINGE. I still maintain that "ethnic cleansing" is more descriptive for the same number of words.

It is uncontroversial that Hitler's policies were both ethnic cleansing and genocide. But genocide implies ethnic cleansing, and so it is more descriptive to describe his behavior as genocide.

Similarly, Andrew Jackson's actions uncontroversially constitute both forced removal and ethnic cleansing. But ethnic cleansing implies forced removal, so it is more descriptive to describe his behavior as ethnic cleansing. FinnV3 (talk) 20:35, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I do not think that it is difficult to conceive of the racial dimension without saying "ethnic cleansing." Ethnic cleansing does not necessarily imply forced removal. If massive numbers of Indians were intentionally slaughtered while waiting to be moved (which didn't happen), that would also be a form of ethnic cleansing, but it would not be forced removal. Genocide is a form of ethnic cleansing, and so the use of ethnic cleansing, without further explanation, has the potential to imply genocide. However, a respectable number of historians contend that Jackson did not commit genocide. "Forced removal" is the simplest and safest way to describe what happened. It is more widely used in the sources and has no potential to imply any conclusions that not all reliable sources accept. Display name 99 (talk) 23:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Here's another way to explain it: "forced removal" says exactly what everyone agrees happened and nothing more. "Ethnic cleansing" does not always mean forced removal. It can also mean genocide, which some scholars contest is not an appropriate label here. Someone reading the opening paragraph and seeing "ethnic cleansing" might not know that this means that the Indians were forced to move. They could think that it means that they were all massacred where they were. Forced removal is specific. It says exactly what happened and does not make any implications that are either blatantly false or not accepted by all reliable sources. So if we're going to say ethnic cleansing in the article, which we could do and which is probably going to end up happening, it needs to be in the body of the article where we can explain the events in actual detail. Display name 99 (talk) 03:10, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Using forced removal, instead of ethnic cleansing is clear bias, it spins what Jackson did into something lesser. He not only removed the Native peoples from the land, but he appears to have done it in a manner that many of them died as part of the process, and then white people took their land. That's not *simply* forced removals, that by definition, is ethnic cleansing, and as per FinnV3, it's more descriptive of what happenned. In any case, even without the reference to teen vogue, there are 19 other references to support it... and there is no substantial body of references that argue it *wasn't* ethnic cleansing. I agree, genocide is innappropriate, but so is forced removals. Ethnic cleansing is the correct description... and that was what was decided on the Trail of Tears page. Deathlibrarian (talk) 15:57, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

A substantial number of them did die, and Jackson deserves blame for failing to take sufficient measures to prevent it (Wilentz, 2006, 326-327), but American authorities never planned it that way. "No one can deny the incredible suffering endured by the Cherokees. Yet it is important to point out that genuine efforts were made to prevent this tragedy. General Winfield Scott, who commanded the operation, issued specific orders to his troops to treat the Cherokees with humanity. Furthermore, he delayed the emigration of most of the tribe in response to their pleas, and the removal itself was carried out by the authorities appointed by the Nation under a contract Scott made with the Cherokee representatives. In addition, he tried to obtain as much medical assistance for the Indians as possible. Many other white men, like Scott, acted humanely during the removal. But they simply could not contend with the scope of such an operation." (Remini, 1984, p. 303) Furthermore, although Jackson was undoubtedly the main architect and driving force of the policy of removing the "Five Civilized Tribes" from the South, the removal of the Cherokee (which was most infamous of all for its death and suffering), was delayed until 1838, when Jackson was out of office. Therefore, although the policy that consigned the Cherokee to move was certainly authored by Jackson, he had no direct responsibility in overseeing their removal, and the deaths that occurred during the process can at most be attributed to him only indirectly. Yes, Jackson helped force the Cherokee to move, but it remained the job of the authorities in office at the time of the removal to ensure that it was carried out as humanely as possible, not Jackson, who held no public office and was now a private citizen.

"Ethnic cleansing" is less descriptive because it does not necessarily imply forced removal. It can also imply intentional mass slaughter, which did not occur. The casualties that occurred during the removal are addressed further down in the lead: The relocation process dispossessed these nations of their land and resulted in widespread death and disease.

You are also wrong with the number of sources. To begin, the list that was provided included 19 sources, so the removal of the Teen Vogue article would make it 18. Additionally, I identified two other articles-a Vox opinion piece written by a non-historian and an article primarily focused on climate change written by a physics professor-as unreliable. Another editor agreed with me in discarding those, which brings the list down to 16. While I don't automatically dismiss those 16 sources as unreliable, the attempt to pass off three clearly low-quality sources as reliable does not exactly fill me with confidence about the remainder.

Again, while ethnic cleansing is used by some reliable sources to refer to what had happened, "forced removal" is preferred by a greater number of sources. This is one of the reasons why we should use that term more prominently. Display name 99 (talk) 16:38, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

When comparing some of these sources it would probably be worth looking at how many times each has been cited. If we have say 10 recent sources that use the term and another 10 that don't use the term and yet another 10 older sources that don't use the term then we can get an idea how often those sources are cited. If the 10 recent sources that use the term are highly cited and the 10 recent that don't aren't then we can perhaps assume the more influential sources are starting to use the term. If the reverse is true then we assume the term isn't sticking with the most influential sources. We should also look at the cite count for the older sources to get an idea what the most influential sources are saying. Basically, not all academic sources are equal. Springee (talk) 17:11, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Why not just settle through consensus on an RfC? Otherwise it's the same 5 people going in circles. All the arguments have been laid out so we just need input from independent editors. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 18:40, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Seems so at this point. Andre🚐 18:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that my recent arguments were some of my strongest. The principal voices on the other side have grown a little quiet, so I'll wait and see if any of them still insist on "ethnic cleansing" in the lead. If they don't, we can move on, but if they do, then I guess I agree, it's time for an RfC. I would word the question something like this: Should Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policies be described as "ethnic cleansing" or "forced removal" in the lead? Display name 99 (talk) 22:40, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Just some responses to Display name - I don't see myself as particularly biased - I only think that the term ethnic cleansing should be included in the article - there are plenty of people pushing for Genocide and I certainly don't support that. Also, I think counting down the references I posted, discussing whether teen vogue counts, whether there was 19 or 18 is perhaps something we don't need to do - in any case, its clear there is a body of usable references that refer to what happened as ethnic cleansing. I just found the first 20 and posted them, I can find more if need be. One thing I do feel strongly about is including ethnic cleansing in the lead. When someone is involved in such a negative, historically important, catastrophic event, it should be in the lede IMHO. Not including it as such seems to me to belittle the event itself. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:47, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

TO RFC or not to RFC? As per Display name and Pyrrho the Skipper's suggestion, I agree, at this point it may be good to go to RFC to see if ethnic cleansing and the trail of tears goes in the lede. I think the work done on the lede so far is excellent (and thanks to all involved!) and we have given it a good go here, but I don't think we are getting to any sort of consensus. I would also point out the disparity that it was decided that ethnic cleansing is used as a suitable term for the trail of tears article, but for some reason, incongruously, it isn't used on the page for the person that orchestrated it. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:56, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

In reviewing the history of that article it doesn't look like a wide range of editors weighed in on the matter. Based on the discussions here I would have serious reservations about calling it "ethnic cleansing" in the lead paragraph. Explaining why some historians have called it ethnic cleansing in the body would make sense. Sometimes this is a problem with Wikipedia. A relatively small number of editors (4? [15]) actually weighed in and, as we have seen above, 3 of the sources were questionable including the Teen Vogue source. Even worse, we might create something similar to a citogenesis where Wikipedia editors decide a X is commonly called Y so outside sources start referring to X as Y because they are following our lead rather than following the sources. If a RfC here fails to achieve consensus to put this term in Jackson's lead it does make a case that it shouldn't have been in the lead of the other article either. I will grant there is a difference since the other article covers a time span longer than Jackson was president. Springee (talk) 03:27, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Just some more discussion about the sources here. As mentioned, I just picked the first 20 articles and posted them. Searching Proquest peer reviewed journals, "andrew jackson" and "ethnic cleansing" on Proquest gives you 79 results, "andrew jackson" and "forced relocation" on proquest gives you 91 - only slightly more, but certainly the use of *both* terms in academic sources is common. Searching Factiva for general common name usage, AJ and "forced relocation" give you 82 hits, wherease AJ and "ethnic cleansing" gives you 79... pretty balanced. I think this should reassure people "ethnic cleansing" is not a term simply used by a minority, and I think the removal of the term from the trail of tears article would be unwise considering its apparent common use. As has been pointed out, I would suspect there is a recency factor that would show older articles don't use "ethnic cleansing" (as its term only coined post 1990) but newer ones do, also a factor to consider. Deathlibrarian (talk) 04:18, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

This is an argument to use both terms. Andre🚐 04:39, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes it is (except that I assume recency would favour ethnic cleansing). Both terms are used in the trail of tears article.Deathlibrarian (talk) 05:08, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like we should use both terms whenever we describe it, such as in the Jackson lede. Just say some call it A, and some call it B. Done. Andre🚐 05:10, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

My Google Scholar search showed a larger difference (though GS does tend to generate a lot of non-hits). What I found more telling was that the first page of hits for the old term included sources that were highly cited. The first page of hits for the new term did not. That "ethinic cleansing" is a term that has been applied in recent times is likely due for the Trail of Tears article body and possibly for this article's body. Not for the lead. Using Google Scholar here are the numbers for "Andrew Jackson" + "ethnic cleansing"/"forced relocation"/"forced removal" as well as the a link to the source with the most citations on the first page of the search.

1) Ethnic cleansing: 1480, The Obituary of Nations” Ethnic Cleansing, Memory, and the Origins of the Old South JT Carson - Southern Cultures, 2008, cited by 14

2) Forced relocation: 747, Abuse of power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian removal act of 1830 AA Cave - The Historian, 2003, cited by 109

3) Forced removal: 2090, Abuse of power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian removal act of 1830 AA Cave - The Historian, 2003, cited by 109, the second place was Farewell, My Nation. The American Indian and the United States, 1820-1890.P Weeks - 1990, cited by 49.

