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Karrimor DYK currently on Main Page

A DYK for a company, currently on Main page, has ... that British manufacturer Karrimor's formidable reputation for ground-breaking outdoor pursuit equipment was a direct result of its location in Lancashire, and a CEO who was an avid climber and trekker? - I queried the use of formidable at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Prep_1 before the article ended up on the Main Page, and "formidable" was removed from the hook - I now see it is not only reinstated, but has gone live... this hardly seems NPOV and is actively promoting a company. Probably all a bit late now, since it must have been on Main Page for a good number of hours... Simon Burchell (talk) 10:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

That is disgraceful—Wikipedia's main page trumpeting the fact that a particular brand has a "formidable reputation for ground-breaking [products]"! The article Karrimor has a handy picture of the brand's running shoe, and more self-congratulatory twaddle in the lead. If that is DYK, would someone please bring back Gibraltarpedia. The fact that someone can point to a bunch of excited commentary supporting the hyperbole (see User talk:Alex Shih#DYK edit) is no excuse for Wikipedia to parrot the stuff. Johnuniq (talk) 11:09, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Wow. I had to check, so apologies for my lack of good faith. Is there no policy against this??? Formerip (talk) 00:14, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Well, for starters how about WP:NOTADVERTISING and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and the Second Pillar. This should never have gotten as far as the Main Page. Simon Burchell (talk) 07:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
I think we need to look at who did this, and remove them from the ability to participate in this sort of thing going forward.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:14, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
DYK is a problem at times - for instance, I've seen it used to promote fringe ideas. It does appear that whoever let this go through shouldn't be working at DYK anymore. Dougweller (talk) 12:30, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Response almost a week later

WP:AGF is a good idea. Here's another DYK.

Did you know... that when this was discussed at DYK prep area (before entering DYK queue or main page)... or at Jimmy's talk page... or forum shopped at NPOV noticeboard... or anywhere else it got discussed, whether at the time before main page (when it could have easily been looked at) until today a week later at WP:AN, not one person bothered to notify those being discussed, the hook's author, or checked if the hook might actually be an accurate neutral representation of the sources of this closed over 9 years ago company?

Well, to be fair, two people did. Both were DYK reviewers. Both confirmed the hook as good to go on this specific point.

This does suggest a possible discussion about review of main page content that is NPOV/V/NOR accurately worded in a surprising tone, but the bad faith and lack of notice in this issue is staggeringly large. The matter would never have been an issue either, if those involved had done the right thing and notified or discussed. This has been here a week, unnotified. It's usual people are told if they or their work is being discussed. Since they didn't, it's unsurprising that the hook, and the 2 reviewers who concurred with the hook, went ahead.

Alternatively, it might have been easier to resolve before Main Page or any other place, if someone had bothered to notify or discuss, so their concerns could have been addressed. I would have readily put it on hold myself, unasked, if I'd been made aware of the concern.

Discussion has since been moved to W:AN (Link). FT2 (Talk | email) 23:46, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

  • I notified User:Alex Shih immediately after making my above comment, at 11:10, 17 August 2013 diff. The notification was less than four hours after FT2's second post in that section. Good faith is totally irrelevant—the question concerns NPOV, not the intentions of an editor. I know this is at WP:AN, but this section needs the clarification that there was a notification. My intention was to have the advert removed from the main page (and not that anyone be sanctioned), so I felt that notifying the person who inserted the DYK was appropriate. Johnuniq (talk) 01:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

Currently has as paragraph 2 of the lead:

ACORN's voter registration drives, which it has conducted since the 1980s, has been frequently mischaracterized by supporters of Republican candidates "voter fraud". ACORN received significant negative publicity in the wake of the 2009 production and publication of videos, which were later found to be partially falsified and selectively edited,[9] by two conservative activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles.

The source given is from ACORN: "Scott Harshbarger and Amy Crafts (2009-12-07). An Independent Governance Assessment of ACORN: The Path To Meaningful Reform" which does not actually make the claims as stated and this query is presented here to determine if this material properly follows WP:NPOV. Collect (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Both of those sentences are summary WP:LEDE sentences, which are covered in more detail (and with more references) in the body of the article. The first sentence is a summary of this fuller text in the body of the article:
  • Throughout the election season, supporters of Republican candidates portrayed ACORN's submission of invalid voter registration applications as widespread vote fraud. In October 2008, the campaign for Republican presidential candidate John McCain released a Web-based advertisement claiming ACORN was responsible for "massive voter fraud," a point that Sen. McCain repeated in the final presidential debate. Factcheck.org called this claim "breathtakingly inaccurate," but acknowledged that ACORN had problems with phony registrations. [...] A poll released in November 2009 by the Public Policy Polling organization found that 52% of Republican Party members it surveyed, and 26% of respondents overall, believed in a conspiracy theory that ACORN "stole" the election for Barack Obama.
It is indeed supported by this cited source in the body of the article, which states:

McCain has gone after the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. And we've gone after him, for an ad accusing the group of "massive voter fraud" and for saying in the final presidential debate that ACORN is "now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Both claims are breathtakingly inaccurate. There's a huge difference between voter fraud and voter registration fraud.

And this this cited source, which states:

Losing NY-23 candidate Doug Hoffman became the latest in an increasingly long line of conservative politicians to blame his problems on ACORN yesterday despite the complete lack of evidence the organization played any role in his defeat. [...] Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September. [...] The constant harping on ACORN by Republican politicians may sound nutso in some circles, but it certainly has hurt the organization's image...

So the first summary sentence about Republican charges of "voter fraud" is fully supported by sources found in the relevant location in the body of the article. On to the second summary sentence, which summarizes this text in the body of the article:
  • The ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy started in September 2009 when conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe publicized selectively edited hidden camera recordings [...] the former Massachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially" [...] the District Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and "many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister" [...] an investigation by the California Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited"...
It is indeed supported by this cited source, which states:

[The video] was deemed by the Brooklyn District Attorney's office to be a "heavily edited" splice job, after a five-and-a-half-month probe. Sources told the Post that "many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister." No charges will be filed.

And by this cited source, which states:

O’Keefe stated he was out to make a point and to damage ACORN and therefore did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story. The video releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst or most inappropriate statements of the various ACORN employees and to omit some of the most salient statements by O’Keefe and Giles.

And by this cited source in the body of the article, which states:

“The evidence illustrates,” Brown said, “that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor.” The original storm of publicity created by O’Keefe’s videotapes was instrumental in ACORN’s subsequent denunciation in Congress, a sudden tourniquet on its funding, and the organization’s eventual collapse.

And by this cited source, which states:

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms.Giles’s comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding.

So the second summary sentence about the selectively and partially falsified videos is fully supported by sources found in the relevant location in the body of the article. You'll find more cited sources here:
Main article: ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy
The summary text in the lead, when reviewed against the fuller text and source citations in the body of the article, is NPOV compliant and correctly reflects what the cited sources convey. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:47, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


Read WP:NPOV and WP:SYNTH. You take multiple sources, link the claims into a compound claim not made by the sources, and include claims not actually and precisely supported by the sources. I know this is nitpicking, but is official policy. What you might end up with is:
ACORN has run voter drives since the 1980s. These drives have been criticized as being subject to voter fraud. ACORN also received criticism for statements made on videos by some of its employees regarding advice given about illegal activities not connected to the voter drives. An ACORN independent report faulted ACORN for insufficient training for its employees, and recommended that it cease certain activities. ACORN asserted that the videos were misleading.
Is about the most you can hope for from the refs you had provided. The claims that two specific living persons in some way committed a fraud against ACORN is required to have strong sourcing per WP:BLP and likely is of no great weight here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:53, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Read WP:NPOV and WP:SYNTH. You take multiple sources, link the claims into a compound claim not made by the sources, and include claims not actually and precisely supported by the sources.
Wildly incorrect, Collect. What you call a "compound claim" is actually an accurate WP:LEDE summary of content more thoroughly conveyed in the body of the article. Summary statements summarize. The two points conveyed are, specifically 1) Republicans have frequently mischarged ACORNs voter drives with "voter fraud", and 2) that ACORN received negative publicity from videos that were later discovered to be selectively edited with intent to deceive.
  • The claims that two specific living persons in some way committed a fraud against ACORN...
...isn't claimed here. The specific charge is that two individuals produced controversy-generating videos that were later found to be heavily edited to present material out of context and create a misleading impression of activities. That information is well-sourced, far beyond what is required by WP:BLP. You'll find more information at the main article linked above, as well as several instances of this same argument being discussed on both article Talk pages. Xenophrenic (talk) 14:30, 21 August 2013 (UTC)


Amazing! which were later found to be partially falsified and selectively edited,[9] by two conservative activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. makes no allegations of wrongdoing by specific living persons? And the videos were not about the "voter drive" but specifically about material which is not mentioned in the lead at all -- to wit promotion or condoning of illegal activities. Cheers -- now clean the article up - it has so many overreaching claims as to be risible. And this board is about "neutral point of view" which, I suggest, is heavily violated through the entire article. Collect (talk) 14:54, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

  • ...makes no allegations of wrongdoing by specific living persons?
Nobody said that, Collect. As noted above, and in reliable sources, those living persons produced videos selectively edited to convey a false narrative -- and I'm sure many people would consider that wrongdoing. If you wish to argue that the facts conveyed by our Wikipedia articles about these two individuals and their videos are not sufficiently sourced to meet WP:BLP requirements, then you should raise your concerns at the appropriate venue: WP:BLPN.
  • ...And the videos were not about the "voter drive"...
What an odd thing to say. Nobody said that, Collect. No one has ever claimed that the videos produced by O'Keefe and Giles had anything to do with voter drives. Please do not muddy the discussion.
  • now clean the article up - it has so many overreaching claims
Alright. Please list them, one at a time, and let's see if we can fix the problems you perceive. Simply claiming that you see NPOV violated "through the entire article" couldn't be more vague and uninformative. Xenophrenic (talk) 15:47, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the problems others see, I would note that the last three identified sources above are WP:PRIMARY sources. Two from the AG's office and the third the report of a law firm working for ACORN. That would seem to make this original research. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:14, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
A couple of those are indeed primary sources. Use of primary sources, which is allowed, does not equate to "original research", so the reasoning behind your jump from use of primary sources to "that would seem to make this original research" eludes me. Could you please clarify what prompted that conclusion? Also, please note that the above primary sources are not the only sources existing in support of the facts. Perhaps if you reviewed the main article with its additional cites, as suggested above, and reviewed the associated Talk page discussions on this oft-repeated debate, you would find the additional information helpful. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
And what's with the using a dem polling firm's press release as a RS? I'd suggest that probably isn't NPOV in this case. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:16, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
Not a press release, but a report on the organization's blog, and it is indeed being cited as a Reliable Source for its own statements, which are clearly attributed to it in our article. That is textbook policy-compliant NPOV use of such a source. I've mentioned it in the discussion above only for information purposes. That Republicans have consistantly advanced a "voter fraud" meme, specifically against ACORN, and against similar voter registration drives in general, has been studied and documented. It has long been a politicized but frequently cited issue, so the renewed questioning here seems curious. We could add specific academic case studies involving false accusations against ACORN of voter fraud. Or quote scholarly books when they discuss ACORN and coverage of: "well-documented efforts by Republican Party officials to use allegations of voter fraud" against it. Or extensive related studies. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

ACORN's voter registration drives, which it has conducted since the 1980s, has been frequently mischaracterized by supporters of Republican candidates "voter fraud". ACORN received significant negative publicity in the wake of the 2009 production and publication of videos, which were later found to be partially falsified and selectively edited,[9] by two conservative activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles.

Shows a seque between the two claims which is not present in any sources. In fact, the two issues are entirely disparate. In addition the "frequently mischaracterized" is a statement not found in the sources -- which do not make that particular claim. And the mentioning of two living persons by name intrinsically requires that we obey WP:BLP even if an editor feels that saying someone "falsified" something is not "wrongdoing." Cheers - but that sort of claim beggars belief. Collect (talk) 23:36, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Add the word "additionally" at the beginning of the second sentence to create distance and remove the word "frequently" from the first sentence if it is not supported by sources.
It seems very unlikely, though, that there is a substantive BLP breach here. We have an article ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy. Mentioning the same allegations in another article is not likely to raise any new BLP concerns. Formerip (talk) 23:52, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
Good points, FormerIP.
@Collect: There is no seque (nor even a segue) between the two sentences. Also, no editors have indicated that falsifying something is not wrongdoing, so are you speaking for yourself? What an odd thing to say. Please do not muddy the discussion, Collect. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Séralini affair

Page: Séralini affair (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

There is an ongoing dispute on this page regarding the biased nature of the original article. The original article seems to have a specific negative angle with edits of this angle constantly being removed. With many reasons being used for deletions - many of which may be considered false.

The Talk section is particularly interesting with many points of view being shared but not many being taken into account.

A balanced article is all that is required. I personally have given up editing and reverting - and have taken to the 'talk' page to reach consensus before further edits. Hog1983 (talk) 08:39, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

a) Scientific support for Seralini:

Reason for editing text will be to make it more balanced and saying that the Seralini study was both ‘supported’ and ‘criticized’ by scientists – I want consensus on this before edits are made: http://aspta.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/NK603-20may2013.pdf - Brazilian scientists supporting Seralini in official letter to Brazilian food regulatory body http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2012/11/14/science-et-conscience_1790174_3232.html 140 scientists supporting Seralini’s study http://independentsciencenews.org/health/seralini-and-science-nk603-rat-study-roundup/ Open letter to support Seralini from worldwide scientists

b) Text in article: ‘Other long term studies, which were publicly funded, have uncovered some health issues.’ This is unbalanced as is shown on this directory of studies showing harm caused by GMOs: www.gmoevidence.com. I would like to remove this text. Group opinion please – not just editors of this page

‘Séralini had required that journalists sign a confidentiality agreement’ this was a method of study release that has been done by others – it was both supported and criticized in the press: www.gmoseralini.org.

c) All text about method of release being ‘only criticized’ should be removed if this is an unbiased article

d) The Sprauge-Dawley rat is used by Monsanto and all bio-tech industry in their experiments – so all reference to this as a problem should be removed: http://gmoseralini.org/criticism-sprague-dawley-rats-get-tumours-when-food-intake-is-unrestricted/

e)All references to media coverage should be balanced : there should not be a tone of only negative media coverage as the majority of media coverage was positive – please refer to directory of media coverage here: http://gmoseralini.org/category/media-coverage/

f) The argument that the new EFSA protocol does not mention the Seralini study is ridiculous – as it is 95% based on the protocol of the Seralini study – Just read both protocols to see: this is an article about this connection: http://gmoseralini.org/seralini-validated-by-new-efsa-guidelines-on-long-term-gmo-experiments/

g) GMOSeralini.org is not a Self-Published Source as quoted on this talk for reason for deletion of this source: http://gmoseralini.org/about-us/ - ‘Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini, his colleagues, and the organizations with which they are affiliated have no connection with the owners or editors of this website and bear no responsibility for its content.’ ‘The GMOSeralini website is owned and maintained by a group of concerned citizens and scientists.’ ‘This site has independent expert editors.’Hog1983 (talk) 08:51, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

  • Long story short, the editor has been using unreliable advocacy sources, and is attempting original research by claiming a new EFSA report (which does not mention Seralini) supports Seralini. The editor has just come off a block for edit warring, and is mis-templating editors in discussions, IRWolfie- (talk) 10:42, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
Long story shorter, the editor above has been blocking all attempts to edit a biased article for many months by many different editors. I have stated quite clearly on 'talk' page that I do not want to use advocacy sources and only mainstream media sources - but they and all other sources which are not pro-GM / pro-Monsanto are deleted or iognored on 'talk' alongside all edits (Has the original article ever been changed despite the many edit attempts by many expert editors? I got banned for reverting more than 3 times which was a mistake on my part but it does not change the fact that the article is biased and goes against Wikipedia's 2nd Pillar.Hog1983 (talk) 11:02, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Lindsey Graham

Please note Talk:Lindsey Graham#Neutrality dispute--August 2, 2013, relating to how to summarize opinions of Graham's tenure in Congress. --Arxiloxos (talk) 19:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

 Done Users on the page seem to be satisfied with a solution implemented. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Tiger vs Lion article

Hi

This article seems to be very biased toward the tiger without evidence or in fact much zoological context. Numerous contributors on the talk page are either dismissed without thorough discussion or just ignored entirely if they do not share the pro-tiger bias.

In particular

1 - The page states that tigers usually kill lions when they meet in captivity, without citation, then lists several examples of this happening with citations. In reality there is no thorough study done comparing which animal kills the other more often and therefore no conclusive information about his, and the article should say so. Also there are many individual examples of either animal killing the other, and this should also be stated clearly with examples, if any, of both tiger and lions being dominant.

2- The page supplies 4 "expert opinions" favouring the tiger, none of which are actual zoologist, and a neutral fifth expert opinion. Once again, there are random and spurious, merely giving a false impression that most experts would favour the tiger. There are expert opinions that favour the lion, including an actual zoologist, but none are included, requests to have them included are simply denied.

3 - There is no discussion of the relative adaptations of the two cats, and the fcat that the male lion in particular has evolved in a climate of high conflict between each other and with other predators. This seems incredible since the size and the relative adaptations of the two animals are the only two relevant factors in comparing the animals. To leave in comment on size (assumedly because the tiger is bigger so this favours the tiger) while leaving out comment on the adaptations (assumedly because the lion has evolved in an environment where it fights more often and therefore will naturally be better adapted for fighting) is clearly another form of bias.

I would like to inform the editor of the offending page about this complaint as it says i should, but i don't know how to and can't seee the link here. Please advise as to how i can do this.

Thanks

NickPriceNZ (talk) 12:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Resolved
I encourage you to take your concerns to Talk:Tiger versus lion and also to be bold and make changes to the article as you see fit. Talk with the community there and improve the article in collaboration with others. I am marking this as resolved and also posting instructions to your userpage - feel free to raise the issue again if you need more. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Politically Incorrect (blog)

Politically Incorrect (blog) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). There's a long running debate here as to whether Template:Islamophobia belongs on this article. My view is that it is clearly relevant to the article and thus belongs on it. The counter view seems to be that this template labels the PI blog and is simply wrong as we can't call the blog Islamaphobic. I'd like some independent comments on this issue. Dougweller (talk) 15:58, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

"Islomphobic" does not appear to be an unfair discription of the English language version of the blog, at least. According to the article, it sells merchandise with the slogan "Islamophobic and proud of it". I'm sure there must be more the counter-argument than you are suggesting, but "part of a series" infoboxes always label things. It's sort of what they are for. Formerip (talk) 16:37, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
I'd say it's a fair call. The German press labels the blog as Islamophobic[1], and as Formerip rightly notes, the blog itself sells merchandise with that very label[2]. Yintan  23:27, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The first and foremost question is this: what provisions do the guidelines make about the adding of templates? I would like to have a clear reference from Dougweller (or anybody else) on what basis the template should be added, so that we can start to have a meaningful discussion guided by criterias. Sentiment and gut-feeling alone, I am sorry, is simply not enough when it comes to such controversial and loaded 'scare templates' such as Islamophobia or Antisemitism.

