Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 003

Northern Hemisphere bias

A widespread problem in Wikipedia is Northern hemisphere bias. This manifests itself in places like referring to the Vernal equinox to refer specifically to the equinox that occurs in March, assuming that Spring begins in March, and other assumptions that are only true for the northern hemisphere.

People also live south of the Equator, and the seasons there are at different times of the year.

Where possible, recast the text to remove all seasonal ambiguity. Adding a sentence near the top of the text stating that the seasons refer to the Northern hemisphere should only be considered as a short-term fix. Such a sentence can easily be overlooked by someone who is casually browsing the text, and anyone who is quoting the Wikipedia for any purpose is likely to miss quoting this text.--B.d.mills 06:27, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think chauvinism is a fairly strong word for northern hemisphere bias. It's simply that most of the population lives north of the equator, and most of them are used to thinking of seasons in those terms. Perhaps you could come up with a set of suggestions for common areas of hemisphere bias, and how to compensate for those without excessive verbosity. — Cortonin | Talk 09:14, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The original title of this section was "Northern Hemisphere chauvinism". I have altered the title as suggested by Cortonin.

To fix the problem, we need to agree on a Wikipedia style that removes this ambiguity without excessive verbosity. Some ideas:

• When referring to a specific time, avoid expressions like "Summer 2002". Use other expressions instead. (Imagine if it said "Winter 2002" or "Wet Season 2002" - both of which are also valid descriptions for the month of June, depending on where you live. Seasons are local phenomena. Don't refer to local phenomena when speaking to a global audience.) An exception to this would be when the article or context is explicitly regional. For example, when discussing the tourist industry in Italy, it would be acceptable to discuss the revenues for the Summer of 2002.
• Don't name the equinoxes and solstices after the seasons unless the specific season is important. It is reasonable to refer to the Winter Solstice if you are discussing the timing of a Pagan festival, but not if your intent is to refer to the solstice that occurs in December. Instead, name the equinox or solstice after the month in which they occur.
• Expressions like "Northern hemisphere spring" are acceptable if no other substitute is possible. Such expressions should only be used if the northern hemisphere seasons are relevant to the discussion. For example, "northern hemisphere Spring" is important when discussing the ancient Roman calendar because that calendar began with the local Spring which happens to be in the northern hemisphere, but it is not correct to describe March as the month in which Spring begins, unless you also mention that autumn begins in March in the Southern hemisphere, that the dry season begins in the southern tropics, that the wet season begins in the northern tropics, and so forth.

---

I added the "An exception" sentence to your list, in the style of other similar Wikipedia policies about regionality. The solstice one I'm curious about. I've only ever heard the solstices referenced seasonally. Is there any precedent for other naming schemes, such as "December Solstice"? Do people from the southern hemisphere most commonly call the solstice in December "Summer Solstice", or do they use another term? — Cortonin | Talk 08:07, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The exception is acceptable, as long as it is also acceptable for discussions on local events in the Southern hemisphere to be worded similarly. (Australian rules football is played in winter in Australia, would it be clear enough from context that Australian football is played in June?) I did imply a similar exception in my third point; I guess the list is a work in progress that we must all revise as we go along.

In the various articles on solstices and equinoxes, some mention is made on how the northern hemisphere bias for the names of the equinoxes causes confusion in the Southern hemisphere; I have heard the March equinox referred to as the vernal equinox, the autumnal equinox and the March equinox! "Northward equinox" is another term, but I have not encountered it personally, only online. To help eliminate such confusion, I proposed my second point. We need distinct terms for an equinox or solstice that occurs in a particular month of the year and an equinox or solstice that occurs in a particular season. --B.d.mills (Added manually; I forgot to add it before)

(By the way, you should all of your talk page comments with four tildas, ~~~~, so we can tell later who wrote them.) — Cortonin | Talk 00:53, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mea culpa (my fault). --B.d.mills 06:22, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

However, the word vernal still means spring. I think it's probably okay to call a solstice or equinox by its month, but we should probably avoid creating new terms in the process if they don't exist elsewhere. There are also plenty of times when one does want to refer to the solstices by season, for example as the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year (since it is this in both hemispheres). — Cortonin | Talk 00:53, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As long as the main goal is met, of not using "vernal Equinox" to mean the Equinox in March, and other like constructions, then there should not be any confusion.