It looks like the sourced cited the most is from 2003 so well after 1990 and it doesn't use "ethnic cleansing". Springee (talk) 05:15, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Ethnic cleansing was only included in the trail of tears wikipedia article body about 9 months ago, so no, it's not going to make a huge difference to all the articles published on the topic in that time. If you wanted you could run the search for a date range, and stop it before ethnic cleansing was included in the trail of tears article. I will also note, Proquest, where the numbers are closer, is peer reviewed academic journal articles, Google Scholar is not, so all the hits I noted from proquest are from recognised peer reviewed academic journals. In any case, Google scholar 1480 vs 2090, quoting your numbers, shows usage of *both* terms.Deathlibrarian (talk) 05:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

The question isn't has it already impacted the external debate. The question is will it? Will grad students trying to write papers see that in the Wiki article and use the term themselves because they think it's a widely accepted description because Wikipedia uses it. Springee (talk) 12:22, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

If a grad student is using Wikipedia to research for a paper, they don’t deserve a degree! Blueboar (talk) 12:33, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

I knew plenty who would use it appropriately. For example, if you want to understand properties of Dual Numbers Wikipedia can help. However, if you need to cite something about dual numbers you would need to follow the links to the Wikipedia sources. It's not a problem to use Wikipedia to find some sources. The issue is when one assumes the Wikipedia editors reflect good academic consensus. Springee (talk) 02:56, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC started here. Display name 99 (talk) 05:31, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Display name 99 for that, and your efforts here. I've gone across and voted. Deathlibrarian (talk) 06:18, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC: A TikToker, ... , other accused constitute 'Public figure' or not?

Some of other related policies for current requested RfC discussion: WP:BLP, WP:SUSPECT, WP:BLPPUBLIC, WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE. Also WP:Wikivoice, WP: POV/NPOV, Due/ Undue, WP:NOTCENSORED, WP:onus

Requesting inputs about WP policies regarding, WP:BLP protocols and naming of the accused in relation to mentions of allegations and counter allegations in the given article, against a female victim of sexual assault, her associates and also other accused.

Requesting well studied, carefully thought inputs @ RfC: A TikToker, associates, other accused constitute 'Public figure' or not?

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 10:51, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Is including this entire quotation in this Chinese archbishop's biography WP:UNDUE?

Link to discussion

In 2019 he made an address at the Beijing Catholic Forum for Sinicization of Theology. On the occasion he said:

The Sinicization of Catholicism, requires the upholding of a political self-consciousness and to always improve the political stance of its thinking. Catholicism tells us that love for one's country is the fourth commandment of the decalogue, "Be subject to every human institution for the Lord's sake." Supporting the leadership of the Communist Party and fervently loving our socialist motherland is the basic premise for upholding our country's direction to Sinicize religion. More than half a century ago, the Catholic Church of China took upon itself to choose its own holy bishops and advanced the Sinicization of the Catholic Church's organizational structure. Employing a system of a meeting of democratic representatives has advanced the Sinicization of the Catholic Church's institutional construction. In the running of theological seminaries, the Sinicization of personnel training has quickened. In the reform of the Chinese language Mass, the Sinicization of the form of the rite has been achieved. Among the construction of the clergy team, the strengthening of the Sinicization of the missionary team is never ending. Sinicization's advancement has obtained plentiful fruits.

Sources

I have argued this long speech excerpt is WP:UNDUE and gratuitous, as many parts of it could be restated, summarized, or condensed. The quotation could be included in a much shorter fashion, and part-summarized. The user who added the quotation (@Reesorville:) has asserted that it is not exhausting to the reader, and should be included in this length because we do not have any other quotes from this person. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 01:37, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I am not seeing any reason why it should be included at all. What is it supposed to convey? "We don't have any other quotes from this person" isn't a reason to include a quote - per WP:QUOTE we usually prefer paraphrases (with certain specific exceptions that don't apply here). It also feels like it's being used like a pullquote, which per WP:BLOCKQUOTE is inappropriate. --Aquillion (talk) 06:02, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

100% agree, it should not be there at all if we are paying full attention to the WP:PAGs. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 08:28, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the quotation is not overly long and it shows a good overview of what the bishop thinks about these key issues regarding what is happening to the church in China. I'm not really against paraphrasing if the whole of it can be captured, but I think the original text is still probably better, since someone might question whether we are paraphrasing his views correctly, given the controversy involved. Shibbolethink originally just tried to delete it and leave it blank, and I don't think that improves the article. His last edits changed the section into showing what the Patriotic Association views are, which I think is inferior than showing the views stated by the actual person.Reesorville (talk) 12:06, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Thats why whenever we quote our paraphrase and attribute, there needs to be a source immediately following, so that the reader can evaluate if they doubt the veracity of the information Masem (t) 12:15, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

And that is the other thing I would suggest, @Reesorville, is we could include an abbreviated version in the |quote= section of the citation. so that anyone who hovers over the footnote could see some of the translation you did. In full, it may be too long to put in the footnote still, but it could still go in there. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:53, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

New Era (WWE)

New Era (WWE) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

The New Era (WWE) was a period that covered everything that happened in WWE between May 2016 ([16], [17], [18] and many more sources) to July 2022, but a user @User:HHH Pedrigree keeps deleting WP:RS contents from that article based on personal view. He claims that these are not linked to the New era when WWE and multiple WP:PW/RS consideres the entire May 2016 to July 2022 period the New Era. Please see revision history [19]. Dilbaggg (talk) 16:12, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Also the period 1997 to 2002 was called the Attitude Era, not every sources say that ooh look these events , such as "Chyna would be featured in a more prominent role; in addition to regularly wrestling against male wrestlers and becoming a two-time Intercontinental champion, she would also be featured twice on the cover of Playboy" [20] happened at the attitude era because the source mentions it, the sources of most of the contents do not mention attitude era but these are known as attitdue era stuff because they happened at this time frame. Same for the New Era, but HHH pedigree doesn't seem to like modern WWE and keeps deleting contents from New Era even thought they are all WP:RS and happened within the established time frame May 2016 to July 2022. Dilbaggg (talk) 16:17, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Not to sound like a broken record on this as I've said it before, but for the sake of people on this noticeboard who will be unfamiliar with the topic: I think ultimately the entire problem stems from the existence of the article itself. The "New Era" is a marketing term that was used for about a week in 2016 and hasn't been mentioned since, even in third party sources or wrestling journalism. I laid out more detailed problems in my AfD last year, which ended in no consensus. Because this "era" is so vague and nebulous, it inevitably results in these questions around inclusion. — Czello 17:11, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

First of all, I'm on a trip, so I'm writing with a mobile. Then, I removed content before because DIlbaggg included a section called other notable events. Despite the events are sources, no source pointed that the event is notable in the context of the Era.why are these events highlights of the Era? Looks more like DIlbaggg choose the events with no criteria. AS I said, I can pick any events (first Japanese wrestler to win a title, first time an event is produced, a return, a retirement). For example, during the Golden Era of Cinema (or any other Era) many movies are created, but not every movie is relevant in the context, a source is needed to be included (this event is relevant). Every event DIlbaggg point happened during the New Era, but not every event in relevant for the Era. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 17:28, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The article is utter bollocks. It presents precisely zero sourced evidence that there was any meaningful 'new era' in wrestling. Marketing bullshit and fancruft, nothing more. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. Reality Era has the same problem, but it also survived deletion. — Czello 17:58, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Czello@HHH Pedrigree @ AndyTheGrump by that logic Attitude Era , ruthless Agression Era all were marketing terms. There are many sources that acknowledges the existence of the New Era post 201, such as [21], as for Reality Era which begun in 2014 there are pleanty of post 2014 sources: [22], [23], [24]. Also Stone cold wrestled his first match since 19, Austin is regarded as the greatest of all times aside from hogan, it is definately notable. Also Attitde Era has information about tag teams like Hardy boyz and Dudley boyz, why is it a problem to include it on New Era? the existence of Reality Era is well established all over the internet. I am open to merging Reality Era with New Era, Reality Era was when John cena lost his spot as face of WWE, Dniel Bryan and Roman reigns took over, WWE Network launched, and women's evolution happened. And Austin's first match and New Day being record 11 times champion during this time frame is highly Wp:Notable, but do not dismiss the Reality Era supported by multiple post 2014 WP:PW/RS till date, I gave a few, there are more I am adding and there are really even more than these: [25], [26], [27], [28] and more. So even if we merge 2014-2022 as Reality Era, we must include highly significant events such as Austin's one match return and New Day's record 11 times tag team championship wins which are historically ntable in the pro wrestling world and happened within the time frame of these eras, be it Reality Era or New Era. As with GaryColemanFan's statment he has provided strong grounds for existence of both Reality Era and New Era both on the AfD pages as well as on the project talk page. Like with Attitde Era events that happeed then are considred part of then, with Reality and New Era events that happened then are part of then, and Attitude Era article includes notable events like fully Loaded 1999 but there is no sourvce saying it happened in Attitude Era, but sources agree Attitude Era was 1997-2001/2 same here Austn's historic return and New Day's historic 11 times tag team championship happened in the New Era which per Wp:RS was the period from 2016 to 2022. Dilbaggg (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The AFD thing is a settled matter and most agreed to keep, lets just focus on the main topic, no need to bring your wish to delete the article all the time, peace, lets wok together to improve the article. Dilbaggg (talk) 14:05, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

