Wikipedia talk:Information suppression

This is a draft Wikipedia policy, following on from much discussion on the NPOV talk page.

Overview

There have been 3 or 4 drafts of this policy and it is now being submitted for wider consideration. Please help make this a good policy and contribute.

FT2 18:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Note: as explained below, this is in fact not a policy but some useful examples to help the average editor recognize POV manipulation; FT2's proposal here is to give it a separate page as annex to WP:NPOV, instead of just including it on the NPOV page. Harald88 10:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Why a policy is needed

• A source or viewpoint may be notable and verifiable, but not all notable verifiable views may be given a fair hearing on equal terms. This is a common NPOV dispute issue.
• POV suppression and misrepresentation is one of the favorite attacks of POV warriors. It contains its own typical tactics. At present those tactics are scattered and alluded to in passing over a wide range of policies (NPOV, FAITH, 3RR, NOR, V, ...) A specific page to point to, with relevant examples of these tactics, can be of great help to editors seeking to respond more specifically than "that's POV".
• It's a tight and well-defined subject that several users working on WP:NPOV have stated they consider worth enlarging upon beyond the basic outline in that policy.
• In other policy areas, major and well-defined sub-policies that need a fuller discussion, are often covered in more depth on their own pages, even if they also fall under an umbrella policy. (For example, WP:NPA can be viewed as a sub-policy enlarging on an aspect of WP:CIVILITY.)

There is nothing in this proposed policy not implicit within existing NPOV policy. So it is not really a "new policy" as such. Instead, it is felt to be valuable to explain POV suppression in more detail that WP:NPOV allows, and how it can arise (Talk:NPOV consensus), and helpful to do this in its own policy page separate from WP:NPOV.

So the request is, not to create new policy, but that the community allow this chunk of WP:NPOV to be placed on its own policy page, where it can be clarified more fully (as consensus says it needs) without detriment to the main NPOV page size.

The next best alternative is to put it in a section within WP:NPOV, but this is not as preferred, since it makes the main NPOV policy page longer; the size of WP:NPOV is already under discussion on its talk page.

Past discussion history

• Talk:NPOV#POV_selective_fact_suppression_(from_project_page)
• Talk:NPOV#Selective_information_suppression_(also_known_as_"POV_suppression")_-_version_2
• Talk:NPOV#Selective_information_suppression_(also_known_as_"POV_suppression")_-_editable_version_3

Also crossref (for example):

• Talk:Daniel Brandt Nov 11 2005

Any consensus proposed changes

The term "information" as opposed to "facts" is preferred to date. Although wikipedia deals in facts, it's been felt that talking about "information suppression" rather than "fact suppression" is more generally useful.

Initial policy straw poll

In principle, do you see a policy of this kind being useful? (subject to refining the actual wording and layout)

Support

• Support - FT2 18:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support - Harald88 14:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC) But see below! Harald88 22:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Voyager640 06:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support overdue. zen master T 23:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support I cried when I saw this. --sansvoix 03:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
• support: A consolidated summary of policies would be invaluable to establishing context. Ombudsman 04:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support. To me, that a policy of this kind is/can be useful in principle is a no-brainer. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 16:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Information suppression is one of the easiest ways to promote or marginalize a particular POV. --Nome77 (talk) 06:37, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose --Improv 03:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. All the relevant policy is part of WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V. Notable information is kept. Non-notable information is to be deleted. I would support a refinement of notability criteria instead. JFW | T@lk 22:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Already being used by pseudoscientific POV warriors while it is only a proposal. Kill it now. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose similar to JFW's description, this could be used to give "undue prominence given to controversial scientific theories"(Nature.com). That is, it appears to shift the balance of notability for inclusion of material in a particular article. --Rikurzhen 22:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hipocrite. Wikipedia gradually turns into a scrap-heap for all sorts of pseudoscientific allegations which often overshadow valid data with their bulk and pertinacity. --Ghirla | talk 11:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
• partial oppose on a technical matter (keeping my support above). See my comment below (under "different tag"). Harald88 13:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC) And as it's increasingly difficult to find, in short: it doesn't make sense to me to make a buch of examples "policy": Examples are instructive, but not executable. Harald88 00:04, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Jfdwolff, Rikurzhen, Hipocrite. KillerChihuahua^?!? 11:08, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Jim62sch 12:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose This issue is already better dealt with by Wikipedia:NPOV#Undue weight and Wikipedia:NPOV#Pseudoscience FeloniousMonk 16:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Jfdwolff, Rikurzhen, and FeloniousMonk. Andrew73 22:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Each piece of information must be judged by its own merit (which is sufficiently covered by existing policies), not by some "political correctness" rules. mikka (t) 08:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Genuine instances of information suppression are afforded sufficient protection under existing policies.--cjllw | TALK 05:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments:

Hipocrite, that's interesting! Please provide a link related to your remark about use of this page for pseudoscience, so that we can all judge on the cause of your opposition and perhaps do something about it. Thanks in advance! Note that "killing" this proposal can in no way be helpful for disputes, except for those who lack good faith and don't want other editors to understand their POV propaganda tricks. Alerting editors against information suppression is already part of NPOV policy ([1] is linked), and more clarification has already been decided on; the voting here is about the presentation (phrasings as well as alotting this information space on a separate page, which has advantages and disadvantages). "Killing" this essential information will no in way happen, but a net "no" vote is likely to result in size compression. Harald88 22:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Natasha_Demkina Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

At first sight it mentions this page without any policy inclination; the discussed policy is NPOV, in line with FeloniousMonk's comment above. Harald88 00:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Initial name straw poll

Several names have been suggested, including: POV suppression, POV suppression and selective misrepresentation, Selective information suppression, Information suppression, or some combination of these.

