User talk:DesertPipeline/Loaded words and terms on Wikipedia

What is neutrality?

Neutrality in the WP sense does not mean viewing our culture from "outside" our culture. For one thing that is impossible. And in any case, WP's definition of NPOV is "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". It does not mean the view from Mars.

Most of the terms that this essay criticizes are in fact the standard terms used by reliable sources. Its criticisms mostly amount to the etymological fallacy, or to the fallacy that words have exactly one meaning regardless of context. --Macrakis (talk) 20:11, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Note to the reader: This discussion is related to the following discussions: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Other loaded words, Talk:Patent#Use of "intellectual property" in lead, and Talk:Intellectual property infringement. --Edcolins (talk) 20:03, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Non-Neutral point of view

What User DesertPipeline is currently advocating in this essay directly contravenes core Wikipedia editing policy concerning neutral point of view, in my opinion. User DesertPipeline appears to have a point of view that Copyright and Intellectual Property laws do not confer "rights" of ownership to those who create such works. To suggest terms like "Consumer", "Intellectual Property", "Rights" as in "Copyright", as well as "Piracy" or "Pirated work" should be called something else when those are the legal terms used in Copyright and Intellectual Property laws of many countries and various international conventions is like saying a "Spade" should away be called "an implement for digging up dirt". This essay suggests making politically correct changes by replacing loaded terms with ones that are not loaded, which is tantamount to suggesting that Wikipedia articles be whitewashed. Wikipedia is not censored. So-called loaded words, just like offensive words, need to appear in its articles so these terms can be understood, but they need to treated in an encyclopedic manner, by explaining why the term is used, what it means and the context in which it might be used. Editors should not expurgate or bowdlerize an article to remove a loaded term when it ought to be used. One of the core principles of Wikipedia is that articles should be written from a neutral point of view, without introducing editorial bias. This article advocates introducing editorial bias by replacing what the author sees as a loaded term with a euphemism, and that is how editorial bias is introduced.- Cameron Dewe (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Cameron Dewe: In what cases do I advocate the uses of euphemisms? While we should certainly explain these terms, they should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice because they push a point of view. There are neutral terms available to replace them, and I don't know why you'd consider them euphemisms. I'd go so far as to say that the terms listed in this essay are more "euphemistic" than the literal terms I suggest as replacements. DesertPipeline (talk) 12:10, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

DesertPipeline, you suggest replacing terms, that, in your opinion, are "loaded" with other terms that, you say, are "neutral". That is the definition of a euphemism. In doing so you introduce editorial bias. What I am saying is that your current suggestions contravene core Wikipedia policy. What evidence do you have that the terms you advocate using are not also "loaded" but in the opposite direction? Your essay cites one advocate, with a US Constitutional perspective on copyright. This is one opinion and does not reflect a global perspective on the subject of copyright. You do not cite other sources that might present a counter opinion. The suggestions you make as top priority also suggest you might also be personally advocating, and not just presenting what your source material might be advocating, for the right to use copyrighted works without the restrictions a copyright holder might impose on a work to enforce their ownership rights to ensure royalties are paid for a work that is copied. While I agree you have the right to hold that opinion and advocate for your right to hold that opinion, trying to impose that opinion on Wikipedia articles by writing an essay is not what is intended by Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. Wikipedia ought to be written from the point of view that the editing is impartial, fair, appropriately balanced and gives different opinions given due weight. Suggesting that certain "neutral" terms be used in place of other terms that are supposedly "loaded" introduces editorial bias by creating an artificially "neutral" article that is biased because it does not address the "loadedness" of the terms that you suggest are "loaded". While Wikipedia ought to be written from a neutral point of view that does not mean Wikipedia articles must have a neutral point of view, instead Wikipedia article should reflect the different points of view that exist in society. Your source material is one of them, but it is only one of them and it is biased. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 13:19, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I wish I could say that I'm surprised that nowadays being neutral is apparently having a point of view (because of course, not taking a mainstream opinion as fact and wishing to not frame a debate in a certain way with a certain word or term that biases opinions is pushing a point of view these days). Unfortunately, I'm not. It's just the way the world is. I fear what will become of us in future greatly.