It's clearly not a settled matter if it ended in "no consensus", and there clearly is discontent around the article's existence. The reason I'm bringing it up is because it causes issues like this. — Czello 14:20, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I am quoting @GaryColemanFan [*Keep - Term is used in multiple reliable secondary sources. A quick search found: WrestleView, a book from Simon & Schuster, ESPN, The Post and Courier, CBS, NBC, Sports Illustrated, Philly Voice, CBS (again), a CBS affiliate, Fox Sports, Pro Wrestling Torch, and Figure Four/Wrestling Observer. Please perform WP:BEFORE search before nominating articles covered in so many reliable sources. End of quote.] Dilbaggg (talk) 18:35, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Thus New Era exists and notable stuff during the May 2016 to July 2022 time frame can be included in the article. Dilbaggg (talk) 18:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I will repeat my question. Does the source support that New Day 11 reigns are notable for the Era? If not, you are the one picking that event with not clear criteria. Why notGunther as the fist man from Austria to win the IC title? --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 20:13, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@HHH Pedrigree yes it does, because the sources clearly says New Era covers everything between May 2016 to July 2022, and thuus everything that happened during that time was part of the New Era. New Day's record 11 times tag team championship win is extremely historic and notable 11 times is a WWE RECORD + they brought back the infamous Freebird rule, so its been mentioned in the New Era article bro. In Attitude Era does the article says Hardy Boyz and Dudley boyz were part of Attitude Era in any source? nope, but they are mentioned there because they were significan part of the Attitude Era (1997-2001), just like New Day are signficant part of the Reality Era and New Era. Dilbaggg (talk) 01:56, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

As for IC title, its not as signoficant as world title and tag team titles, IC title is a secondary belt, that had its greatest moment at SummerSlam 1992, after that it was all downhill, (yes there were some great matches like HBK vs Hall WM 10, HHH vs Rock, SummerSlam 1998 and all but its prestige was never the sameas it was in 1992 again). And as you are not part of teh US, you won't understand but African Americans are a significant community that had a history of discrimination but now they have equal opportunities, their achievements are remarkabally important just like women and LGBT people. US is a great and beautiful country that provides equal opportunities for all. Europeans winning stuff, Like Irish Shemus winning WWE Championship in 2009 was nothing new because Europeans were always previlleged, but now when the first African Americans after years of discrimination in WWE got great opportunities in WWE, it is very much notable indeed. Dilbaggg (talk) 02:06, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Vacuous fancruft. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:11, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump what fancruft? This are all mentioned in WP:RS in New Era article, there seems to be a current ANI report on you by a different user, I am gonna mention this too. Dilbaggg (talk) 02:14, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Ok the report seems to have closed, but stop falsely accusing me of fancruft without evidence, this is Wikipedia:Harassment. You are a regular user like me, not an admin, please be civil. Dilbaggg (talk) 02:16, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not accusing you of anything 'without evidence'. My description was based on what you just wrote. A wall of waffle that does precisely nothing to support the claim that the supposed 'new era' is anything of real substance (which would require more than a mere list of stuff that happened), accompanied by bizarre (and demonstrably false) off-topic assertions about 'equal opportunities' in the United States, thrown in for no obvious reason whatsoever. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:46, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump :AnyTheGrump|talk]] The retirement of Vince McMahon is completely unrelated to this discussion and is a crucial event as it eas the ending of the 2016 to 2022 New Era and started the Post VKM Era per sources, that section was not even added by me, again you are engaging in Harassment by falsley accusing editors who contributed to it with false BLP violation accusations. please stop bthis behavior and WP:AGF. Dilbaggg (talk) 03:41, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

The content in question is a WP:BLP violation, since there is no explanation whatsoever as why it is even there. I don't give a flying fuck who added it. AndyTheGrump (talk)

@User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] Either property explain how this is BLP violation or get a consensus pkease, your edit summary is also uncivil but either ways WP:RS agrees retirement of Vince after 40 era kick started the next era, while ending this era Dilbaggg (talk) 03:58, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I am under no obligation to gain consensus to remove off-topic negative content about a living individual, tossed into (or restored by) an article by someone with zero understanding of multiple policies (including, I note, WP:3RR and its exceptions) AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:02, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump See admin comments, [29], no BLP violation. Never falsely accuse me again. Dilbaggg (talk) 08:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you stop misrepresenting what Deepfriedokra said. Admins don't make 'rulings' on such matters. Which is why you were advised (repeatedly, by multiple people, including Deepfriedokra, and me) to take discussion to an appropriate noticeboard. It seems self-evident that your continued refusal to do so is a consequence of the weakness of your arguments.

Competence is required. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:20, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Libs of TikTok

A discussion on the talk page of Libs of TikTok seems to be going nowhere, so I invite other editors to participate so we can hopefully overcome the current deadlock in discussion: Talk:Libs of TikTok/Archive 4#OR and Boston Hospital X-Editor (talk) 17:01, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

"going nowhere" translation: there is consensus against the proposed changes by X-Editor. The current debate is whether to include wording and content that is only covered by lower quality sources, which many other editors say is WP:UNDUE to the point of exclusion, as it is not covered by any bona fide RSes. The editors who support these changes have argued that it gives readers an inaccurate view of the situation to leave this text out of the article. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:08, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I never proposed any specific changes (specific content to add to the article) in the discussion. What you’ve described is also still a deadlock, as neither side can come to an agreement. X-Editor (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Desmond_is_Amazing#Whether_Mentioning_Desmond's_Parents_being_Investigated_by_CPS_Violates_WP:BLP_and_WP:PROPORTION

NPOV-dispute on this [30] content, more views appreciated at article-talk. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:53, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

"Source A says... Source B says..."

A rather basic question I'm afraid…. If we have two competing/contradictory statements by reliable Secondary sources A and B on a rather technical subject (existence or not of some artistic precedent for example), but do not have a Tertiary source specifically mentioning this technical dispute/contradiction between the two authors, can we still report the two statements neutrally, without drawing any conclusion, in the format "According to source A: ... According to source B: ..."? Thank you! पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 08:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Is this on a matter of fact or opinion? Chaipau (talk) 16:38, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Of course we can, and even should. We do so all the time. What is the alternative, pick one of the two at random? --GRuban (talk) 18:38, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:BALANCE states when reputable sources both contradict one another and also are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance. . There are stylistic ways to present conflicting statements without needlessly confusing readers: we probably shouldn't say "According to the European Space Agency, the sky is light blue. And according to NASA, the sky is sky blue". If Source A mentions an artistic precedent that B is simply silent on (neither confirming nor contradicting A), and both are high quality reliable sources, we might simply state: "X is a rather technical subject.^[A][B] It has Y as an artistic precedent.^[A]" Alternately, if the sources do contain contradicting statements, we could attribute, like: "X is a rather technical subject with a variety of proposed precedents.^[A][B] According to A, its precedent is Y.^[A] Researchers at B however, posit Q as a precedent.^[B]" We cannot editorialize or tip the scales by emphasizing what we think is most likely, however, there may be compelling reasons to omit one or both statements for the time being (e.g. a known or very likely typographical error, or if including both at once would be needlessly confusing or otherwise counterproductive to presenting a comprehensible lay article). --Animalparty! (talk) 00:11, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

user: पाटलिपुत्र has not been entirely accurate in describing their question. The issue is in the article Lion capital of Ashoka. The article has been written with the following two principles in mind:

1. WP:TERTIARY: Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. (I have amended it slightly: Many introductory undergraduate and first-year graduate textbooks ... but that's about it)
2. WP:BALANCE (especially the second part): Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources both contradict one another and also are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint.

So every sentence in the article is the result of a scholar's work being mentioned by a tertiary source or by another scholar. Once such a mention is made, the cited scholar's work can be directly summarized by us to provide a brief illustration related to the secondary or tertiary mention. But we cannot, in such a narrative, summarize someone who has not been mentioned by anyone.

• user: पाटलिपुत्र wants to do just that. They want to add material by a contemporary scholar, we'll call scholar A, that has not been mentioned in any tertiary or secondary source
• They want to add it anachronously, i.e. in a narrative that begins with a review from 1911 onward they want to add the work of a contemporary scholar to contradict a statement of Sir Mortimer Wheeler from the 1930s.
• There is no dispute between the scholars (Wheeler had died long before scholar A became active).
• Scholar A moreover has not mentioned Wheeler anywhere, rather user: पाटलिपुत्र has detected evidence in the work of Scholar A, which they think contradicts Wheeler.
• Finally user: पाटलिपुत्र have stated that WP:BALANCE involves individual editors arriving at a consensus by being flexible, giving in here and there to accommodate another editor's proposed edits and based on that notion of goodwill, is asking me to incorporate edits about Scholar A in the article. pinging User:GRuban, user:Chaipau,user:Animalparty

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:19, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Eh... I am not convinced, and would like a bit more detail, or even a lot more detail. (We can have fowler give a bit more detail and wait for Fowler to provide full detail, perhaps?)

• At least in general, we don't have a requirement that a reliable source be also mentioned by a third party, only that the source itself be reliable. We don't need Turtles all the way down, one solidly placed turtle suffices.
• Also, at least at first glance, our article seems to be about the Lion capital of Ashoka, in general, not about "Chronological review of sources on the Lion capital of Ashoka", so I don't see a requirement that we need to state facts in the order they were discovered or written about, just that we need to state facts.
• It is not unheard of for a scholar, especially a historian, to contradict an earlier scholar who published and even died long before. In fact, I'd venture not just some but even most of our articles about ancient battles are written just like that: "Carthaginian historian C, writing 50 years after the fact, stated the battle involved A peltasts and B elephants, but more modern historians, 2000 years later, consider the actual numbers to be probably D and E, respectively."
• And we state this even if those modern historians don't explicitly state "Old C was a drunkard, and a fool, and paid off by Sparta!" Which is kind of a shame, as reading our articles could be more interesting if they did.