Is the current name sufficiently apt, or do you feel a different name would better describe it?

• POV manipulation: information suppression

Comments: Originally it was meant to be a short paragraph on the NPOV policy page (and honestly, I don't mind if it will finally end up like that; let's not waste time on cosmetics). But if it is going to be discussed on a separate page, I think that it's important to make immediately clear (=in the title) that this subject is relevant for the NPOV policy. Harald88 11:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'd agree actually. "POV suppression and misrepresentation" is one I like. But we agree I think, it's fine tuning a preferred title thats the issue. One thing I want to add is that doing this changes or misrepresents the shape of the debate. I think thats important. FT2 12:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

in the light of the below discussion, what about something more telling such as :

• POV manipulation: unfair information suppression

Harald88 21:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Discussion and comments

• I am uncertain as to the goal of this proposed "policy". It seems primarily intended to put a new spin on existing tradition, and I intuitively feel it will do more harm than good based on its wording. I wish I had more concrete things to say.. --Improv 22:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The goal is this:

The NPOV policy states that neutrality is expected and non-negotiable. However it has come up repeatedly and from several authors on its discussion page, that POV suppression is not sufficiently addressed by WP:NPOV. In part this is because it's worth actually summarizing how a point of view can be suppressed, as well as what neutrality means, and WP:NPOV doesn't at present do this well.

This omission has reportedly made life harder than necessary, as reported by several editors on talk:NPOV, and there has been support consensus for clarifying POV suppression as an issue, because the suppression of information is not about failure to verify or original research. Instead it's about de facto failure to give other views equal respect and handling.

This is an area that is commonly misunderstood by newcomers. WP:NPOV does cover it, but WP:NPOV is a major policy (like WP:CIVILITY is), and cannot go into depth on every topic without becoming excessively long and self-defeating. POV suppression is an aspect of NPOV that some editors feel should be moved to its own policy page and linked from WP:NPOV, because it is substantial, notable, valuable, a common issue, and a distinct sub-part of NPOV policy.

So in effect the discussion is not about the policy, as such, but about whether this text has a page to itself or is included in the WP:NPOV page. All the things in this draft are already implied within WP:NPOV. The discussion is that in order to cover them more fully, there is a sense that it ought to be a short page of its own, rather than being a long section of a lengthy NPOV page. In fact no policy is proposed to be changed. The community is being asked for permission to move a sizable and self-contained chunk of NPOV onto its own policy page, in order to simplify WP:NPOV, allow space for a more useful treatment, and highlight and clarify how POV suppression can occur, as an important aspect of NPOV.

Hope that explains. FT2 23:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• I understand. I worry though that it is designed to or may give rise to heavy coverage of extremely minor views from kooks, e.g. for the article on our planet, it may lead to favouring equally the few flat-earthers that may still exist and the not quite sane. I think the current "common sense" policy, without the enumeration involved in this, better handles that situation. --Improv 03:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Fair thought. That's really something that affects NPOV policy wording as a whole -- the balance of making clear we respect all views equally, and describe them equally neutrally, whilst covering some in more detail than others. It's under discussion but more related to NPOV wording as a whole. But it wouldn't hurt to check that this policy does what it can not to encourage misbalance by accident. It shouldn't be impossible to sort that out. FT2 05:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

One of its features is that it instructs the editors to be aware of and even to recognize POV manipulation in order to protect articles against such practices. AFAIK that is not contained in the current "common sense" policy - right? Harald88 15:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings on this. I have seen reasonable views suppressed. On the other hand, to paraphrase Improv, there is already an equal an opposite problem of including "extremely minor views from kooks". Possibly work to get some or all of what is here incorporated into WP:NPOV, but weighted against the opposite concern? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:08, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The word "Kook" is often used to denigrade minority opinions, showing disrespect for such opinions in an attempt to silence them. The Wikipedia rules in this matter are clear and also this article already indicates that they should not be over-represented ("under-representing" is no good, obviously the same applies to the opposite). However, it may be useful to add another time the sentence that only "notable" POV's should be included, just to make sure. Good idea! Harald88 08:10, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel -- This has already tried to be worked in WP:NPOV; for reasons listed above, the issue here is a request by editors of that page to give it its own page (see above "why"). A minor edit clarifying that neutral POV representation doesn't mean (or justify) adding every indiscriminate tiny-minority view under the sun wouldn't hurt. However there's a more elegant way to handle it. If you read carefully it's listing ways in which opinions are represented as being more (or less) important than they are (ie, distortions of perspective, information, and the shape of the argument). Implicit in the wording is that an unimportant or minor opinion should not be over rated either, because thats also POV misrepresentation, and I think that's the point to make clearer if it isn't already. Would clarifying this aspect, help? FT2 10:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• Like Improv and Jmabel, I am concerned about this policy. I believe I know what precisely is the problem. This policy seems to support the inclusion of fringe views within an article when it would currently only be appropriate to have them in a different article. For example, this policy might require that creationism and arguments for it be included in the evolution article. Consider this text: Note that science, religion (or any other system of knowledge), when used to emasculate other views rather than to add extra insight into the subject of the article, is also POV suppression. It would imply that the scientific consensus on evolution is not sufficent grounds for excluding pseudscience claims from the main evolution article, whereas they are now discussed in Creation-evolution controversy and the articles in the creationism series. --Rikurzhen 03:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Due to my first discussion with Rikurzhen on race and intelligence, I similarly think to know one of the causes of his concern. Disagreement with the above remarkproposal implies in fact disagreement with existing Wikipedia policy! In Wikipedia, no narrow POV as proposed by one group of people is imposed as Wikipedia view, as if it can be the only reasonable opinion, even if it's that of a group of scientists. However, it is clear that extensive explanations of notable alternative points of view logically go to their own page, with links between the two articles -- often that happens naturally due to page size limits, but it won't harm to mention it here. IOW, Rikurzhen's concern can be addressed by such a clarifying remark. Harald88 08:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the trick is that information may be appropriate to the encyclopedia but not for a particular article. Another example: vaccine, vaccine controversy, and autism epidemic. --Rikurzhen 09:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

