Talk:Children in emergencies and conflicts

Regarding turning this into a redirect

...see this discussion at the Teahouse for background. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:09, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

• That discussion is now archived at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 699#Children in emergencies and conflicts. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:23, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
• Another discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 115#Children in emergencies and conflicts. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:26, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
• And a new one opened at WP:VPP#Policy question about turning a page into a redirect. Please discuss there, not here, nor anywhere else (as long as the VPP discussion is active). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:47, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• And that VPP policy question has been answered and closed, with: "article content should be discussed on article talk page." Please discuss questions about a possible redirect here, not there. Mathglot (talk) 10:16, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • For clarity, preferably below in #Redirecting this article, that is the talk page section that was started after the VPP discussion was closed, i.e., in order not to fragment the discussion, for clarity, until that discussion has run its course. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Redirecting this article

Please note that discussions involving article content are required to happen on the article talk page itself. So far, at least 2 different people have objected to this redirection, and there has been no discussion here, nor was there a notice here, to have this discussion. Do not reinstate the redirect until AFTER there is consensus on this talk page to do so. For the purpose of this discussion, I am officially neutral on the matter. I don't care which way it goes, I just want to see that those interested in this article, who watchlist this article, have the opportunity to discuss this article on this article's talk page. --Jayron32 16:56, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

As another neutral participant, I am pinging all participants in the previous discussions, in case they don't have this page watchlisted: @John Cummings, Sadads, Elmidae, Cordless Larry, Francis Schonken, Flyer22 Reborn, Battleofalma, GreenMeansGo, Bri, Smallbones, Kudpung, and DGG. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:23, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• Keep I could see this article needing some rewriting/trimming, and potentially extension with new/different sources: however, it is drawn from a source whose job is to create literature surveys, and has a fairly well defined scope. It's also a field of study, important to both public health and the news. Sadads (talk) 18:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment I remain uneasy with copying the viewpoint of one aggregator of a topic in toto, which is why I kicked off the original question [1]. I mean, this is UNESCO - they are not going to insert Scientology propaganda or NRA ads - and usually we are quite happy to take their material as objective and reliable sourcing. But this is not a few sources, this is an entire article, without any other viewpoints at all. For a topic this wide-ranging, I wouldn't find that acceptable from any single source. It seems the salient points have been made quite well at this Village Pump discussion. - As I said before, I'd be sad to see so much good material go, but this needs content from other sources to satisfy WP:NPOV. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:34, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

  If there is specific concerns about the content's POV, then it should be notified in a tag at the top of the page. However, there is a long history of us copying CC and PD content to Wikipedia to create articles -- including Encyclopedia Britannica, US Gov sources -- including the military-- and academic articles in other contexts. These sources arguably have more challenging and troubling POVs to start with -- the solution should not be removal, but revision -- which is more in line with the values of the community -- that Wikipedia is in fact a work in progress. In the meantime, there is a very clear declaration on the page that much of the content is from this source: I don't know why we should object to the content. If an expert wrote the exact same article, but published it on Wikipedia first, instead of in another venue, we wouldn't be having this debate. Objections should be on the content itself, not on the way in which the content arrived. Sadads (talk) 18:44, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Keep: Having an entire article written from a single viewpoint is how all Wikipedia articles are started. The only difference is that this 'start article' is extensive, written by an expert on the subject and includes 49 academic references. Everyone is free to contribute to the article as with any other article.

Many chapters and user groups run workshops to encourage experts to write on Wikipedia, this is the same except the text is already written and the person who brings it into Wikipedia is copyediting for a new audience where needed. The potential for expert contribution to Wikipedia using this method is very large, there are 100,000 of openly licensed OERs and milions of journal articles written by academics with potentially useful text.