So if Professor Wobbleybottom is a generally acknowledged expert on Indian History, not a crank or fringe source, then even if his book, only published last Wednesday, and not yet reviewed by anyone, clearly says Y, and we're quite sure this is not a typo, we can, and probably should, write Y in the appropriate section, for example: "Column colors In his 1930 book, Wheeler wrote the column was originally painted in bright puce, but in his 2022 book, however, Wobbleybottom of Cambridge states 'the column was painted in the colors of the sea and the sky'." The fact that Wheeler is a more prestigious source than Wobbleybottom, also doesn't mean we should exclude Wobbleybottom's contradiction - each and every scholar writing about Aristotle will easily admit that Aristotle is more prestigious than they are, and his name will be mentioned long after their names are forgotten, and yet we have and should have hundreds of contradictions of Aristotle by far lesser scholars, because despite being prestigious, he was wrong a lot. I don't know Wheeler, but it is not out of the question for the same to be true for him. But it depends on the details. For example, what does "detected evidence" mean? If Wobbleybottom isn't actually stating a direct contradiction, we should be careful not to make it into a direct contradiction. --GRuban (talk) 17:44, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

(Responding to user:GRuban's request)

The Lion capital of Ashoka (ca. 250 BCE) is the crowning feature—of four life-sized addorsed (back-to-back) lions in polished stone— that once sat atop a column in eastern India. It subsequently fell and was buried, along with its broken column, until it was excavated in 1905. As no sculpture had appeared in India except for a handful of inches-tall statuettes in the Indus Valley Civilisation of 2200 BCE, many scholars then and thereafter have seen the hand of migrating Persian stone masons from Persepolis after the destruction of the city by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE. They speculated why and how the art of carving addorsed animals on columns—which had been abundantly prevalent in Persepolis and Susa for 200 years before 330BCE and itself chalked up to Hellenistic origins in the vast Persian Achaemenid empire—had survived among the masons during the intervening 80 years. The dominant view was challenged by scholars beginning in the 1940s, but especially in the 1960s and the 1970s and the back and forth has continued until today.

It was in the section on "Influences" that we were discussing these matters and began with a couple of paragraphs on the evolution of these scholarly views before moving to the issues more qualitatively. The section was in this state (pardon the prose there as it was still in development) when two sentences were introduced after the mention of Wheeler, beginning with "More proximate ..." referring to the work of recent scholars, inserted before the discussion had changed from the evolution to the back-and-forth. You see the sudden shift from high-level (i.e. involving a low-res or perspective view) to low-level (involving details and examples), mystifying a common reader? This is more like a case of "Carthaginian historians, writing 50 years after the fact, stated the battle involved ... but 2000 years later Professor A of college B has employed post-structuralist methods in a 1991 article ... to contradict this." ignoring all the others in between who have also contradicted, albeit in slightly different fashion. When Professor A's work has not been cited by anyone else in this context, and dozens of scholars' work has, this sort of edit becomes problematic, a way of playing Gotcha, made worse because it also sneaks in undue material, and sometimes fringe material. (In this day an age you can find an RS for the craziest assertions.)

I'm worried, as I'm seeing the Gotcha playing in high-level articles again and again. When I oppose them, a long RfC is begun and it collects the votes of people who have barely understood the issues. I'm seeing this even in old FAs such as India. I am soon to do its third FAR. The last time it took me three months in 2011. Recently, it took me nearly six months to do the Darjeeling FAR. Both colonial and post-colonial India are some of the most prolific fields of modern world history. Pretty much all the sentences in the India article are sourced to high-level articles (textbooks or reviews of research or illustrative vignettes from secondary sources). If Gotcha is allowed, I can myself in a few hours reduce the article to shambles.

So let me cut to the chase and ask the real question. Where does Wikipedia policy stand about high-level articles or high-level discussions in any article? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Aha. I see now. Honestly, while I'm not an expert on articles about individual historical artworks, that whole section seems overwritten to me, and quite hard to read. It spends almost as much space, and certainly more importance (since each paragraph starts with a name), on the names of people who wrote about the Capital as what they actually wrote. It's basically namedropping. Imagine if our article about World War II similarly focused on the historians who had written about that war, rather than on the events of the war itself! That section is approaching that. It's also not clear that the section is intended to be in chronological order: I see 1911, 1930, 1973, and that's it for dates, most of the section is undated ... until the last paragraph where I see 1851! Why's that there? Honestly, I'd advise radically rewriting the section, and focus on what scholars wrote and said rather than who they were, or when they wrote it, or what they had for tea the day they were writing it. Drop the direct quotes, surely we can rephrase a sentence like "There is, then, the evidence here," he concludes, "for detailing influenced by Greek art, often through Persian models, in the architecture of the third to second centuries BCE. Sir John Marshall, after drawing attention to such foreign motifs at Sanchi as the ‘Assyrian tree of life, the West Asiatic winged beasts, and grapes, went on to remark that ‘nothing in these carvings is really mimetic, nothing certainly which degrades their art to the rank of a servile school’." - not only is that a quote, but it's a nested quote! One scholar is quoting another scholar and we're quoting them both, that's absurd! Are the names and the exact words of all these scholars really the important parts? Surely we can summarize, maybe point out one or two of the main names that support each of the main views, but then detail the actual views?

But none of this is directly answering your question, is it? Where does Wikipedia policy stand about high-level articles or high-level discussions? It Doesn't. For which I thank all the pantheons. Honestly, this is an editorial question of all editorial questions, and any Dictate From On High will inevitably get it wrong. As I'm sure I'm getting it wrong in suggesting you rewrite that section - quite possibly the current style in Articles About Indian Artworks is to namedrop, to Naraka with the actual content; any readers who stumble over names and dates to try to understand actual content are weak girlie men Who Do Not Deserve to Know Indian Art History! But in any case this is a style issue, it is not a rules issue. The rules for the actual question you originally asked are, yes, if you have multiple reliable sources with multiple views we try to present the views in proportion. But we also try to summarize; sure, no two politicians in the United States have exactly the same views on any question, but in general we can say there are Republicans that mostly support X and there are Democrats that mostly support Y, so if we're writing an article about a US political question we say X, mostly supported by Republicans, Y, mostly supported by Democrats, we don't list each of their names with their nuances and the date each phrased their opinion. Presumably, same here. How to best summarize, how to organize, which views are the most important, which less so, these are all things you hammer out on the specific article talk page, and you do try to reach consensus with someone who specifically cares about that particular article. Not on a general board. --GRuban (talk) 23:11, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

user:GRuban Thanks for taking the time to reply so comprehensively. As I explained to you earlier, that section was still in development, the narrative, its prose, coherence, and even grammar was yet to be given a run-through. I was editing in that peculiar fashion for earlier other disputes had arisen for which both RS/N had been invoked and an RfC was in progress. It was better, I thought, to write in this piecemeal fashion before rounding it to a more qualitative rewrite so that everything was transparent, its development clearly visible in the history. It was at that point that the dispute arose. They came here (I think) to have (what they thought) was the carte blanche to proceed with their edit, which I don't see you have given or even see your responsibility to give. And in fact they went thereafter to proceed with the edit. I came here not so much to resolve this particular dispute, but publicly worry about the issues that might arise in my impending responsibilities such as India. I thought it was better to clarify here while a similar thread was open than to start a new thread. Thank you for your extended reply. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

• It's complicated. The ideal thing to do is to try and find a secondary source documenting any contradiction, but that's not always possible. Then you have to weigh the relative weights of the sources - weighing a clearly less significant or lower-quality source equal to a high-quality source is a clear WP:NPOV problem. Another thing you have to consider is whether the sources actually contradict, and whether they are being presented in a way that makes it look like there's a contradiction when there is not - eg. "source X says a black swan exists somewhere; however, source Y says most swans are white." (this is one of many reasons to avoid "however".) One option is to separate the sources so they're not contrasted directly with each other without a source connecting them, avoiding WP:SYNTH issues - this especially makes sense when there's a difference in quality or significance between them. For instance, if there's a clear mainstream view supported by a wide range of sources, and a minority view with little support but enough to justify inclusion somewhere, it might make sense to only mention the mainstream view in the lead, and to devote large paragraphs of text to it, and then mention the existence of the minority view in a separate aside much further down the article - it is WP:FALSEBALANCE to insist that a clear minority view get referenced every time the majority view is mentioned, or that they be given equal billing, or that the minority view be presented as a counterpoint / alternative when it is not widely treated as such. We can document that it exists without doing those things. Obviously, though, this depends on it being clear that there's a difference in appropriate weight between the sources - if the sources are similar in weight then treating one viewpoint that way would be inappropriate. --Aquillion (talk) 01:04, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you Aquillion That was very helpful. WP:FALSEBALANCE is something I seem to encounter quite often, so it is good to have some perspective on it. Are there any other WP pages or links you can recommend which I might find edifying? Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC on the legal status of the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples' Republics

There is currently an RfC on on the legal status of the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples' Republics at Talk:Donetsk_People's_Republic#RfC_on_the_legal_status_of_the_Donetsk_and_Luhansk_Peoples’_Republics. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:58, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Need a neutral opinion on the MicroG page

The page/statement I am requesting a NPOV is on the MicroG page. Specifically, a statement in the Reception section The statement in question is, "installing /e/ is a monster of a job."

The /e/ mentioned here is /e/OS which has a dedicated page on the Wikipedia.

This page which needs the change is dedicated to MicroG. The statement mentions the problem a user faced in installing the /e/OS and has nothing to do with MicroG. This statement is only intended to show /e/OS in a negative light. There is an argument in progress between 2 editors on the talk page of MicroG in this section

Full disclosure, I am an employee of ECORP, which has created /e/OS, and cannot make the changes on my own. Would be good to have a neutral view point to balance the argument and remove this WP:biased statement.

Please respond below the request and do not interpolate your comments WP:INTERPOLATE, Mnair69 (talk) 02:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

The statement including quote has been in the article since review for Did You Know. Talk:MicroG#August_2022_edit_warring_with_IP_editor_from_France has recent background. A persistent IPs editor, wished to add more promotional info about E and associated companies, while deleting the quote, which presents the use of MicroG in context of a review of e OS. -- Yae4 (talk) 09:09, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

RfC on linking to the Kiwi Farms website

Participation is welcome at Talk:Kiwi Farms#RfC on linking to Kiwi Farms. Endwise (talk) 04:13, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Ted Kaczynski's book

Anti-tech Revolution by the Unabomber doesn't have any critical acclaim or criticism of any sort in the article. Seems to me at least a few reliable sources would criticize it. MarshallKe (talk) 18:47, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

If such sources exist, then they should be added. But I didn't find any with a quick Google search, which suggests that this article might not meet WP:NB requirements. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 08:53, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Without that, it fails Wikipedia:Notability (books). The article is merely a summary of a madman's book by Wikipedia editors. TFD (talk) 15:29, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

We already use a book review in the article[31] (I do however second the notion that Anti-tech Revolution is not notable on its own and should be merged with Ted Kaczynski). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:42, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

It was published in The Tech, the student newspaper of MIT. There doesn't seem to be a policy or guideline on student newspapers, but it is questionable. I agree it should be merged.