The point of this is to make people stop and think about the words they use with regards to hemisphere-specific language, and to choose such words with more care. The feminist movement did the same thing to make language more gender-neutral. Am I being politically correct here? Perhaps I am — but don't hold that against me. Political correctness can go too far at times, but when the goal is to remove ambiguity and no-one is offended, it must be political correctness in its noblest form. --B.d.mills 06:20, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone else reading along have input on this? — Cortonin | Talk 00:53, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

...well, we could just use common sense, according to the context and avoiding torturing our readers. "Northern Hemisphere bias" is only an issue when we are discussing global climate monsoons etc. In such cases, one simply writes "In October-February" or whatever. New Yorkers aren't offended when an article on Borneo mentions the "wet season". There's never a problem when common sense allies with generosity, flexibility and breadth of vision. --Wetman 19:55, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Proportion to population

I have a question regarding the policy that states "We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by only a small minority of people deserved as much attention as a majority view. That may be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties." What if the number of people who hold a position is in dispute? Q0 19:45, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Growth and cruft

This page really has grown into a bit of a monster. Points are often duplicated, or not presented clearly. The page is very long. I would be very suprised if any new users take the time to read and learn such a piece. We should cut it down and clean it up. Dan100 13:20, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, and I think splitting the article into a main article and a FAQ would be a good way to start. I do think the artcile would benefit from the addition of a short section on how to raise and cope with a POV dispute, though ---- Charles Stewart 08:56, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Objective truths... sometimes

On several instances (here, there, etc.), I have come across troubling cases where some article content, or some references, contained blatant errors on objective facts. Especially, it contain false assertions on the textual content of the text of laws that were available from authoritative sources on the World Wide Web; in one instance, one "reference" discussed an inexistant article of a law (to be fair, the article existed in the first draft of the law – but the "reference" discussed it as current).

In all cases, what was troubling was that some other contributors had preferred "information" obtained from non-authoritative sources to easily obtainable first-hand information. In some cases, the non-authoritative sources were probably the media; in other cases, publications defending a certain point of view on the question.

The neutral point of view policies of Wikipedia compel us to attribute opinions to those who hold them. However, in the cases that I delineated above, there was absolutely no room for opinion. Whether an official text, duly referenced on official sites, contains or not a certain paragraph or phrase is not a matter of opinion; it is an objective fact that anybody with an Internet connection can check. There is absolutely no room for appreciation or discussion.

In cases where such objective determination is possible, I think that it should be policy that preference should be given to primary sources.

Note, however, that I do not extend this qualification of objectiveness to the interpretations that can be made of legal texts. These, often, need the help of people with legal background; and, also, determining the possible future applications of a law is generally a matter of prospective and supposition. David.Monniaux 20:13, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You raise a good point. I don't think that was covered yet, so I added a brief paragraph clarifying the objectivity section's application to referencing or quoting sources. — Cortonin | Talk 22:33, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

NPOV, article quality & style

Everyone should try to be as objective as possible, respect other's sensibilities without sacrificing content. That would make neutral & agreeable POV.

Experts vs. concerned paries

It is stated in the NPOV policy that "If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties." Although this text was given in a section that explains the policy regarding representing views in proportion to the population that holds a view, the fact that "experts on the subject" and "concerned parties" was used leads me to believe that both opinions from experts in a field as well as "concerned parties" (who are not necessarily "experts") are to be included in Wikipedia. Am I correct? Q0 18:15, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think many issues don't really have "experts", and for those I think NPOV would simply mean including all the prominent views of concerned parties. And for the issues that have experts, the experts themselves usually have a strong POV. For example, most eugenics experts in the early 20th century would have told you that the methods of eugenics were valid, and that eugenics was morally productive. Obviously this was not the only POV at the time, because there were many other concerned parties with a very different POV which would be important to include. Experts will almost always promote the field of their expertise, and groups of experts will often have a certain social or political leaning, so the inclusion of other concerned parties should be presented to balance this toward NPOV. — Cortonin | Talk 20:08, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I know this must have been said before.