Because the situation is there is in fact no general agreement in reliable sources as how to classify the blog. I tried to make this clear as it can be in the article. The opinions are divided and in no small part fall along political lines (see the article for sources): while the clear majority of liberal and left-wing media does indeed label the blog as "Islamophobic", some conservative outlets like the Gatestone Institute, FrontPage Magazine and American Thinker regard it as right-conservative website which exercises its freedom of speech against the demands of political correctness. And while the Bavarian branch of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution does observe the Munich office, and only the Munich office, for Islamophobia, the other 15 Bundesland branches do not observe it. Most importantly, the national bureau in Berlin has repeatedly classified PI as - quote - "Islam critical" and not islamophobic. Since Islamophobia is a different subject in Wikipedia than criticism of Islam, it follows that we cannot use its template for articles which fall outside its scope.

As for the argument that the founder's words "Phobia is fear, and I'm afraid of Islam" are to be understood as evidence for the blog's Islamophobia, this does not stand up to scrutiny for two reasons. First, Wikipedia generally does not view self-classifications as authoritative or binding, but makes a point of relying on reliable, third-party sources. The founder himself, however, is first-party, not third-party. Secondly, the 'Islamophobia' the founder speaks of is clearly a different beast than the negatively-loaded Islamophobia as defined in the WP article. He makes it clear he means really fear of Islam, whereas the WP article defines the subject quite differently as (irrational) animosity, antipathy or hostility towards Islam. This is obviously not the same thing and we can't throw these things indiscriminately together.

Thus, there is no clear consensus either way. Adding the Islamophobia template against the substantial amount of dissenting reliable sources would be too much into POV lands and negative labelling. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:14, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I find the above argument compelling. Irondome (talk) 21:17, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
I equally find this explanation convincing. Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 21:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep the template per Dougweller, FormerIP and Yintan. Furthermore, there are authors who have described the hate and vitriol hosted by PI against Islam. The 2009 Routledge book Muslims in the West after 9/11: Religion, Politics and Law (ISBN 9780203863961), edited by Jocelyne Cesari of the Harvard Divinity School, includes a chapter written by German historian Yasemin Shooman and German scholar of Islam Riem Spielhaus titled "The concept of the Muslim enemy in the public discourse". Shooman and Spielhaus use the PI blog as a case study on pages 206–221. They describe PI as "one of the most vibrant Islam-hostile blogs in the German language", one that forwards a deceitful "conspiracy fantasy" of European invasion by Islamization, a blog that polarizes the issue of Islam in Europe to foment hatred and incite action to counter the perceived threat. The authors point to the PI forums as a particularly hateful venting of Islamophobia "under the cover of anonymity" (page 218). See also the chapter written by German social scientist Alexander Häusler in the book From the Far Right to the Mainstream: Islamophobia in Party Politics and the Media (Campus Verlag, 2012, ISBN 9783593396484), the chapter titled "The PRO-Movement: A New Motor of Anti-Islamic Right-Wing Populism within the Extreme Right in Germany". On page 39, Häusler describes the PI blog as host to "Islamophobic alarmists" and racist comments against Muslims. Further, there is the assertion by German religious scholar Martin Rötting that the PI blog is host to islamfeindlichen (Islamophobic) statements: Religion in Bewegung: Dialog-Typen und Prozess im interreligiösen Lernen, volume 9 of Interreligiöse Begegnungen, LIT Verlag Münster, 2011, ISBN 9783643114655, page 52 (in German). Binksternet (talk) 22:44, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Are we talking about Islam or politically aggressive Islamism here? There lies the rub. The sources above do not in any sense make that distinction clear. "Zionists" are routinely villified by anti-semites (with many Islamic activists amongst them) whom are given a free pass in much of the western liberal press, most notably in the UK The Guardian, which has the dubious honour for a left-leaning paper to have its own readers often vile anti-semetic comments monitored via an on-line website, CIFWatch. I see great hypocracy here on the part of some liberal intellectuals. It would not be good if it spread to WP. Irondome (talk) 23:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
We're not talking about any particular type of Islam. We're just talking about a website. It is self-avowedly Islamophobic and is described by reliable sources as such. It's English language front page includes "a 20–page indictment of Islam". There's no ambiguity about this case. Formerip (talk) 23:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
So what is it actually "indicting"? Islam or violent or repressive Islamism, to Gays, women, Hindus, Christians or Jews? Can you provide a link so that uninvolved editors can see for themselves? I find it odd that there is no WP article outlining CIF Watch and its history by the way. Irondome (talk) 23:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
If you haven't looked at the website, go and do so. If you have and still see fit to defend it, hang your head in shame. Formerip (talk) 23:46, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Apologise now for your unpleasant and unfounded POV assumptions which I find personally deeply offensive. And provide the link. Irondome (talk) 23:50, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
It depends what you want me to apologise for. If you're actually familiar with the site and wish to defend it, then I find that disturbing. If I've somehow misunderstood, sorry.
I'm not interested in engaging in a discussion about what types of criticism of Muslims are and are not OK. That's not relevant here. The website describes itself as Islamophobic, is described in the same way by reliable sources and has content which, clearly and consistently, is Islamophobic. That's all there is to it.
What link are you asking me for? Formerip (talk) 00:15, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I have never seen the site before. I never heard of it before. I merely became involved on this board out of curiousity. You appear to be confusing my genuine questions with some kind of POV. Check my edit history. I have never been involved in any discussions or controversies regarding this general subject. I was attempting to explore the alternatives, balance. Based on my real world experiences with the media in the UK, I prefer to discuss these things without a POV and agenda pre-ordained. I was merely asking you for a link to this list of issues with Islam, or Islamism, so that others may see it, and inform other editors. Irondome (talk) 00:23, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Irondome, your claim to be an uninvolved neutral commentator dissolved as soon as you posted assertions about "great hypocracy here on the part of some liberal intellectuals" - without bothering to look at the website in question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Nothing "dissolved", nor do I claim anything which is untrue. You would dispute the reality of this hypocracy in some sections of the Western media, regarding "anti Zionism" and classic anti-semtic tropes? I am not referring to this website, but in the round. It could be a vile racist sewer, but I expect a link to examine it. I expect a link to be here. Especially by the co-sponsors of a WP change. So can you apologise for that unfounded and offensive assertion? I will be waiting for it. Irondome (talk) 00:42, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I have nothing to apologise for - you made the assertions without looking at the evidence. Still, for the benefit of someone evidently incapable of clicking on the Wikilink to the article in question, and then to the clearly labelled link in the infobox, see here: [3]. Note that not only do they chose to post such filth as a section telling us that "Every female Turk is to bear three children for her Führer. This demand by the highest chief of all Turks – also those living among us – was reported yesterday by FOCUS, and we find ourselves catapulted back to the worst chapter in German history", but that they also chose to engage in a clear racist attack on Oprah Winfrey, for no obvious reason beyond the fact that they evidently don't like black women to be successful. Nothing to do with a 'criticism of Islam'. Nothing to do with Islam at all. Bigotry, plain and simple... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:57, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I really think you do mate. I see no neo-nazi stuff. I see vitriolic attacks on nazism, harking back to Germanys "dark past". I see a case of anti-Christian arson. I see material highlighting the disgusting prevalence of anti-semitism in the Islamic world which is largely ignored in the mainstream media. I even see admittance of the close WW2 links between the nazis and nationalistic Islam. Oprah and her handbag? I was expecting stormfront. Ive seen far worse and more hate-filled stuff in the Guardian or the Indie when Israel builds a public toilet in East Jerusalem. What I do see is a huge attack of POV faux-outrage by a few eds. I have not yet found this 20 points thing. If I find it genuinely offensive, then I will comment. So far I see some inconvieient truths, its perception being reinforced by the Islamic leaderships' failiure to address and rationally discourse in any widespraed and meaningful way beyond local initiatives. And a multi-millionaire attemptuing to get some publicity out of an arguably racist but deeply trivial incident over a £15,000 handbag. That materialism is what I found the more disturbing, wheter the consumer be black, white or battleship grey. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 01:32, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm no 'mate' of yours. Still, thanks for proving the point - your claim to neutrality was bogus from the start... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:52, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Im certainly no mate of yours either. But you merely proved how an antagonistic and aggressive POV can push genuinely neutral people off the fence. Now I am vaguely amused by the bloody rag. Your initial assumptions on POV were staggering. And still deeply offensive to me. Your patronising guesses at my extremely sophisticated view of this hugely nuanced and sensitive issue did the damage. Its not the WP policy and definitions here. Its your inability to see the total argument. You just cannot seem to grasp independence of thought untainted by bigotry, of the type you have clearly displayed, in an ideological sense. You could not discuss, but resorted to kneejerk phrases and actually offensive phrases and assumptions, both of you. Nice one! Not. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 01:55, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Some, if not most of these authors are actually known left-wing extremists. Häusler, for one, published regularly in Antifa publications like Lotta which are themselves observed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He is therefore useless as a WP:neutral source.
Besides, the fact that far-left and liberal media are highly critical of the blog, has been included in the WP article right from the start and is no point of contention. But the point is conservative media and the Federal Office share a different opinion. So why do think WP should sweep them under the carpet and hand over the entire floor to the others by including the template? I would say this is WP:undue weight and a violation of WP:NPOV. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:48, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
These are respected scholars, not pawns for you to dismiss because of the way you perceive their position on a left–right continuum. Wikipedia does not require its reliable sources to be free from bias. And you have not addressed the text from Häusler—you simply tried to demean him and so remove him as a source. I hold that his text is still reliable for use in the article about the PI blog. Binksternet (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Alexander Häusler is not a reliable source. Agree with Gun Powder Ma's classification of such authors. Häusler recently had to sign a cease and desist due to a book of his, in which he slandered the political party Citizens in Rage as 'racist' based on improper quoting [4].Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 20:36, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I would be happy to have a rational and bamlanced discussion using those well-respected intellectuals (especially personally Shooman) with SOMEBODY yes. Thats what I came here for. This thread is getting bloody long. New section? Suggestions? I would like to discuss the original quotes in context and any countervailing arguments. I would invite all. Just very peeved at the moment by this trainwreck of what could be a fantastic discourse if some just dropped the PC and personal attacks by wildly inaccurate POV assumptions. I won handsomely by the way :) Cheers! Irondome (talk) 03:28, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Before the discussion deviates even further from the original subject, I would like to repeat my initial question: on what basis in the WP guidelines do those who want to add the template act? Please cite the relevant guideline which says that a template can be added even when there clearly exists no consensus in reliable sources. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:48, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

I read where you said there was "no consensus" in reliable sources about use of the term, but you didn't provide any evidence as to a dispute about the use of the term. It being not the only adjective used to describe the site is not enough. Formerip (talk) 15:38, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I thought it was self-evident that I am summarizing the overall state of affairs as outlined in Politically Incorrect (blog). The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution refers to the blog as "Islam critical". Being critical of Islam is clearly a far cry from being phobic of Islam. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
WP:OR. No more convincing than the umpteen times you've said this before. There is no evidence that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution were ever asked whether they considered the blog Islamophobic - and there is certainly no evidence that they would concur with your attempts to redefine words to mean whatever you want them to mean. We cite sources for what they say, we don't cite them for not saying something... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:31, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
There doesn't have to be consensus for it to be a related article. What I observe is that having failed to have the blog article removed from the template in June, you are now trying to have the template removed from the blog article here. There will never be consensus on a lot of political articles that deal with issues at the extreme - that's the nature of such articles on the right or left. And " The blog's internet shop sells items with the slogan "Islamophobic and proud of it".[2] Herre says his Islamophobia is without shame: "Phobia is fear, and I'm afraid of Islam.""Dougweller (talk) 14:44, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, you still fail to provide an answer, but keep on asserting things. We have reliable sources not supporting the view that PI is "islamophobic". We have also users disagreeing with this view in this discussion and we have users who have long disagreed with it at the article (1, 2).
Additionally, there is not even a consensus about the existence of the Template:Islamophobia as such. Many users believed this tag to be not WP:neutral and rather POVish. In fact just as many voted for delete in the last deletion request. The only reason why it was kept eventually was purely procedural (namely the in dubio pro re principle applied in case of a tie in the vote). So there is no real consensus nowhere, not in reliable sources concernning PI, not in the community about the NPOV of the template, and not about labelling PI with the template. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
We have reliable sources not supporting the view that PI is "islamophobic" - sure, but that is a trivial fact. On the electrodynamics of moving bodies is a reliable source that does not support the view that there was a Roman Empire, or that Kennedy was president. What you have failed to show is a reliable source that actually disagrees with the classification. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:45, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Since this is not a BLP and we need not consider the selfidentification of the blog as a requirement for tagging the categorization is a navigational help and should be added in so much as it is likely that people will find the articles in the template to be useful reading. Given that several academic sources discuss the website in relation to islamophobia it does not seem unreasonable to have the template in the article.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:53, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok, so the blog self-identifies as islamophobic, we have several reliable sources saying it is slamophobic and the only objection is that not all sources say it is islamophobic. Why is this even up for debate? // Liftarn (talk)

The template itself is a bad idea (WP:LABEL) to begin with. Remove it. Athenean (talk) 21:10, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Asaram Bapu

Please have a look at Talk:Asaram_Bapu#Removed_sections, which is most probably going to become an edit war now. Tito☸Dutta 17:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

No it won't become an edit war because anyone who repeatedly restores the BLP-fails will be blocked, although we will have to go through the usual rigmarole of WP:AGF and explaining everything ten times first. I explained the basics at WP:Administrators' noticeboard#Asaram Bapu and WP:BLP, which you have seen, per your comment to User:Bbb23 diff. Johnuniq (talk) 07:56, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
  • It would be more helpful to identify something I said that you think is incorrect, then briefly explain why. It is extremely common to find prominent people that are accused of various bad things, but Wikipedia is not the place to seek justice. If the subject of an article has been convicted of some crime, then that should be recorded in a due manner, but stuff like this is off-the-scale in terms of its unsuitability (someone claimed they saw sexual exploitation; a report alleged the subject had failed lie detection tests although "no direct evidence" was found; and more). Repeatedly editing that POV into a WP:BLP will lead to blocks. Johnuniq (talk) 10:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
  • FYI, chances are I'll leave and unwatchlist all these Asaram Bapu articles very soon. I am asking for help everywhere (India noticeboard, editors' talk page, this noticeboard, not getting any co-operation anywhere).
    Your assessment of Bbb23's edit and full protection at WP:AN was incorrect, allow me to explain— there were 3 or 4 reverts in the article. Of those 3 or 4 reverts, one revert was reversion of Bbb's edit (more clearly, his edit was reverted). And, when an admin's edit was challenged and reverted, he can not fully protect his own version. I did not have much energy left at this moment, so I posted at Bbb's talk page only (if you see it, see Soham's reply too). But, I don't have any problem with his protection, so, you can re-assess his protection at WP:AN, or leave it as it is, do whatever you wish, that is not the main issue.
    And, I was not talking about edit warring between Bbb and me. Both of us have been editing here for a long time and know how to deal with such situation. I was talking about that other editor User:Pee and a bunch of other editors (User:Naveen etc, there might be few socks too). Might be unintended, but IMO, this article has become a scandalizing and defaming article. Political gaming or CoI/paid edits might be involved here too (these are not new for WikiProject India articles). I have already confessed, I don't have much knowledge on this person, so, for last two-three days I was attempting to draw attention of experienced Wikipedians and WikiProject India editors towards this article, so that they can do some study and comment/help. I request you to see this post which I posted at a WP:India editor's talk page. This will make clear, I hope, what I have been trying to do so far. --Tito☸Dutta 11:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
  • If you want to challenge Bbb23's administrative actions, the place to do so is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Asaram Bapu and WP:BLP where Bbb23 provided an explanation. It is unclear what you want. This is the NPOV noticeboard, so presumably you think something in the article is not neutral. What? Your report pointed to a section on a talk page where Bbb23 explained why three sections had been removed. Are you wanting to restore the material that Bbb23 removed? Are you wanting to remove more material? What action do you propose? Johnuniq (talk) 11:43, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
  • My "post" above and my "no post" at WP:AN shows I am neither worried nor annoyed with Bbb's reversion. You have told, I pointed towards Bbb's section at article's talk page. If you read my or Ugog Nizdast's reply in the same section (please read), you'll get details. In more clear words, there are two groups of editors in this article
  1. the first group who are writing all controversies with every possible details and removing those portions which talk about subject's positive works.
  2. the second group of editors are apparently followers of the subject and deleting all controversies.
So, NPoV might be badly disputed here Tito☸Dutta 12:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Johnuniq (talk · contribs). Perhaps there is a problem with the article, but this does not seem to be the place to raise it. Leujohn (talk, stalk me?) 17:15, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Requesting feedback

Requesting feedback on scope at Talk:Gospel of the Hebrews#Scope of this article. Thanks. Ignocrates (talk) 16:45, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Kim Cascone

This article does not cite a single reliable news source, and appears to be a vanity article written by Mr. Casscone himself. There's plenty of biographical information to be found, with absolutely no verifiability, and the article seems to conflict with Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Should be a candidate for deletion, if these issues cannot be addressed, and Mr. Cascone's Silent Records page also has zero citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.16.3.12 (talk) 23:18, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Ivan Massow

In the Ivan Massow article, User:Welsh-marches has recently added material which is always critical of the article subject, and seems to me to be worded in such a way so as to emphasize the negative. I am not disagreeing that some of this information should be added to the article, my concern is the way it is being presented. I have tried to word the information in a way which seems to me to be more neutral, though Welsh-marches doesn't see it that way. I do not have sufficient knowledge of the subject (financial services) to feel confident of discussing details on the talk page, so have come here. The particular wording which I seek comment on at the moment is in this edit.
For background, please note the discussion with a COI editor which took place here (and all sections beneath it) in 2012, in which myself and other editors, arrayed against a previous employee of Massow (User:Lisa Thorne), were trying (and ultimately succeeding) to prevent the article being too positive about it's subject. In my view Welsh-marches may possibly have a conflict of interest the other way; their editing history is primarily in the subject of financial services, and on 11th July 2012 they made a number of edits to this article which, in the main, tended to emphasize negative information about the article subject (e.g. see this edit). If I've brought this to the wrong noticeboard, can someone advise a better one (COIN?). Thanks. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 00:00, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