One thing that neither the review nor the summary in the Wikipedia article mention is the connection between Kaczynski's acts of terrorism and his proposed revolution. Any serious analysis of the book would mention that. Without it, the article is incomplete.

TFD (talk) 16:56, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Grenada

Grenada winter 1973-1974 became “Independent” from Great Britain. Yes? No? Hmm? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:9001:1E01:2500:0:0:0:192B (talk) 14:41, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

From what i can find in the source below, it looks like they became independent in 1974 yes.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230609952_1 Melancholyhelper (talk) 08:25, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

1Xbet NPOV

Hello, I have started a discussion on this page’s talk page [32]. However, I wanted to open the discussion and get others’ opinions. I believe this page violates NPOV and reads as though the author may have a vendetta against the company. The article is predominantly negative information split up into three sections; there is only one other section with two lines that states the company’ sponsorships. Comparing this to other pages within the same industry, it really stands out. As you can see these pages are very different, with controversies not being dominant and company information/development information and history featured prominently. Although I can see this page has had issues with sock puppet accounts, I still do not feel that this meets the definition of a NPOV page.Melancholyhelper (talk) 15:33, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I see what you mean from a cursory review--though I think Russian fluency (well beyond my nine or ten words) would be a big help. Paging Ymblanter--just in case he can spare the time. Will try to do what I can as able. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:38, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I checked the two Russian sources cited in the article, they seem to say what the article claims them to say, and they are reliable. Let me know if translation or reliability review of further sources would be needed. Ymblanter (talk) 16:22, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Dumuzid (talk) 16:24, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi all, the changes Dumuzid committed has removed some unfounded content. However, I still believe there is a NPOV issue as the majority of content on the page has a negative bias. Do you think it is worth either considering the page for deletion, or building it out to be more neutral? Thanks Melancholyhelper (talk) 10:46, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Films with Harry Styles

Regarding two films featuring Harry Styles, Don't Worry Darling and My Policeman (film), I would like feedback about each article's "Reception" section and how much they write about Styles compared to other aspects of the films. Two editors involved with these articles, Sunshine773 (talk · contribs) and Felinefixesthings (talk · contribs), have only edited these articles and have primarily made edits in regard to Styles. I started a discussion at Talk:Don't Worry Darling#Reception and Styles, but these two editors tried to remove my comments in which I pinged them about my concerns (though not my original message). Asking editors here to review these articles and determine how WP:NPOV should be applied. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 13:49, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Why are you singling me out? Those sections have contributions from several users. I removed your inclusion of my username because you would not stop messaging me in talk and the article page. I left all your concerns and the explanation of your edits. I removed only my username because you would not stop messaging and pinging me. Those sections both have several contributors who added reviews and information, and have all the cited backing sources along with relevance to other actors in the films and the overall reception to the films. I didn't even touch your reversion edits, but can see you made threats to report people trying to. There is no conspiracy. Lots of contributors added review quotes and info. I even see in your edits that you removed language about other actors that weren't Styles. Have a good day and stop harassing me is all I can say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunshine773 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

I pinged you because you edited huge chunks of text regarding Styles here and even more here. Do you really not see a problem in getting the paragraph about Styles to 621 words when the first overall paragraph and the second Pugh-focused paragraph only total 274 words? Just looking at that version, the undue weight is blatant. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 14:13, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Again, that section is made up of the contributions of several users, not just me. The section would naturally be longer as Styles' performance was met with mixed reviews so users included both positive and critical reviews of his performance and his role in relation to Pugh especially. Reception to Pugh was uniformly and consistently positive. The inclusion of multiple reviews for Styles reflects how most top critics focused on his performance particularly, and it also supports the statement in the reception section that the response to his performance was mixed. Many of those reviews were also a comparison to Pugh and how well she performed in relation to Styles. Also, I did not touch your revisions. I removed my username because I was bombarded with several messages from you in just minutes. I understand the Talk feature better now. I did leave your comments and concerns as I mentioned. I removed my username because it was borderline harassment as I hadn't touched your reversions. Again, have a good day and please leave me alone. Sunshine773 (talk) 14:25, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

I won't ping you again, but please see my comment at Talk:Don't Worry Darling#Reception and Styles about why exactly the amount of text focused on Styles is undue. All reviews will touch on many different aspects of a film, and WP:BALANCING is a concern. It is possible to have a section being too imbalanced in focusing on one aspect much more than any other aspect. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 14:31, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

As I also outlined, several of the included reviews were comparing him to Pugh and indirectly or directly praising her performance in relation to his. So it was a dual sort of review. The bulk of top critic reviews honed in on his performance as a newcomer - whether positive or critical. That leaning is reflected in the summary and citiations of reviews. Intial reviews I saw and citied from Rotten Tomatoes were more critical or neutral, and especially focused on Styles' performance above that of others. Users added additional reviews that were released subsequently to demonstrate several positive receptions of his performance. I was adding reviews in early stages and the crtics' language praising Pugh was already there in the reception section (and I left it untouched). I supported and left ALL of the positive performance reviews about Styles' that other users added to my start. The reception section on a new film is going to be fluid and changing as new reviews come out. I did not censor the addition of any positive reviews. And it's not fair to go back to early editions to suggest bias or vendetta against Styles as reviews were still coming out and I had initially included the first batch of top critic reviews. Several of the reviews I included for his other film had extended references to Corrin and Dawson, and the overall reception to the film as a whole. Reviews for DWD tended to strongly focus on his performance and that's reflected in the contributions of several users to that section. And again, I didn't undo your reversions but I do agree it was a bit authoritarian considering how many users contributed to that section. I am newer to editing Wikipedia and started with a focus on one film my coworkers talked a lot about as they are fans of Pugh. I was then interested to see if Styles faired better in his next movie that comes out just weeks later. I spent time reading reviews of MP to see if his performance was received more positively than DWD so I decided to add the reviews I saw to the reception section for that movie as it was empty when I looked (including quite a bit about Corrin, Dawson, and the overall film also as I mentioned). There is no grand conspiracy or hatred of Styles. I don't know him. I think if I was so biased against him as you imply, I would spend a lot of time editing his page, album, etc. I have nothing against him and know little of him beyond the films my coworkers kept asking me to see with them. Goodbye and good luck. Sunshine773 (talk) 14:56, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Erik: I could be mistaken, but judging by your comment, I have a feeling that you suspect sockpuppetry. If that's the case, filing a SPI won't hurt. M.Bitton (talk) 15:11, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  It could be that, or simply a case of the Harry Styles fan base focusing on topics related to him. I don't know how much suspicion is warranted to proceed to have a SPI. Maybe if there is intransigence in response to addressing the duly-weighted content. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:19, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  Please actually read my response and view ALL the contributions by several different users to those articles (both positive and critical). You are slinging unfounded accusations. Have a good day. Sunshine773 (talk) 15:19, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Sunshine773: Was this reply meant for me? M.Bitton (talk) 15:32, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  Pinging again, in case the first one didn't work @Sunshine773 Could you please answer my question? Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 15:56, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  Since you keep ignoring my question, i would live up to the slinging unfounded accusations and file the SPI myself. M.Bitton (talk) 16:39, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  I'm sorry, not immediately replying to your comments is "ignoring?" How is my nonresponse to a talk comment grounds for SPI? Astounding and very biased. This matter was concluded on another talk board for the movie article. Have a good day. Sunshine773 (talk) 16:57, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Erik - regarding our discussion on fairness and objectivity, how is it acceptable for another user to threaten SPI when I did not respond to their comment within an hour? Sunshine773 (talk) 17:03, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  This is genuinely unconscionable on your part. You filed an SPI because I did not respond to your comment with an hour. You commented on my interaction with Erik to imply that I was violating Wikipedia TOS and I told you to read my other comments and look at the contributions of other users to those articles. Me not immediately responding to your comment is NOT grounds to threaten and actually file an SPI. Sunshine773 (talk) 17:13, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  Nope, I filed the SPI in reply to your slinging unfounded accusations comment and your refusal to reply despite multiple pings and the fact that you were active at the time. M.Bitton (talk) 17:37, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  You just admitted to how arbitrary it was. I was resolving the conflict with Erik on a talk page for the movie. Sunshine773 (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  It's just an investigation (to prove your innocence and prevent others from "slinging unfounded accusations"). M.Bitton (talk) 17:41, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  No, it was a tantrum response. I've only been an editor with a username for a few days (used to do IP only), and I cannot believe how toxic and aggressive the climate is. Sunshine773 (talk) 17:43, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with Erik that the Don't Worry Darling reception section developed into an NPOV problem due to overfocus on criticism of Styles. I don't see that same issue with My Policeman, only because the bloat was across the board and not focused on Styles. Both sections should be trimmed, or kept trimmed. Overall, I think MOS:FILM needs firmer guidance on how to assess the corpus of reviews, pull out themes across reviews, and summarize those themes with occasional quoting of example reviews. The pattern of 'Reviewer X said "lengthy quote". Reviewer Y said "lengthy quote."' is unhelpful to readers and unencyclopedic. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:49, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  Honestly, it's never easy to write critical reception sections. Since all reviews are individual, it can be WP:SYNTH to try to find for ourselves the common trends. Sometimes we have sources that can identify these trends that we can follow to strike the right balance, but these are not always available. We do have some ideas for Don't Worry Darling, though, being discussed on the talk page. In regard to Styles, the main trend is that his performance is "debatably entertaining", but it is a trend secondary to others like Pugh's performance and the cinematography and the visual style. (We could use full paragraphs on the last two...) Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:56, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

