Talk:Brothers of Italy/Archives/2022/November

Can an article like this be balanced?

I understand that some users find very difficult to be balanced, when they have strong political opinions and bad feelings on some political parties. This article has been improved in recent days, but it still contains unbalanced, biased or, at best, redundant and irrelevant information. One example: "A general election candidate was sacked after praising Adolf Hitler. While he remained a candidate, FdI removed its symbol from his candidature. He was elected in the single-district constituency of Agrigento, Sicilia, with 37.8% of the vote". How can this information one one single candidate out of hundreds be relavant? Any reasonable user would understand that that information should be removed. Articles should give a broad perspective on parties. Just think about the Democratic Party and the handful of candidates who were accused of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments during the electoral campaign: to cite them in spite of a general position of the party against anti-Semitism and in favour of Israel would be quite controversial. In general, information or sections on "controversies" should be avoided. Think about it. -- Checco (talk) 06:31, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Think about it: how is it not relevant that a major party elects a Nazi in the Italian parliament? Yakme (talk) 06:36, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

To call that candidate a Nazi is a long shot. More importantly, he is just one in about 200 elects and he is no longer a party member. Anyway, if that is what you think, I am sure you will update the article on the Democratic Party, adding information on "anti-Semitic" candidates and elects. Quite the contrary, I think that adding bias to articles is not a good thing and, by the way, today it is not the first time you have infringed the three-revert rule (on "the", which is used in most English-language sources, when referring to "the Brothers of Italy"). This said, generally speaking, articles should be balanced and give a broad perspective of parties. It should be a shared effort. --Checco (talk) 06:51, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Indeed the sentence correctly stresses that the guy is no longer a party member, I do not see the controversy.

Regarding "the" I opened a discussion section, as you should have done. So I do not think I am being non-collaborative, on the contrary. Yakme (talk) 06:54, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

My point is quite simple: information on individual members of broad, big-tent parties should not have place in articles on parties. My standard is the same here and in the PD article. --Checco (talk) 08:08, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

We mention its multiple centre-right candidates and one extremist candidate, who got international coverage from the BBC (unlike the others, which are from Italy but is fine by me to contextualize the whole thing; the party wouldn't have gotten the results it did without broading its appeal and gaining centre-right voters and candidates) and is therefore due. As for the comparison with the PD, there is controversy about anti-Zionism on whether any criticism of Israel is antisemitism, while this is essentially a Nazi being elected to the Italian Parliament, as stated by Yakme — they aren't even remotely relatable. By the way, even though I didn't ! in the RfC, I do agree with Yakme that we can't ignore the academic sources describing the party as 'neo-fascist' but I'm fine with the current structure and I like the compromise I helped put in place was appreciated. Likewise, I think mentioning both the centre-right personalities and the single Nazi candidate is a good compromise. Davide King (talk) 12:32, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes Checco's position is particularly confusing because he himself added information on individual members in the case they were considered to be more centrist. So I guess I agree with Davide's take on this: if we report individual members' positions stressing that they are more moderate/centrist, then why shouldn't we report a case where a member is a Nazi? In my opinion this is even more relevant – let's not forget that en.wiki readers are not just Italian people, and by other countries' standards being an open Nazi is sort of a big deal. Yakme (talk) 06:59, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

There is a big difference. Nordio, Pera, Tremonti, etc. are leading members of the FdI party and newspapers have long covered them, while the other one is an obscure former member and not a Nazi, btw. --Checco (talk) 06:21, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Nordio, Pera, Tremonti, etc. are leading members of the FdI party this is definitely not true, given that they were introduced in the FdI electoral list less than a month ago, and before that had little-to-nothing to do with the party. Leading party members are Meloni, La Russa, Crosetto, Lollobrigida, I would say. But anyway, the point is that there is no "rule" stating that we cannot report individual members' details on this article, and surely having radical positions like being a supporter of Nazism is relevant enough to be inserted in the text. Yakme (talk) 12:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Again, Nordio, Pera, Tremonti, etc. are recent entries in the party, but were given the status of leading candidates, topped electoral lists and are now leading voices in the party, while the one, who is not a supporter of Nazism per se, was an obscure, second-tier candidate (a better source on his statements is needed). Newspapers were and are full of articles on Nordio, Pera, Tremonti, etc., while the other fact was barely mentioned. --Checco (talk) 04:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Being a leading candidate in election lists does not mean at all that the person is a "leading member" of the party, especially in the Italian system. At the very least, it's debatable. I see that you keep changing your position, since you started this discussion with My point is quite simple: information on individual members of broad, big-tent parties should not have place in articles on parties and now you are advocating for a selection of individual members (made by whom?) to be kept on the article. I say we should go with what WP:RS cover and state. I am not arguing for the removal of Nordio etc, I am arguing for keeping the information about an FdI candidate who made a lot of news coverage about him, because of his support of Hitler. See The Guardian, BBC, euronews, Der Spiegel, and then Repubblica, Corriere, il Fatto Quotidiano, Quotidiano di Sicilia, il Post, and many others. Yakme (talk) 07:59, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Again, leading members and/or candidates matter, obscure and marginal individual members do not. --Checco (talk) 05:43, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Says who? What matters is what WP:RS cover and what meets general notability. Yakme (talk) 11:44, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