There is a difference between facts and opinions. A relevant fact in this context is that copyright was not intended to benefit the author. It has always been about benefitting the people by encouraging authors to author more works. Initially, the rights that it took away were a good trade – there was not a way back then to mass-copy a work unless you had access to a printing press, so the general public were not affected – only the publishers who could afford printing presses and could easily be regulated. Unfortunately, the law has not caught up to the digital revolution, where any digital data can be copied with minimal effort as many times as one wants. The publishers do not like this, so they try to pretend that copyright has always been intended to reward authors (or "creators" in their warped language). So far, their plan has gone largely unopposed. I find it interesting that you would suggest words that were previously considered neutral (because they were used, because they described the system, because people recognised the purpose of the system) are somehow now "euphemisms". Euphemisms for what? These loaded words are more euphemisms than any of the neutral ones that came before them. DesertPipeline (talk) 03:49, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

DesertPipeline, I think you misunderstand what writing from a neutral point of view means. It means an article editor does NOT inject their personal point of view into a Wikipedia article; instead the editor examines the reliable sources, fairly balances their content and produces an article that fairly represents those sources and the balance of their facts and opinions. Let me give you an example: The essential facts in a source says: "X is alleged to have committed a crime. X is charged with an offence but pleads not guilty. Nevertheless, at trial, X is found guilty and convicted and sentenced to prison." The Wikipedia article that says they are either a "criminal" or a "prisoner" has not been written from a neutral point of view because the source never said the were either of those things; the editor has injected their personal opinion of what X's behaviour labels X as. But this is not what the source said; the source said nothing about whether X was a "criminal" or a "prisoner", only that X had committed a crime and been imprisoned. In other words, if the source does not say it, Wikipedia cannot say it. It is because of that restriction that I object to your essay. Having said that, here are a few more loaded words to beware of: Criminal, Murderer, Killer or Serial Killer, Rapist, Fraudster. Wikipedia articles should only use these labels if the sources use these labels, otherwise they have not been written from a neutral point of view. Similarly, Wikipedia articles should only use the terms you claim are "neutral" if you have sources for the article concerned that use the terms you discuss in your essay. I am not saying you cannot use those terms but if you do use those terms you need to cite your sources. Writing from a neutral point of view is about striking a balance between the various sources that fairly and accurately represents what the various sources say about a subject, without giving greater or lesser weight to one side or another and without injecting your own opinion into the article, either. It not about being "neutral", it is about being "unbiased" and not favouring any particular side in the debate. Your essay advocates the contrary, so causes "bias", because it advocates Wikipedia articles should be written from a particular viewpoint. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 10:19, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Piracy is a historic term that describes copyright infringement

Describing a person who infringes copyright by copying a work and publishing it as a pirate has a long history and pre-dates the Berne Convention of 1886. For example: An article about Piratical Publishers appeared in Volume 22 of Popular Science Monthly in March 1883. The ability of piratical publishers to reprint works from foreign countries without paying the original authors for the right to do so is one reason the Berne Convention and our current copyright laws exist. Yes, the word is loaded, but that is not because the term is used in Wikipedia articles. It is because the term appears in various conventions or legislation from around the world to explain the making of an infringing copy of a copyrighted or trademarked work. While legally this is theft or fraud, rather than robbery on the high seas, the term piracy has a long been used to describe this sort of behaviour. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 12:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

It is indeed the case that unethical publishers used to be referred to as "pirates", although I won't suggest that it's right there, either. A good question to ask is "why are they now applying this word to the common people?". They want to make you think that sharing and copying are wrong. As you say, "theft". Theft means being deprived of something, and copying doesn't deprive anyone of anything. That's the nature of copying.

Copyright was supposed to serve the people. It's not for the publishers' benefit, as the reference "Misinterpreting Copyright" explains. It is for the people's benefit. And if the system is no longer working as it should, then maybe it needs to be changed. Unfortunately, publishers don't like that idea, because they'd like to gain ever more power over us. That's why they use the nonsense term "intellectual property" to frame the debate in their favour. DesertPipeline (talk) 12:13, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Your position is not the legal tradition I come from. Copyright exists to reimburse the creator of a work for the time and effort the creator has gone to create that work. The copyright holder has a property right in that work and can share a copy of the work with others for any form of compensation they might mutually agree upon. Before the digital era this involved the trading of tangible or hard copies of the work, such as a book, photograph, tape, film or other physical record of the work. Making these physical copies cost a fair amount of money and usually publishers, who acted as middlemen between the authors and the people who wanted a copy of the work concerned, could add on a small royalty to reimburse the authors without significantly to the total cost. With the advent of digital devices the cost of making and storing copies is tiny compared to the royalty fees due to authors. However, there is no workable mechanism within the copying process to collect the royalty fees that authors might seek so people might obtain an authorized copy of a work because there is no longer a tangible physical copy to be traded. Copying without paying this royalty deprives the copyright holder of being compensated for the value of their work; this is seen as a form of theft under copyright law. Because many authors have traded their copyrights with various "publishers", for money in advance, publishers are now trying to collect. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch and your assertion that copying does not deprive anyone of anything is incorrect in law, as far as I can tell. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 14:09, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Cameron Dewe: I certainly can't blame you for being misinformed. Again, please read the essay "Misinterpreting Copyright" referenced in this essay. It explains things a lot better than I possibly could. Thanks, DesertPipeline (talk) 03:39, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Suggest user-fication