Isn't a neutral point of view an oxymoron.

It is a point of view in it's self. --Greyfox

Read the section of this article titled "What is the neutral point of view?" In particular, pay attention to paragraphs 2 and 3, which describe how "the neutral point of view is not a point of view at all". It's a subtle point, and one often not understood. The neutral point of view is not choosing the most prominent view, nor is it choosing the "correct" view, but it is about characterizing prominent disputes with a careful synergy of the involved views. — Cortonin | Talk 18:17, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Let me put it this way this way.

Wikipedia is the greatest example of man’s struggle to decide who decides what is and isn’t fact or not fact. Basically define what things are as opposed to aren’t. Also who has the authority to decide what is right or wrong. In other who has the right to say it is neutral the founder, writer, viewer, majority or outside power (I.E. God or scientific process). All of these could be wrong. Who has the authority to say what the neutral point of view is?

Hence it is not really possible to have a neutral point of view ever unless something is declared a neutral authority on the matter. Which is nearly impossible because all sides of an argument could say the authority is against them.

To dumb this back down, who has the authority to say what the truth is Absolute or Relative? Or to say what the NPOV is.--Greyfox 20:28, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

After thought maybe it is more of a logic fallacy a kind of married bachelor?

I agree. The problem is that different people havent a NPOV about having an NPOV. Some people use the NPOV stance merely to exclude things that they either don't agree with or thatcant be absolutely proved. There is numerous references in wikipedia to God, but there is no proof of such an entity existing, but no one seems to object, yet if anyone starts to introduce paranormal POV's into any scientific article such as the Pyramids or SETI then all hell breaks loose and the conventional POV apologists start to scream 'NPOV' before the ink's dry on the page (metaphorically speaking), and it makes me want to scream sometimes and throttle them..............

Lincolnshire Poacher 23:23, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Logical fallacy

Always cite your sources, and make sure your sources are reputable, and you won't go far wrong.

Just becuase they are not credible or reputalbe doesn't mean they are wrong. Just means no one believes them.

Example in point 2000 years ago any one that thought the earth was round had no proof. In fact the evidence to most people and wise men of the day was to the contrary. It was flat to them.

They were well aware that if you went north, the sun was lower at noon, and that the angle was proportional to the distance you went north. They had geometry figured out pretty well. The observations were consistent with the sun being far away and the earth being round. In a small area the observations could also be explained by assuming the earth was flat and the sun was very close. But if you went a hundred kilometres north or south and made accurate measurements the flat earth theory could not be reconciled with observations. The "wise men of the day" understood basic geometry just as well as the wise men of today.24.64.166.191 06:36, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, look at the stick Immanuel Vilikovsky got for 50 years for 'Worlds in Collision' and 'ages in Chaos, and still does, yet slowly bit by bit, all his main points are approximately correct, even though his detial may be out.

Lincolnshire Poacher 23:26, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Criticism

See: Wikipedia:Criticism. Thanks. Hyacinth 05:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Proposed change

There is currently a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/NPOV/Taiwan vs. ROC to amend this policy so that Wikipedia officially takes a pro-Taipei and anti-Beijing approach to naming conventions. Anyone interested in discussing this change to the NPOV policy should go there, jguk 21:04, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Everybody who is familiar with East Asian politics can tell this is neither pro-Taipei nor pro-Beijing. — Instantnood 20:49, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

• The NPOV is that it doesn't matter as long as it's explained. Which isn't your position at all. SchmuckyTheCat 23:11, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much!222.20.211.236 12:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What is the meaning of UVO?