No conflict of interest since I am not in any way connected with Massow. I believe all my edits are well supported by the facts and referenced using reliable sources, often based on interviews given by Massow himself. I believe that PaleCloudedWhite is at risk of censoring the article in the name of neutrality. The facts are the facts and tell their own story. Massow is an interesting figure and his story deserves to be told in full, particularly as he has not been shy in talking to the media about his life. Welsh-marches (talk) 00:12, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but the 'story' which the facts tell depends on which facts are placed in the article, and how they are presented. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 02:18, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
I have access to the same internet that you do. Everything that I have added has been based on published sources. I am sorry if you feel that this portrays Massow in a negative way. By all means expand the article to include any facts that you feel have been missed. I do object, however, to censorship of the article disguised as attempts at neutrality or balance. The way to balance things is to include additional facts, not to remove those already there, particularly when they are closely based on reliable sources, including interviews and other sources provided by Massow. You are correct that my interests are in financial services and Massow does not appear to have been very successful there so the facts might seem to tell a negative story. You could expand the section on Jake and on charity work if you feel that would present a more balanced view. Welsh-marches (talk) 10:37, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
I am glad you have clarified your position. I shall be interested to hear whether other editors here consider it appropriate for an editor to state that they are only interested in editing the article from a particular perspective. As you state, you have access to the same internet as I do - you are also able to include additional facts and expand sections. Perhaps your disinclination to do so suggests that you are less interested in the overall quality of the article (and thus Wikipedia's aims) than inserting particular "facts" which you are keen to include. Considering you admit that your interests are in the same field in which the article subject operates, perhaps this is indeed a case for WP:COIN. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 13:05, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Nice try, but it doesn't really work like that and I think you know it. This is a collaborative process and everyone adds what they feel they can usefully add. I have some knowledge about financial services so I add that part, you may have other expertise. I have not stated I will only add content in that area and the edits that I have made there and in other articles are on a range of topics. I think you know that nobody is obliged to do anything here. I notice that you don't really argue that the information that I have added is wrong, presumably because you know that it is well supported by the sources. I am sure that between us and in conjunction with others we can create a good article that fully reflects the story of this interesting and complex individual. Good luck with your work. Welsh-marches (talk) 13:38, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
My concern with the information you wish to add is threefold: first, that it is a very particular and recent aspect of the article subject's history, and hence I think is unsuitable as per WP:BALASPS; second, it is not worded in a neutral way; and third, I have a general concern that you have a conflict of interest with regards to this article. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:31, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
I have replied to these things above and don't propose to explain it all again, apart from to say that just because we don't agree does not mean that I have a COI anymore than you do. Can you stop throwing accusations around please and threatening to report things to various places as you have here for instance. Your behaviour could be misconstrued as a form of user harassment over what is nothing more than a content disagreement. The COI Noticeboard specifically says that "COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content." For the avoidance of doubt, I have had no dealings of any kind whatsoever with Ivan Massow or any of his firms ever. Please direct your energies to something more constructive. Thanks. Welsh-marches (talk) 22:17, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Putting my COI question to one side, it is nevertheless imperative that additions to this article conform to Wikipedia's policy on neutrality. This is particularly important in this biography of a living person. See WP:BLP. Your previous assertion that it is acceptable to add 'negative' content with the view that 'positive' content can be added later or by someone else, is incorrect. The 'Balance' section of WP:BLP states "The idea expressed in WP:Eventualism – that every Wikipedia article is a work in progress, and that it is therefore okay for an article to be temporarily unbalanced because it will eventually be brought into shape – does not apply to biographies. Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times." (The italics are mine.) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:36, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
That really wasn't what I meant at all. Welsh-marches (talk) 13:42, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Animal shelter

This article seems to be very judgemental of "kill-shelters" and uses a lot of emotive language like "less grim." I don't feel qualified to write a more balanced article and wouldn't know where to begin. There is no mention of the fact that kill shelters usually have a policy of not turning away any animals. No-kill shelters have limited intakes, the overflow go to kill shelters. 105.224.143.112 (talk) 09:24, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the 'less grim' statement as in any case it was unsourced (or rather the source didn't back this and failed WP:RS. I'm not sure there are other problems other than the fact it doesn't mention intake differences. That should be added if you can source it. Dougweller (talk) 19:12, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
It's looking better now. Would be very helpful to get more content covering other parts of the world, especially the Global South. bobrayner (talk) 20:22, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Violence against Muslims template

I found Template:Violence against Muslims which links

Don't these all violate WP:NPOV? As they look like all just lists of conflicts between Muslims and other religious groups. Look like Wikipedia:Coatrack articles. Would having articles Persecution of religious group xyz then listing all conflicts they've been in be neutral?--Loomspicker (talk) 22:07, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

There a several templates of the form "Violence against X" and there are many categories of the form "Persecution of Y". What you won't find are templates of the form "Violence by X" or "Persecution by Y". In general, victim groupings are tolerated but perpetrator groupings are usually not. Although we do have categories of "Persecution by Y." That's the pattern. Jason from nyc (talk) 00:01, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

2002 Gujarat riots

There seems to be NPOV problem in 2002 Gujarat violence. I find the whole article to have departed from NPOV, with Books beings used wherever it suits the POV and Newspaper articles to be used wherever it suits the POV. For example, the opening paragraph of the article states that The attack on 27 February 2002 on a train, thought by most to have been carried out by Muslims, and which caused the deaths of 58 people . But the sources mentioned there did mention that it was direct attack by Muslims. So, after my edit got reverted twice[5], I took it to the Talk page[6]. There, I produced various sources that directly says carried out by Muslims, rather than thought to be carried out by Muslims. However, on the talk page, I could find fellow editors rejecting all the sources I gave. Not alone this example, the whole article seemed to be have done with non-NPOV and looks like a provocative article, rather than informative one. Please discuss on the NPOV status of the article and give your valuable suggestions! - Vatsan34 (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Some editors on the page in question are bent on claiming that sources from 2002 and 2005 refute a court finding from 2011 cited in multiple reliable sources. Furthermore, there have been a number of sources used in the article that do not actually say what people are claiming they do, as well as multiple unreliable sources used.Pectoretalk 00:03, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I had notified the concerned editors on their talk pages, on the same day I had brought the article to this NPOV discussion. But, it has been two weeks since this topic was started and no replies from them. Does it concretes my opinion that the article lacks NPOV and the editors are biased? - Vatsan34 (talk) 15:34, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
No, it means the editors who are involved are waiting for uninvolved editors to comment. Darkness Shines (talk) 15:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
It also means that the editors are tired of facing and refuting the same arguments over and over.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:57, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Actually, it should be me who should be tired of things that are happening. Being called a BJP brainwashed, sockpuppet, etc, I should be the one tired here, not the way around. Wikipedians should not be tired of arguments, especially when they are pushing away the POV from neutral zone. - Vatsan34 (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
You have been involved in this less than a month, I have been called a lot worse than that during the three months I've edited India related topics. And I've heard your tired arguments over and over. There is nothing neutral about trying to make the page look as if Muslims caused the violence when the large majority of the literature considers it a planned pogrom on Muslims by Hindus, and another large part of the literature throws doubt on the claims that "a Muslim Mob" set the Sabarmati express on fire, and another large body of literature documents the Gujarat high courts pro-Hindu bias and failure to conduct thorough unbiased investigations. There is no basis for considering the official Gujarati account neutral or objective, and for the article to be neutral it must include both the view of the Gujarati courts and BJP pundits as well as the many many dissenting sources.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, there is nothing Neutral in that article. Show those large majority of literature that shows it as planned pogrom on Muslims by Hindus. The same sources that were referenced throughout the article states that it was in fact carried out by Muslims. 1. In Hakeem, Farrukh B.; Maria R. Haberfeld, Arvind Verma (2012). Policing Muslim Communities: Comparative and International Context. Springer. p. 81, all I could find is this An attack by Muslims on Hindu pilgrims travelling in a train and burning of coach in Godhra that killed 50 Hindus set off... 2."An attack by Muslims on Hindu pilgrims traveling in a train and burning of a coach at Godhra that killed 50 Hindus set off a major retaliation inwhich almost 2,000 Muslims were killed (Sinha 2010)." 3. In A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand By Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Shankar Raghuraman Pg.32, it is mentioned The orgy of violence began in the early hours of February 27,2002 when kar sevaks...travelling on the Sabarmati Express were torched to death by a Muslim mob near an obscure railway station called Godhra . I am ready to provide all sources here, if you wish! - Vatsan34 (talk) 16:47, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Western academics like Paul Brass, Martha Nussbaum and Christophe Jaffrelot tend to give more credence to the Banerjee commission and the Concerned Citizens Tribunal than to the Nanavati committee and the SIT reports, which is reasonable given the former are independent whereas the official investigations are not, and given the documented irregularities of the official investigations.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Irregularities are more pronounced in Western publications rather than government nominated commissions. Banerjee commission was set up by Lalu Prasad Yadav to downsize the image of Nitish Kumar in their home-state Bihar, by shifting the core incident i.e.,Godhra train burning from inciting factor of subsequent violence to fire accident. This will, in turn, make this violence a planned pogrom, which will confirm the berth for Lalu in the state assembly elections. Try learning about the politics of a country before commenting on which is right and which is wrong. The non-BJP central Government (which was in rule for 9 years) would have nullified the Nanavati Commission, if it was just a lie and would have dismissed the apex court of India (Supreme Court of India), if it was giving a false judgement. Can we go ahead and say Supreme Courts of all countries deliver false judgements?? Again, show me where did the Western authors rely to Banerjee rather than Nanavati commission. - Vatsan34 (talk) 14:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
I am sorry but I dont have a reason take your word for why the Banerjee commisison was set up or the validity of its results. Here Brass a highly respected academic, clearly relies more on the CCT findings and is highly critical f the fficial stories of Muslim instigation. In The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future. Harvard University Press. pp. 50–51. Martha Nussbaum wrote: ""There is by now a broad consensus that the Gujarat violence was a form of ethnic cleansing, that in many ways it was premeditated, and that it was carried out with the complicity of the state government and officers of the law"", and she cites the CCT reports conclusions abut the unlikelihod of a Muslim mob causing the Godhra fire. In this article Jaffrelot is highly critical of the SIT investigation and the Nanavati commission - basically rejecting their validity. Jaffrelot, C. (2012). Gujarat 2002: What Justice for the Victims?. Economic & Political Weekly, 47(8), 77. As long as such prominent voices doubt the validity of the official story, it cannot stand uncontradicted in the article - that would be a gross violation of WP:NPOV.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:04, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Genetically modified food controversies

Genetically modified food controversies. IMHO this article is not NPOV according to its title. There is material in the article that is not controversial that should be removed as promotional 'fluff' for one side of the controversy. There is notable RS material that should be added that isn't. When either are done then the edits are reverted without adequate discussion using what appears to be WP:GANG and WP:OWN. I could provide diffs but I will let the regulars here judge by looking at the article, history, and talk pages.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:31, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I feel this issue extends beyond just the one article. I tried to add Taco Bell GMO recall material to the controversies article and it was reverted. I then created it as a stand alone article as a well sourced and notable event. At present others are seeking consensus for a move to StarLink corn recall. I suspect this is a preliminary move to eventually redirect it to Genetically modified maize and remove much of the material along the way. There are many editors that seem to want this incident either swept under the rug or buried deep in other articles. The same happened with Roundup (herbicide). At present some editors are trying to unmerge it back to a standalone article because much of the material was unilaterally removed during the merge by one editor. See Talk:Roundup_(herbicide)#RfC:_Un-merge_from_Glyphosate.3F for details. A similar merge and material removal was also done with Organic farming methods. That merge had zero discussion, let alone consensus. Our goal should be to expand and split material for our readers and not to collapse and delete it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:06, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Question about editorial standards in projects:policy:coi name space

I started editing the Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest policy page recently. I noticed systemic bias towards Public Relations editing. As I edit, I have faced reversions simply because they disagree, and they have not entertained consensus building discussion on talk. Since PR firms have the ability to recruit more editors and simply outnumber disagreeable opinions, the argumentation process of consensus building is important to ensure we're not gravitating towards vote counts.

So, some issues I am seeing on the Wikipedia policy page on COI is that oped pieces that give tailored advise to those editing in Corporate Communications/Public Relations capacity from and written in a way that resonates with them. Referencing to its PR trade organizations like PRSA and Further Readings material that tailor to "edit for consideration" / vested interest group are also quite questionable.

Can I get some input on this?Cantaloupe2 (talk) 13:23, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I took a brief look at the discussion in the talk page, and I think your efforts relating to section 5 of the talk page seem reasonable. Of course, be careful not to start an edit war. I think you should have left the "Further Readings" section alone though, as the existence of the links doesn't seem to harm the overall neutrality of the article (at least in my opinion). I'll look into the page with further detail tomorrow and make a more detailed reply. Leujohn (talk, stalk me?) 18:22, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Have you had a chance to look at the PDF? It's a self-published write-up, which means that the only option is have it there, or not have it there and not subject to editorial scrutiny of contents. Should that kind of original research opinion piece have any place for representation on Wikipedia policy article? Let us know what you think of it once you have a chance to take a look. Some of the books are credible, yet topics of business ethics and such is a tailored audience material towards PR editors. Other self-published materials raise questions on why they were chosen to have representation as EL. Wikipedia's idea isn't to allow the use of topic page's EL section as a think tank, is it?Cantaloupe2 (talk) 09:21, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Usage share of web browsers; NPOV dispute over whether a statistics source should be mentioned along with other statistics sources

The article Usage share of web browsers has a summary section which cites current statistics from a number of statistics counters measuring page impressions and/or unique visitors to websites on the Internet. Recently editor user:Complainer raised concerns about one of the sources (Net Applications) and deleted the source from the table. The argument for deleting was this "Netapplications statistics do run against common sense, with MSIE market shares that are double those of any other independent source, including wikipedia itself (and I would liek to add "and my own tracker", but will abstain); these guys [1] make a good argument of how and why they do it. I personally think their presence in the article is embarrassing, to say the least, and am about to remove them. If anybody sees it fit to reinstate them, feel free". I (user:Useerup) disagreed and reinstated the statistics, noting that "Reverted. Netapplications is *the* most cited source in reliable sources (3rd party) and thus *the* most notable source". The statistics was promptly deleted again and we inched preciously close to an edit war.

User user:Complainer wants to remove the statistics because he/she has concerns about the quality/potential bias. I (user:Useerup) don't believe that suppressing the most often cited statistics (sample list provided in the discussion) on the subject would be a fair and neutral representation of the topic.

The discussion on the talk page here: Talk:Usage share of web browsers#Source for faking. Please join the discussion with your point of view. Thanks. Useerup (talk) 21:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Thomas Jefferson

Page: Thomas Jefferson (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Text: "Overseers were instructed to provide wool for knitting to any negro woman that wanted it".[Pierson, Hamilton W.,(1862). JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON (1862) p. 63][[7]

The source is a direct quote from Jefferson's instructions to his foreman, where he wrote, "Give wool to my negro women who desire it, as well those with Mr. Craven as others, but particularly to the house women here."[8]

This sentence was added to the section about how Jefferson treated his slaves. I object to using it because it implies a positive treatment, yet no explanation is provided in the source about why Jefferson wrote this. It could be that his slaves were allowed to earn income by making and selling clothing or it could be that he refused to buy clothing for his slaves and forced them to make their own. Also, I find the use of the term "negro woman" to be objectionable, even if "my negro women" appeared in the original text.

TFD (talk) 18:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

This is just a passing opinion (and perhaps posting here requires some authority that I don't possess), but I see that no one's responded. I would make three suggestions:
  • If this detail is retained, one solution would be to use it as a direct quote: Jefferson instructed overseers to "give wool to my negro women who desire it". I'm fairly sure that in WIkipedia's voice we don't say "negro women". I don't see the detail as being either positive or negative, at least not out of context. Even if it means he didn't buy clothing for the slaves and they made their own, I don't think it was unusual at that time for most people other than the well-to-do to make at least some of their own clothing, particularly woolen items.
  • However, if that's the source cited, it's OR. For instance, isn't "knitting" just an assumption? "Wool" might also be the raw material for spinning and subsequent weaving, as is indicated in the passage just below about 10-year-old girls beginning their lives of labor. A source that speaks to the "treatment" of slaves from 1862 cannot be regarded as a secondary source for the topic. The inclusion of the detail would require context, preferably from a post-1970 scholar, or even better from the last ten or fifteen years. As you've observed, this is not a transparent fact if the intention is to point to some conclusion about how Jefferson interacted with his slaves. Is it needed? Is it worth the trouble to research further?
  • At the top of the diff, I notice also that we say (with a proper citation) Jefferson felt a moral obligation and a duty to protect and provide well for his slaves. Not being mindreaders of the dead, we don't know what Jefferson "felt". It may be that scholars have noted passages in which he expresses his sense of moral obligation in writing. It may be that scholars have collected information on how he interacted with his slaves, and that scholars have drawn the conclusion that he acted on his sense of moral obligation. It may be that scholars have collected testimonia from his contemporaries on how he "treated" his slaves, and can report that they observed how well Jefferson protected and provided for them. Biographers or historians may offer these psychological insights as conclusions of their research, but the encyclopedia avoids asserting them as facts.
You can just take these comments for what they're worth, but not having read the whole section, in general this diff causes me some concern that even when scholars are properly cited, the statements aren't entirely clear that these are interpretations, and some of them are quite dated (1862, 1901). Jefferson's policy was is the correct way to frame these kinds of observations; Jefferson would not overwork his slaves, expecting them to work no harder than free farmers is not. How do we know what he expected? Should it say something like "Jefferson's diaries record that he did not want to overwork his slaves, and expected them" etc? Or "It was Jefferson's stated practice not to overwork his slaves, expecting" etc? Without a close examination of the sources, it's hard to say how to make these statements more precise, contextual, grounded, neutral, and in keeping with current scholarship. Sorry, I know that's more than you asked for, but I found this rather surprisingly "off" in tone for such a high-profile article. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:18, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Cynwolfe makes excellent points. The sourcing for the slavery text should not be from before about 1970. I found that there was synthesis involved in the wool paragraph so I removed it. As well, the TJ biography article should allow most of the slavery details to be presented in the main subarticle, Thomas Jefferson and slavery. Only a summary of this article should be in the biography—the most important points and themes. Binksternet (talk) 22:48, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Revisionist_Western

This article is written entirely from very biased and VERY RACIST viewpoint, could this please be looked into. 219.90.242.41 (talk) 06:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

It is not written from a racist POV, quite the opposite, but it does need sources. TFD (talk) 14:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
The article is currently dominated by a single dramatic edit [9] which is the sole edit by Lsuecamp; this edit removed most of the text and all of the references. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 07:26, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
Jonathan A Jones, there is a term for such behavior: vandalism. Dimadick (talk) 08:23, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Blood-spinning

An unregistered user pointed out several potential neutrality/verifiability issues in Blood-spinning (talk page) and added a POV tag. About a month and a half ago, I made a few revisions attempting to clean up some of the language and improve citations. I haven't heard anything since on the talk page - it's not a heavily trafficked page though - and I'm curious if there are still major neutrality concerns, or if we can consider the issue resolved?

Thanks! SwedishRussian (talk) 22:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi, according to the template docs, in the absence of a discussion on the POV issues the template may be removed from the article. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 19:28, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Branding individuals as bigots via Templates

We are currently debating the listing of individual and organizations on the templates Template:Islamophobia and to a lessor degree Template:Racism topics (see Template talk:Islamophobia). What are the criteria for inclusion?