John Cummings (talk) 21:28, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• I read this article at the time DGG PRODed it. My thoughts were that it was written as an academic paper. Which is what it comes across as, and why its title isn't necessarily a common search term. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:13, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• Good as the source is, it is inappropriate to use it alone. I suggest it could best be handled by being divided up--the pregnancy section for example is quite distinct from the rest. DGG ( talk ) 05:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• I would oppose this being an article in the encyclopedia. It simply, as defined by its title, not a notable subject for the encyclopedia. It appears as an essay. To be notable in Wikipedia's terms, a subject has to have detailed coverage in multiple reliable sources, independent of the subject. The subject here is not really definable, so no determination can be made on its notability. It certainly doesn't show its notability, as it comes from a single source. My suggestion would be to userfy it, and use it to make additions to multiple articles, deleting this title. John from Idegon (talk) 06:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• Other than what I stated before, I have nothing to add. Will contact WP:Med about weighing in. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment: I believe the subject belongs in the encylopaedia, but some thought should be given to the ecosystem (for want of a better word) these articles exist in, the placement and order of creation and iteration. As we see, good, quality encyclopaedic information is coming from UNESCO sources, and we shouldn't see granularity on an issue we usually see talked about in broader terms as out of place. The problem is that this article doesn't have a parent, and I think its parent should be the recognised and notable field of "Early Child Care and Education", for which I've created a draft here which if worked on a bit in terms of MOS could be used to replace this article as well as History of early childhood care and education without losing some of the great information that's been contributed. You are all welcome to work on this with me. Battleofalma (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• This is written as an essay rather than an encyclopedic article. The material could be used in articles relevant to the individual sections. It's an impressive piece, but not appropriate for wikipedia in its current form. Natureium (talk) 14:19, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Would a better title for this be Effects of stress on children? Natureium (talk) 16:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment I have marked the page as patrolled for WP:NPP purposes given this ongoing conversation and that owing to article age was already indexed and the top google result for this search term anyway. This in no way reflects any opinion about this discussion - I have none. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

• Keep as a separate article. If you were writing an "encyclopedia of disaster management" or an "encyclopedia of wars and conflicts", you'd certainly have a section on children affected by emergencies and conflicts. There is a huge amount of literature on the health, nutrition, educational, and social effects that these events have on children. While the article isn't going to pass WP:FAC any time soon, it definitely passes WP:GNG. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• keep per WAID rationale--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:48, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
• Keep This is an important article. It does need a little work and perhaps a new lead should be written. The effects of stress on the mother during pregnancy is an important subject and I'm glad to see that it is included. Gandydancer (talk) 15:04, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Please see my note below re my change of mind. Gandydancer (talk) 13:53, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

• Redirect and use parts of it elsewhere, such as Childhood in war, if appropriate. We shouldn't allow outside organizations to use Wikipedia as extensions of their websites. The article may not be neutral. Several medical sources are older than is normally preferred and/or seem to be primary sources. A sentence in the lead about PTSD rates relies on 24-year-old and 23-year-old primary medical sources. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I think that Sarah may be right, which if of course no surprise at all since she so often is. Since this subject is very important to me I thought I'd try to work on the article and found it impossible. Sources are missing or in German and of no help to me. It would be easier to start all over again IMO. Gandydancer (talk) 13:53, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Issues

• Question: Some people have brought up that the article does not match the style of writing of Wikipedia. Can someone point how to write in the voice of Wikipedia is explained? The only resource I'm aware of is Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Vocabulary but this does not cover all of what we are talking about. John Cummings (talk) 13:32, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Good question: the issue is however not a (mere) style issue, but an issue relating to one of Wikipedia's core content policies, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view in particular: "voice of Wikipedia" or "Wikipedia's voice" is explained at WP:WikiVoice which is a redirect to a section of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy:

• a "style" issue is not a problem for the content of an article (so is in principle not an issue of whether we should have the content or not): a content issue is, of course, a question of whether Wikipedia should have the content or not.
• I think the basics of the "voice-of-whom" problem that needs to be addressed for this article, and for other articles resulting from UNESCO editors in residence, is that several claims in the article are not generally shared among experts in the field: only claims that are generally accepted among experts can be written in Wikipedia's voice, that is, without a "according to ..." kind of phrase. If no "according to ..." kind of qualifier is added, then you're writing in Wikipedia's voice, which should probably not happen for a large part of the content of this article. Most sentences would need a "According to a UNESCO report published in 2016 ..." or "According to Marope and Kaga writing in an UNESCO report in 2015 ..." addition.
• If it's "according to ... UNESCO ..." for more than half of the content of the article, we should probably not have an article like this, or the article should be seriously trimmed, or views of other experts should be added, that is until less than half of the content of the article derives from UNESCO's specific views.