That's right: the information must be notable as well as relevant.

Perhaps add the word "relevant"? Harald88 11:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think thats a problem as such. The proposed policy is neutral as to viewpoints and only reflects ways in which a viewpoint can be unfairly represented. It does not change the relative strengths of different viewpoints. In that sense it cuts both ways. Taking the above article issue on how creationism should be mentioned in the evolution article, as an example:

1. An evolution article that advocated or subtlely pushed creationism as the "right" answer, or gave it a significantly over-rated place in the article, would be POV pushing. One that unfairly reported or minimized the scientific view, or the arguments against creationism, in order to give creationism an edge it does not have in the "real world", would be suppressing a notable viewpoint.
2. Also, an evolution article that made no mention of "Some people, notably religious views, believe in the contrary view that the world was created complete with skeletons relatively recently, this is called creationism", would also be suppressing a notable viewpoint.

Viewpoints should be notable, and presented in a neutral balanced manner. The proposed policy is looking at ways in which that is abused and viewpoints are either being claimed to be unimportant or tiny-minority when they are not, or when they make other more mainstream views and criticisms seem less important when they are not. BOTH are POV suppression issues. People with scientific, religious or political views are all capable of suppressing views as any other people. That's not to say such beliefs and views are in any way judged by Wikipedia as "wrong", merely noting that they should not be taken as so right that they become a reason or justification for other notable (but conflicting) views to be artificially minimized or misrepresentatively reported.

This proposed policy is saying, "You can report your notable views. You can argue how important different views are. But certain practices commonly used to artificially boost one view or deprecate another in debate, or used to misrepresent how important they are in an article or how they are described, aren't neutral reporting at all, and are usually breaches of NPOV." That's the purpose.

A minority, implausible, or weak viewpoint will still be a minority, implausible or weak viewpoint, even if represented neutrally. Ensuring the neutral representation and "level playing field" for discussing views, is critical to Wikipedia, and this proposed policy names and identifies common ways some editors try to manipulate the neutrality of that debate when breaching NPOV. Whether it is a majority view they are artificially promoting, or a minority one, suppression or misrepresentation of information is in conflict with NPOV. That's what this is about. FT2 14:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, then I'm still concerned. I'll express my concern for the record and leave it at that. I think that as written this would require that you should (for example) describe arguments for and against a round Earth in the same article in the same paragraph because anything less could be argued to be POV suppression. To a certain extent, some POVs (i.e. pseudoscience) do need to be suppressed by not being given the same placement in an article. (If they're notable they can have their own article and a brief mention as a pointer -- this is, I believe, current NPOV policy.) Harald88's comments about the need, for example, the mention creationism in an evolution article are IMHO correct and consistent with current NPOV policy, but these changes would go beyond that. Overall, I think we'd be better leaving the rules as they are and using good judgment as editors. --Rikurzhen 17:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry... one more tid bit. Along this line there's an article in Nature where they did peer review on WP and Britannica. About WP they noted a complaint: "This criticism is common among information scientists, who also point to other problems with article quality, such as undue prominence given to controversial scientific theories."[2] --Rikurzhen 17:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

It's good to have this concrete example to discuss. There is no part of this proposal that would contradict the WP:NPOV view on how opposing views should be represented and balanced. The proposal covers three main common forms of POV suppression, all of which are already inherent in WP:NPOV but would gain by being allowed their own article space. Its aim is to complement WP:NPOV by saying that when balancing views and deciding how they are characterized in the field, certain manipulations of source material which make evidence for one view look artificially stronger or an opposing view look artificially weaker are described and identified.

The three main forms of POV suppression identified by editors on Talk:NPOV are:

1. Misrepresentation of sources.
2. Variable or double standards being used for different views.
3. Editing as if one given opinion is pre-determined to be "right", and other opinions are presumed in advance to have no substance, and hence never giving them a NPOV description in the first place (even if notable), however short.