  • (a) In essence we are branding individuals as bigots by pigeon-holing them on these templates and then embedding the brand on their biography page.
  • (b) I suggest that if we do list individuals, we should seek a broad and near unanimous consensus of sources if we are to avoid partisan bias. Broad across-the-board sourcing should be a reasonable criteria for making such a judgment.
  • (c) This isn’t a problem when the subject openly adheres to an ideology. Besides the two previously mentioned templates, I've looked at templates on fascism and communism and there seems to be no problem because the individuals listed are open adherents of the movements covered in those templates. In the Template:Racism topics we have a mix of those who admit to adhering to racialist theories or proudly boast of being a racial supremacist and cases where the individual/group denies such tendencies. In Template:Islamophobia almost all the individuals/groups deny being Islamophobic. Without broad across-the-board sourcing or an explicit admission we should withhold adding these names to the template.
  • (d) Indeed, we might want to consider taking this a step further and omitting biographies of living persons from the templates without their explicit self-inclusion to avoid witch hunts and WP:BLP violations. Jason from nyc (talk) 13:15, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
AS far as I can tell, there are no BLPs containing the Islamophobia template: [10]. On the more general point, I would suggest that perhaps Jason from nyc might do better to take into account the fact that this is the neutral point of view noticeboard, and inflammatory and hyperbolic language is hardly appropriate here. If he wants a serious discussion on the issue, I suggest he starts a new thread worded in more neutral terms. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:01, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Agree, no individuals are listed so BLP is not an issue. Also compare with templates such as Template:Antisemitism. // Liftarn (talk)
I view categories and templates as navigation aids. If reliable sources say x is y, then we can usually use them. I'll also note that, for instance, white supremacists generally say they are not really supremacists, just nationalists - so we might quote them, etc but also use sources where they meet our criteria that describe them as supremacists, and those categories/templates would be appropriate. We do not simply accept at face value what an organisation says about itself and prohibit any templates or categories that don't reflect what the organisation says. Dougweller (talk) 17:57, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
I disagree. Some organizations are closely tied to one or two people so that they are surrogates for the individual or individuals involved. One is even named after the individual who runs it. Jason from nyc (talk) 18:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Both individuals and organizations omitted ... Jason from nyc (talk) 11:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The case of bias categories has already been discussed, the result being that individuals and organizations should no longer be added to the various "bias" categories (racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, anti-Islam sentiment, etc). The same should go for templates. --Ankimai (talk) 07:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, I was unaware that the discussion already took place. The same should go for templates. Jason from nyc (talk) 12:15, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
To be specific, we need to follow WP:BLPCAT and we also have guidelines at Wikipedia:Categorization of people. How this affects organisations should be done case by case. Dougweller (talk) 11:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
WP:BLPCAT makes it clear that list and templates are like categories. Thus, the consensus on a prohibition of people and organizations in bias categories should establish it for bias templates and lists. Jason from nyc (talk) 13:22, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
It seems clear that long standing consensus applies to both individuals and organizations with respect to templates as it does to categories and lists. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
No, BLPCAT refers only to BLPs. It doesn't mention organisations. What WP:BLP does say is " A harmful statement about a small group or organization comes closer to being a BLP problem than a similar statement about a larger group; and when the group is very small, it may be impossible to draw a distinction between the group and the individuals that make up the group. When in doubt, make sure you are using high-quality sources."
BLPCAT itself says "Caution should be used with content categories that suggest a person has a poor reputation (see false light). For example, Category:Criminals and its subcategories should only be added for an incident that is relevant to the person's notability; the incident was published by reliable third-party sources; the subject was convicted; and the conviction was not overturned on appeal." Caution is the key word here. It doesn't say we can't use them. Dougweller (talk) 15:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I see you removed organisations from the template claiming consensus here, I've restored them as you don't have consensus here. Dougweller (talk) 15:32, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm a bit surprised that a fairly small and remote discussion decided something like that. I ould have thought a larger RFC would be desired given it's such a core policy being changed. It seems a bit inconsistent with other aspects of BLP that would allow such descriptions if self identified. Ravensfire (talk) 15:39, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
As I read the template... The purpose is to link readers to related articles about Islamiphobia (as a conceptual phenomenon). I don't think it appropriate to use it on articles on people or organizations that might be considered "Islamiphobic". Such articles are not really within the scope of the template. (Note... I could see adding the template to an article about an organization that is dedicated to the study of the phenomenon of Islamiphobia... if such an organization exists). Blueboar (talk) 15:48, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Organisations have been removed from the template once again, this time by another editor with no explanation. Doesn't seem a good idea while this discussion is ongoing. I agree with Ravensfire, we would need a larger RfC. Dougweller (talk) 15:54, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
The prohibition against adding individuals and groups to bias categories is long established and cautionary words are added to bias categories to hinder such additions. I referred to BLPCAT to show that templates and lists are treated on an equal basis to categories. Yes, in BLPCAT it is in reference to individuals but my point was that templates are categories--in a visual form. I thought we were agreeing. I see not. Jason from nyc (talk) 16:02, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
A larger RfC probably would be best. As an addendum to my comment, I see this the templates under discussion as being similar to Template:Criminology and penology... it would be inappropriate to add that template to articles about individual criminals or crime gangs. Blueboar (talk) 16:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
A RFC would be helpful to settle this long-standing issue, but until then we should go by the consensus established as early as 2011 that "the general trend and the BLP policy incline against the inclusion of individuals and organisations" in bias categories and templates. The burden of proof rests on those who want to make exceptions from the general rule for the Islamophobia template. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:11, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes we should go by that consensus as far as it takes us, but it is to do with categories not templates. Formerip (talk) 18:17, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Where is the best place to raise an RfC? We definitely need one as there is edit-warring and claims of consensus/no consensus going on. Text probably should be "Should organisations be included in templates such as Islamophobia, Racism and anti-Semitism". We need to get more people involved. Dougweller (talk) 21:01, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I would guess Talk:Racism would probably be the best place to go. It would probably also be a good idea to check the "Encyclopedia of Race and Racism" and the "Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States", among others, if anyone has access to them. They're supposedly both available to me locally according to WorldCat, but it might be awhile before I can generate lists of articles in them. That is, if anyone thinks they would be useful. John Carter (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm thinking Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) with abundant FYI links posted to the talk pages for the various other guidelines or articles where people who are likely to be interested hang out. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:29, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
It would probably be a good idea to get it included in the next edition of the Signpost as well. John Carter (talk) 21:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm out today, anyone want to start one at the Village Pump? I think my suggesting wording is neutral, which it needs to be. Dougweller (talk) 05:29, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Now at WP:VPP#RfC:"Should organisations be included in templates such as Islamophobia, Racism and anti-Semitism" Dougweller (talk) 17:42, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Template Antisemitism

What are people suggesting about this template, which mentions Jew Watch and Stormfront? What other templates will be affected? Or are just the Islamophobia and racism templates being singled out? Dougweller (talk) 19:57, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The rule applies there as well. In regard to categories it’s a policy applied uniformly with respect to Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, and Arabic bias categories. It appears to be only 3 templates affected, as templates are relatively new compared to categories. But the rule should apply to anti-bias templates uniformly. Jason from nyc (talk) 22:42, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
It would also affect {{Nazism sidebar}}. // Liftarn (talk)
Disagree. Nazism is a political ideology, not a sentiment. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:31, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
Please explain what you think the difference is. For instance some nazis prefer the label "national liberals". // Liftarn (talk)
Big difference, you are mixing up things big time. See List of political ideologies: Nazism's right there with Communism and Islamism, but Islamophobia and Antisemitism are not. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:41, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
A common trait among islamophobes is to claim Islam is an ideology and not a religion. I also notice that you refused to answer the question. // Liftarn (talk)
I nominated all 3 of these for deletion. Feel free to discuss it there. USchick (talk) 22:39, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Direct Democracy Ireland

This article was listed at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Direct_Democracy_Ireland. Jeff Rudd does have a COI with the topic, but that that does not mean his concerns are not valid. For example, he states that "Direct Democracy Ireland is NOT an Freeman Ideology based organization." The Direct Democracy Ireland article now states: "A number of publications and commentators have highlighted DDI's close links to the Freemen on the land movement and the Christian Solidarity Party. DDI leader Ben Gilroy denied links to the Freeman movement when questioned about them on the Prime Time current affairs show on RTÉ and by the Irish Times.[] This is written in a hopelessly biased way. The opinion of the mysterious number of publications and commentators is presented as fact, fails to characterize what "close links" means, presents Gilroy side as though his is on trial and fails to establish that Gilroy denied each allegation of close links to the Freemen on the land movement made by each of the mysterious number of publications and commentators. "Freeman on the Land" also appears in the Infobox political party, even though it is clear that the Direct Democracy Ireland party does not hold itself out as having "Freeman on the Land" Ideology. This has only served to inflame Jeff Rudd (see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Direct_Democracy_Ireland. He appears to have a number of other concerns, however the Freeman/Freemen issue appears to be the most pressing. Jeff Rudd joined Wikipedia four days ago. To help get this matter under control, Freeman/Freemen references in the Direct Democracy Ireland article should be removed per NPOV. Given the current short length of the article, I suspect that including anything about Freeman/Freemen in the article would not place the subject in context at this point in time. If neutral wording of claims and views regarding Freeman/Freemen that are written in a fair way and without bias that place the subject in context and are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources, then that information can be added to the article. Until then, it would help bring the situation under control to keep out such POV. Please consider Freeman/Freemen references in the Direct Democracy Ireland article per NPOV for the time being. -- Jreferee (talk) 02:03, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I, Jeff Rudd, have asked that the management of Wikipedia to stop anonymous editors of its service, to post ALLEGATIONS up as supposed facts. I have removed at times references that were WRONGLY stated that they were facts (thus proven) when in fact there were just ALLEGATIONS (and NOT proven).

It should be also noted that is ironic that anon' editors are allowed to post inaccurate items up - while those that actually are in such an org and know the truth - in some cases, having been there - that they cannot be allowed to edit and post the truth - with their real name attached and thus stand on public record by what they state. Wikipedia is currently being edited wrongly and deliberately by people from a political party called Sinn Fein. We know its them, we know were its coming from, we know a lot more. we are willing and will if necessary, post more information about them.

I have argued against ANON editors - ANON' editors - to this page. If people wish to post up items to the DDI page, tell them to stop being cowardly and identify themselves if their facts are supposedly true! ...But no, ANON editors are allowed post inaccurate ALLEGATIONS - not proven facts - and pass them off in reference as supposed then truth facts proved, when they are not and no evidence exists that they have been proven true.

For example, on the site in contention, its stated that DDI is of Freeman nature. This is a complete and utter lie. I have repeatedly asked for this to be proven. Sinn Fein advocates (political opposition) have anon' posted ALLEGATIONS of this as referenced - not posted EVER, actual real proof.

Again I state for the record:

There is NO Freeman ideology in the constitution of DDI organisation. There is NO Freeman ideology in the rules of the DDI organisation. There is NO Freeman postings on our forums. There is NO Freeman ideology on our website. There is NO freeman mandate in the Mandate of the DDI organisation. There is NO Freeman direction of any kind in the DDI organisation. Even the founder Ray Whitehead was never a Freeman - and NEVER even ALLEGED to be one!


...Yet a political person we know from another party, is allowed anon' to post that we are of wacky Freeman origin - and ONLY reference ALLEGATIONS, many which their own party has actually put out to try besmirch the name of our growing popular organisation! They continuously reference their own allegations submitted into their own paper tabloids produced from their own offices in Dublin, Ireland!

Does anyone here understand the difference between ALLEGATIONS and PROOF? Allegations are NOT proof - they are just crap made up many a time as tried to be passed as proof. As in the case of Wikipedia and Sinn Fein people posting ALLEGATIONS, they are continuously referencing them into Wikipedia as supposed PROOF - then they are not Proof but just ALLEGATIONS!

The "sourced material" referred to, is ALLEGATIONS - NOT proof. 1000 ALLEGATIONS adds up to nothing if there is no PROOF of any description (and there is NONE), to back it. Yet for some bizarre reason, on this particular page, ALLEGATIONS are incredulously accepted as something proved! Why is this? Its completely nuts to do this! It destroys Wikipedias reputation in regard to posting that are factual.

  • I have also NOT called for an all out Wiki war - I request verified proof of this - I have asked others to assist in correcting a number of mistakes - I have asked this through my Facebook page publically and with nothing to hide in malicious intent or underhand desire. If I wanted to go to war with Wikipedia, the last thing I would do, is to announce such daftness publically. More lies being spread it seems.
  • The lies don't end there. Above its stated that "...so on his user page has over the last number of weeks carried out a large number of disruptive edits" - this again is a complete lie.

I have done edits over the last few days - indeed a WIKI moderator (Jreferee) elsewhere has acknowledged already that I have only joined a few days ago - that don't stop others out there however from continuing again to spread lies. The digital dates attached to my edits will be on record for Wiki management to examine at any time of their choosing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeff Rudd (talk • contribs) 12:58, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Now I am stating FOR THE RECORD AND I WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO THE FOLLOWING: the statement publically made at my personal site at: theruddsite dot com

I publically stand by what I say. I am a public face and chairman of DDI. A position I have been democratically and legally elected to. It (at the very least) should be allowed to be posted that a representative of the organisation, has gone on public record to refute the ALLEGATIONS made - especially the ones made on this site by cowardly always anonymous people from another organisation.

I will continue to state this in the forth coming local and national elections here in Ireland and I will continue to highlight the total wrong inaccuracies in the Wikipedia service allowed be entered by anonymous people from another organisation - one thats highly under question within our own island borders, one that has a very history of killing people over decades including many, many British, Irish and international people.

I repeat:

There is NO Freeman ideology in the constitution of DDI organisation. There is NO Freeman ideology in the rules of the DDI organisation. There is NO Freeman postings on our forums. There is NO Freeman ideology on our website. There is NO freeman mandate in the Mandate of the DDI organisation. There is NO Freeman direction of any kind in the DDI organisation. Even the founder Ray Whitehead was never a Freeman - and NEVER even ALLEGED to be one!

We have repeatedly asked these people to produce evidence - not allegations, EVIDENCE - they have ALL so far been not able to show anywhere in our constitution, etc anything that is related to either.

I request that the always anonymous posters provide PROOF - do they understand that word? I don't think they want to for good reason. - I request PROOF - NOT ALLEGATIONS just more referenced and tried to be passed as concrete proof - that DDI is of Freeman basis. IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT AND THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE IN DDI WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT STRANGE, OUT OF FATE THINKING!

Its requested by myself and my organisation that the ALLEGATION stated be removed from the summary box on the right side of the DDI page - that we are of Freeman ideology. It has not been proven and cannot be - its simply is false and there is no proof out there or posted up referenced as verified proof by ANY independent body.

WE ABSOLUTELY ARE NOT - NOR DO WE WANT TO BE!

Please note also: ONE person might have links to Freeman thinking - the rest of the other 4,000 plus members and fans do not. ONE person does not automatically make a whole organisation what they are. We have Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and other ideologies and faiths in our organisation - in fact more so in numbers than ONE person what MIGHT be of Freeman thinking.

The statement on the Direct Democracy Ireland page where it states "A number of publications and commentators have highlighted DDI's close links to the Freemen on the land movement and the Christian Solidarity Party" is incorrect. The statement on Wiki of what they allege is incorrect, they allege that ONE person is connect to the daft Freeman stuff - not the org! It is not - there might be one person who is - that that like many others, does not taint the organisation and its many thousands of others, right away.

For the record, there is NO material proof that all the rest of the people in it are of Freeman thinking - there might be material that one person might be - but not all the rest. I ask that the statement on the DDI page be adjusted correctly even along the line of "One of the members has been associated with... - while no verified proof exists that shows the rest are of the same ideology"

If a member tomorrow is associated with a party called "The Monster Raving Looney Party" - does that automatically make the rest of us one too? I don't think so - and I don't think anyone with any sense would think so too! ...However one person (anon' editor) and one org behind them is trying so far successfully espouse that this should be the case. This is absolute nuts, a lie and one posted with a political agenda behind it!

Jeff Rudd (talk) 12:19, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Word perfect article

The word perfect artice in my opinion biased stating opnions as facts such the suit is perfectly intergated — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.90.41.20 (talk) 11:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC regarding List of new religious movements

I would welcome any input in the existing RfC regarding the inclusion of Landmark Worldwide in the above list, a discussion currently taking place at Talk:List of new religious movements#RfC regarding Landmark Worldwide. I would also welcome any comments regarding possibly changing the name of the above list in the section immediately below the RfC, where I propose changing it to more clearly allow the inclusion of groups which were referred to as "cults" or "sects" prior to the academic world developing and using the term NRM. I add the note here because, unfortunately, I believe that there is and has been over the years at least occasional POV pushing for Landmark in the wiki, particularly as it relates to criticism of Landmark. John Carter (talk) 16:26, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

"Gay people" vs. "persons with homosexual inclinations" or "with a same-sex attraction"

Which is more neutral: "gay people" or "persons with homosexual inclinations"/"with a same-sex attraction"? Discussion here. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:35, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I think my view would probably be that "gay people" would be more neutral, but it may all depend on the context. Why is the issue being raised here? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 09:25, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Answered here [11]. Cavann (talk) 18:54, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
They are not the same thing.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:39, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Aesthetic Realism

The article Aesthetic Realism is in violation of WP:NPOV in numerous ways. This has been a long-term problem. I will describe its recent history. Beginning in July 2013, I started trying to improve the article, believing that it was both poorly written and biased in favor of the controversial philosophy it is about. I initially made 38 edits. Some of them simply corrected grammar and formatting. Others were more substantial, removing unsourced claims (for example, that gay men and lesbians succeeded in changing their sexual orientations through studying Aesthetic Realism) and eccentric and unencyclopedic language (such as the use of the expression "changed from homosexuality" to describe these alleged changes in sexual orientation). All of these changes were reverted by LoreMariano here, with the excuse that they had not been discussed beforehand. Note that her edit, in addition to restoring numerous errors of grammar and formatting, also restored the following unsourced text: "Some men who began to study to change from homosexuality discontinued their study. Others, who at one time stated they had changed, later decided to live a gay lifestyle. Still others indicate that the change from homosexuality they first experienced in the 1970s and 80s is authentic and continues to the present day." LoreMariano subsequently edit warred in an attempt to restore that material, as seen here. Eventually, the material was removed by Cavann (seen here) and LoreMariano and other editors accepted this. I was also able to correct the article's formatting and some of its grammar (although Aesthetic Realist editors insisted, for no good reason, on retaining some incorrect grammar, as seen for example here).

The article still has numerous problems. I shall describe only two of the worst.

The first involves the removal of a link to the Sexual orientation change efforts article. The link was initially added by me here. The link was removed here by Nathan43, one of the most aggressive and disruptive editors at Aesthetic Realism. Nathan43's edit summary ("Link removed because it deliberately diverts attention to article supportive of editor's own views") indicates that his removal of the link had no basis in policy, and was simply motivated by his own personal dislike of and disagreement with the contents of the Sexual orientation change efforts article (this was what led me to describe his edit as vandalism). The removal of the link was discussed on the talk page. The archived discussion can be seen here. As can be seen, I made several arguments for including the link, arguments which the Aesthetic Realist editors ignored. I pointed out, for example, that despite the insistence of Aesthetic Realist editors that Aesthetic Realism has nothing to do with conversion therapy or sexual orientation change efforts, the Aesthetic Realism article is within the Sexual orientation change efforts category and the link should therefore be perfectly appropriate. No reply to this argument was ever made.