Further, I refer to earlier comments in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 137#Does/should WP:NOFULLTEXT apply to more than just primary sources? – see also the kind of commitment I asked for in my last contribution to that section, and for which I received no answer so far. The fact we're still explaining basics many months later does not seem too hopeful. But you're asking the right questions, better late than never probably. We absolutely need a commitment from UNESCO editors in residence on this point. Trying to understand which point I'm talking about is a good first step. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:30, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @Francis Schonken:, I think part of the issue has been that since reusing existing open license text in Wikipedia has been an uncommon practice we've had to create process and guidance, adding improvements based on feedback as we go to Wikipedia:Adding open license text to Wikipedia. What I'm hoping is that existing community members help to refine and improve the process and adapt text where new contributors don't fully understand the (often very complex and not very well connected) rules yet, rather that rejecting it. The text that is being added from UNESCO represents the work of 100s of experts and the process is something that could be repeated using text from many other organisations.

Regarding the reply to your comments I have not added much text from publications outside of testing the process and refinements and Susan stopped contributing to Wikipedia months ago due to harassment and the accusations of COI which were potentially professionally damaging. John Cummings (talk) 16:57, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Re. "... we've had to create process and guidance ..." – all the guidance you'd need already exists one way or another I suppose, it's rather about finding the parts you need for the specific situation in the vast amount of policies and other guidance:

• a ruleset for "reusing existing open license text in Wikipedia" does not really need to be "created", it rather needs to be "extracted from existing guidance" – this starts with thoroughly grasping what is expected for Wikipedia content according to the current policies and guidelines
• creating an independent parallel ruleset is a recipe for disaster: won't work in the long run
• I think you have a key role to play in explaining Wikipedia's rules to people who want to reuse UNESCO's open license texts: it would certainly not be your task to "create" a ruleset.

One of the core issues is that "UNESCO's point of view (POV)", although highly respected here at Wikipedia, does not equal "Wikipedia's neutral point of view (WP:NPOV)". I think UNESCO's POV often comes fairly close to WP:NPOV, which is a good thing in one sense, but, on the other hand, sometimes makes it more difficult to disentangle the POV from the NPOV. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:54, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Case in point: Wikipedia:Adding open license text to Wikipedia#Converting and adding open license text to Wikipedia has a fairly good explanation of how to convert imported text to Wikipedia's core content policies... however, it is there presented as a "style" issue ("Adapt the style:...") – sorry, this is misleading, and would quite naturally lead to the kind of frustration we're experiencing here ("... stopped contributing to Wikipedia months ago due to harassment and the accusations of COI ...") – a core content policy issue is not a style issue. If the problems with the current Children in emergencies and conflicts article were mere style issues, I'd go through the article, fix the style issues per Wikipedia's manual of style (WP:MoS) in less than half an hour, without needing any prior knowledge about the "content" (i.e. field of expertise) discussed in the article. It doesn't work that way: adapting an external text to Wikipedia's core content policies involves, almost always, a thorough rewrite, drawing in additional reliable sources, which almost never can be done without having some clues about the field of expertise (at least: where to find additional reliable sources). I can't do that for this article in half an hour: I'd be occupied for several days, at least, finding sources, disentangling UNESCO's POV from generally accepted knowledge etc, etc. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:55, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• Rewrote/updated some of this guidance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:02, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• And more... --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Proposing to continue the discussion on the update of the guidance at Wikipedia talk:Adding open license text to Wikipedia#Updates to the "creating articles" section. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:03, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