Examples of each:

1. Misrepresenting sources -- eg, choosing supportive positive quotes from source X but omitting the bit where source X says "these results are still in doubt".
2. Variable standards -- eg, including supporting citations of one's pet view cited from anywhere, including random newspapers, web pages, etc, but then dismissing opposing views saying they can't be considered credible because they weren't reported in journal X. (Yes this does happen.)
3. Pre-determination -- eg, in the ESP article, excluding a description of ESP as ESP studiers see it, because "everyone knows its false so anyone supporting their views is a non-credible source". (Even if ESP is not scientifically valid, it should still have a section describing it as its proponents see it, and not have this description excluded or minimized because "we know it's wrong". Obviously the flip side is, its criticisms should also be represented as its critics see them, too, and they should not be under represented or misrepresented either.)

None of these say anything about how arguments or views should be given in the article, beyond stating "here are some ways in which views are artificially manipulated by biased representation, to make them appear more or less prominent." Certainly none of these comes close to saying that they should or shouldn't be in the same paragraph at all. All that's said is, flat and round earth must be considered fairly by editors when it is considered, so that neither pro nor anti views will be under- or over- exaggerated in the article.

Since a fair representation will show that flat earth is still a fringe whereas round earth has overwhelming credible support, I don't see theres a problem. All this proposed statement says is, advocates of both sides must represent their side, and criticisms of the other side, fairly, and not falisfy or mischaracterize them with a fake standard, to make their side seem artificially better or worse. FT2 20:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[I wrote this in parallel to FT2] Rikurzhen, also for the record: please take note of the fact that this article originated as just a few examples about subtle but typical ways of disrespecting existing Wikipedia NPOV policy; the existing policy is simply reiterated for context. There is no proposed change of policy. As far as I can see, at the very most can your concern be that we should add at some places words such as "notable" and "relevant", to make sure that it won't seem to encourage allowing all kinds of irrelevant and for that subject unimportant information. Apart of that, NPOV is the foundation policy of Wikipedia, and personally I am optimistic that in the long run, it will make it the best encyclopedia ever. Harald88 20:51, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Observation after the above. The draft proposal states, very carefully:

"It is important that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner and that each is summarized as if by its proponents to its best ability."

The aim of NPOV is to ensure that views, and the subject, are presented neutrally and fairly. If the evidence, and credibility of proponents and critics, of "round earth" and "flat earth" respectively are considered as a whole by editors, I have little doubt that we would find a "balanced manner" of presenting the subject as a whole would give flat earth a low level of prominence, and would clearly state the arguments against it by scientists and others if necessary.

What this is saying is, if someone raises "flat earth" on the talk page, saying "why isn't this given more prominence", it must be fairly considered. We can argue it is a tiny-minority view and low credibility, we can end up giving it one sentence or no space at all perhaps in the article -- all this says is that neither side of the talk page debate nor the actual wording in the article (if any) should use the kind of tricks named in the policy proposal, to artificially manipulate the sources or bias the debate to add "support" in a non-neutral manner in doing so. FT2 21:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This discussion gave me an idea for a title that emphasizes fairness (see above). Harald88 21:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Zen-master's additions

Zenmaster proposes the following additions:

• • Using needlessly absolute, direct and literal language or sentence construction to present one view, but then using dismissive or weasle words to present alternative views.

• • General use of ambiguous and unclear language that does not sufficiently disassociate abstract concepts nor encourage abstract conceptualization but does induce presumption and unconscious acceptance of one sided and/or unscientific issue framing.

I now parked them here, because they are for later discussion, and mixing his proposal with the existing one would mess things up. The text as it stands is the near-final result of a long discussion on the NPOV Talk page, and we're here to discuss details as well if it should be paragraph on the NPOV page or, as proposed, be a separate article that is linked from it. Zenmaster, please don't disrupt this discussion! Harald88 11:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I think both are valid ideas, both happen in POV suppression and POV warfare situations. But also harald's right, lets agree the principle of listing this policy, then afterwards we can collate any suggested wording changes and discuss them. it's not disruptive so much as "first things first." As see above, I think I added some for later consideration too. The former's good; I think the latter comes under "words tending to imply a POV" and is more covered by policies about neutral wording (eg WP:WTA) rather than policies about misrepresentation and suppression of evidence and views though. Discuss after? FT2 15:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, but note the wording in the initial straw poll above "subject to refining the actual wording and layout". zen master T 17:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

What are you trying to do here?

This page is an interesting essay, but it doesn't propose anything actionable. If you want to clean up POV, or add sources, or remove bias, please do form a project to do so (or join WP:CSB). There's no need to change policy to do any of that. Radiant_>|< 11:32, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Radiant, are you talking about Zen-master's essay on this spage, or about the way the project is explained? I think to have spotted (IMO) a mis-phrasing of FT2: the Information suppression page is meant to be nothing else but useful information that accompanies the NPOV page. To call that "policy" is therefore confusing. IMO the text above should read :

This is a draft clarification relating to Wikipedia NPOV policy, following on from much discussion on the NPOV talk page.

BTW, at first sight its purpose is very different from that of the "remove bias" project, except perhaps if there are plans to to merge wp:csb with wp:npov.