@DesertPipeline: - any objection to just moving this essay to User:DesertPipeline/Loaded words and terms on Wikipedia ? If it's "yours" and a statement of your opinions, you can ignore all the pushback above and POV tags and the like. It also makes clear that it's your take, which is cool. If it's in the Wikipedia space... well, as noted, that means opening it up to others, and I don't think there's any consensus to agree with your comments here. We already have Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch , which is where the more consensus-backed danger terms show up. SnowFire (talk) 16:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

User:SnowFire: Cameron Dewe added the point of view tag. I'm fairly certain that such a tag doesn't apply to essays, though.

I don't intend it to be "mine" as such – there must be other people who recognise that this is a problem. I'd like anyone to be able to help with this essay, because I'm not the best at making convincing arguments, and that's probably part of why this isn't working out exactly as hoped so far. That, and the fact that we're living in a culture that reinforces this mentality at every opportunity. I certainly didn't expect it to be easy. I'd rather try to do something positive and fail than do nothing. DesertPipeline (talk) 04:01, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Do other editors agree that certain words are a problem? Absolutely, I've advocated for the same myself in requested moves to ignore actually contentious words like "massacre". However this is currently a fork of WP:WTA but with added words that do not have consensus that they are actually loaded. I think you'll find that very, very few people not in the FSF agree with any of this. Like, I'm against software patents too, but the idea that "software industry" is a problem term is crazy. And more importantly not supported in reliable sources - even IF "software industry" was subtly reinforcing software patents, it wouldn't matter so long as that was still the term used. Wikipedia is a trailing indicator not a leading one, we'd have to wait on everyone else to STOP using the term as problematic - which really has happened to some once-accepted terms like Master/slave (technology), but I see little indication any of this is controversial. SnowFire (talk) 05:23, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

"Free" software

Calling software distributed under the GPL "free" software is good marketing. But there is nothing neutral about it. If WP needs to avoid terms like "consumer" and "copyright owner" and "software industry", surely it should also avoid terms like "free software", which are terms of advocacy, not neutral description. After all, GPL licenses restrict some people's rights to do some things just as proprietary licenses do. You may agree with the FSF's objectives, and you may think that those restrictions are desirable as a matter of public policy, but they are restrictions. A more neutral, descriptive name for "free software" is "GPL-licensed software". --Macrakis (talk) 21:50, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: Not all free software uses a GNU GPL licence.

Would you say that a free society is not free if it says you cannot take away the freedom of other people? A restriction on restricting others hurts nobody except people who would want to do something that is wrong. Therefore, free software is free as in freedom. It gives everyone the freedoms they need, and nobody is allowed to take them away. That is more free than "You can have freedom unless someone takes it away because we allow them to". DesertPipeline (talk) 06:51, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

No need to proselytize. The point is that the word "free" is just as loaded or more than many of the terms mentioned in this essay. --Macrakis (talk) 15:48, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: You haven't given valid reasoning for this. If you don't want to discuss it, then that's fine, but you can't act as if you're correct when you don't try to refute what I said. DesertPipeline (talk) 05:24, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

No one will disagree that the broad term "freedom" is a bad thing, which is why using the word "free" is good marketing. But there are certainly people who disagree that GPL-style licenses are desirable. It's like calling the Western Bloc the Free World. Yes, there were many good things about the Western Bloc compared to the Soviet Bloc, but the word "free" short-circuits clear thinking. --Macrakis (talk) 19:21, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: What, specifically, is or are your objection or objections to "GPL-style" licences? DesertPipeline (talk) 03:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

This isn't about me and my opinions about GPL-style licenses. A quick Web search will show plenty of debate about them. --Macrakis (talk) 23:48, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: Presumably you do have opinions on them? I want to know what your opinions are. DesertPipeline (talk) 04:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

"Talk pages are not a place for editors to argue their personal point of view about a controversial issue.". --Macrakis (talk) 21:13, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: I'm not trying to argue with you, and I apologise for my combative language previously. I genuinely want to hear your opinion. DesertPipeline (talk) 04:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

There are lots of places online which discuss the pros and cons of GPL-style licenses. For example, see the discussion at [1]. The biggest objection that many people have to GPL itself is its virality. LGPL does not have that property, but the FSF discourages using the LGPL.

