Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 16 to March 10, 2006

Undue weight section: retake

Bensaccount, the Undue weight section does not suggest that there is no room for its interpretation. It is clear that the criteria of the Undue weight section need to be interpreted in view of specific situations. Moreover, in practice, editors often fail to obtain a consensus about how to interpret the criteria of the policies, and so they consider them together. This is natural. However, it still remains that each criteria is individually a valid ground for exclusion. There is nothing wrong in arguing for exclusion using only one criteria such as verifiability or notability or relevance. For example, if the editors of an article agree that some material maybe verifiable and relevant, but not notable, it means that they have agreed to exclude it. There is nothing wrong there. We should even applaud to such a consensus around the policy. This is very natural and simple. In practice, editors do not often agree, but the policy itself should remain simple.

Again, I suspect that you may have a problem with the notability criteria. I personally have a problem with it, and I guess that I am not alone. It should be clarified so that it cannot be used to exclude very valuable information. In particular, I think that a view that is sourced in a peer-reviewed journal, should automatically be accepted as notable. If it is this kind of proposals that you have in mind, then I agree that we should discuss them. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 18:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Notability does not add much to the decision of whether or not to include a view. Whether something is "worthy of notice" is the problem. Ways to appoach this problem include looking at how popular the view is, or how relevant it is to the article. Arguing to include (note) a view because it is "notable" is somewhat redundant. Bensaccount 00:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The first thing to clarify is whether or not arguing for inclusion on the basis of a single criteria such as popularity alone is a practical approach. IMO, it only makes sense to argue to include a view on the basis of one criterion such as popularity if the other criteria such as verifiability and relevancy are satisfied. Otherwise, it is like saying that we can include a view that the consensus says is not relevant and not verifiable because it is popular. Perhaps you would like it that way, but then the first thing we should clarify before we proceed ahead is whether or not it is that way. Don't expect that any one in the statu quo gang will help us here. There is a few of us that boldly want to improve the clarity of the policy and there is a small gang that openly opposes any attempt to improve it. We have to work together. So please, let us work together. Can you give an example where there is a problem because say relevancy alone is a valid ground for exclusion or because verifiability alone is a valid ground for exclusion. For now, don't use popularity as an example because it may just be a problem with the way the criterias is evaluated, and not a problem with the general principle itself. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 02:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The second thing is that it was my mistake to assume that you understood that for me notability, in the same way as popularity, is a general notion that is not defined in relation to a given article. For me, notability is just a variation on popularity. I prefer to use notability instead of popularity because in practice (note) it is not practical to evaluate the popularity of a view, which is the number of people that hold that view. It is not much easier to evaluate how many times the view was expressed in the media. It is easier to evaluate how many prominent adherents have expressed that view in the media. This is what I mean by notability. I am sorry if the term "notability" is not the appropriate one here, but I think popularity is not much better. To simplify things, just assume that what I meant by notability is the notion of popularity that we can measure in practice. It is this notion of notability (or popularity) that I think we need to clarify. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 02:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This is really a conversation between only you two. Perhaps you could move it to one of your Talk pages? — Saxifrage ✎ 02:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

If nobody else wishes to take part in this discussion of the Undue weight section, nobody else will have a say in what changes are made to it. Bensaccount 03:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

No changes happen to important pages like this one without consensus. Unless more people are participating in the conversation, any conclusion that this conversation reaches will not represent the community's desires and so won't result in any changes. It only takes one other person to object to any proposed changes to show a lack of consensus among three voices. — Saxifrage ✎ 03:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Saxifrage, what you are doing here is called trolling. Don't do that. Bensaccount, I suggest that we ignore editors when they act as trolls. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 03:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Since I'm not posting "rude or offensive messages" with the "intent to disrupt conversation", I'm not a troll. I am suggesting that this conversation be taken to one of your Talk pages for a very pragmatic reason: no-one else here is participating and it's taking up an amount of space on this page that is disproportionate to the ratio of people participating in the conversation to the number of people who need to use this Talk page. — Saxifrage ✎ 03:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

To me it seems that your intent is precisely to disrupt conversation. Anyways, in response to the paragraph above, even if it is easy to evaluate how many prominent adherents have expressed a view in the media, this alone should not warrant inclusion in an article. This is really just a way of verifying that a certain opinion can be attributed to someone and therefore be treated as a view. So in this sense I agree, but the issue I am trying to address is: Once we have decided which opinions are verifiable, attributed views, how do we decide which ones should be included? Bensaccount 03:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

"To me it seems that your intent is precisely to disrupt conversation."