The other problem concerns the fact that much of the article is written in the peculiar jargon favored by Aesthetic Realists, rather than in neutral and encyclopedic language. This has been the subject of a long, inconclusive discussion that can be seen here.

The continuing problems with the article have a simple cause, which frankly is that most of the editors interested in it are Aesthetic Realists and edit in an extremely biased fashion, removing any material that they perceive as being critical of Aesthetic Realism. It is a disgrace to Wikipedia that they have largely been able to get away with this. I would encourage other editors to take an interest in this article's problems and see what can be done to rectify them. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 08:45, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Question of the NPOV of article-page regarding "astro-turfing"

After an unsolicited and purely curiosity-based reading of the page on internet astro-turfing my personal impression was that the page, while very elaborate and well-footnoted, still left the reader with a distinctly less-than-nuetral impression of the article's point-of-view. One must acknowledge the presence of sourced and properly-presented factual evidence from a number of opposing perspectives the overall narrative remained overtly favorable to one particular POV. This commenter was appreciative of the efforts obviously employed by the author(s?) to maintain the NPOV but felt that those efforts fell only slightly short and since the page had received such responsible attentions it deserved to be informed that it might have over-compensated in one direction away from the ideal of a NPOV. Sincerely, and w/o prejudice, tobiathan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.81.166.102 (talk) 23:05, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

The term civil society as used in 1990s in U.S.: a result of communist Polish propaganda. Neutral? Factual?

Hello all. Civil society currently states that "The term entered public discourse in the United States and around the world in the 1990s in effect of intensive work of communist propaganda in Poland" in the lead. Aside from the "in effect of"... it sounds like the sort of claim that needs good sourcing. Is this neutral? Biosthmors (talk) 09:12, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

It's in the body of the article now. I moved it down, but it's still there. Biosthmors (talk) 17:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I was only able to find one of the two sources used, and it does not support the claim. Also, the it does not make sense. Why would Communists in post-Communist Poland use propaganda to popularize this term in the U.S.? The article also says, "However, research shows that communist propaganda had the most important influence on the development and popularization of the idea instead, in an effort to legitimize neoliberal transformation in 1989." That seems garbled as well. Why would Communists want to legitimize neoliberalism? TFD (talk) 17:55, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
Strange indeed, I have removed it. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 21:29, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
Well analyzed, eh? Without pointing fingers, POV pushing is continuing... AgadaUrbanit (talk) 04:00, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Jewish Bolshevism

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

There is a discussion at Talk:Jewish Bolshevism#RfC: Is Jewish Bolshevism a conspiracy theory?.

TFD (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Jewish bolshevism, according to the reliable sources that discuss the term, was a theory that the Jews were behind the Communist conspiracy which, along with Jewish capitalists, bankers and mainstream media, Masons and the illuminati, was plotting world control. The main issue is whether we should restrict our sources to publications that discuss the theory, or provide detailed information about the "disproportionate representation" of Jews in Communism, which according to some editors is the reason why the theory developed. TFD (talk) 21:35, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The way how this is tried to be presented (claiming that people with some Jewish ancestry) are by definition Jews is racist. The claim that Bolshevism was Jewish conspiracy is racist conspiracy theory which and can not be redefined or remodeled.--Tritomex (talk) 17:24, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment: The title of the article seems to imply the legitimacy of the basic notion, which is at odds with the lede's assertion that "Jewish Bolshevism" is a paranoid conspiracy theory. Assuming there's general agreement about that among scholars, a more neutral title might be "Jewish Bolshevism" or "Jewish-Bolshevism" Theory, with quotation marks to indicate that the term is employed by way of quoting the theory's advocates (because there's no other recognized name for the phenomenon), and not as a matter of choice or endorsement by Wikipedia.
Surely the stated question regarding sources comes down to a choice between secondary sources and original research? Sources should discuss the "Jewish-Bolshevism" theory, not Jewish Bolsheviks or Jewish Influences on Bolshevism or whatever else is being offered. An even-handed treatment of the theory would presumably touch upon whatever factual basis its proponents may have had, as well as its opponents' rebuttals; but the focus of the article ought to be on the theory itself, as formulated by its leading proponents (including major variants and any controversies over its formulation); its origins and history, and the historical context or contexts in which it arose and developed; important proponents; actions or policies influenced by the theory; criticisms and counterarguments; important opponents; and so forth.
Attempts to load the article with proofs of the theory's correctness (or, for that matter, incorrectness) would seem almost by definition to constitute advocacy and original research. Scholarly sources examining the factual basis, vel non, for the theory might conclude that it is or is not well-founded, and if they are creditable sources they should be acknowledged in the article; but their arguments and evidence should not be set forth at length.
Some of the passion that's been expressed in connection with the article might be defused a bit by putting "Jewish Bolshevism" in quotation marks, as suggested above; and by expressly acknowledging that different states, institutions, communities, families, and individuals have differed widely, and sometimes violently, over who is a Jew and what it means to be a Jew. Except when quoting, it may be best to avoid the unqualified terms Jew and Jewish, and instead to speak of "persons of Jewish ancestry" (as when referring to culturally assimilated persons who are nevertheless classified by the state as Jews), "members of the Jewish faith" (if religious practice is at issue), "ethnic Jews" (or some better term, e.g., with reference to unassimilated Jews, perhaps confined to ghettos, who share a Jewish ethnic identity, but who may or may not practice the Jewish religion), and so on. I'm sure editors more knowledgeable of the subject will be able to improve considerably on these suggestions.

Jdcrutch (talk) 06:20, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Liberty University, Jerry Falwell and Sun Myung Moon

In August 2007 an editor added a paragraph[Sun Myung Moon] concerning financial aid given to [[:Liberty University]] ([[Special:EditPage/Liberty University|edit]] | [[Talk:Liberty University|talk]] | [[Special:PageHistory/Liberty University|history]] | [[Special:ProtectPage/Liberty University|protect]] | [[Special:DeletePage/Liberty University|delete]] | [{{fullurl:Special:WhatLinksHere/Liberty University|limit=999}} links] | [{{fullurl:Liberty University|action=watch}} watch] | logs | views) through two Unification Church organisations. Although other critical or controversial material has been removed along the way, this stayed in the article, with modifications, until it was removed 6 days ago with an edit summary stating "Removed debt buy-out as only founding endowments are typically included in university entries and not individual contributions". I reinstated and the original editor, rather than revert me, started a discussion at Talk:Liberty University. He revised his objection, saying that ""Removed debt buy-out as only founding endowments are included in university entries and individual contributions outside of endowments are never included" and pointing out that it isn't in our university guidelines or in any other university page. I suggested that that was not an argument that would hold weight and that the only argument against it would be NPOV, specifically WP:UNDUE and since then that has been the main focus of the debate. As I understand the discussion, we have people who are saying that this is not a real issue nor controversial (or at least it hasn't been shown to be so), and would not be of interest to readers. There's a side debate about whether the main report as published in the LA Times is WP:PRIMARY and if so it shouldn't be used (and at the moment it isn't in the article anyway), but I think it can be used.

It's also been suggested that "The involvement shifts to Jerry Falwell and Moon, and Falwell is not Liberty. "

The current version says that "the school was not aware of News World's connection to Moon when it obtained the loan through a broker" and that Falwell said the source would not affect his ministry. I'm not suggesting that it did.

The story is reported in a number of reliable sources. The LA Times article which is by [[Robert Parry {journalist}]], the Washington Post by their own staff writers who use Parry but also discovered a later loan[12], Christianity Today[13] are just three. Parry says (and this is not in the article) that " Desperate for an infusion of cash, Falwell and two associates made an unannounced trip to South Korea in January 1994, where they solicited help from Unification Church representatives, according to documents on file in a court case in Bedford County, Va. Months later, Moon's organization funneled $3.5 million to Liberty University through a clandestine channel. The money was delivered through one of Moon's front groups, the Women's Federation for World Peace. It then passed through the Christian Heritage Foundation, a Virginia nonprofit corporation that was buying up--and forgiving--Liberty's debt."

Both the Washington Post and the LA Times articles say that the University was in a financial crisis, although our article only says "helped to financially stabilize".

I don't think that WP:UNDUE or WP:SCOPE are reasons to remove this from the article. It doesn't appear to have been a minor issue (or a non-issue as it's been described on the talk page). I've just noted a section on Finances which mentions only current finances. In fact, this help from Moon came after a serious financial crisis caused by the 1991Virginia Supreme Court ruling that Liberty University was ineligible for a tax-free bond issue because of Liberty's "pervasively sectarian" religious character. This was covered for a while in the article, but removed[14] with an edit summary saying ": I simply deleted the 1989 bond issue section. There were no citations at all for the section, it stated falsely that Liberty was named in the court case, and the second paragraph did not even mention Liberty University." That seems to be inaccurate, the university was named.[15]. It could easily have been cited and if I'd seen that I would have reverted and cited it.

It's my view that these issues should be reflected in the article somewhere - and if we don't, their omission will be what violates our NPOV policy. As an aside, the editor removing the Moon material and I had a discussion about another issue last year which you can see on the talk page, where we both agreed that if a lawsuit was noteworthy it should be included, but that at the moment it wasn't. I think that principle applies to this issue. Dougweller (talk) 13:03, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Well summarized, but there is a bit more to the argument. I suggested as a compromise to move the paragraph to the Jerry Falwell page since any connections suggested in the sources are between Falwell and Moon. The discussion was then moved to NPOVN. The current form of this paragraph is in the Controversies section of Liberty University's page. However, the editors in favor of keeping the paragraph had difficulty on the Talk page of explaining why this paragraph is controversial or interesting to the readers of the article.
One editor stated: "I'm not sure how this debt buy-out information improves the understanding the topic of Liberty University. If anything, it seems more appropriate as a brief mention in the history section, at least in the context of overcoming financial difficulties, but I'm still not sure that wouldn't constitute undue weight. Someone with more expertise on Liberty's history would have to weigh in as to whether or not that would be the case. As far as it being controversial, the debt buyout only seems controversial to a portion of the university's own constituents, not with society at large, as no ethical or legal lines seem to have been crossed."
Another editor stated: "The mere fact that something happened and is noted in reliable sources is insufficient reason for us to include that information in an encyclopedia article. The burden is on those who want to include the information to justify that the material is particularly interesting or relevant to the subject of the article. So far, you haven't met that burden."
I stated that possible controversies that may only be interesting to a small minority of readers violates WP:UNDUE. Ultimately, the paragraph is about an Evangelical university that accepts money from a cult leader and the university spends it as it sees fit, with no further allegations of untoward influence from the cult leader. It's a donation. No one is denying the fact that the donation took place. All of the references given do not prove or even suggest any involvement between Liberty and Moon outside of the donation.
Furthermore, the amount donated was (and is) trivial. At the time, Liberty University was $120 million in debt and near bankruptcy [16]. In light of this large amount of debt, $3.5 million is a small donation that neither financially stabilized Liberty University nor rescued it from bankruptcy. Additionally, in 1997 Liberty University received a $70 million donation from businessman Arthur Williams [17]. The claim that "although the money given then is a fraction of its assets today, it was significant at the time" is not accurate. Compared to the Williams donation just 3 years later, the 1994 debt buy-out is not important or significant. In 2007, Liberty received another $34 million from Falwell's life insurance policies, which was used to pay off the last amount of debt [18]. This also trivializes the Moon donation. This is another reason why the paragraph violates WP:UNDUE.
The reason I said that "Falwell is not Liberty" is that in all of the sources suggested on the Talk page, Liberty's involvement appears to be peripheral and trivial. Instead the sources shift to Jerry Falwell and Moon and their common conservative ideology, not on Moon's influence or involvement with Liberty University. That is why this also violates WP:SCOPE.
Liberty is a private university that is allowed to accept donations from anyone. "Private universities receive private donations every day of every year and they (rightfully) do not make Wikipedia." Since the sources and the paragraph seem to find controversy in Falwell's involvement with Moon, then a compromise would be to move the paragraph to Falwell's page.
I cannot speak to the 1989 Bond Issue paragraphs, other than the deletion summary appears to be in good faith. When I looked at the history page containing that paragraph, it was not sourced, and was not interesting or controversial. The court case named the Lynchburg Industrial Development Authority, whose involvement with Liberty University was not apparent at a quick glance at news sources. It is still not interesting or encyclopedic.Wolfy54 (talk) 08:05, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC on proposal to merge WikiProjects characterized as "Fringe"

This RfC would benefit from comments by uninvolved editors. David in DC (talk) 18:14, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

White Hispanic and Latino Americans

A new editor and editor of this article White Hispanic and Latino Americans insists on inserting personal opinions, own life experiences, blog content and blog references into this article. He needs more help/guidance than I can provide. Thanks Hmains (talk) 20:06, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Inslaw

Convoluted article about several trials and investigations during which "the Department of Justice was accused of deliberately attempting to drive Inslaw into Chapter 7 liquidation; and of distributing and selling stolen software for covert intelligence operations of foreign governments such as Canada, Israel, Singapore, Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan; and of becoming directly involved in murder." It has wording such as "Yet beneath the surface of this background was a belief that the primary focus of certain top-level individuals within the DoJ was to perpetuate international, covert intelligence operations" sourced to [19] and "Meanwhile, the government began highly suspicious activities to force Inslaw into Chapter 7 liquidation" sourced to [20] (which I'm loathe to add, seems copyvio) and a mirrored version at [21] and [22]. There's more pov language and the whole article seems to be making a point. I've also removed some material added evidently just to attack a BLP. Dougweller (talk) 10:05, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. It looks like it will need a great deal of work to bring into line with NPOV. --Ronz (talk) 23:07, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Deepwater Horizon oil spill response fund section

Hello, I would like to ask that someone review the final paragraph of the Spill response fund section of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill article. This paragraph was added a few months ago and relies primarily on an op-ed piece from The New York Times. Myself and another editor both raised concerns that the wording is not neutral and may need to draw from other sources. Would editors from here be able to review the material and see if it seems appropriate and neutral, particularly with regards to the source used?

I have tried to address this using the article's talk page and, but the discussion has not been very active and a consensus has not been reached. Can an editor here please look at this and let me know what they think? I should also note that I am BP's representative on Wikipedia, so I have not and will not make any edits to this article. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Rujm el-Hiri: in 'Israeli-administered' or 'Israeli-occupied' Golan?

Closing per request at WP:ANRFC. The major theme of this discussion was that the proposed terms — administered, occupied, controlled, or simply stating Golan Heights — were all considered either too biased or otherwise inaccurate. Dropping the description of this region of Golan altogether was not an option on the table, so the question is, which phrasing is most appropriate? I can immediately discount Golan Heights and controlled because it was agreed that neither of these terms accurately described the physical location or the nature of Israeli presence. Administered did not reach consensus on the basis that it is misleading. Use of occupied as a descriptor of this region did reach consensus chiefly because of its prevailing use in reliable sources (such as by the U.N. and the CIA Factbook, etc.). I, JethroBT drop me a line 16:54, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

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

}} Requested remedy: We request independent evaluation of this issue. If it is decided that 'administered' (or some other term) is a preferable non-partisan term over the more prejudicial word 'occupied' then we request that this replacement be used (and protected) to describe 'Golan' in the "Rujm el-Hiri" article.

The article may be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rujm_el-Hiri The article's talk page may be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rujm_el-Hiri Though the issue of 'occupied' and related language is discussed in various places on this talk page, the most current discussion (between Nableezy, Zero0000, and myself) is in the section titled: "Partisan Politics does not belong here: WP:POV and WP:OR"

Summary: The article's topic is a 5,000 year old archeological site which has nothing to do with the modern Arab-Israeli conflict (since the site was constructed before 'Israel' or "Arabs' even existed :-). A group of editors, e.g.: Nableezy, Zero0000, Tiamut, Supreme Deliciousness, have insisted on using the phrase 'Israeli-occupied' with a link to the Wikipedia article on the political history of 'Israeli-occupied territories' to modify 'Golan' in the Rujm el-Hiri article. Some editors find the term 'occupied' to be violation of NPOV in this context, since the Israeli government considers the area to be a part of its own country, and (as the map displayed within the article shows) it may be better described as 'disputed' territory. This NPOV issue has become the focus of a small edit-war. I recently did a quick 'google' search and found others who had similar conflicts with these editors (and others who have a reputation of working with them as a concerted group on anti-Zionist issues) over the same prejudicial use of the word 'occupied' and found that some other editors in the past have proposed that 'administered' would be a more neutral alternative to the more politically-loaded term 'occupied.' The use of 'administered' was rejected by Nableezy, et al, who reinserted the 'occupied' language and link, just as Zero0000 had done the previous day.

............

The diffs of the two edits may be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rujm_el-Hiri&diff=569666323&oldid=569660529

The (edited for compactness) text of these diffs:

Rujm el-Hiri: Difference between revisions ...

Revision as of 01:53, 22 August 2013 (edit) 143.232.129.69 (talk) [Note from Ronreisman: '143.232.129.69' is listed because I forgot to sign-in before making the edit] (Changed 'Israeli-occupied' to more neutral phrase 'Israeli-administered' in an effort to minimize biased language -- see talk page)

Rujm el-Hiri (Arabic: رجم الهري, Rujm al-Hīrī; Hebrew: גִּלְגַּל רְפָאִים Gilgal Refā'īm) is an ancient megalithic monument, consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center.[1] It is located in Israeli-administered Golan Heights ....

UNDONE: Latest revision as of 02:47, 22 August 2013 (edit) (undo) (thank) Nableezy (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 569660529 by 143.232.129.69 (talk restore accurate terminology)

Rujm el-Hiri (Arabic: رجم الهري, Rujm al-Hīrī; Hebrew: גִּלְגַּל רְפָאִים Gilgal Refā'īm) is an ancient megalithic monument, consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center.[1] It is located in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights ...

............

This insertion of 'occupied' has occurred in other parts of the article and stimulated editor controversy in the past. For instance:

Revision as of 12:39, 26 November 2011 Biosketch (Rmv "recently" commentary not in any of the sources.) ... The site was cataloged during an Israeli archaeological survey carried out in 1967-1968, after the Six-Day War....

Revision as of 18:37, 26 November 2011 Tiamut (talk | contribs) (→‎History and purpose: missing detail about occupation of syrian territory)

The site was cataloged during an Israeli archaeological survey carried out in 1967-1968, after Israel occupied Syria's Golan Heights during the Six-Day War.

.............