  Definitely not easy! I think there's room for summary that isn't SYNTH, and even more room for talk page discussion (where OR is fine) leading to reasoned choices about which viewpoints are due. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:01, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

•  Note: Sunshine773 and Felinefixesthings have been blocked for sockpuppetry. M.Bitton (talk) 18:10, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Laurens van der Post

• Laurens van der Post (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

No dispute here, but I was wondering if a certain fact should be included in the lead of article or not. As came out when his biography was published in the early 2000s, in the early 1950s, as a 46 year old man Post impregnated a 14 year old girl who was supposed to be under his care. This fact is prominently mentioned in the coverage of the biography. The lead is kinda short and really needs to reworked anyway. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:11, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Broz Tito dictator

Josip Broz Tito (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I insert sources which affirm crimes made by dictator Broz Tito and always some accounts remove valid sources: the problem is that among disruptive accounts there is also Australian user who is an administrator. Administrator is Peacemaker67 (talk · contribs) who always removes reliable sources and his article's disruption is blatant. In recent edits, I insert three sources but all three were removed by Vipz (talk · contribs) and Australian account and were restored by Zipezap (talk · contribs): in past I contact Peacemaker with several messages in his personal discussion and I send e-mail but without positive result. The article regarding Slav dictator Broz Tito was disputed with various tags in head of text and we already discussed about three sources inserted by me but Peacemaker always removes reliable sources which affirm crimes made by dictator Broz Tito. I request stop of blatant disruption by Peacemaker probably for his personal political opinions for dictator. Forza bruta (talk) 12:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

This appears to be a complaint that other experienced contributors don't agree with your preferred content. What dispute resolution methods have you used in any attempts to resolve this? AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:59, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

the problem is political POV of an admin who is blatant pro dictator because probably he likes dictatorship and I made all every single attempt for neutral version of article: in fact, without sources inserted by me, a reader does not understand why Broz was dictator and he was responsable of mass killings because he ordered mass killings of prisoner of war after world war II. In related article's discussion you can see huge list of users who affirm POV version, which was sourced in past but sources about dictator's crimes were removed by some Croat accounts and Peacemaker who seems in direct contact with them probably by e-mail.--Forza bruta (talk) 13:18, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

If you really think the issue is a particular contributor or administrator imposing content against policy, you are posting in the wrong place: conduct discussions belong at WP:ANI. Frankly though, I'd advise you to come up with much more in the way of verifiable evidence of misconduct before starting a thread there, as vague allegations accompanied by speculation about collusion are unlikely to convince anyone, and may well backfire. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:25, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but in looking over the edits, the real problem is that your spelling and grammar is not up to par with what is expected of contributors to the English Wikipedia. Regardless of the content, I would have reverted on that basis alone. ValarianB (talk) 13:26, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

last actions of dictator's supporter.--Forza bruta (talk) 13:28, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

You are achieving absolutely nothing here. Nobody is going to take any action on the basis of vague allegations of misbehaviour, posted on the wrong noticeboard. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I suggested you discuss it and the reliability of your sources, on the talk page. That is where this should be discussed. If consensus cannot be achieved there, some sort of DR should be undertaken. This continual edit-warring over it isn’t going to end well. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 13:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

The current phrasing is consistent with how he is described in neutral realiable sources. See for example, his Encyclopedia Britannica article, where he is described as a "revolutionary and statesman."[33] Calling other editors pro-dictatorship or pro-Croat when they disagree with you are personal attacks that you should avoid. I don't see the connection incidentally between being pro-Croat and supporting Tito. TFD (talk) 15:17, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

In Encyclopedia Britannica in section "The conflict with Stalin" you read: Tito consolidated his power in the summer and fall of 1945 by purging his government of noncommunists and by holding fraudulent elections that legitimated the jettisoning of the monarchy. You can understand fraudolent election because Josip Broz controlled election using violence. The accounts, which always remove reliable sources about crimes by dictator, are almost all from Croatia and Serbia, but are few accounts: I consider four accounts versus about 20 accounts which put sources which affrm crimes by dictator but Peacemaker always endorses accounts which make disruption removing valid sources already discussed in related page.--Forza bruta (talk) 16:20, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Take content disputes to the article talk page. If they can't be resolved there, use dispute resolution. If you have actual, directly verifiable, evidence of misconduct, take it to WP:ANI - but expect your own behaviour to come under scrutiny if you do. This matter isn't going to be resolved here, and the manner you are attempting to do so is becoming tendentious. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I just replied and my presence here is finished.--Forza bruta (talk) 16:45, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

United Kingdom as "sovereign country"

I have opened an RfC concerning the description of the UK as a "sovereign country" in its lead paragraph. Neutral editors are encouraged to carefully consider the question, to read some of the existing positions in the survey, and to leave their own comment either opposing any change or supporting an alternative. Thanks! Angry Candy (talk) 11:26, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Describing Genspect

I'm advertising the Talk:Genspect#RFC here. The question reads, "Should we describe Genspect as anti-trans in the lead?" Crossroads ^-talk- 16:29, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Intelligence Quotient

Sure enough, OP blocked as a sock of Mikemikev. Generalrelative (talk) 19:57, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Rather blatant violation of policy. On the talk page a clique of editors continuously refer to a consensus to justify source selection, where the consensus is among a group of Wikipedia editors, rather than found in the academic literature. They appear to have policy backwards. I would also note page ownership issues such as non-admins striking and collapsing comments they don't like, although this isn't the place to address this. Emotional Ballerina (talk) 16:48, 21 September 2022 (UTC) Given that you are a brand new account, people are bound to think that you are a WP:SOCK and dismiss your opinion, given the historically high of level of sockpuppetry in the topic area. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:56, 21 September 2022 (UTC) Editors there also dismissed concerns with ad hominem rather than address policy violation. Emotional Ballerina (talk) 16:59, 21 September 2022 (UTC) I'm concerned that, with only one actual comment in the linked discussion, this is an attempt at WP:GAMING the system through wikilawyering, without having made a good-faith attempt to build consensus to claim it has failed. Bakkster Man (talk) 17:15, 21 September 2022 (UTC) Your concern would not be disgustingly hypocritical if one of the editors violating policy had not struck my comment and collapsed the discussion. It seems clear that outside eyes would help here. Emotional Ballerina (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2022 (UTC) (ec) Your [EB's] edit was collapsed because of suspected sockpuppetry, since at that time it was the only edit that had been made from your new account. That was not ad hominem and it was not because they "don't like" the edit. Please don't make false accusations against editors you disagree with. NightHeron (talk) 17:19, 21 September 2022 (UTC) Why not take this to an administrators' noticeboard if you are genuinely concerned about editor behavior? For the rest of us, I would strongly suggest that WP:DENY is the appropriate course of action when dealing with an obvious LTA who is very likely Mikemikev. Generalrelative (talk) 18:01, 21 September 2022 (UTC) The editors involved appear to not want this issue addressed by the NPOV noticeboard. It is not difficult to imagine why. Emotional Ballerina (talk) 18:05, 21 September 2022 (UTC) The editors here don't want to address it either, can't imagine why. Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 21 September 2022 (UTC) Please speak for yourself. I trust at least some editors at the NPOV noticeboard are concerned with applying policy rather than giving cliques free rein to ignore it. Emotional Ballerina (talk) 18:14, 21 September 2022 (UTC) Could you please follow what is outlined at the top of the article (just above the red text)? M.Bitton (talk) 18:28, 21 September 2022 (UTC) There has in fact been extensive discussion about this issue on the article's talk page, but the main editors objecting to the article's current wording were myself and Ferahgo the Assassin, not Emotional Ballerina. I was not intending to pursue this issue any further, and I share others' suspicion that "Emotional Ballerina" is a sock puppet, but now that the issue has been brought here we may as well discuss it. The question is whether it complies with WP:NPOV for the article to say "no evidence" in Wikipedia's voice, when there are three sources that more or less support this wording, while other sources disagree. Sources discussed there that say no evidence or scientifically unsupported include The Black-White Test Score Gap, this paper, and this blog post. Sources discussed there that say no direct evidence include Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns and Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. Sources discussed there that describe indirect evidence (Hunt calls it circumstantial evidence) include Flynn's book Race, IQ and Jensen, Hunt's book Human Intelligence, Rindermann's book Cognitive Capitalism, Warne's book In the Know, and this paper from The American Journal of Psychology, which is also by Warne. The Hunt and Rindermann books were previously discussed at the RS noticeboard, which found them to be reliable sources as defined at WP:RS. When there is this type of disagreement between equally reliable sources, I would prefer that the conclusion of only one set of sources not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Not entirely excluding the view presented in the third group of sources also is what would be expected by Wikipedia:Fringe_theories#Parity of sources. That said, I also encourage other editors to read my comment here. As I described there, recent discussions on Twitter and in the media show that the public is losing trust in Wikipedia's ability to adequately cover controversial topics, and while very few of these discussions directly mention this exact statement in the Intelligence Quotient article, a lot of the recent decline in Wikipedia's reputation has been because of these sorts of statements. If others would prefer to continue doubling down on the approach to controversial topics that is causing this decline, I would be okay with that outcome too. --AndewNguyen (talk) 19:38, 21 September 2022 (UTC) This is a badly distorted version of earlier discussions by an editor who has opposed the outcome of two RfC's on Race and intelligence. Both RfC's reached a consensus that the view that certain races are genetically inferior to other races in intelligence is a fringe POV. Several dozen editors participated in those RfC's and many related discussions. In particular, sources supporting the "no evidence" statement have been discussed at length. For more details, see the FAQ at the top of the R&I talk-page. This shouldn't have to be relitigated yet again. The refusal to accept concensus and forum-shopping by a small number of editors is disruptive. NightHeron (talk) 19:52, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 inclusion of letter by economists opposed to the act