And to FT2: I would suggest that it's high time to include the useful suggestions on the project page. Harald88 23:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Will respond to the latter (harald) shortly, I have my plate full right now unfortunately. FT2 (Talk) 20:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Radiant -- I'll try to re-explain, hope this helps..... (and if I word it poorly, its late here!)

If you read any major policy, they contain a list of "things that are a problem" and "things that help". For example, the social policy has been summarized by some editors (eg WP:TRI) as bluntly as Wikipedia:Don't be a dick. But that needs some expansion. The practical expansion, to turn a general principle into actionable lines that editors can refer to, is found in places like WP:NPA and WP:CIVILITY, which list circumstances and actions that are not acceptable because they undermine a core aspect of Wikipedia, its community.

The proposed policy has a similar relationship with WP:NPOV. Its purpose is to list a group of common circumstances that often go together and undermine another core aspect of Wikipedia, WP:NPOV. The circumstances are those where an editor, accidentally or willfully, uses citable sources but does so in a non-neutral manner, creating or enforcing a biased slant on a subject. Thats a crucial aspect of NPOV which regularly is at the heart of POV wars. It was poorly documented on that page, and editors on WP:NPOV decided by consensus to give it its own page, mostly so that it could be recognized, referred to collectively, and used as a reference point when this kind of cluster of activities is going on and an article is being edited in the ways described.

As such it is very different from the remove bias project. The project is an effort by Wikipedians to edit specific articles to remove bias that's in them. This is a policy outlining tactics or accidental editorial problems, which actively happen, so that editors have a more defined way to say "these are things that are usually not okay." For example, whatever article one works on, it is usually not okay, to add weak sources from credible source A to support side X whilst ignoring strong arguments by credible source B for side Y. It's usually not okay to choose supportive quotes from source A and ignore source A's own criticisms. These things are almost always going to be symptomatic of bias introduction.

So the aim here is to set out an expansion of WP:NPOV -- "POV suppression introduces bias. These are ways that this commonly happens. Avoid them". Both to educate so that people can see how POV creeps in, and so that neutral editors have a single, direct, citable reference point summarizing them if needed. These matters would be in WP:NPOV as policy, if WP:NPOV had room. WP:NPOV is too long as it is, because it's a major policy with a lot to it, and these are an identifiable aspect of that policy, so consensus was to ask for permission to put them on their own page. But that doesn't change the fact: if they would be policy as part of WP:NPOV, then they would logically also be policy elsewhere. Moving stuff to its own page doesn't change its standing, and the behaviors described are almost in every case going to be breaches of WP:NPOV.

Hope that helps. FT2 (Talk) 20:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

A live case study of selective information suppression

Look at Edward Smith (psychologist), and the related article Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Edward_Smith_(psychologist). The votes are overwhelmingly in favor of deletion. This VfD caught my attention because I have verified the scientific findings of Edward Smith with my own experimentation and observation, and Edward Smith's contributions are generally large and plain to see. The thing is, no one has pin-pointed his identity, or what educational certificates he has or doesn't have. Furthermore, none of his findings are published in popular scientific journals. ...Nevermind the fact that his contributions are all truthful, major, and verifiable. The reason that so many people are attempting to delete this article is because it disproves the fanatical belief that approval by major publications, completion of long college rituals, and/or certain identity, are prerequisites of making major contributions to society. It's just such a blatant and comically shameless display of information suppression on behalf of a false POV belief, and by SO MANY people, that I just HAD to mention it, for laughs if nothing else. IrreversibleKnowledge 03:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you have a case here. The Afd is not making a judgement about the ideas expressed, but about the credibility of a more or less anonymous web essay as an information source. Any verification by you personally is original research. Tearlach 12:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Is a lack of information in wikipedia an act of information supression? I have a negative vote at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Edward_Smith_(psychologist) because we cannot *verify* WP:V the information, we cannot determine notability of the individual, and we cannot tell if the article is about WP:NOR. We have lots of interesting information in wikipedia that is not accepted by other information sources, provided that we can verify multiple sources, and find several people who have cited, or used, the original sources. Ronabop 15:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

(The issue on that article (which now appears to have been deleted by consensus) was that there was minimal evidence the individual was notable, and that his field existed beyond his personal advocacy of his beliefs. The issue for a wikipedia article is not if the subject matter is true, but if it is notable beyond a tiny group. Various wikipedia policies state that true information that is only tiny-minority, may none the less not belong in Wikipedia. Its been deleted now so I can't check for myself if this was the case or not for this article. FT2 (Talk) 03:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC))