Link to the current Talk:Rujm_el-Hiri#Partisan_Politics_does_not_belong_here:_WP:POV_and_WP:OR section. (copied text replaced by link) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronreisman (talk • contribs)


To me, the term "administered" implies consent on the part of the governed; and we don't need to debate census data in light of the thumb of Israel and its military on the scales of Golan's demographics because.....
(A) "Occupied" is consistent with UN views of the matter and
strike out by original author, explanation for strikeout is in later commment in the tree down below (B) Neither term belongs in an article about an archeological site, unless it is related to RS-based disputes over the integrity of the science being performed.
Out of curiosity, are the news reports that Israel will pay students to defend it online involved in this dispute?
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 06:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Sadly, no one is paying me anything for my time spent on Wikipedia. My opinions, actions, and words are solely my own responsibility. If, OTOH, *you* would like to send me a check to help support my wife & kids .... well drop me a line, maybe we can work something out :-)Ronreisman (talk) 00:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Three points (a) WP:TLDR; (b) the Golan Heights is no exception to any other territory occupied by Israel in 1967. It is accepted that it and the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, is technically, in law, 'occupied', as even the Israeli Supreme Court admits; (c)kerfluflfle is spelt 'kerfuffle', and 'fussing' to get things said neutrally and correctly, without POV finessing to push a national euphemism into texts, is part of our remit as editors. Nishidani (talk) 10:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
To clarify the issue, it is entirely about the phrase "Israeli-occupied Golan Heights" used to indicate the location of this archaeological site. None of the other political issues mentioned above are relevant since nobody is proposing to mention them in the article. The reason "Golan Heights" by itself is insufficient is that only a portion of them was occupied by Israel in 1967 and so it does not properly identify the site. The reason "Israeli-administered" is undesirable is that "administered" is an adjective invented by Israel to euphemise the fact of occupation (which would contradict Israeli's denial that the Geneva Convention applies, etc). The phrase "Israeli-occupied" is far and away the most common description in English and is the overwhelming opinion of the nations on Earth (few political issues are voted on repeatedly with such near-unanimity at the UN). The UN always calls it the "Occupied Syrian Golan", but I don't propose using that. Though it is much less common, I could live with the phrase "Israeli-controlled" as an alternative to "Israeli-occupied". Zerotalk 13:32, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree that 'Israeli-controlled' is a neutral alternative.Ronreisman (talk) 00:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Though 'controlled' does not imply either 'settlement' or 'production' which is a good part of what takes place under the control. It's best to go with the term in most general use internationally,'Israeli-occupied', if only to remind Ms Rudoren of the New York Times, and their bureau chief in Jerusalem, when she or others visits the Golan, that it is not a part of Israel in international law, something their fact-checkers are beginning to ignore.Nishidani (talk) 14:53, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Agree with Zero000, say "occupied"; Zero's reasoning is strong enough that it persuaded me to change my mind, specifically the part when Zero said that "The reason "Golan Heights" by itself is insufficient is that only a portion of them was occupied by Israel in 1967 ...". To help educate others on the same fact background that tripped me up, I would make it explicit saying the site "is located in that portion of the Golan Heights that has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War".NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

First of all, it would be extremely helpful if the talk page section was linked instead of copied and pasted. It was insanely difficult for me to make sense of the text. Also, could the original poster please clarify what is being requested? Thanks! Leujohn (talk, stalk me?) 18:18, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm the 'original poster' and the 'request' is to reach a respectful consensus regarding a 'neutral' alternative to the partisan use of 'occupied' -- and accompanying link to a controversial political-territorial topic -- inserted into an article where none of these political issues are mentioned (eg 'Rujm el-Hiri' is an archeology topic). I agree with Zero000 that 'controlled' (*without* political article link) is an acceptable alternative. Do we have consensus? Ronreisman (talk) 00:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I should add that I only suggested "Israeli-controlled" because I agree with the general principle that archaeological articles should avoid modern politics where possible. There are very few other Golan-related articles where "Israeli-controlled" is appropriate. Zerotalk 00:57, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
In my view, it would create a silly WP:EGG to write this as "[[Israeli-controlled|Israeli-occupied territories]] portion of the [[Golan Heights]]". Resolution of this should be through what the RSs with the greatest amount of weight say. And I don't know of any greater-weight RSs than Israeli courts and the UN, where "occupied" has been at least acknowledged in one and is common usage at the other. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:31, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

"Occupied" is the correct and neutral word. Anything else is misleading. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 03:01, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree. As an outsider with no personal stake in the P–I issue, I find the phrase "Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights" entirely neutral and helpful. I can understand that "occupied" may strike some as a political assessment, but I suggest they are reading more into the text than what it says. Johnuniq (talk) 03:52, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
I believe the best solution would be to simply state "the Golan Heights" without further description. Any interested reader should click on the wikilink. However, "controlled" seems acceptable if a description must be included. Leujohn (talk, stalk me?) 17:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
That's like saying Machu Picchu is in South America, instead of specifying that it is in Peru. The Golan Heights is neither a nation nor under one-nation control/occupation/whatever. We don't say SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, we specify that it was in "Canadian waters". Likewise, this site is not just randomly on some unclaimed bit of geology. It is on a specific part, a region that in geopolitical RSs with greatest weight is called "Israeli-occupied". There is such a thing as false neutrality, when we make these calls from the seat of our pants instead of comparing the way different RS speak of them. To paraphrase the little old lady in the classic Wendy's commercial, "Where's the RS?"NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:46, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Leujohn: I agree with Zero000 and NewsAndEventsGuy(strikeout added by NewsAndEventsGuy because this falsely characterizes my position) that we need to specify Israeli-Golan, vs Syrian-Golan. The location is relevant; the recent political and military history, however, is not relevant. For instance, Syrian-Golan could be further subdivided into the different polities who currently militarily control and occupy it. In fact, territory very near Rujm el Hiri has been recently disputed between the Syrian government, several rebel groups, and the UN). The nature of the Syrian-Golan occupation, however, is irrelevant to this article's topic. Inserting them where they don't belong is a violation of SYNTH and OR. This issue is not about ethnic over-sensitivity. It's about allowing compromise the Neutrality principle with controversial partisan political rhetoric. Topic ledes should only contain language and links that are mentioned in the article. I agree with Zero000 that 'controlled' is preferable to the disputed term 'occupied.' Ronreisman (talk) 20:55, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
It's not controversial partisan political rhetoric to describe any of the Israeli occupied territories as Israeli occupied. It's not prejudicial either. It's editors doing what they are absolutely required by policy to do whether they like it or not. It maximizes policy compliance. It's the most neutral and functional solution. No one is to blame. It's just what happens when you take the sources and apply Wikipedia's decision procedures to them. This issue has needlessly caused disruption to hundreds of articles for years. Editors just need to have the humility to switch off their personal views, simply follow the rules and everything will be as it is meant to be. Sean.hoyland - talk 21:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Sean.hoyland's observation that 'This issue has needlessly caused disruption to hundreds of articles for years' is a clear indication of the controversial and political nature of this issue. This is partially because Golan's status is both complex and disputed; e.g.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14724842. A significant minority object to 'occupied' as the exclusively acceptable term because this masks real and relevant differences of opinion. The 'Wikipedia decision procedures' do *not* automatically dictate imposition of the dominant majority opinions at the expense of minority rights. The suppression of minority rights in this context is not compatible with Wikipedia's emphasis on consensus and etiquette. Of course, these concerns take a back seat to the larger issue: don't compromise the quality of an article by importing extraneous issues that don't pertain to the topic. That's why political language and links in the lede of a non-political topic should, as a general rule, be considered a violation of Wikipedia Neutrality Point of View. Ronreisman (talk) 22:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Ron, when you review RSs beware of reading in what you want to hear. That's called Confirmation bias. Try going to the BBC RS link you cited, and read the whole thing, i.e., click on the tab that says "status", and you'll find the BBC describes the place as "Israeli-occupiedcontrolled". (Correction by original author NAEG, sorry... kid distracted me)NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:41, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
You mean BBC Facts tab = "Status: Israeli-occupied" and Overview map = Occupied by Israel (1967). There is really nothing controversial at all, not even slightly, about referring to the Israeli occupied Golan Heights as Israeli occupied. Of course, the BBC's reliability on these issues is always challenged. One of my favorites from an editor is that the "BBC has an Arabic station. The Brits create Jordan, so of course their national station is not reliable." Sean.hoyland - talk 12:49, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
It isn't "a clear indication of the controversial and political nature of this issue". It is a clear indication of the powerful effects of ethno-nationalist imprinting on human beings. It takes a long time to do that. Wikipedia can only ask people to do their very best to follow the rules here and if they aren't able to do they should walk away or be helped to walk away. The Golan's status is not "complex and disputed" on this question. There are no "minority rights" here, there's just the sources and our policies/guidelines. It would be entirely inconsistent with policy to put "is Great" after the word "God", or "Saves" after "Jesus" or "is just a theory" after "Evolution" just because a significant minority of Wikipedia contributors have learned to prefer it that way. Sean.hoyland - talk 12:28, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
@RonReisman, your comment at 20:55 today falsely characterizes my position because I explicitly oppose saying "Israeli-Golan" for the reason that this phrasing would be an NPOV violation departing from the RSs of greatest weight. I have modified your comment by striking out my name. Please do not ascribe false positions to me. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:32, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
@NewsAndEventsGuy: my apologies for any misunderstandings that may have offended you. To be clear: I was explaining to Leujohn that I was *agreeing* with others who point out that we should not just leave 'Golan' without some adjectival language that distinguishes whether it's on the Israeli or Syrian side. I did not mean to imply that you agreed with the specific language we should use (since you favor status-quo 'occupied'), just that you did agree that unlabeled 'Golan' is not sufficient. No offense intended. Also: my other response to your question about whether I was a paid Israeli student was my attempt to make a friendly joke; we do *not* seriously expect you to send me a check. I'm just trying to reach consensus by incremental agreements (whenever possible :-) until we reach a final settlement.Ronreisman (talk) 23:01, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
There is no "Israeli side" of Golan, there is a free part of Syrian Golan and then there is an Israeli-occupied part of Syrian Golan. Rujm el Hiri is in the Israeli-occupied part of the Syrian Golan, so that is what we will use.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 01:22, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
@Ron, no harm done, thanks for apology and clarification of your intent.
@Supreme Deliciousness, no your opinion about the facts (even if right) is not why we should use that expression. Rather, we should use that expression because that is the way it is described in the RSs of greatest weight. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:09, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
I also believe the best solution would be to simply state "the Golan Heights" without further description. I'm bit frustrated that neutral editors enable POV pushers to turn apolitical articles into turf-war zone. Yeah, making this into Derry riot does not help. Some editors just love "not in Israel" game. When I looked for reliable sources about the site, its location was described as Southern Levant, or Golan specifically. I am talking about Archeological surveys.The high quality academical sources used do not specify political authority on the ground or use occupied word. Le'ts not pretend the current wording in the article is sourced. The sources that do use such wording, like BBC source are news and not related to this subject, i.e. do not mention the Archeological site, thus such sources are quite useless. We mark the point on the location map in the infobox and wiki link Golan Heights, that should be enough, for non-POV pusher. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 19:05, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Generally, when some RSs are offered to make a point, when one wishes to advocate for a different outcome they produce specific alternative RSs to consider, not an entire paragraph of opinion. I've an open mind. Put up some RSs to back up your opinion please. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:17, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
AgadaU. Reflecting on this, I thought that this might be a reasonable proposal, actually. But then, as usual, when I have to make a close call, I discern the underlying principle, and generalize it by analogy to see how it would act, if a precedent is established, on other articles. The proposal would, if enacted, have a wide impact within wiki. Are you suggesting that all archaeological sites in foreign territory occupied by Israel should be classified by archaeologists' usage? I.e. archaeologists never use words like ' located in the Palestinian West Bank' of a place like Tell Balata. Archaeologists often use terms Jewish terms like Samaria and Judea, to describe their sites. We, by established principle, don't, because it is recognized that such loaded words in political usage have an appropriative connotation. Nishidani (talk) 19:47, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Could someone provide a quote from sources currently used? Do we still pretend the current wording is supported by reliable sources?
Let's make a 5 mins survey of top three results for Google scholar search "Rujm el-Hiri location":
Still in doubt? AgadaUrbanit (talk) 20:06, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
A bit, since all three are behind a paywall. Meanwhile, dig director refers to the location as "in Israel" in the "heart of the Golan". http://digs.bib-arch.org/digs/rujm-el-hiri.asp NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Right. If the phrase used in the original documents referenced by current article content:
is occupied then that would seems to me to be the best language to use.
Not knowing the language used in these documents could potentially be a problem. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 07:44, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
The most reliable sources and the international community use "occupied". Case closed. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 13:52, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

First, I agree with the result, but disagree with the reasoing of Supreme Deliciousness (talk · contribs) above. In my view, this isn't a battle of which is RS is more reliable than the other RS's. Rather, this debate has to do with which RS's carry the greatest WP:WEIGHT.

Second, AgadaUrbanit (talk · contribs) seems to imply that the professional archeological literature generally has the #1 claim to "greatest weight". I disagree with this implication for the following reasons.

(A) Wikipedia is a resource for everyone, not just for professional archeologists. Whereas expert-level readers would be able to make the leap from geo-coordinate to contemporary geopolitics, elementray school readers can not do that.
(B) Wikipedia is not a hard-bound resource but a dynamic encyclopedia. Were I a hard-bound publisher of materials that had to talk about contested boundaries, I'd be slow to write "x" when tomorrow the boundary issue might be "y". Being a dynamic encyclopedia, we don't have that problem.
(C) Professionals writing in professional journals have a vested interest in gaining access to the site, which has been under Israeli control since 1967. As such, they have a motive to not kick the gatekeeper in the political tender parts when they publish their findings.

For those reasons, I do not agree that the professional archeological RS's are the RS's of "greatest WP:Weight".

Third, as a general principle, intellectual integrity admits the possibility that omission of well-documented facts can, in some circumstances, be a form of POV. In this case, Israeli occupation of this specific locale is well-documented in a wide range of RS's. Since we are neither a professional journal writing for experts nor a hard bound resource, we should describe locations in a way that makes sense for the widest general audience. For Lake Superior shipwrecks, that means stating whether the locale is in US or Canadian waters. That's easy, because it doesn't push emotional political buttons. If that logic makes sense for Lake Superior shipwrecks, true NPOV requires applying the same logic for locations in regions of conflicting international claims. In the article under discussion, that means a simple statement of the widely-documented fact that this spot is in the "Israeli-Occupied" part of the Golan, rather than a well-intentioned omission of this fact. Plus we are supposed to avoid ambiguities if possible. The site is not in the Syrian controlled/occupied/claimed/whatever part of the Golan Heights, but the Israeli. Instead of the ambiguous "Golan" why not just say "Middle East", or for that matter "Planet Earth"? No, our task is to be NPOV matter-of-fact and avoid ambiguity. This spot is considered, by nearly the entire international community, to be "Israeli-occupied", and omitting this is at worst a form of POV-by-intentional-omission and at best creates a good-faith-but-nonetheless-impermissible ambiguity.

Fourth, upon the suggestion of this Wikipedia guideline, I took a peek at the CIA World Factbook, which says "Golan Heights is Israeli-occupied". They appear to have less motive to say one thing and not another than professionals writing for other professionals in such a way that greases the wheels with the controlling authorities when they want to do field research at the site itself. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:25, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I note that Gamla nature reserve, Hamat Gader, Katzrin ancient village and synagogue, Kursi, Golan Heights, Nimrod Fortress, and Umm el Kanatir all refer to their location simply as "the Golan Heights" on first mention, though more details are in some cases provided further on. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
So more thoughts? Maybe it is a good idea for uninvolved administrator to formally close this discussion, so we sill not have to guess about the consensus established. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 21:17, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Whatever the geographic location, all articles from all subject areas should inform readers who are from some other country (relative to the article) where they need to book passage and to what government they need to seek visas/permits in order to visit. If these articles do not distinguish between Syrian Golan and Israeli-occupied Golan then these articles need improvement, and their failure to include that matter-of-fact information is not a reason to omit that information from the example article under discussion. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:59, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
According to Southern_Levant#History referenced content, "The term "Southern Levant" is used by archaeologists who wish to avoid taking a modern geo-political stance in a region rife with border disputes".
I looked into sources referenced for "occupied" language:
The sources *do not* use occupied to describe the site's location. So not sure why occupied is being re-added lately unsourced and without consensus again, again and again obsessively to Rujm el-Hiri's lead?
Avraham Negev source used occupied term often, though not in reference to the Rujm el-Hiri site, but in the meaning of "some ancient people occupied some geographic region". Jerome Murphy-O'Connor includes "Visit" section, so I might add this info into the article. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 22:58, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Some time had passed from my previous post,. Does anyone have new thoughts ? Or maybe sources that mention this archeological site (Rujm el-Hiri) being "occupied"? If no response here I would request uninvolved admin to close this. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 03:54, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
A request for closure. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 17:40, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Fraz Wahlah

Article: Fraz Wahlah
Discussion: Talk:Fraz Wahlah#Problems with the article

This article is in poor condition and some IP editors (probably its one user using 2-3 IPs) regularly add non-neutral content that even fails verification. I have tried to address the apparent issues with the article but these IP regularly revert back. I have tried to explain the problems on the talk but to no avail. Can someone please take a look whether this article in current shape adheres to NPOV, specially the last section titled "The Flag-bearer - BBC". --SMS Talk 17:01, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

If a source says contributions to "organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia" can we say " philanthropy to organizations opposing islamization "

At Nina Rosenwald (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) an editor changed a sentence in the lead which read "Since 2000, Rosenwald and her sister, Elizabeth Varet, have donated over $2.8 million to "organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia." to one that read "Since 2000, Rosenwald and her sister, Elizabeth Varet, have donated over $2.8 million to organizations that are staunchly pro-Israel." I revised this and objected on the talk page. The same editor has changed it so that it now reads "Rosenwald's philanthropy to organizations opposing islamization has led her detractors to label her as "anti-Muslim" and "islamophobic"". The source[23] doesn't say 'opposing islamization' and 'islamization' is in fact an extremely pov word often used by anti-Muslims, so clearly not appropriate here.