There are reliable sources on just about everything: our role as editors is to choose what is relevant. Clearly, the information about that candidate is not particularly notable. A reading of Wikipedia:Criticism is quite helpful. --Checco (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, this is a masterpiece of void statements: "There are reliable sources on just about everything" Again, says who? Certainly there are no reliable sources stating that cows have 10 legs, for instance. WP:RS are the foundation of Wikipedia, ad if many RS covered extensively this episode of a party member being a Nazi supported, then it meets WP:DUE, and can definitely be mentioned in the article. Yakme (talk) 13:26, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

There are many irrelevant infos that are covered by reliable sources, so what? --Checco (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Again and again and again: irrelevant says who? If multiple important media networks around the world talk about it, then it means that by WP standards it is notable enough to be mentioned. Yakme (talk) 05:29, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

"Too much information = zero information". Again and again and again: there might be multiple sources and neverending information on each and every aspect of a subject, but obviously not everything should be part of a WP article. --Checco (talk) 13:04, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

The same, of course, would apply to this but I wouldn't want to remove that either. I think it's pretty balanced and we even say the Hitler candidate was sacked. There's no need to remove it. Davide King (talk) 16:19, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Arguably, both informations are redundant and can be removed. I am open to a discussion on the subject. --Checco (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

there might be multiple sources and neverending information on each and every aspect of a subject no, that is simply not true! If an event is extensively covered by multiple, international, reliable sources, this is not a very "common" thing that happens to each and every detail of any subject. On the contrary it means, by definition, that this is something notable enough to deserves a mention here on WP. Yakme (talk) 09:40, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Again, if we were to add each and every information "extensively covered by multiple, international, reliable sources", articles would be endless. It is up to us editors to write good articles, that are sourced, complete and balanced, while not being excessively verbose. --Checco (talk) 06:18, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

if we were to add each and every information "extensively covered by multiple, international, reliable sources", articles would be endless: this is just a random opinion (very likely without a factual base), certainly not a verified evidence. Being covered by so many reliable news media is not a common thing, it's actually quite impressive and makes the event quite notable. I absolutely do not think that sentence in particular makes the article "verbose". The subject definitely meets the WP inclusion criteria. I don't think we have to keep going on this given that after 10+ exchanges it's clear that we cannot agree. Yakme (talk) 08:11, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Surely, we will not agree, even though what I wrote is so logical and common sense that I am quite surprised by your insistence in trying to prove the opposite. --Checco (talk) 19:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I am not trying to prove anything. I am grounding my comments based on what many top-level international reliable sources cover. This is the Nth times I am writing this, and you completely ignore basic evident facts, and also WP policies. You are trying to prove (without actually any proof) that sometimes, randomly, some notable information should not appear on WP, based on editors' opinions. This is not how this works. Yakme (talk) 09:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

If we were to include in an article on a subject all the infos that are sourced, that article would be endless. Clearly, it is up to editors to write articles that are both complete and restrained. Just a silly example: there might be several sources on the Meloni's height, but still that would not be relevant to the article, in my view. The fact that one obscure candidate said something has little impact on the party, especially as that person was never a leading figure and now he is no longer a member of the party. --Checco (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This article is about Brothers of Italy, a political party – it should include stuff about politics. Meloni's height has obviously nothing to do with party politics. Unless, for example, in an alternate reality, multiple reliable sources would stress some link between her policies and her height: in that case, WP editors could and should add details on the link between her height and her politics to the article, since it would meet the notability criteria (for example the article Napoleon has a paragraph about his height because it has been a notable theme of study and controversy). So, your example has no effect. The news about a party member making comment praising Hitler – an extremely relevant political figure – has been covered by all main international media and it makes a lot of sense to add it to the party article. But again, no need to keep going back and forth as you appear to not understand my point, and we appear not to be able to agree on this. Current status quo is retained. Yakme (talk) 08:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Meloni's height (I thought about it with reference to the article on her, not this) was just an example of how a well-sourced information may not be relevant. Who decides that the information of the former FdI member, a very obscure figure with no relevance, is relevant? That can be decided only through consensus. The status quo ante was without any reference to this candidate, thus, if we are talking about established consensus, of course that information is not established consensus. It is quite obvious that contents should be supported by both sources and consensus. Also, their presentation is consensual. Otherwise, if users were able to add whatever they want, articles would be endless and quite chaotic—as it.Wiki articles tend to be. This is general principle that anyone should easily understand. --Checco (talk) 11:27, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