It sounds like John's problem is that he is re-using open-license text, and therefore needs to comply with our guideline on Wikipedia:Plagiarism, which says that even if it's open-license, when you copy someone else's words, then you need to acknowledge their authorship in the text (not just in the footnotes), and Francis' problem is that this particular approach to avoiding plagiarism makes it sound like UNESCO holds a minority POV (which isn't even remotely true). Assuming that I've analyzed these comments correctly, I think that we would benefit from advice from User:PBS and User:SlimVirgin, both of whom were significantly involved in writing the plagiarism guideline (e.g., [2], and neither of whom have edited Wikipedia:Adding open license text to Wikipedia. I believe that SlimVirgin and I had a related conversation a few years ago, in which we considered to what extent that guideline represented actual practice, given that its advice is followed in approximately 0.01% of articles that contain {{EB1911}} text. I think we can find a good way to address this by bringing in a few editors who are experienced with the difficulties of importing text. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Re. Plagiarism/in-text attribution: no, the Wikipedia:Plagiarism guideline is very clear on the point:

• in the lead section: "INTEXT: Add in-text attribution when you copy or closely paraphrase another author's words or flow of thought, unless the material lacks creativity or originates from a free source." (second emphasis added)
• in the Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Compatibly-licensed sources section: "... If text is copied or closely paraphrased from a free source, it must be cited and attributed through the use of an appropriate attribution template, or similar annotation, which is usually placed in a "References section" near the bottom of the page ..." (etc.; again, emphasis added)

This seems handled adequately where I've encountered material derived from UNESCO sources; The guidance at Wikipedia:Adding open license text to Wikipedia#Attributing text also seems completely in line with similar guidance at the Wikipedia:Plagiarism guideline, so neither does there seem to be a problem at guidance level.

Re. "Francis' problem is that this particular approach to avoiding plagiarism makes it sound like UNESCO holds a minority POV (which isn't even remotely true)"... and which also is not remotely what I said. A key point I was making is that "UNESCO's POV" will to a large extent overlap with "Wikipedia's NPOV", but in the instances where it doesn't (e.g. it is UNESCO's role to give advice to the rulers in Benin, but you can't copy that in Wikipedia's voice without infringing on the NPOV policy – that is an example that came up in prior discussion here), it needs to be made clear to the reader who contended it, i.e. with in-text attribution, or the material should be removed from Wikipedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:35, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite. The WP:PLAGIARISM guideline describes both what to do with avoiding plagiarism with text that is not a copyright issue but would breach academic guidelines on plagiarism -- because (as one example) the summary of a source is done without an inline citation--; and also for text coped from a compatibly licensed source. The lead tends to emphasise the former while the latter appears further down the page under WP:FREECOPYING.

If text is copied from a Public Domain or compatible licensed Copy-Left source, then it comes under the second section of the WP:PLAGIARISM guideline (see the sections linked by WP:FREECOPYING) "Copying material from free sources". This involves adding a clear indication of where text is copied to the Wikipedia article using a custom template most of which are listed in Category:Attribution templates or using the general templates like {{citation-attribution}} (inline), in a separate bullet pointed list in a "References section" {{source-attribution}}. They display as:

• One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

So as an example:<ref>{{citation-attribution|{{Cite book|url=http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002335/233558E.pdf|title=Investing against Evidence: The Global State of Early Childhood Care and Education|last=Marope|first=P.T.M.|last2=Kaga|first2=Y.|publisher=Paris, UNESCO|year=2015|isbn=978-92-3-100113-0|location=|pages=118–125}} }}</ref>

References

If the text is not in the public domain then explicitly describe the licence and place it inline as these are not short-inline-citations but long-inline-citations. The whole point is to make it clear that text has been copied. In this case there are three problems.:

1. The inline-citations are long-citations so no other references section is needed (or expected).
2. There is not Attribution: statement per Where to place attribution.
3. I think that the template {{Free-content attribution}} tries to do too much and fails because it does no allow links to the template from inline-citations, and its wording is not suitable for inline-citations. It needs to be rewritten as a simple wrapper like {{source-attribution}} so that most of its parameters can be handled by {{citation}} or {{cite book}} etc.

At the moment I do not think that the attribution is adequate or in the right place. It should be moved into the ref-tag pair the contain the long-inline-citations that support the copied text. -- PBS (talk) 23:29, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

At another level just because one has copied text from a source it does not mean that the POV of that sources can be copied without additional intext attribution. Ie if the text expresses an opinion that opinion must be attributed by adding intext attribution per WP:NPOV: "Avoid stating opinions as facts. ...For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil." " -- PBS (talk) 23:29, 12 May 2018 (UTC)