Wikipedia talk:Guide to addressing bias

What to emphasize first

Should we emphasize our policies on sourcing first, or should we emphasize NPOV, then sourcing? I can see good reasons for each choice. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:13, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

That's a good question. I can tell because I don't have an immediate answer; neither a smarmy and sarcastic answer nor self-important and bloviated one. I started writing it with sourcing in mind first, and literally facepalmed when I realized I was about a hundred words in and had never mentioned WP:NPOV. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:29, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Why choose? You can be smarmy, sarcastic, self-important, and bloviated all at the same time! I myself have been known to be hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, EDLINoid, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dyspeptic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, and pinguid all in one comment. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:12, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

I was fairly certain my response was, in fact, smarmy, sarcastic, self-important and bloviated all at once. And without actually giving an answer, to boot. I should get into politics. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:20, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Suggestion

Thanks for writing the essay; it offers great practical advice on dealing with issues of bias. What about changing to the title to "Concerns about bias" or "Dealing with bias"? That would be a more neutral title. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:16, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

What do you think of "Guide to making a complaint about bias"? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:48, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Guide to dealing with bias? Guide to dealing with perceived bias? Guide to dealing with bias concerns? Go away, loser; nobody cares about your silly accusations of bias? Guide to using thermonuclear weapons to eliminate all traces of bias? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:41, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

How to go fuck yourself? (don't worry, there's nothing in that link more obscene than my comment.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:35, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I like "Go away, loser" :-). Well, is the intention here to have an ironic essay? Or is it intended for good faith editors? K.e.coffman (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

That was just me being silly and MPants responding in kind. Cutting out our attempts at humor, the serious suggestions for a title are:

• Complaints about bias
• Concerns about bias
• Guide to dealing with bias
• Guide to dealing with perceived bias
• Guide to dealing with bias concerns

I personally am leaning towards "Guide to dealing with bias" with some language at the very top of the essay noting that content that an editor is convinced is biased may actually be content that is written from a neutral point of view and that the editor himself may be biased. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:20, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Serious suggestion here: Guide to addressing bias. Thoughts? I think "addressing" helps make the connection better to cases where newbs will be given a link to this; they're trying to address the bias on an article. To me at least, "dealing with" sounds a little too close to "deal with it", implying that there's nothing to actually do about bias. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I like it. Much better than any of my suggestions. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:46, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Guide to addressing bias is pretty good. You could couch it as Guide to addressing perceived bias. Either one works for me; the first one is a shorter, which is a plus. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

• I've made the move, pinging in case the watchlists didn't update: @K.e.coffman and Guy Macon:. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:03, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

When you want to complain about an article's bias...

I would like to discuss improvement to the following:

"When you want to complain about an article's bias, you should always do it in the following way"

I am thinking that maybe it would be better to put a bit of advice above that line that explains the basic idea that Wikipedia is supposed to report what is in reliable sources as opposed to what the editors think is right, and thus that the person making the complain need to emphasis "this isn't what the best sources say" as opposed to "this isn't true". This should be followed by advice about unreliable sources so they don't waste time citing Infowars or moveon.org. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:38, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

That is a good suggestion. I also think I might change the "you should always do it this way" language to something more encouraging and less restrictive sounding. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:44, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I've added a new section giving an overview of encyclopedic neutrality and contrasting it with journalistic neutrality. If you see anything that ought to be improved, please do. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:16, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I just read the whole essay again. Overall, I think it is really good. In fact, I think it is excellent. Good boy! Who's a good boy? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants is a good boy! (scratches behind ears...)

One sentence stuck me as needing improvement, though: "Speculating about why you think the article is biased will accomplish nothing except undermining your own credibility with the other editors here." I would tone it down a bit, remove "undermining your own credibility", and make it clear that claiming that the article is biased because of claim X in reliable source Y is OK, but that complaints without sources are likely to be dismissed as being pure opinion. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:28, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I was trying to say a bit more than that with that sentence, but I don't see why I can't say it all. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:48, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I like your latest version of that sentence a lot better. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:36, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Content vs editors, NPA

I like the essay. Apart from a few minor edits I added a new point at "things to remember" about discussing content and avoiding personal attacks, near the other points which are closely related. There may be some redundancy but the others mostly have to do with our perception, this one is more about our attitude. —PaleoNeonate – 19:59, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey, feel free to fix it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:20, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Mass reverts

This page should either be reverted back to the 02:40, 3 May 2022 version or to the 16:08, 30 November 2022‎ version. Or just go through each edit and decide what to keep. Had anyone else edited here between November 30 and December 12, the original mass reversion wouldn't have touched this page, and the others who have since reverted wouldn't have come here either. Likewise, if not for a 14 November edit, the 12 December mass revert would have restored the 3 May 2022‎ version, not the 14 November 2022 one. 79.31.8.248 (talk) 22:09, 27 January 2023 (UTC)