Surely I suggested continuing your discussion, merely elsewhere. You might consider assuming good faith by not ascribing malice to me, which would make it much easier for you to discover what my real intentions actually are. — Saxifrage ✎ 03:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you can't imagine what good intentions I could have. Allow me to detail my reasoning on how my suggestion would serve the greatest good. A particular problem (that negatively affects both you two and everyone else on this page) is this: no-one else is participating in this conversation, so I can only guess (along with the sheer volume of text) that no-one else is actually reading it either. This will cause you both a lot of difficulty if you ever come to a conclusion, and you will likely be surprised and shocked that "See Talk" won't count as support for any edits. One good way to avoid this is to do the majority of brainstorming elsewhere, and then present the very meat of your conclusions on this Talk page for discussion. This will serve to give a concise and accessible bit of text for editors to work with in forging a new consensus for this section. This would both improve your chance of your suggestions being considered by sufficient other editors to develop consensus (since other editors would not have to wade through this long, multi-part conversation), and would also increase the usefulness of this page. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You are either naïve or think that we are naïve. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That would easily count as a personal attack, and it is definitely a violation of Wikipedia:Assume good faith. If you are going to reference Wikipedia guidelines regarding comment formatting to me with prejudice on my Talk page, you might find it useful to avoid violating more important policies and guidelines.

Now, that unpleasantness aside, I ask that you engage with the issue I brought up and tell why my suggestion is a bad idea. I have given sufficient reasons why it is a good idea for everyone. What do you lose by it? — Saxifrage ✎ 00:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I did not want to offense you when I wrote the above. I think it is impossible to discuss this kind of matter without hearing the voice of the other party, which is so useful to convey the feelings. Regarding your suggestion, I was hoping that you would see by yourself why it is not a solution. I am sorry Saxifrage, I have nothing against you if you sincerely believe in your suggestion, but trying to explain why I think this suggestion does not address the real issue will bring me too much off the main purpose of this talk page, which should be to discuss the policy. I prefer to discuss the policy. I am inviting you to join our discussion on the policy. Thank you. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 01:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome to explain it on my Talk page to avoid cluttering this one. I have my reasons for not joining your discussion, but thank you for the invitation. — Saxifrage ✎ 02:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the Undue weight section only provides one objective criteria to exclude a view. Moreover, it does not provide any objective criteria to determine the weight that should be attribute to each view. The only objective inclusion standard that is provided is the existence of prominent adherents, and even this one is open to interpretation: what is a prominent adherent? You also right when you say that this criteria is just a way of verifying that a certain opinion qualifies as a [prominent] view. I added "prominent" because a view is still a view even if it does not have prominent adherents. The expression "attributed view" does not capture the idea that the view should be attributed to someone that is well known. For example, remember that anyone can self-publish a book.

I am still thinking about the issue that you raise. I think that to answer this issue, we first need to clarify notability. BTW, see this email from Jimbo, which says that notability is an inclusion standard, which means, that it is a valid ground for exclusion. It is fair to say that a view with prominent adherents is notable. However, it will be too exclusionistic in my opinion to exclude a view because we cannot find prominent adherents. There must be other ways for a view to be notable. I would say that verifiability in a peer-reviewed journal should be accepted as a guarantee of notability, but this is open to discussion. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 16:02, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