What's wrong with this proposal

1. It describes a situation but not a solution. Hence, it's an essay rather than a proposal.
2. It is in fact redundant with our guidelines on citing sources.
3. "Do not suppress information" is a no-brainer, not to mention FUD
4. The phrase "Note that science, religion (or any other system of knowledge), when used to emasculate other views rather than to add extra insight into the subject of the article, is also POV suppression." is highly questionable and easily invokable by pseudoscientist rules lawyers. *Radiant_>|< 00:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This has been explained to you before: it's listed under proposals for good order, to vote to give it a separate page or not. We don't want the NPOV page to become too long. As regards to your "no-brainer": that may be said, depending on one's personal experience and opinions, about most of the NPOV article. It is now an established fact that for a number of editors this is not a "no-brainer" but instead it fills up an information gap, which may help Wikipedia against both unintended and intended abuse. It has some overlap with your guideline for citing sources, but in principle it's an unrelated subject. Apart of that, please specify why you think that the by you criticized phrase is different from actual policy (it originates with FT2). Harald88 02:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• Because it is easily invokable by pseudoscientist rules lawyers. Radiant_>|< 03:04, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but here you did not specify a difference with existing policy; instead you a use (invented?) the label "pseudoscientist rules lawyers" that implies the existence of two POV camps, in which you apparently take sides. Your use of the label pseudoscience doesn't make sense to me: who would want to advovate error? And please note that Wikipedia NPOV is incompatible with the so-called scientific point of view WP:SPOV, which has accordingly been rejected by the Wikipedia community. Harald88 12:07, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Isn't possible information suppression at least an order of magnitude worse than any possible pseudoscientific rule lawyering (whatever that means)? How do you propose we go about trying to prevent selective information suppression? zen master T 04:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
    • No, it's not. And we do that by taking the few cases where it actually happens to WP:RFC or WP:RFAr. Radiant_>|< 11:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'm with Radiant here, I don't see the pressing need for this expansion in this area, see where it could be used to wikilawyer by POV pushers, think that editors do a good job of weeding out bias, and think it makes the thicket of rules, policies, guidelines, proposals, etc that have to be assimilated by newcomers such as myself, more confusing rather than clearer. I could see leaving it in existance as an essay perhaps, but not policy. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 15:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

As explained above, it indeed is an essay that provides important practical information for unexperienced editors who want to apply NPOV. If you are already familiar with how bias can sneak in, good for you! The reason that it is marked as "policy", is because the proposal is to split this information off from the NPOV page, which is policy. Harald88 18:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

lack of clarity?!

Above I see : "Oppose ... I would support a refinement of notability criteria instead." Notability should be mentioned as planned (see discussion) to avoid that it is overlooked, but this article has nothing to do with that. Assuming that this voter has actually read the article and the comments, apparently it lacks clarity. But in what way? Any suggestions? To me this is a real riddle. It may be (to verify) that the example list is too long, and/or that the split can't be fully compensated with clarifications; in that case it would be better to drop this proposal and instead shorten it and bring it back to the NPOV main page, as was intended before it became too long. But in that case there will also be little room for refining the notability criteria as would be easily possible to include in this article, with a title extension. Harald88 01:35, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Different tag -> No need for polling?

1. Radiant's insistance that the discussed NPOV subpage should be tagged as an "essay" seems to imply that he/she disagrees that there is any need for an opinion poll.

Does anyone know the guidelines on these matters?

2. The tag contains an inappropriate comment: "It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikipedians but may not have wide support."

Instead, it is the draft outcome of a long discussion process on the NPOV policy page, which is (I suppose) why has been tagged in a way to get the attention for polling to verify support for moving it as a NPOV guideline on a separate page (possibly expanding it to include more about the notability requirement).

Radiant may be right about the keyword "essay", but I am afraid that changing the tag could sabotage the polling process that is under way. Checking the dictionary, it turns out that "essay" can have different meanings. Probably Wikipedia uses the term to label the personal opinions of one or two people. That is certainly inappropriate, thus I reverted it.

Does anyone know the different effects of the different tags, and what would be the most appropriate tag here? There could be another tag that is more appropriate than either one.

3. I now discovered the article Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial that is linked from the WP:NPOV page. That article is a similar helpfile, (and it seems worth of consideration to merge this article with that one!) but I don't see the tag "essay". Who decides on such things, and why?

Thanks in advance! Harald88 18:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• You are mistaken about two aspects of the amendment of policy. First, it is almost never accomplished by voting or polling on anything (see WP:VIE). Second, modifications of a policy page should be discussed on that policy's talk page.
• My statement that this page "may not have wide support" is not in fact inappropriate; judged by the lack of edits to both the page and its talk page, it is impossible to infer "wide support". The most common reason for such lack of reaction is that editors fail to see the point of a page.
• A Wikipedia guideline must be (1) consensual, and (2) actionable. Policy is mostly a stronger form of the above. Anything that is not actionable (regardless of whether it's consensual) is an "essay" if it asserts some kind of opinion, or a "howto" or "help page" if it instructive (hence, NPOV tutorial is a howto). Anything that is actionable but not consensual is "proposed" if discussion is ongoing, "historical" if consensus is unclear, or "rejected" if consensus is opposed.
• Thus. If I understand correctly, your intent is to add this text onto the NPOV page. I'll rename the page to make that a bit clearer. I suggest that you drop a note on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view regarding the existence of this page, and ask if there are any objections to adding it. If there are none after three or four days, you can go ahead and edit the NPOV page and add it. Doing so will likely spur further discussion and end up with people rewording the section.
• HTH. Radiant_>|< 01:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Radiant, you did not understand me correctly: this page is a project extension of the Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view page, where the subject matter already has discussed and has been accepted; in fact it already is Wikipedia policy. However, FT2 expanded the text and wants to turn the expanded text into a separate article, therefore this proposal was announced on that Talk page.

But now that I found that an NPOV helpfile already exists (with other explanations), I disagree with FT2 to make this helpfile into a separate article; also, it turns out that I disagree with his purpose, as he wants to call this useful help information "policy". Instead, it's neither an essay in Wikipedia sense, nor policy, but a guideline. Thus I propose to add this list of examples to Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial instead of making it "a policy". Harald88 17:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Recognizing the point made, I have thought hard, and feel due to important differences I don't completely agree. But I don't completely disagree either.