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 article includes a reference to an letter written by "126 economists" supporting the law. On the talk page there has been a debate about the inclusion of a second letter signed by "over 230" economists who oppose the bill.[34] The argument against inclusion is based on sourcing, primarily that Fox News is not reliable for this claim [35]. Additional sources have mentioned the letter include Reason [36], Detroit News (oped) [37], NJ local news outlets [38], ABC local [39] and a number of right leaning political sources. Additionally, several members of the house committee discussing the bill mentioned the letter [40]. I think this is a NPOV issue because the article mentions the letter of support without mentioning the letter in opposition. This is not a case where we would use one or the other, only mention that economists are on both sides of the issue. Looking for input, thanks. Springee (talk) 14:42, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

What exactly is the point of including sources which aren't WP:RS? They don't help your case they just make people wonder whether you can competently identify a WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

The sources are reliable and in this case the point is to show that economists didn't universally support the bill. Presenting only one side when it was clearly a debate is a NPOV violation. The bill was passed 51-50 in the senate. Do we honestly believe that such a close call wouldn't have some type of opposition beyond simply politics? Springee (talk) 15:01, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

A vote split strictly along partisan lines isn't really evidence of any basis of opposition aside from partisanship, I'd say. Newimpartial (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

A fringe talk radio program on New Jersey 101.5 is not a WP:RS. In the ABC Local piece the relevant information is in a quote from a politician, ABC doesn't actually say it or support it which means that its can't be used as a source for that information. Opinion pieces by non-experts are not WP:RS. Either you're playing a joke on this noticeboard and you know that those aren't WP:RS or we need to go to ANI where we can have a serious discussion about a lack of competence. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:07, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

However, Reason is a green source and Fox is yellow. The primary concern with Fox is a fear they aren't careful with facts related to political topics. However, in this case the letter can be verified and with C-span transcripts we can see that it was discussed as part of the debate related to this bill. The question becomes, why are we picking sides vs providing both sides in proportion? If we say "X exists to support this" why not "X exists to oppose it"? Springee (talk) 15:11, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not asking about Fox and Reason. I'm asking whether or not you can competently identify a reliable source and I'd like a straight answer. This is a noticeboard, not your talk page and you are expected to conduct yourself accordingly. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:13, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Reason is a green sources per RSP. The Reason article is not an OpEd, neither is the Fox article. The others are additional sources that mention the letter. Not that is should matter since Fox and Reason should be sufficient to say "This letter exists" which is the very low bar in question. Springee (talk) 15:26, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

If a source isn't WP:RS it has no bearing in a NPOV discussion, NPOV is only about what has been published in WP:RS. Do not bring non-RS here and present them as RS again, you have been warned. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:40, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

First, sources that haven't been previously discussed aren't assumed reliable or not. Second, we can discuss and consider a range of sources. This is especially true when the basic facts are not in dispute. Springee (talk) 16:48, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Reason is indeed listed in green on the table, but the key text of the consensus IMO is Editors consider Reason to be a biased or opinionated source that primarily publishes commentary, analysis, and opinion articles. You say that the citation you have offered is not an opinion piece, but it consists largely of opinion rather than factual statements, e.g., inflation... isn't actually reduced just because the government artificially lowers the consumer cost of a few items, more government spending will only make inflation worse in the long run, and The behemoth bill is full of questionable spending. None of these represent factual reporting; they are all unattributed statements of editorial opinion. So this piece is no more usable when it does cite third-party sources than any other editorial from a biased source would be, e.g., not at all. Newimpartial (talk) 20:44, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

We aren't using it for the commentary/analysis part. It's being used for a factual claim. Also, I've since found another source to support the existence of the letter.[41] Springee (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Actually, the recent discussion about Reason clearly didn't find it to be reliable. I'm not sure why it is still listed in green on the table, but it is likely simply an error. EDIT: In fact, you yourself opined for option 2 in that discussion. --Aquillion (talk) 23:36, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion you linked to wasn't a RfC. However, it does highlight the issue of how do we deal with sources that do a lot of commentary based on good facts. The general consensus seems to be we treat them as reliable for the facts but attribute for the commentary. The question is should that be a green or yellow rating? Since this is a case of reporting facts we can trust it for the factual existence of the letter. Springee (talk) 01:30, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Re: we can trust it for the factual existence of the letter - that isn't the way WP:RSOPINION currently works; it distinguishes out editorial content at the article level and says that it is inadmissible for facts. At the article level, this source is clearly opinion. Newimpartial (talk) 01:42, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

But analysis isn't "Opinion". Also, this is, like many modern cases, an example where we have a source that mixes factual reporting with analysis/commentary. It's not a straight up OpEd article so those rules don't apply. This is an area that perhaps needs better clarification through wp:RS. Note that this is not a typical editorial where the opinion of the writer doesn't reflect that of the editorial staff etc. This is content that goes through the standard editorial process. Springee (talk) 01:54, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Just because it doesn't have the word opinion in the header, doesn't mean this isn't an opinion piece under WP:RSOPINION. Andre🚐 01:57, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Just because a source uses analysis/commentary doesn't mean the whole article is an opinion article per RSOPINION. Springee (talk) 02:12, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps it's worth noting that in your RfC most editors appear to feel that there is weight for inclusion of the letter. It appears those editors didn't feel that the combination of Fox Business News and Reason failed as a RS. Springee (talk) 02:14, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

That is worth noting, but the RFC has only been running for 2 days. Andre🚐 02:17, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

True, but 9 editors thus far feel the sourcing is sufficient. I can't say if they feel Fox alone is sufficient or Reason alone or the combination but when nine editors have said yes, even if nine more come along and say no, we need to ask how we should handle cases like this in the future. Since we have a lot of sources that mix commentary and factual reporting, even well respected source like The Atlantic, I think it would be helpful to have further clarification when something is treated like an OpEd vs a mix of factual reporting and commentary. It might make something good come out of our arguing :D Springee (talk) 02:35, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

There is also another Fox Business News article on this where Schumer was reportedly asked about the letter. However, given that it is a Fox article related to politics (yellow under WP:RSP) like the other one mentioned above, it wouldn't be reliable enough to include in the article. JetGreen40 (talk) 23:19, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I already started an RFC on the page for this question, so I don't know why you started this thread. As mentioned your sources for the "230" letter are opinion or unreliable. Whereas the "126" letter is attested in a number of reliable sources. Andre🚐 14:54, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Look at the timing. I was writing this before you posted your RfC. This came out after simply because I was searching for posts. Springee (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Should Fascism have a section on Putin's Russia?

The article is mostly about historical Fascism (1922-1945), the period when they came to control most of Europe. That reflects the emphasis of textbooks on Fascism.

Since the collapse of Fascism in 1945, it continued in a number of successor parties throughout the world. The term has also been applied to various Asian, African and South American dictatorships and used by some to describe West powers, such as the U.S. Most recently, a number of political figures and commentators have used the term to describe Trump and Putin.

I think the article should concentrate on historical Fascism and leave successor parties and things compared to Fascism to other articles. Fascism is a such a significant topic in itself that post-Fascism should be discussed in other articles.

Since post-Fascism itself is a huge topic, I don't see why one specific claim (Putin's Russia) requires an entire section, while more plausible examples don't.

TFD (talk) 10:47, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Probably worth linking to the current discussion on the article talk page, no? Talk:Fascism#Post-Soviet Russia. Suffice it to say, several of us disagree with the way TFD has framed the issue. Generalrelative (talk) 15:43, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

It's also worth pointing out that TFD brought it here because the participants in the talk page discussion disagreed complete with his argument about WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE, and he has no consensus (3-1 against him). Bringing an argument about WEIGHT to NPOVN is tantamount to saying that your opponents in the discussion you are not winning hold a specific POV, and are editing with that in mind, a rather POINTy and sidelong NPA-ish stance. In actuality, no one there has argued that Russia is fascist, they have simply argued that there is considerable disagreement among the experts about whether it is or not, and that dispute is therefore a legitimate topic for a survey article about fascism in general, not -- as TFD would have it -- about fascism in history.

This does not belong here, and should be closed as usurping an open and ongoing talk page discussion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:49, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Amended as WEIGHT is part of NPOV policy, something I had forgotten. My apologies. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:02, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd also point out that TFD opened this report is lieu of opening an RfC on the talk page, as I suggested he do. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:52, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

For those who wish to include a subsection on Putin's Russia, how much content exists and from a weight POV can it really justify having its own subsection? Other than perhaps a paragraph stating that Putin's form of authoritarianism has aspects that are like classical fascism (and presumably other aspects that are not), what is it about his regime that needs describing in order to form a better understanding of fascism? Springee (talk) 03:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Answered on article talk page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:48, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

As mentioned by Mitchell A. Orenstein in s book review of Is Russia Fascist, "Many reputable scholars and public intellectuals have drawn parallels between the Putin regime, its actions, and European fascism, including Snyder, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Motyl, Vladimir Inozemtsev, Gary Kasparov, Anna Politkovskaya, Madeline Albright and Hillary Clinton."

My observation was that these are experts or commentators on Eastern Europe, not Fascism, and the view is rarely if ever mentioned in books and articles about Fascism per se.

Russia of course has been in the news due to deteriorating relations with the West and accusing them of Fascism follows a long tradition of comparing opponents with Fascism.

TFD (talk) 04:56, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

• Looking at the article, the Contemporary fascism (2008–present) subsection does stick out compared to the previous couple of subsections. International impact of the Great Depression and buildup to World War II and World War II (1939–1945) seem to want to weave a narrative about global spread with an understandable focus on Germany and Italy (although some of the WWII military details seem off-topic). Meanwhile, Contemporary facism has three small subsubsections and three different See alsos (two of which are the same country?). There's no narrative here and its hard to see how the various information fits into the wider context. The talkpage debate seems to suggest that Putin under Russia is significant in modern scholarly coverage of facism in general; if so, that doesn't really come through in the current text. If the debate affects the definition of Fascism, shouldn't that be integrated into the Definitions section? And as for what the 2008 onwards subsection should be (and is 2008 just because of Golden Dawn?), it would be nice to have a more holistic narrative much like previous sections. Having two tiny sections covering Golden Dawn and Russia begs the question of how they are connected, and I'm reasonably sure there must be a substantial body of literature that explores the links between these two and between other groups in Europe and perhaps elsewhere. That wider exploration is hard to do if the section is effectively turned into a list. CMD (talk) 05:39, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

This section is in a bad condition and therefore should either be rewritten entirely, balanced and attributed or removed.