My ID is Uvo, when I found Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is redirected from UVO, I felt too surprise and happy!玉米^ō^麦兜 08:06, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

I don't know the answer, so I asked the author of this redirection : User_talk:Francis_Schonken#UVO--Theo F 15:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

UVO was meant as a tentative alternative for POV: "POV" can mean "the opposite of NPOV"; or can mean the abbreviation of "point of view", which to some extent is included in wikipedia (while the "NPOV" concept, as explained in NPOV tutorial, "Space and Balance" section means not excluding any reasonable approach to a topic, while "neutrality" is reached by balancing these approaches/viewpoints). So I didn't tell yet what the acronym UVO was meant to mean: UnVerifiable Opinion (so, linking to the idea of wikipedia:verifiability too). That was explained in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view article itself (that's when I created the UVO redirect page); the UVO clarification remained there for several months last year; then someone in the end changed the text of that article, and the explanation went lost. Hope this helped you a bit: no danger using this word/acronym for something else; I don't suppose UVO as an acronym for "opposite of NPOV" will ever catch, but it was worth a try. Maybe best to delete the UVO page though, because it became senseless. Note that my initial remark about the "opposite of NPOV"/"point of view" ambiguity has been handled otherwise and in a way I don't think I have to restate that remark. --Francis Schonken 15:11, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This clarification makes sense, at least to me. It's a pity it didn't catch. Theo F 16:05, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Cutting a good question from GabrielSimon to the talk page for discussion

what about beliefs? why not just say if that's what they believe they are, just say that's what they are? according to them it's the truth, so why not state it as such, for each case. also, why is science given such leeway, when science is a point of view in itself?

GabrielSimon

• Yes. Why should the findings of science have preference over other POVs? Is there an important statement of NPOV policy that we have not yet discovered here? ---Rednblu | Talk 01:48, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If X believes Y, the article on X just needs to say "X believes Y". For controversial beliefs, the way to do it is to say "Some believe X because <evidence>, others believe Y because <evidence>".

As to science getting leeway, I think this is an article-to-article matter - articles on strictly scientific subjects should be written from a scientific POV, articles on strictly religious subjects should be written from a religious POV (meaning although you should mention what's a belief, there's no need to put mention of criticism or controversy in every paragraph), and controversial subjects should be written as "X says A, Y says B". Or at least, this is what I've come to observe on Wikipedia.

WP:NPOV#Religion has good commentary on this subject.

Nickptar 02:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Sounds reasonable to me.  :)) Does it actually work that way? ---Rednblu | Talk 02:48, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, here's a good question for you. In your proposal, how do you determine when an article is a "strictly scientific subject" and when it is a "controversial subject"? — Cortonin | Talk 04:17, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Consensus. :-P Nickptar 04:22, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Which states Note that consensus can only work among reasonable editors who are making a good faith effort to work together to accurately and appropriately describe the different views on the subject. and Consensus should not trump NPOV. A group of editors advocating a viewpoint do not, in theory, overcome the policy expressed in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not concerning advocacy and propaganda. But in actual practice, if you allow consensus to choose a single view and call it scientific to the exclusion of other views (as you suggested), then you permit consensus to establish advocacy and label that advocacy "science". This is a problem on Wikipedia, and it would be nice if it had a more codified solution. But I don't think your proposal has quite captured the solution yet. — Cortonin | Talk 22:08, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's not a "proposal", it's how, to my observation, Wikipedia works. I'm not saying there's an excuse for POV (scientific or religious) anywhere, but that things are and should be presented as "Some people believe X because A, but (most people)/(mainstream scientists)/(whatever) believe otherwise because B." To be honest, I'm not sure what I was on when I wrote what I did up there. Nickptar 22:16, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Um, science is most certainly not a point if view. Science is merely a method for how one can answer questions that are asked about the physical world in which we live. How else would one answer such questions? By waiting for a revelation from some deity or god? Also, can you give us a specific example of science being given leeway in a Wikipedia article, over some equally reliable method of determining facts about the physical world in which we live? Finally, be careful about using the word "believe". adherents of many religions, and adherents of far left-wing and far right-wing ideologies have set "beliefs". Scientists ask questions, and see what the results of experiments are. RK 18:35, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

sceince is used all to often to call other paths of thinking ridiculous. it is definatly a POV, for people sayt "from a scientiic point of view" or " sceontifically speaking" etc. if not, then they shouldnt say it, but it seems so ot me.