WP:NPOV contains (or probably should contain when they get it in shape), a summary of key principles needed to ensure NPOV is clear and followed. It will contain examples, but a few of them only. Further guidance is in the tutorial. These are examples and discussion, not definition however.

Taking WP:CIVIL, this is a summary of what civility involves and how to stay civil. It's our core social policy, as NPOV is our core article-style policy. It too has expansions in other articles. One of these is WP:NPA, another important policy document. So, could WP:NPA have been merged into a "civility tutorial"? Probably. Easily. But it wasn't, because it is sufficiently useful as a stand alone citable item, that it is worth creating a separate policy page for it even though it's inherently encompassed by WP:CIVIL. So we see it can go both ways. Some items that are subsidiary have their own pages, some are included in other pages.

The present proposal is in between. It is an expansion of an aspect of WP:NPOV, plus (as with most policies) a set of clarifying examples. We have the choice of either treatment. That's what we are discussing. So the acid test seems to me, are the principles of this section, sufficiently importance, that editors will find it useful to be able to refer to WP:SUPPRESS rather than a term "POV suppression" within WP:NPOV and a set of examples in a tutorial? And after thinking hard, I think, yes, it is worth its own page.

It is a clear, defined issue that editors do often need to refer to as a whole, to bring it together. As a separate page it can be better cited and focussed in its own right, as opposed to just "Thats POV!" which is so often claimed in talk pages that it loses impact. Its the difference between saying "X breached civility" and "X breached NPA". The latter has more effect. If WP:NPA was not a policy, personal attacks would still be against policy, but it would be much harder to be as specific about it when they arise. In this case these are situations where one wants, with immediate impact, to identify that X engages in under or over presentation and bias in their presentation of material for their view. It happens considerably in Talk pages and underpins many POV and edit wars. A clear statement on its own page gives Wikipedians a far more useful tool to address those. A phrase halfway down section 5 of WP:NPOV with examples in a tutorial doesn't do so nearly as well.

If it was less useful, less important subject matter, I'd say who cares. But it's extremely useful and in fact critical in many POV disputes. As Some people commented, "I cried when I saw this"... "A useful tool"... "a consolidated policy is invaluable". It's so common that one side or the other exaggerates or plays games with NPOV and verifiability, to try and "prove" their side has more to it than it should. In a way, this is a key aspect of what misrepresentation is, how it can arise, and how to keep it out of discussions, and it's crucial enough to recognise these as a "whole", that it easily merits its own page to do so.

FT2 (Talk) 20:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

speedy redirect

come on, this is an essay on WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Notability. Redirect or delete. And no, giving less of a platform to fringe views is not censorship, it is NPOV. The Internet is crawling with kooks and conspiracy theorists, and Wikipedia needs some sort of defense against these. dab (ᛏ) 12:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I would strongly support this. Its the best idea I've seen so far on this page. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'd strongly oppose this idea. Should be kept around for historical reasons for reading and for interest. You can always obviously have a link at the top (as I've now done) to go to a current page for those who want to. Mathmo ^Talk 15:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment to User:Radiant

For the record, User:Radiant! has posted a complaint on my talk page [3]. The key points he states seem to be wildly in error and I have responded on his talk page for clarification if any [4]. I make a note of this here since if there is any basis to his points of course it might be relevant to the process.

1. Radiant states "it is your responsibility to follow proper process and advertise properly. You have done neither". Allowing that this is merely creation of a new policy page, and not (strictly speaking) new policy, I have none the less responded with a summary of Wikipedia:How to create policy, which describes how one creates policy and advertizes new policy proposals. The stated procedures were carefully followed. All three places that page states one should advertize policy proposals, were advertized. This seems to be directly contradictory to Radiant's assertation. So it appears Radiant has not done the minimum of checking his/her facts.
2. Radiant states "it should be obvious from the talk page that there is no support for this". In fact at present I am unable to identify a poll in which no support is given. The only poll, that above, shows not only support, but 6 support votes, presently a majority. So it appears Radiant has access to a poll I am not aware of. Discussion on other pages was also positive.
3. Radiant implies (passive voice) that I am "Continuing to propose something in spite of community opposition ... neither is wikilawyering the issue" [emphasis added]. As noted this does not seem to conform to reality. I have asked radiant to clarify his/her sources for the former view, and to confirm that the latter is not a type of personal attack or straw man (a misrepresentative statement put up because it's easy to knock down).

Given the style of debate above, there seems an assumption of bad faith here. I am at a loss to understand why that should be, but I formally request Radiant to calm down, work with others, and understand his/her view is only one persons'. This page, which has gone through due process, has been described at length above, and the repeated re-categorizing, retagging, moving etc is inappropriate to a proposed policy which is under discussion.

It is perhaps not irrelevant that Radiant's user page displays he/she is a "mergist", that is, "mergists believe that while much information may warrant inclusion somewhere, very little of it probably warrants its own article." So that is a point of view. Those who discussed the matter originally on talk:NPOV (as documented above), and those who voted "support" above, feel differently. Those views need to be respected and a consensus worked towards. Repeated unilateral action such as retagging, recategorizing and moving to take it out of proposed policy, is in contradiction to its purpose, which is exactly to discuss the benefits and demerits or establishing a new policy page for this item. That is the purpose of this article.