Fascism is often associated with radical nationalism and racism which does not apply to Russia that consists of more than 100 ethnic groups and cultures. Putin did not promote a "master race", "racial purity", hatred towards the "other", nor did the Kremlin's propaganda, which are essential part of fascism definition. Below are two different definitions to fascism from two different sources, the first one being from Wikipedia's article itself, which the aforementioned section is from:

"Fascism's extreme authoritarianism and nationalism often manifests as belief in racial purity or a master race, usually blended with some variant of racism or bigotry against a demonized "Other", such as Jews. These ideas have motivated fascist regimes to commit genocides, massacres, forced sterilizations, mass killings, and forced deportations."

"To unify a country, fascist movements propagated extreme nationalism that often went hand in hand with militarism and racial purity."

Tendentious WP:cherry picking is aimed to pass certain POV is prominent in this section.

The last thing that I don't understand is why Russia is the one that has to be mentioned in this article? We have a lot of other models around the world that can represent fascism in a better way. If there is no good, clear, and logical reason behind choosing Russia in particular, then this section should be removed. Shorouq★The★Super★ninja2 (talk) 09:44, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• One of the key problems is that we've extended the meaning of fascism to be so broad as to be essentially meaningless and entirely redundant with "nationalist" or "authoritarian". When the term is so broad as to be entirely synonymous with other, more established terms, then what's the point? --Jayron32 12:32, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• I'm leaning towards exclude here. This seems like more of a tangent than something that strictly defines the topic. As CMD mentioned, it comes across more like something that editors want to include vs something that is inherently part of the topic. I'm not strongly against having the content in there but if it does stay in, it should be better integrated in terms of explaining what fascism is/isn't. Springee (talk) 20:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

  Agree....we would need much better sources then what is currently there for inclusion of this nature. This is actually come up a few other times on other pages and always has been dismissed. As the vast majority of academics call Putin's regime something much different. Moxy- 03:16, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Is this article as bad as it seems?

I generally stay away from the Arab-Israeli conflict on Wikipedia (and in life more broadly). However, I recently came across a new article on an Israeli publication and briefly considered marking it for speedy as a attack page. However, the statements I perceive as attack statements are sourced to the generally-reliable-but-biased Haaretz. So I ended up tagging it for NPOV problems and needing more (and a greater variety of) sources. But it's still bugging me, and I'd like someone else to take a look at it to see if my NPOV-o-meter needs recalibrating. Abu Ali Express is the article in question. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:31, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I have no experience in this area either, however I think the wording could be changed to appear to be more neutral. If a contentious wording is only supported by one source, then that wording doesn't need to be included in the article or included in wikivoice at least.

I also think the article could be clearer, I read it and still wasn't sure what was meant by a "psychological warfare channel". It also appears from this discussion that one of the sources isn't reliable Tristario (talk) 01:22, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

The only sources are an article in Haaretz and a blog, Tikun Olam, which may not be rs. No other media seem to have picked up on the story.

I am always wary of investigative journalism that is not picked up by other sources. Unfortunately there is no specific policy or guideline for this, but it seems that if only one reliable source has written about a subject that it lacks notability, which is a reason for deletion. In fact, I could not find other sources that wrote about the publication period.

Some of the hit piece appearance of the article could be addressed by re-wording in a neutral, non-judgmental tone.

On a minor point, signed articles in sources should be attributed to the author, not the publication.

TFD (talk) 14:24, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces, you write: On a minor point, signed articles in sources should be attributed to the author, not the publication. Could you point to a policy or guideline which explains why we should be doing this? It seems that non-opinion pieces can safely be attributed to the publication, and especially if an author is non-notable, who in our readership is going to know an author's name better than a publication's reputation? Elizium23 (talk) 13:05, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

It's standard to cite authors rather than publications, although in this case we would also mention which publication they were writing for. That's just being accurate. If the author is non-notable, you could write "as reported in" instead of "as reported by." TFD (talk) 14:22, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Having only one reliable source covering it which includes their criticism of it is not a good starting point for an article from both NPOV and notability standpoints. I see that the article is up for AFD, which seems to be the proper solution here. Masem (t) 14:53, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Trumpism in Canada

The Trumpism in Canada article reads more like an argumentative POV essay than a neutral encyclopedia article and could use some eyes. X-Editor (talk) 06:39, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

What a nightmare! The fundamental problem with the article is that the topic is not clearly defined. Is it about Canada's equivalent of the Radical right (United States), Canadians who openly support Trump or comparisons of some Canadian politicians today to Trump?

Perhaps the best approach would be to split the article.

TFD (talk) 11:16, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, looks like an awful lot of synthesis to me. Political labels are always tricky to deal with, but applying a label to describe a personal political style to a different context and country? I doubt many political scientists are seriously describing Canadian political phenomena as "Trumpism", rather they're drawing comparisons. There are lot of decent-looking sources so I don't think it's an entirely WP:TNT case, I agree the best solution is splitting. Some of the sources are describing Canada in the context of Trumpism more broadly and belong over at Trumpism#Beyond America#Canada, if they're not already summarised there. The rest probably belongs at an article on populism/right-wing nationalism in Canada, or maybe even just summarised at Politics of Canada. Jr8825 • Talk 19:52, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Is this even a real topic or is it just a collection of ideas first assembled for Wikipedia. That is, the individual parts may be RS'ed but the topic itself is OR.

History of Ireland (1801–1923)

The History of Ireland (1801–1923) article is characterised in the lede as "a period of British rule". What, pray tell, is "British rule" supposed to mean other than a colonial arrangement? Ireland was an equal member of the UK from 1801 -1922, with the same political and legal rights as England, Scotland and Wales.

As is often the case in Irish history spaces, this article is basically a little fiefdom where a handful of editors get to control what sources are used and how the discussion is framed and presented to readers. And they've done so in one of the most unobjective, non-neutral ways I've ever encountered on here.

Some examples, in the first section they write:

"the passage of the act in the Irish parliament was finally achieved, albeit, as with the 1707 Acts of Union that united Scotland and England, with the mass bribery of members of both houses, who were awarded British peerages and other "encouragements"."

This whole argument about "mass bribery" and fraud, while popular in Sinn Fein/nationalist circles, has been described by other scholars as one of the core myths of modern Irish history. Emmet Larkin, for example, has argued that the political negotiations in the runup to 1801 were typical for that day and age (not anything sneaky or underhanded), while the terms of Union were relatively generous to Ireland[42]. Of course scholars like Larkin don't get a voice in this article.

Another example at the end of the first section:

"The British Administration in Ireland – known by metonymy as "Dublin Castle" – remained largely dominated by the Anglo-Irish establishment until its removal from Dublin in 1922."

This is so misleading as to be almost entirely fictional. Dublin Castle played only a ceremonial role during the Union, while Ireland was governed directly from Westminster. Even ignoring the fact that "Anglo-Irish" is nothing but a clever way to deny that certain people were Irish 200 years ago (often in contradiction to their own writings), from 1829 on there was no religious bar to standing for Parliament. There were actually far more (Catholic) Irishmen politically enfranchised in the 19th than in the 18th Century, when Ireland's parliament was controlled by an Anglican aristocracy (the same one that was "bribed").

There's a lot more but I'm trying to make this as brief as possible. Just looking at the titles of the sections in this article, most of the space is dedicated to the Famine and "republican rebellions", despite the fact that Ireland was not in rebellion in the 19th Century, and the Famine was only 5 out of 120 years of history. Almost all the major aspects of Irish political, economic and social history for this period have been left out of the article, in favour of a slanted and highly distorted version of events. Jonathan f1 (talk) 19:43, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

The problem with your fairytale about equality is that England had a far larger population than Ireland and had no sympathy for the people so it was basically British rule. This was essentially what went wrong with democracy in Northern Ireland too. If it hadn't been part of the United Kingdom the loyalists would have been in control okay - but it would be a quite different situation than what happened where they could call on British forces to enforce their democratic majority. NadVolum (talk) 20:13, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

During that time period the country was called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Therefore Ireland (like England, Scotland & Wales) was a part of the United Kingdom. I'm in agreement, that "British rule" appears to be an inaccurate statement. GoodDay (talk) 00:52, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I remember as a young person seeing various variations of No Dogs No Blacks No Irish in B&B windows in Coventry, children or coloureds being very often included. You really believe there was equality rather than British rule with that attitude and an overwhelming population advantage? NadVolum (talk) 08:51, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

As to colonial administration have a look at Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet who was in charge of alleviating the famine in Ireland. NadVolum (talk) 18:38, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Seems a great stretch to me to imply Ireland wasn't ruled by Britain and was on an equal footing with E & W + S, which I think opening exclusively with the formal status as annexed to GB implies. I don't think there's any serious scholarly dispute that British/Anglican elites ruled Ireland during the period. I also suspect (but am not certain off the top of my head) that describing it as a country of the UK is anachronistic, which we do in both the lead twice. There's lots of scholarly literature about the colonial/imperial aspects of British rule in Ireland including this particular time period (the response to the famine, economic (and other forms of) discrimination against Catholics, large-scale migration internationally etc.). Jr8825 • Talk 13:37, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

That's not to say Ireland formal status wasn't significant, I don't think it should be neglected or removed - a lot of historians' have written about Ireland's position as simultaneously both part of the British "core" and as the closest part of "external" British rule. I simply object to removing descriptions widely accepted by historians, such as "British rule". Jr8825 • Talk 13:46, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Accountability software has an RFC

Accountability software has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Keithgreenfan (talk) 22:48, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

To clarify, I posted this here because the discussion is primarily about WP:NPOV violations.Keithgreenfan (talk) 12:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)