There seems to be a misunderstanding on how WP works. In fact, WP does not work based on the opinions of editors, it works based on reliable sources. Who decides that the information of the former FdI member, a very obscure figure with no relevance, is relevant? Response: reliable sources. I have just proven to you that the instance we are discussing is indeed relevant enough, by definition of "relevance" on Wikipedia (see for example the notability criteria). I have shown that many reliable international top-tier news networks have covered the event, therefore deeming it relevant enough. What you brought to the table is your personal opinion that this event is not notable, without any backing with factual evidence. An encyclopedia is not an average of random opinions, it is based on evidence. Yakme (talk) 09:47, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I also think that there seems to be a misunderstanding on how Wikipedia works in your reasoning, but logic is what is really missing. There is no way that all sourced information on a subject can be part of the article on that subject. It is evidently impossible and not beneficial to the article. If this were the case, articles would be endless. It is up to us editors to dicuss what is relevant to an article and how to present it, otherwise Wikipedia could be well written by a machine, not by editors. It is perfectly OK to rewrite articles in order to clean-up redundaent information, especially from a historical perspective. That is what good editors do all the time. For instance, you had your good reasons to not include any reference to the PDIUM in the MSI's article's lead, but in that you found the opposition of two users. This is how consensus works. --Checco (talk) 15:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I won't be probably able to convince my sparring partner, but I think this discussion, despite being already too long for newcomers, is useful. We need to have a balance in Wikipedia. Usually, individual facts on individual party members, let alone obscure ones, do not get into the article of that party. Just think of Andrew Cuomo or Anthony Weiner: the two's "misadventures" were extensively covered by the media, but of course there is no mention of them in our article on the Democratic Party (United States)! --Checco (talk) 20:44, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Again, this is not just some "sourced information". In this case all major reliable news networks in Italy, in Europe and in the US, covered the subject in relation to the FdI party and to the latest election. FdI is a very small and short-lived party compared to the US Democratic Party, so obviously in that case there is a necessity of being more concise – the two cases cannot be compared. Here, given the amount of coverage that this event had, and given the current length of the article, it is perfectly fine that the extensively covered information about some Nazi sympathies among party members is given in the text. Yakme (talk) 16:47, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

One obscure member who once misspoke and was immediately ejected? Seriously? --Checco (talk) 17:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The evaluation on the relevance of the subject is not going to be done by us, it is evident looking at (I repeat this for the 1000th time) all major news networks talking about this, in relation to the party and the last election – a major turning point for the history of Brothers of Italy, where all international media has spent pages and pages describing and analyzing the far-right neo-fascist roots of this party. Yes, a member of the party being a Nazi supporter is definitely relevant, given the context. Yakme (talk) 09:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

It is not definitely relevant. This is just your own opinion. There is no WP rule that dictates mentioning the issue. Its relevance is to be discussed by editors. Again, major news networks talk about several issues connected to this political party, but not all those infos are included in this article or need to be included. As of now, it is mainly your opinion against mine. It is about consensus, not sources! Sources are only the precondition.--Checco (talk) 14:24, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

You are wrong, it is not my opinion, it is the opinion of all major international news networks. They deemed the issue relevant enough to cover it, even if in principle it could look like a detail on a minor candidate in a small town in Italy. On the other hand, saying that the issue is not relevant is just your opinion – not supported by any objectivity. Also, I think I have the support of other editors like Davide King. Yakme (talk) 09:35, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, are we still discussing this? As for consensus, I have not checked the edit history yet, but Checco appears to be the only to be opposed and seems to fit WP:SILENCE, and we don't need to have an RfC anytime a single user disagree if no other users seem to have problem with it. Perhaps in the future all this will be irrelavant but for now there appears to be significant coverage for it and is clearly relevant due the party's ambiguous stances on its neo/post-fascist past. After all, they chose it as their candidate. Davide King (talk) 15:22, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

There was no significant coverage in the Italian media, but I acknowledge that several international news outlets mentioned the news. No WP policy mandates that all the sourced infos on a subject should fit in its article. This said, with User:Davide King's intervention, there is a (weak) consensus on keeping that information for now. Two users against one, not a strong consensus, though. --Checco (talk) 17:14, 24 November 2022 (UTC)