FT2 (Talk) 15:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

In a reply, Radiant states that the page is not linked and therefore was not advertised properly. This turned up an interesting edit when I investigated [5]:

Advertized on [6] (Wikipedia:Current Surveys), and [7] (Wikipedia:Village Pump) as well as Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view (current, archive 7, archive 10). As you well know, or should, the reason you did not find advertizing is that Village Pump is archived regularly, and the reason you did not find it in Current Surveys is that you yourself, rather disingenuously, deleted it from that page on Jan 13 [8].

Interestingly, and I'm not sure what it signifies, 4 of the 5 "oppose" votes came after that date. So we see that during the entire month up until the time the link was deleted, the proposal had 6 supporting votes, one opposing. Then you deleted it, and strangely, within the next 6 days it picks up not one, but 4 opposing votes, and no supporting. Do you have a comment on this, or on what it might appear to suggest?

This also makes at least 4 inappropriate or questionable edits now, it seems, by which User:Radiant! has attempted to unilaterally remove this from proposed policy or remove links to it. Again, formally, please desist. FT2 (Talk) 16:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I find the above facts very puzzling, both the deletion without discussion or warning as well as the strange timing of the rain of counter votes. It smells itself a bit like "information suppression"! Thus, an explanation is demanded: it's hard to continue to assume good faith with such a history. Harald88 17:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Huh, what happened ~to Radiant?! Harald88 00:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Link deleted again by Radiant! Feb 5 2006, reinstated Feb 19. His edit narrative reads "Clean out old surveys" despite that he knows it is current and was reinstated from his previous edit, a bare 3 days before this. FT2 (Talk) 02:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

POV fork

Shouldn't we fork the WP:FORK policy to disallow creation of POV forks of existing policies? er, — Dunc|☺ 13:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Funny! That's exactly why I propsed to include this tutorial in NPOV_tutorial instead of on a separate page as now is the case. And of course, we don't want such an elaborate list of examples on the NPOV policy page. Harald88 14:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Where to look for help?

Hi. I have been looking all over for a talk page where I can ask whether a certain writing style or statement is POV or information suppression. Does such a page exist? Thanks bcatt 13:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so: it's open for discussion on each Talk page. Harald88 14:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

What if the talk page is "commandeered" by people who refuse to examine arguments that challenge their POV? bcatt 16:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ask for mediation Harald88 23:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No, do NOT ask for mediation. The correct next step is Article Rfc. Mediation is ONLY when Rfc has failed. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:19, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Ask for whichever you think likely to work. I have found the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal helpful.Septentrionalis 01:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thought police

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to discuss the possibility of resurecting the Thought police article, perhaps by salvaging usable npov content from earlier versions (still available in the article's history). Deletion review might not be the best means, since the basic complaint dealt with npoving, so the last version may not be worth the trouble of getting undeleted. Oddly, pov-forking as an issue was invoked as a justification as well. Odd, in that the article now redirects to Thoughtcrime, a title which garners barely a quarter of the hits of Thought police, which is clearly the primary subject in this case, not the other way around. For that matter, thought policing may actually be a broader topic than censorship itself, a question that might be answered when and if the article is reworked for npov and restored. Ombudsman 04:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this now a historic page?

Haven't seen any work going on here for a while. Radiant, the most vocal critic, has left, but there was by no means a "consensus" shown in the talk page. If this message doesn't garner any replies over the next week or so (haven't been any on-topic messages here for almost 2 months, I'm tempted to slap on a "historic" or "essay" tag onto the proposal page. I may be wrong, but it doesn't seem to have a snowball's chance of becoming policy at the moment... TheGrappler 23:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, what is the status of this proposal? I would put on the relevant tag, which seems to be Template:Rejected, but this is much stronger in declaring that the proposal is actually rejected, rather than just defunct or inactive. -- Centrx 01:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This proposed "policy" is in fact a guideline, since it mainly consists of examples. Meanwhile a compact version of it has been included in NPOV_tutorial, which is linked from WP:NPOV. The proposal to call such examples "policy" has little chance to be accepted, and appears to have become inactive. IMO, "historic" would be a correct tag. Harald88 13:31, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

How about position?

Shouldn't the position of information be considered relevant?

For example, consider a case where two opposing points of view are acknowledged and cited. However one is treated as the "default" and listed directly up top as the "fact" and cited thoroughly. Pluto not being a planet, perfect example.

"There are EIGHT planets and those other things are worthless dwarf planets, because some people on a self-appointed board of experts made up some new rules a few years ago! So mote it beeee!"

... Somewhere lower down and less noticeable in the article the opposing viewpoint is presented.

"Some people disagree and think Pluto is still a planet, but the IAU said so so they are in charge even if the number of people who vehemently oppose this definition could certainly be assumed to vastly outnumber the IAU, because the IAU is certainly smarter than all those other people and they aren't on a board and we don't know who the weasels are."

But, oh yes, we acknowledged both points of view fairly and evenly, because it's perfectly fair that the other point of view be in a sort of word-ghetto! Dodger (talk) 01:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)