In addition, an new section has been created, "Critics of philanthropy". That's clearly a pov section heading, the criticism is that she funds anti-Muslim groups, and using 'philanthropy' to mean funding anti-Muslim groups is not exactly NPOV. The text has gone from one pov statement - " Commentators have criticized Rosenwald for her support of pro-Israel organizations"(which is the editor translating 'anti-Muslim' to 'pro-Israel' to another statement that repeats the bit about "organizations opposing islamization". Again, this is misrepresenting the source (same source) in a pov manner. Dougweller (talk) 20:49, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Using The American Muslim as a critic is extremely bias, so it's really not suitable to be in the lead of the article, unless it's been covered by some third party sources.--Loomspicker (talk) 21:09, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
The section in question was sourced to The Nation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:37, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
And in answer to the second question, it is self-evidently a violation of NPOV policy to describe support for contentious political organisations as 'philanthropy'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:41, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Max Blumenthal in The Nation quotes the Center for American Progress saying her family has "donated more than $2.8 million since 2000 to “organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia.”[24] We cannot describe donations to political groups as "philanthropy." I see nothing wrong with calling these groups "anti-Islamism", that is their stated position. They oppose "Islamism". An article in FrontPageMag, which is run by David Horowitz, who is a recipient of the donations, is called "None Dare Call it Islamism".[25] Apparently she also funds pro-Israel groups, which should not be described as "anti-Islamist", and her father supported the United Jewish Appeal, which is correctly described in the article as philanthropy. TFD (talk) 21:46, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
"Their stated position" clues us in to the problem here: that's the non-neutral language used by the groups and people who promote them. It also obscures the entire effect of the sources: no one is criticizing her for supporting anti-Islamist organizations, but for supporting anti-Muslim organizations. (An analogy: to be sure, the Know-Nothings opposed a Catholic takeover of the United States. Because they were bigoted against Catholics generally, not because such a takeover was imminent, and to whitewash their anti-Catholicism as legitimate opposition to a takeover is ridiculous.) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:47, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
While self-proclomations can't be taken at face value, neither should the partisan opinions of her opponents. Both should be in the criticism or controversy section. The lead should be factual without editorial, sourced or otherwise. Jason from nyc (talk) 01:06, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
You misunderstand what a Wikipedia lead is meant to do. Many people only read the lead, so the lead "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies." Dougweller (talk) 11:43, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I think it is WP:OR for us to decide which donations to which organizations are philanthropy or not. Philanthropy is for the love of humanity. Blumenthal's family is certainly doing it for what they perceive as the benefit of humanity. We may disagree with her interpretation thereof, but that is opinion, just as we may disagree with the goals or methods of any charity or non-profit. Further, the meaning of the word has morphed over time to generally cover endowments, trusts and other donations, or involvement with non-profits. . There is no question that these are in fact endowments and trusts. from or own philanthropy article "By the early 21st century the word "nonprofit" was generally accepted as synonymous with philanthropy". These are non profits. That said, consensus may certainly determine what wording to use that is supported by the sources - but there is no policy based reason against using that term. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

"it is WP:OR for us to decide which donations to which organizations are philanthropy or not". Yup - so we don't describe it as such without sources... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
The section that was titled critics of her philanthropy was changed to 'critics of her largesse', I've just changed it to criticism. The criticism isn't of the fact that she is donating money, it is about the organisations that she is choosing to get the money. Dougweller (talk) 05:19, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
The reason that section is titled "Critics" is because it tells us much more about Sheila M and The Nation than it does about Nina R. (lol). --72.66.30.115 (talk) 06:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
And this sort of comment by the IP, "(we're not permitted to call donations to organizations lefties don't approve of, "philanthropy"" smacks of a personal attack and is certainly not the type of content that should be in an edit summary. Dougweller (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that comma after "of" does look a bit off, doesn't it? Bad form on my part, I suppose. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 06:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Monkey wrench (spanner)

Pursuant to Dougweller's concerns, I've been looking at the report that Max Blumenthal used from the Center for American Progress, called "Fear, Inc.". A couple things: 1) the quoted phrase "organizations that fan the flames of Islamophobia" does not occur in "Fear, Inc." at all, let alone in relation to the Rosenwalds. The closest thing to it is on page 94, "Yet MEMRI’s selective translations of Arab media fan the flames of Islamophobia." AFAICT, the "Fear, Inc." report does not link MEMRI with Rosenwald largesse. 2) Nina Rosenwald is not mentioned in the "Fear, Inc." report. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 02:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Although she isn't mentioned, two of her family funds are, and she is one of the people controlling them. "“the Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund contributed $2,818,229 to Islamophobic organizations,” including more than $2.3 million to ]Daniel Pipes]’ Middle East Forum. Other beneficiaries flagged in the report included Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, the Clarion Fund, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Zuhdi Jasser’s American Islamic Forum for Democracy". Dougweller (talk) 05:19, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I've been very flexible and made practically every change you've recommended and still you're not happy. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 06:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Hardly flexible and definitely not made practically every change I recommended. Dougweller (talk) 11:43, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
It's probable that the opening quote mark in the Blumenthal article was misplaced and should have read

Rosenwald and her sister Elizabeth Varet, who also directs the family foundation, have donated more than $2.8 million since 2000 to organizations that "fan the flames of Islamophobia."

While this may be a mistake on the part of the copyeditors at The Nation, it doesn't change the sense of the quote for our purposes, so it's not a problem for us. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Gaijin42, by your definition Bin Laden was a philanthropist - he gave away money for what he saw as a good cause. Roscelese, I suppose the more correct term would be "Islamophobic", but my reading of WP:LABEL suggests we not use it. Even though the term "anti-Islamist" is what they call themselves, I do not see it as a problem. The term "anti-Communist" for example could imply that they were the only ones opposing Communism, but the term itself implies an extreme form of opposition. TFD (talk) 07:08, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure you understood the substance of my objection. The problem isn't that these organizations are the "only ones" opposing Islamism, but that their opposition to Islam is, to all evidence and to the substance of the criticism, just part of a larger project of opposing Islam and Muslims generally. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The lead section should not be written with quotes from those of the opposite side of the political spectrum, i.e. the Nation. This is highly inflammatory and partisan. It should be generic "supports conservative causes" with controversy within the article if we aspire to being an encyclopedia and not a tabloid.. A good example of an encyclopedia-type lead is in the George Soros article: "Soros is a well-known supporter of progressive-liberal political causes." It would cheapen the article if we put "Radical anti-American billionaire George Soros is a major backer of a left-wing group that is funneling money to the Occupy Wall Street movement" from the right-wing and venerable conservative journal Human Events [26]. Let's take the high road. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:35, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Keeping controversy out of the lead is against our guidelines. "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies". Dougweller (talk) 15:46, 1 October 2013 (UTC) (signing later than I wrote this)
Prominent is the operative word. This is partisan. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia not an activist vehicle to rally the troops. Jason from nyc (talk) 12:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
You seem to believe that prominent and partisan are mutually exclusive, but they aren't. If criticism of her donations to bigoted groups has got that much attention, it belongs in the lede, because the lede reflects the body and the body reflects the weight given in reliable sources. (Note: I have not read the article, I'm just responding to your fallacy.) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm reading prominent in a general sense of widely respected, not merely widely known nor widely respected in partisan quarters. I'm hoping we'd all respond to the aspirations of general scholarship and not partisan attacks. Although I personally believe partisan criticism has a place within the articles along with a reply from the subject or her supporters. Jason from nyc (talk) 15:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Oh, I see. I don't think that's what the policy is trying to say. Not "criticism from respected sources may be included," but "noteworthy criticism may be included." –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:39, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
"Prominent" has nothing to do with respect, only being well-known. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:02, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Heads-up: the problem isn't over

We still have IP 72 claiming that Rosenwald focuses on "supporting human rights and democracy around the world" while trying his or her very hardest to downplay all reliably sourced negative material (refusing, for instance, to attribute a newspaper's words to that newspaper and instead naming the author, perhaps with the hope that a casual reader will assume the writer is a polemicist instead of a journalist). Please continue to keep an eye on this article; whether a financial conflict of interest or simply a user with an ax to grind, WP is being exploited here. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:14, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

You can call me Mr. IP 72, Roscelese, and you're right about the problem not being over—you're still here! 1) It's not me claiming that Nina R focuses on "supporting human rights and democracy around the world", that language is from the Gatestone website. If she is spending her time and money supporting organizations working to prevent the imposition of sharia law on the world, then she is in fact "supporting human rights and democracy around the world". 2) There's no requirement that negative material be included in a BLP—look at Barack Obama, a featured article. There's nothing negative at all in its lead. 3) Huh? Max Blumenthal should get full credit for his hit piece. But, as Dougweller pointed out, we can't blame Max for the article title or subtitle because those were written by some anonymous editor trying to increase sales/views by being inflammatory, so we credit The Nation. 4) Admins, please continue to keep an eye on Roscelese's edits; whether a) don't make me laugh or b) pot, meet kettle, your good faith is being exploited here. (But don't just watch, do something about it). --72.66.30.115 (talk) 03:03, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Matilda the Musical

This article's Reception section consists of a statement that almost all the reviews of this musical theatre production have been raves, followed by 17 pull-quotes of rave reviews for various productions. That isn't a "critical reception" section of an encyclopedia article, that's marketing. I removed the quotes as violating WP:PROMO and WP:QUOTEFARM, but another editor edit-warred to restore them. Since such unrelenting postivity concerning the show (which I haven't seen, but which I'm sure is just fine) cannot possibly be allowed under the WP:NPOV policy, I'd like editors from here to take a look. It seems to me that material that violates three different policies should be removed, but the editor who restored them (who seems to have ownership issues with the article) insists that because they are referenced, which they are, they must stay until someone writes a balanced Reception section. I disagree - they should be removed and the writing of that section can start from scratch. As long as that extensive list of positive quotes is in the article, there is no impetus for anyone, especially a fan of the show, to write a policy-compliant section. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's possible that reviews have been overwhemingly positive. It shouldn't be difficult to find evidence otherwise if it's not the case. Simply removing reviews and blanking the section does not seem an appropriate response. Paul B (talk) 10:43, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
However the current section is somewhat over the top: I see no reason to include in the article verbatim quotes from every review under the sun. Trimming the section down to the opening sentence plus a slightly trimmed pile of references (perhaps with quotes in the references?) might be the way to go. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
It should be noticed that user Beyond My Ken is now Forum shopping. He has posted on the article talk page, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Theatre and now here all within a few hours. He has already been advised that blanking wasn't the correct option by me and now two others. He should of converted into prose but as he has commented at Talk Musical Theatre he has no interest in doing so. User:Ssilvers has offered to do it if no one else is interested in doing so. A reception section is always included in these articles and the correct route would be to tag and allow an edior who has an interest in verifiability to do so. What User:Beyond My Ken is deliberately forgetting to say is when he removed he left one line stub with no sources making claims such as all received positive reviews, which is even worse than what we have. It should be noted it was he who started edit warring as was invited in first revert to take to talk page, he failed to do so initially but has now decided that Forum Shopping is the way to go.Blethering Scot 19:19, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Jonathan A Jones that would be against the MOS as a critical review section featuring Quotes, including positive or negative is needed. The included sources or others which there are many more reliable ones should be converted into prose as is always done rather than simply blanking or a one line stub that doesn't cover the varying productions. Someone has offered to do so which wouldn't of been needed if Beyond My Ken had put as much work into fixing rather than spending all that time forum shopping. The tags added less than 24 hours ago are more than appropriate until this has been completed.Blethering Scot 19:50, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Are you referring to MOS:FILM? This specifically refers to quoting "a reasonable balance of these reviews", not the huge number currently used. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 21:08, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Matilda the musical is not a film and as such has varying productions. It has already started being converted into prose by SSlivers from the relevant WikiProject and their is a balance. I wasn't in any way suggesting it remain as is only converted into what it should be which is essentially a balance of reviews not a one line stub that praises without adequate backup. Eithier way Forum Shopping isn't clever. Especially when you haven't given anyone reasonable time to reply at the previous two discussion sites. Blethering Scot 07:43, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Revert war over NPOV warning tag at Federal Assault Weapons Ban article.

Today, within 81 minutes, my NPOV warning tag at the article Federal Assault Weapons Ban was reverted. I would appreciate a third opinion. Am I being unreasonable to think that my opinion of a NPOV violation involved in an difficult ongoing discussion on the article talk page deserves a warning tag in the article space? I am of the opinion that the NPOV tag is a good thing in that it alerts readers of the article to the ongoing NPOV discussion on the talk page. SaltyBoatr get wet 16:44, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Where are the specific NPOV concerns presented? --Ronz (talk) 17:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
The specific problem is systemic editor bias, going on for at least five years seen commonly in Wikipedia on contentious issues is the human nature of editors of one personal point of view being disproportionately drawn to edit articles personally interesting to them. In this case editors with a personal interest in the topic of 'pro-gun' politics are drawn to a 'gun politics' article. (Largely this is subconscious.) This systemic editor bias problem is made worse by the dominance of male editors versus female editors in among Wikipedia volunteers, with US males disproportionately favoring 'pro-gun' politics. I have found it very difficult editing in that environment, with my attempts to get specific being met with hostility, and personal character attacks. I have failed to resist the temptation to rise to that bait which has served the purpose of getting me topic banned. One very specific problem in the article is the non-neutral 'framing' of the topic as being about itemized firearm features as outlined in that piece of legislation being politically characterized as mere cosmetics. The implication being that the features in the legislation are not important distinctions. This topic framing has been advanced by the 'pro-gun' politics involved. SaltyBoatr get wet 18:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Please see the talk page. We asked Salty to give some specific examples of the alleged "POV" problems, and they refused to do so while barraging us with more general accusations and insults. A part of why they were subsequently topic banned. North8000 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Attempting to discuss the effects of systemic editor bias at Wikipedia is not an insult. SaltyBoatr get wet 18:42, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
There was no 'attempt[] to discuss' these matters. I encourage uninvolved editors to review the "discussion" and saltyboatr's unwillingness to collaborate - instead, a singular display of "I'm right, and you're all against me". Further strongly recommend review of editor saltyboatr's actual edits to the article in that interval - the inclusion of over the top biased, POV wording, accompanied by zero supportive evidence - followed by a WP:BLUE edit that was so obviously intended to be disruptive, it alone was reasonable grounds for the topic ban. Anastrophe (talk) 15:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
This was discussed pretty thoroughly over the last few days at wp:ani. SaltyBoatr, Talk:Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban and at the talk page of the article. North8000 (talk) 18:49, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

"The specific problem is systemic editor bias" If that's the case, then NPOVN is not the right venue for resolving the problems. --Ronz (talk) 22:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Water Fluoridation

The water fluoridation article is written as if water fluoridation is not a controversial topic. It's tone is to present as fact the benefits of water fluoridation, without giving weight to contradictory studies. Campoftheamericas (talk) 19:05, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The article is a featured article that has been vetted by many different editors. If a top-tier medical journal (e.g. JAMA, Lancet, etc.) published studies questioning its safety, then there would be room for contradictory views. Andrew327 19:17, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
"is written as if water fluoridation is not a controversial topic." That's simply not the case. The lede contains the sentence, "It is controversial,[21] and opposition to it has been based on ethical, legal, safety, and efficacy grounds." The Water_fluoridation#Ethics_and_politics goes into considerable detail, and is headed with a link to Water fluoridation controversy.
Are there other NPOV concerns? --Ronz (talk) 22:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. The article was carefully and fairly drafted, mostly by Eubulides. II | (t - c) 02:58, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Abu Zubaydah article violates Wikipedia NPOV criterion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abu_Zubaydah for the Talk discusssion.

My comments and the comments of others suggest that it is unlikely that anyone would dispute that this article is exceedingly biased. This is discussed in great detail in the talk page link given above. It is my sincere desire that, if this article cannot be deleted, then at the very least it should have a NPOV banner added to it to warn the unsuspecting reader that this is a very biased presentation of the circumstances surrounding the case of Abu Zabaydah and GITMO in general. Detailing all the problems would take pages. Suffice to say, for NPOV banner purposes, that it should not take long to discern the article is severely biased, makes numerous assertions that would be difficult to substantiate under any circumstances (such as someone's state of mind), and presents a number of conclusions that are not apparently warranted by the cited data. Based on other articles I've seen in Wikipedia with NPOV banners, this article would seem to be an appropriate candidate for such a banner. Edward Carr Franks, PhD 19:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edfranks (talk • contribs)

can an editor show a portion of the source (somehow contradicting) opinions?

  1. the Diff page: [27]
  2. previous discussion:[28]

summary:

  • user:pluto2012 removed my tag: "Citation needed|reason=not balanced. provides partial info. Morris p.319 say also:"But if the other Arab armies did nothing, Israel would leave the West Bank alone"". I have attached this tag to a technically correct sentence "considering that Israel could never renounce its claim over Judea, Samaria"(as is appears in the source).
  • However, this is a partial presentation only, since it leaves the impression that the Israeli leader David Ben Gurion planned to conquer the west bank ( Judea & Samaria) in any case, while the source says (in the same page) that the plan included Judea & Samaria occupation as a response to other Arab armies attack only.

my preferred solution: To add a phrase in order that the occupation was planned as a response to to other Arab armies attack only. (as said in the source in the same page).

note: If needed, I may quote the whole relevant page (Morris,2008, p.319 ) Ykantor (talk) 17:46, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

As usual and at different places on wikipedia (see here), Ykantor doesn't present the issue honnestly. It is obvious that no contributor could quote events partially. And in fact, it is what he does.
Just for the record but people need to read p. 317 to 319 of Benny Morris, 1948. A History of the First Arab-Israeli War to understand. In October '48, Israel was offered 3 military options regarding a next offensive but it had only the military ressources for 1. They could attack 1. Galilea, 2. Samaria/Judea or 3. Negev. Ben Gurion prefered the second one (because it would have given the control of the West Bank and of Old Jerusalem to Israel as soon as 1948) but his cabinet prefered the 3 rd one and rejected his choice. This is explained p.317 and p.318. On page 319, it is written that in the context of the choice that was made (option 3 - the attack of Negev), Ben Gurion said that if the Jordanian army would try to intervene, he would launch the option 2 as well but that he would not launch it if the Jordanian army would stay quiet.
Ykantor claims that in the context of the discussion regarding the choice between options 1, 2 and 3, Ben Gurion would have stated that he only wanted option 2 if the Jordanian army would attack, which is another to say that he would have rejected option 2 unless the Jordanian army would attack which is in contradiction with the context and even more in contradiction with the fact that he supported this attack and even stated after the choice of option 3 was made that the cabinet's decision would be "a cause a lamentation for generations".
And all in all, this is again a WP:POINT in his WP:BATTLEGROUND.
Pluto2012 (talk) 18:27, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
I believe that the issue is accurately presented. Ykantor (talk) 18:43, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Biography of young Turk leaders

Parts of the biography of two Young Turk leaders, Nazım Bey and Mehmed Reshid, is being removed by HouseOfArtaxiad and MarshallBagramyan.[29] [30] Can someone restore the info back?

There is a misunderstanding, I had added the following information based on a study on the Armenian genocide by Ugur Ungor, a Dutch scholar from Kurdish ancestry who is one of the leading researchers on the Armenian Genocide. He is not a Turk or a denialist but a promoter of the Genocide. Other authors relate a similar story to what I added and it is not anti Armenian at all. Both of these persons, Nazım Bey and Mehmed Reshid, were related to the Armenian Genocide, the older versions of their articles were dominated by their role in the genocide with few personal information about them or their motives. It was a very black white presentation. Important aspects of their biography were missing. Such as that they were both Muslims expelled from their homeland by Christian armies. Reshid descended from an ethnically cleansed (Ethnic cleansing of Circassians) Circassian family by the Russians. There is a relevant relation between his family history and his fear to be again ethnically cleansed by the invading Russians and the Ottoman Armenians whom he considered to be Russian allies. Nazım was a succesful resident of Thessaloniki but was imprisoned and maltreated in a Greek prison during his towns capture in the Balkan Wars. After his release he became a radical Christian hating Turkish nationalist. Ofcourse these earlier events do not mean these persons were justified to commit genocide on the Armenians or anyone, this was only added as an explanation for their personal motives and early family history.