In any case, the point here is not about the advantages and disadvantages of various licenses. It is about the use of the word "free" to characterize them. "Free" is a word that has strong positive associations, so it is a great marketing term. Using it to denote a specific strategy for licensing software is clever, but it is loaded. --Macrakis (talk) 17:33, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: What does "viral" mean in this context? I must say that suggesting free software is a marketing term is a new one to me. You might be looking for "open source" – that's a marketing term; no argument for anything except practicalities, an ignorance of ethics, and a feel-good but misleading buzzword ("open"). DesertPipeline (talk) 03:04, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

"Viral" (added: Viral license)

I have followed the free/open debate ever since Stallman created his "free software movement" in 1983. Both "free software" and "open software" are marketing terms. Pace Stallman, "free" is as much a "feel-good but misleading buzzword" as is "open". --Macrakis (talk) 15:58, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: As the Wikipedia article you linked says, "viral" isn't a very good analogy when it can only be "spread" by direct action. If people don't want to use free software code because they don't like the licence, they should write their own code. That's exactly the same as in free software, where people are needing to rewrite everything required just so that we can have freedom in computing.

When proprietary developers say free software is "viral", what they really mean is "I can't use your code without giving back, even though I don't even have to do anything special myself, except give the users of my software freedom, which I don't want to do because I want control over others".

How can free be a misleading buzzword? It's software that gives you freedom – not total freedom, because you don't need total freedom, but as much freedom as is possible for you to have control over your own computer, rather than somebody else having control over it. It's called free software because it gives you freedom in computing. Do you disagree with that?

Also, I'm not sure how you've been following the free/"open" debate since 1983 when "open source" didn't exist until 1998, unless you mean you were following things related to free software back then, and followed the debate between the two terms when that all began. DesertPipeline (talk) 03:00, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is about neutral description, not advocacy. See WP:IMPARTIAL: articles should represent all significant positions.

As for the chronology of "free" vs. "open", both terms were being applied to software by the early 1980s, with "open" not necessarily referring to the form of licensing, but usually to non-proprietary APIs. For example, the Open Group for Unix Systems was founded in 1985, not long after the Free Software Foundation (1983), 13 years before Eric Raymond et al. coined the term "open source". --Macrakis (talk) 18:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: I wasn't aware that the word "open" had such an early start in this context and I find it unfortunate. Personally I really don't think there are any cases in this context where "open" should be used instead of free or libre – for instance, a free standard or libre standard (as opposed to an "open standard") communicates the same message but actually mentions why it's important. DesertPipeline (talk) 03:06, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

You may find the usage of "open" "unfortunate". But WP is not about your personal opinions, and we certainly should not misrepresent what actually happened historically because you don't like it. --Macrakis (talk) 13:41, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: I'm not suggesting we misrepresent anything – just that we shouldn't treat free software and "open source" as directly comparable by using any of the terms related to them listed in this essay in the section § 6. "Free and open source", "FOSS", "Free (libre) and open source", "Free/libre and open source" in "Wikipedia's voice". DesertPipeline (talk) 03:46, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

WP follows reliable sources and describes all reputable points of view. The FSF's point of view is one respectable point of view, but it is not the only one. --Macrakis (talk) 16:33, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Macrakis: Do you mean that because reliable sources use the terms "free and open source" or "free (libre) and open source", we need to use them too? If so, personally, I'm not sure why the language used by reliable sources has to be reflected on Wikipedia at all times. Is there something I'm not getting here? I would have thought that we could just use "free software" (or "libre software") to describe software which describes itself as that, and "open source" for software that describes itself as that, and not use the grouping terms. For articles on that topic (the grouping terms) we could say that they exist. It's the same with "consumer" – while reliable sources may use the word, we don't have to ourselves in our own prose. For instance, "customer" is used by reliable sources too. I still don't understand why we can't just use that word instead – would it make articles worse? I don't see how it could myself. DesertPipeline (talk) 03:45, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

(←) To the extent that both "free" and "open" are ideological and marketing labels, WP should avoid them both. It's better to be more precise. Calling a given piece of software "GPL-licensed" or "copyleft-licensed" or "BSD licensed" or "public domain" is more precise than calling it "free" or "open source". --Macrakis (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2021 (UTC)