Gabrielsimon 20:25, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NPOV. absolutism and totalitarism

NPOV is being invoked in Wikipedia for the most intolerant reasons.

This should gives birth to a reflexion on the abuses commonly met. For a start, I believe one should state clearly that the contrary of NPOV, is never POV -- a contribution should never be criticized on the argument that it displays a point of view, only that it infringes the overall neutrality.

An argument which would not display any point of view would be absolutist -- pretend that it is objective and universal, without consideration for the opinions of other people but its author. It would thus only be implicitly a point of view itself.

Neutrality is thus not achieved by stating pseudo-universal truths, but by offering a fair balance between the various points of view in presence, making them explicit. Modern science and philosophy do not offer official truth anymore, but theories and paradigms, defeasible and consistent, as far as possible.

Relativism used to be an insult -- it is clear now that its opposite is absolutism, which is far more dangerous. Relativism doesn't mean that all opinions all equally valid, but only that they are so a-priori -- that one should be allowed to defend them, and thus first to express them.

The philosophy on Enlightment (which gaves birth to the Encyclopedia) was indeed absolutist. It did state that some truths were universal. It led to totalitarism, and my own opinion is that it is for this reason, obsolete. --Marc Girod

I know what you mean, I have seen this happening. People seem to think that NPOV refers to the "balanced" view that they consider true, and so they complain that something is not NPOV when it does not reflect what they consider to be true. In reality, NPOV is an entirely different thing, and refers to a presentation style in which controversies are presented such that no view is endorsed or dismissed, no view is evaluated as true, false, better, or worse, and all significant on-topic views which can be attributed to prominent individuals and groups merit inclusion to embody the sum of human knowledge. — Cortonin | Talk 18:55, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I happen to think this is well represented by the text of the NPOV article, in particular, the "What is the neutral point of view?", but it seems that either a lot of people don't understand that section (which could mean it needs clarification), or a lot of people choose not to follow it. — Cortonin | Talk 18:55, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that it is stated, quite clearly, yet in practice not clearly enough. Probably, it is just too verbose, and not well enough structured.

The issue is more complex than assumed, I am afraid. There is a provision for some kind of proportional (to the popularity...) presentation space, but e.g. not to the order. I believe the means allocated to the presentation of conflicting views are not appropriate. In particular, the discussion pages end up undermining the required fairness. I'd like to develop this, but feel that this is not the right place for this discussion. Would you suggest me some other? --MG 24/4/05

equal validity cartoon

TDC, can you explain what you're talking about when you say the cartoon is left-of-center? If it weren't for the name "John Kerry" in there, I'm not convinced you could say the cartoon is in any political direction. You could just as easily put a handful of Republican names in there, for example John McCain, and get pretty much the same joke. Is there some evidence I don't know about that John Kerry ate babies? (Keep in mind, that any illustration of the point is going to have to make some sort of crazy claim as an example.) Perhaps you could more clearly specify what you think is problematic about it so it can be discussed. — Cortonin | Talk 19:03, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, that is kind of the point: except for the fact that "John Kerry's" name is in there. Another name could be put in there, but unfortunately another name is not in there. The point the illustrator is trying to make with the article is that Kerry's opponents are raving lunatics, and the news media represents them in a "fair" light. You could say that I am taking the illustrators comments out of context, but reading the rest of his material leaves no doubt where his biases are. I am sure that a more generic example could be found, but unfortunately many others do not agree. TDC 21:41, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

A better one probably could be found, but the current one works. Ignore the Kerry reference if it bothers you. WP:WIN censored for the politically sensitive. Nickptar 22:52, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Better yet shut down this site

There's a NPOV, but hell, a lot of people are being MISEDUCATED by what's written here. There are just lots of biases and false stuff