  • Plz see here the edit for Nazım Bey.[31] His early biography, his family life in his home town, his prisonment in a Greek jail and the resulting personal vengeance is being removed.

HouseOfArtaxiad was reverted when he first removed the text but in his second deletion gave the following (wrong and WP:OR) reasons:

"The same Turk author also wrote justifications for Mehmed Reshid's psychopathic tendencies. It's clear he is just trying to justify mass murders. If either of them were mentally scarred, they should be the ones to write about it, not someone else.)"

Declaring an author unreliable because of his ethnicity seems racist, btw he is Kurdish, he is not trying to justify but explains their motives, demanding that Nazim and Reshid should write about their personal problems is WP:OR

  • See here for Mehmed Reshid. [32] His probably vengeance motives were first removed, later he removed that his family descended from ethnically cleansed Circassians by doing WP:OR. His explanation:

"His family could not have moved there in the 1860s if he himself was born in 1873. Some minor fixes"

Ungor's source states that he was born in the Caucasus to a Circassian family who moved to the Ottoman empire. [33],[34]

Ungor is a reliable academic source and is used on many wiki articles. Some of his sentences regarding Nazim and Reshid have been removed by because they probably give a less vilified personality. The problems is that these persons are being demonized by selective info. I do not think anyone but an admin has the ability to convince HouseOfArtaxiad and MarshallBagramyan so pardon me for not beginning an edit war.

Here is the original online page of Ungor's book regarding Nazim. [35] and here regarding Reshid [36] Thank you for your time. Fatbob5 (talk) 16:49, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem, as it relates to the Mehmed Reshid article, is that Umit Ungor contradicts himself. I have to say I'm baffled by the quote FatBob scrounged up on page 106 when on page 61 of the same book Ungor says, "Reshid was born into a Circassian family in Russian Caucasia on 8 February 1973. When the Tsarist government intensified its campaign against the Circassians in 1874, his family fled to the Ottoman Empire." I take this to be the more accurate statement but, still, it's an obvious, glaring contradiction.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 18:03, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
There is no contradiction, page 61 says "Reshid was born into a Circassian family in Russian Caucasia on 8 February 1873. When the Tsarist government intensified its campaign against the Circassians in 1874 his family fled to the Ottoman Empire" and page 106 says "..was born in the Caucasus but his family had to flee the onslaught of the Tsarist Russian army in the 1860s." One page gices an exact date the other not. The point is that he was descended from ethnically cleansed Circassians, this was an important motivation (revenge, fear) to explain his role in the Armenian Genocide and this is deleted from the article. Fatbob5 (talk) 09:04, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Scare quotes for 'Islamophobic'?

At Nina Rosenwald an editor has added scare quotes to the word 'Islamophobic', stating that "re-wrote sentence to remove its tautological ring; "islamophobia" needs to stay in quotes to show Wikipedia recognizes it is a politically loaded term, vague, controversial and deprecated (by the AP)." I'd already objected to scarequotes on the talk page and another editor had removed them, but since then the scare quotes were replaced for this particular word. I'm not at all convinced that it is NPOV to select words in this way for scare quotes in order to show how Wikipedia feels about the word. Dougweller (talk) 20:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

"Islamophobia" (or its derivatives) needs to stay in quotes to show Wikipedia recognizes that it is a politically loaded term, used by only one side in the debate who usually use the word (or its derivatives) to slur their opponents and stifle debate. It is vague, controversial and deprecated (by the Associated Press). It's also as phony as a three dollar bill—there is no such mental condition as an irrational fear of Islam. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 22:19, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
Do you have a reliable source for that last bit? bobrayner (talk) 23:00, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
I did a quick look at DSM-IV-TR (2000) on GoogleBooks: a search for "phobia" returned 56 pages, a search for "islamophobia" returned 0 pages. (I recognize this is, at best, partial evidence of its non-existence.) --72.66.30.115 (talk) 17:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Actually, almost every claim in that comment was false or fallacious. The word is used in mainstream news and scholarly publications to mean hatred of Muslims. "It's not a real mental condition!" is a typical cry of the sort of person who wants to claim that Islamophobia paradoxically a) is nonexistent and b) is justified. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:22, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
The IP is being pretty clear in announcing their pov - "there is no such mental condition as an irrational fear of Islam" means "fear of Islam is rational". Their edits suggest that he is trying to push that view in our articles, which is unacceptable. Dougweller (talk) 06:08, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
And on further consideration, what would we think about an editor who said "there is no such mental condition as an irrational fear of Judaism"? Would we see them able to edit appropriately on articles relevant to Jews? Dougweller (talk) 07:59, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Wikilink the first instance of Islamophobia and call it a day. No scare quotes. Binksternet (talk) 00:15, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Don't call them SCARE quotes, as is the case with most English speakers outside the US, and half the problem goes away. As "quote marks" they emphasise that it's a word not written in the voice of Wikipedia, but commonly used by some. HiLo48 (talk) 00:36, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Not me calling them scarequotes, but Wikipedia. We've got WP:SCAREQUOTES besides our article on them. Dougweller (talk) 06:03, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Must be our systemic bias on display. I'd never heard of scare quotes before using Wikipedia, and you have to admit, it's not a very sensible name. They're used for far more than scaring people. HiLo48 (talk) 07:06, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Me neither, English is not my first language but I have never come across this expression. AadaamS (talk) 12:38, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
There is no justification whatsoever for quotes, regardless of what we call them. It is a well-documented term widely used in academia and elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
To say that it "needs to stay in quotes to show Wikipedia recognizes that it is a politically loaded term" is to express an opinion that it is a "politically loaded term." While "scare quotes" may be an Americanism, the use of quotes implies that the description is questionable. For example, if we write "Americans speak "English"", it implies that possibly their language may not be real English. TFD (talk) 03:15, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
We all have opinions. Here's the AP's, from Politico: 11/26/12 3:16 PM EST "The Associated Press has nixed "homophobia," "ethnic cleansing," and a number of other terms from its Style Book in recent months. The online Style Book now says that "-phobia," "an irrational, uncontrollable fear, often a form of mental illness" should not be used "in political or social contexts," including "homophobia" and "Islamophobia."" [37].
And here's Salman Rushdie's: "A new word had been created to help the blind remain blind: Islamophobia. To criticize the militant stridency of this religion in its contemporary incarnation was to be a bigot. A phobic person was extreme and irrational in his views, and so the fault lay with such persons and not with the belief system that boasted over one billion followers worldwide. One billion believers could not be wrong, therefore the critics must be the ones foaming at the mouth... 'Islamophobia' was an addition to the vocabulary of Humpty Dumpty Newspeak. It took the language of analysis, reason and dispute, and stood it on its head." [38]. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 07:18, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm new to the issue. The article contains solid sourcing for its claim that people have accused the Gatestone Institute of being Islamophobic: an article in the Nation by Max Blumenthal. That article contains a factual mention (including direct quotes from other publications) that others have called the institute Islamophobic. On the other hand, there is no reliable source in the article that people have called Rosenwald herself Islamophobic. Unless a reliable source is added that part of the statement should be removed at once on BLP grounds. Whether to use square quotes? The answer hinges on whether that's the prevailing accepted term for anti-Muslim bigotry. Is it or not? If not, what is the best term? That's not a neutrality question, rather a practical question of wording and tone. The article links "Anti-Muslim" as a pipe to Persecution of Muslims, a different subject. Some prejudices are commonly referred to as phobias even though the term is clearly incorrect or misses the point, e.g. homophobia (the issue is not that people are afraid of gays, but that they are anti-gay). Other prejudices are referred to as "anti-" or "mis-" (e.g. Misogyny). We should use the most straightforward, common word, certainly in the article lede, for making the factual assertion. In the body, if it is important to point out that people used a more charged word or neologism, as opposed to the basic one, then that can be used along with proper sourcing. That probably should carry quotes, not necessarily scare quotes. Rather, quotation quotes, because we're quoting something a source says. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:51, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
As for Nina Rosenwald, the source for that might be [39] but that should only be used to call her anti-Muslim, not Islamophobic. Part of the problem has been the many changes in wording - at one point the article said, for instance, "Rosenwald's philanthropy to organizations opposing Islamization has led her detractors to label her as "anti-Muslim" and "islamophobic"." "opposing Islamization" was added by the IP and had no basis in any source, it was simply a pov statement by the IP. An earlier version by the IP was "Rosenwald's philanthropy led an American magazine to label her "The Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate" in 2012." Again, that obviously didn't represent the source which was criticising where she gave her money, not just being philanthropic. We also had a section heading which read "Critics of her philanthropy" and then "Critics of her largesse" - that change was made by the IP with the edit summary "we're not permitted to call donations to organizations lefties don't approve of, "philanthropy". I would be happy with just 'anti-Muslim'. No quotation marks and we certainly do not need a link, it's hard to understand the term. We could have the quote "Rosenwald’s wealth has fueled a rapidly emerging alliance between the pro-Israel mainstream and the Islamophobic fringe"[40] in the article. So far as I can see, it was the IP who added 'Islamophobic' to the article with [41]. In any case, let's drop the term as a label for her although I can see no reason not to use it appropriately for Gatestone. Dougweller (talk) 08:57, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Doug, if you'd look a little closer at the diff you provided, you'd see that "Islamophobia" is there in the left hand column, i.e. before my edit. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 17:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
And, imho, "organizations opposing islamization" is more neutral (and elegant) than "organizations described as fanning " the flames of Islamophobia.” "Opposing islamization" was just my attempt to generalize about the organizations although the phrase is not explicit in the sources (like Nina Rosenwald's name is not explicit in "Fear, Inc."). --72.66.30.115 (talk) 17:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't have sources for this but I see the word islamophobia used in two contexts:
  • the correct one, where discrimination against muslims is meant.
  • the incorrect one, where critics against islamism, islam or sharia laws from a humanitarian, atheist, pacifist or democratic point of view are labelled islamophobic instead of responding to criticism with counter-arguments. Thereby implying that the critics suffer from a mental illness, an ad hominem attack.
So I think the latter should be "islamophobia" and the former islamophobia, in same sense of the quote "freedom from discrimination protects humans, not ideologies or ideas". AadaamS (talk) 12:38, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
As editors we can't make such decisions. I don't understand the bit about mental illness. Dougweller (talk) 14:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
As editors we can do the same thing the editors at AP are doing: stop using phony words like "islamophobia" and "homophobia", words designed and used to create heat but no light. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 17:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Phobia is a type of anxiety disorder. The term itself is disputed, of course we can make decisions about how Wikipedia uses the term or at least discuss our usage of this word. AadaamS (talk) 23:26, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
See etymological fallacy. It is quite clear that Islamophobia is not an 'anxiety disorder' - and nor is it a 'phoney word'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:36, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
So if the term is completely uncontroversial and accepted and is never used in the pejorative sense, maybe the section Islamophobia#Criticism_of_concept_and_use should be deleted from the Islamophobia article? AadaamS (talk) 09:01, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
What is clear, Andy, is that "Islamophobia" appears to name a phobia but there's no such phobia—that's why the word is phony. It is most often used as a pejorative and is very controversial. An encyclopedia would be wise to avoid using the word without clearly marking it as controverted. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 18:01, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
What is clear, 72.66.30.115, is that you haven't read the article etymological fallacy that I linked above. And cut out the crap about words being 'phony' - it is self-evident from your editing history that your sole purpose in editing Wikipedia is to promote Nina Rosenwald, using every phony argument in the book. It doesn't work... AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:27, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::::::Andy is right. There's a fallacy here in assuming that Islamophobia is some sort of psychological phobia. That's akin to the argument "I can't be anti-Semitic, some of my best friends are Arabs". It isn't a phony word. Phobia in fact is defined as "an extreme or irrational fear" in my OED, not as an anxiety disorder. But you've been told that already. The word 'anti-Semitic' is also pejorative and for some people controversial, as is 'racism', etc. But we should not be using scare quotes for them either. Dougweller (talk) 18:31, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

As a psychologist I dislike the term. Yeah phobias are anxiety disorders, and they are irrational fears, but, this term (Islamaphobia) has taken on a meaning that has been used many times in secondary sources. I see no need for quotes around it. Dbrodbeck (talk) 18:58, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Another labeling question

Or maybe not labeling, but we have " Media and organizations self-described as leftist, progressive or Muslim, including The Nation, the Center for American Progress, and The American Muslim, have categorized her and the Gatestone Institute as anti-Muslim and "Islamophobic". The 'self-described' bit was added by the IP, and it leaves the reader unclear about which was self-described as what. If you read it in order it's technically accurate, but is it acceptable? Dougweller (talk) 09:05, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I removed that without seeing your objection. It is self-evidently not neutral. Secondly, the view of Max Blumenthal is attributed to The Nation, which is then described as 'leftist' or 'progressive', which is unconscionable, in that it attempts to undercut the notice of criticism by . I think one should just mention she has been criticized in the lead, and in the Criticism section put the relevant detail from Blumenthal and others.Nishidani (talk) 13:23, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
It is accurate that The Nation calls itself "the flagship of the Left", the Center for American Progress calls itself progressive, while The American Muslim describes itself as Muslim, hence it is not labelling. When reporting opinions from these sources, that information may be useful. For example, "The left-wing magazine The Nation opposed the war in Iraq." In this case, however, the descriptions are used in order to cast doubt on the information in the publications, the implication being that other reliable sources would report differently. If that is true then sources are needed that say that. Incidentally, "leftist" is normally pejorative and should be avoided, the neutral term is "left-wing." TFD (talk) 14:49, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
TFD, you almost got it right. You said "When reporting opinions from these sources, that information may be useful." But then in the next breath you forget that it is the opinion of these sources that the organizations supported by Nina Rosenwald are anti-Muslim, and that is a very controversial opinion that the reader should be alerted to, somehow. --72.66.30.115 (talk) 17:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
To introduce a self-descriptor into every reference using The Nation, or The New York Times ('liberal' etc.etc.) is obviously bad practice. It translates out as a policy suggesting that everytime any news organization is presented on wiki, it must be qualified, which however no one does routinely. To repeat, one attributes to journalists, Max Blumenthal is not 'The Nation' etc. One uses descriptors when reliable secondary sources, in reporting something, explicitly identify the source as 'leftist' 'Muslim' etc.('According to the leftish newspaper The Nation, Nina Rosenwald . .'.(sourced to mainstream RS). It is not an editor's right to introduce these terms at will. 'Left-wing', 'leftist', even 'liberal' have strong negative connotations in American usage. Nishidani (talk) 19:15, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Windows 8

Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8

Bias in opening paragraphs: Windows 8 is a complete joke of an operating system developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers... Windows 8 introduced stupid major changes to the operating system's platform...

Suggest removing all edits by user 81.129.178.84 who introduced the bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmhattingh (talk • contribs) 09:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Another IP removed the vandalism, I've dealt with some other related vandalism. Dougweller (talk) 09:50, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
This kind of vandalism should be removed immediately and the editor responsible for it given a warning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.75.111.162 (talk) 01:34, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Banc De Binary

This is a "brokerage" operating out of a small country, which has been pretty universally excoriated as a scam operation. Nonetheless, eager editors have been adding and deleting content, some of it possibly original research and some of it certainly lacking in NPOV, so that the length swings by thousands of characters in a single edit; and a handful of editor keep trying to trim it back to look like this is just another busines, with dissatisfied customers and quibbling regulators. There's also what I see as a disquieting tendency to put undue emphasis on the Jewish connections of one of the firm's principals. Could we get a few new eyeballs here? --Orange Mike | Talk 13:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Larry Sanger

Does this article read like an advertisement for Sanger's post-Wikipedia projects to anyone else? In particular, the Citizendium section seems quite questionable. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:22, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Request more eyes on MV Seaman Guard Ohio incident

As a breaking news event, there are editor(s) who appear to be solely interested in pimping every detail that hits any newswire in what appears to be an effort to stoke any potential flames. More outside eyes would be helpful. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Grammarly

This article was apparently created by searching for "Grammarly" and using all results regardless of the quality of the source or the appropriateness for use in an encyclopedia article on the subject. While we've made some progress in previous discussions, there are still many NPOV and related (WP:NOT, WP:RS, WP:PSTS) problems.

A detailed breakdown of all the remaining problems is here. I'm recommending this version. The talk page is covered with previous attempts at addressing the concerns. --Ronz (talk) 16:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

A couple examples:

  • The article includes, "In October 2012, it was reported that Grammarly has some 300,000-plus Facebook likes."
  • The article includes a list of clients in a section titled "Use by educational institutions" whose content is sourced only by press from those institutions with the content, "Multiple universities, including University of Saskatchewan,[20] University of Queensland,[21] KDU University College,[22] Henderson State University,[23] Arkansas State University,[24] Radford University,[25] International Christian University,[26] Walden University[27] and DeVry University[28] license Grammarly for use by their students." --Ronz (talk) 16:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Not cool. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

We're making progress. Currently disputed are: --Ronz (talk) 15:42, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Grammarly Inc. collaborated with The New York Times,[12] AARP The Magazine and other organizations to celebrate the National Day on Writing in 2012.[5][undue weight? – discuss]

Grammarly was also nominated in April 2013 for Best Web Services & Applications in the 17th Annual Webby Awards, coming third place among five finalists.[15][16]

It appears that the creator of this article, and the person fighting against all the changes, may be a paid editor. Discussion here. --Ronz (talk) 16:32, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

NPOV tag on article with currently hot topic in the news

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

"Guerrilla skepticism" and POV-pushing offsite project

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

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

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

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

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

You're asking me to document years of abuse across dozens of articles. Here are some examples of deletion of sourced material in just the Aries (astrology) alone article alone for bogus and improper reasons since 2012. The same story is told across hundreds of pages; see Talk:Astrology and its archives.
This is just a small example of the bad faith dismissal of astrological textbooks and classics as "unreliable sources" and the characterization of astrological content as "in-universe cruft". These edits were made to push a particular POV, and make no sense in its absence. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
the dismissal of non reliable sources as non reliable sources is a perfectly legitimate position. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:16, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
and I am not sure what your links from 2010-2012 have to do with showing that a group that appears to have formed in 2013 has conducted inappropriate editing. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for those (old) diffs, lhcoyc; but I'm confused. Do you have some reason to believe that Wiki13, IRWolfie-, Dominus Vobisdu, Allens, and 79.166.190.197 are "guerilla skeptics" or acolytes of Susan Gerbic? bobrayner (talk) 14:43, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't know whether any of those editors collaborate with Susan Gerbic. They do seem to share a common POV that dismisses all astrological sources; that POV, and tendentious editing to establish it as orthodoxy, is the underlying problem. This has been going since at least 2011. And as I said, this has been going on a long time, and is one of the reasons I'm no longer as active here as I used to be. (You can tell Susan that she can put another notch in her hilt.) - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:33, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b Negev and Gibson, 2005, p. 207.
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