In the way you raise your isssue you assume that not every verifiable and notable view should be accepted for inclusion, and I have no problem with this. In particular, I agree that relevancy should be a separate additional inclusion standard (a valid ground for exclusion), and I have seen a lot of supports for this in other policy talk pages and never seen any objection. Note that no objective way has been proposed to check the relevancy of some material. IMO, this is not a problem. It is enough that we all have an intuitive notion of what it means. For each case, the term would have to be interpreted by the editors of the page, but this is fine. However, what is meant by "expertise" is not very intuitive. Can you expand on what you have in mind when you propose expertise as a separate inclusion standard? I think the notion of expertise should be included in the notion of notability. For example, as I previously suggested, a view that has been checked by experts in a peer-review process should be accepted as notable. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 17:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The email from Jimbo is about AFD, which is a bad analogy. Arguing to note a view in an article because it is "notable" is redundant, so I don't think considering the notability of a view is useful. And Wikipedia does not redefine words. Other than this we seem to be in agreement. I think there are a lot of users hiding in the woodwork so I will hold a poll to see where they stand (it is only a poll - take it for what it is worth). Bensaccount 19:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that the only disagreement is on the use of the terminology "notability". Do you agree that we need a name for the criteria that is satisfied when the view has prominent adherents? If it is not notability, what it is? Do you agree that to exclude all views without prominent adherents will be too exclusionistic, and therefore there should be other ways to satisfy this nameless criteria? -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Poll: Does the undue weight section distort the process of fairly representing views?

• Yes. Bensaccount 19:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
• Object to any changes to the policy. And I believe I speak for most of the experienced editors watching this page when I say stop. I cannot and willnot pay attention to the level of useless chatter going on on this page. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• Your position Hipocrite was known. It does not matter. The policy will improve in the mind of people, and this is more important. At some point, it might even be reflected in the project page. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• Hipocrite's position matters no less than anyone else's here, and more than some to some bemused watchers. FeloniousMonk 20:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• What is important is to discuss and make sure that we have a common understanding of what the section says or should say. Too soon for a poll in my opinion. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• I have a second thought. This poll will be useful, except that the title should have been "Please sign below if you are in the statu quo gang"! -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

• Object to any changes to the policy per Hipocrite. I see the singlehanded attempts to rewrite policy from the fringe continue. This fruitless yammering from one or two editors has been going on near non-stop for near two months now. Saxifrage was right when he pointed out above "that unless more people are participating in the conversation, any conclusion that this conversation reaches will not represent the community's desires and so won't result in any changes. It only takes one other person to object to any proposed changes to show a lack of consensus among three voices." BTW, polls are non-binding. FeloniousMonk 20:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I echo Saxifrage's comments earlier; please, take this to your talk page. · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 20:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Katefan and Saxifrage are both right; take it your own talk page. Two months of this are enough. FeloniousMonk 20:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict)Yes, stop filling up policy talk pages with this 'useless chatter' as H. so eloquently describes it. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

And to illustrate the point, take a look at the archives at the top of this page: There are as many archived pages for January 2006 alone as there are for the preceding 6 months. Take a guess what the topic is and who the editors are. FeloniousMonk 20:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Editors in the statu quo gang

There are 4 editors in the gang (to be updated): FeloniousMonk, Hipocrite, Katefan0, KillerChihuahua

List created with the help of the poll. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 22:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:NPOV, 10 March

This is not true. The problem is more that editors that see how little respect editors that try to clarify the fundamental aspects of the policy receive are simply discouraged. Therefore, only non controversial issues, such as issues that only apply to a small number of articles, are discussed. The statu quo gang is very happy to discuss these issues. For example, the issue of editors trying to write about themselve, their family or their business is not controversial because it only applies to few articles. Moreover, this issue is only a challenge for the few editors that try to do that even after they are told, and it is only a tiny minority. However, the purpose of the Undue weight section is very fundamental because it affects almost all articles with a variety of opposing viewpoints. The statu quo gang simply act as trolls and interfer in an honest attempt to use the talk page as it should be used, which is not just to discuss non controversial issues. We do nothing wrong in the talk page. We only do something useful in the talk page. We do not stop others from discussing their preferred issues. There is enough room for all of us. Ask yourself with a little more honesty (toward yourself) why exactly you want us out of this talk page. Where is the problem? What is this thing "freeing the main discussion page up for talk on topics that interest more than one or two editors"? If we were a family with members that are open to each other viewpoint, there will be no problem. So, this is not the end of the story. You are dreaming if you think that it will end that way. You know why it will not end that way. Because there are people out there like Bensaccount and me that think differently than the statu quo gang, and these people will not stop to exist. We are good people with good intentions, but we have our opinions, and you will have to decide what is the best way to deal with this situation. Think about it carefully. Do not hope that you will find an easy solution that will not require you to open your heart and your mind. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 02:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

No harm will be done if you use the subpage to hash out the philosophical underpinnings of any decision to change the wording of the Undue Weight section. Once you have concrete suggestions that directly address specific wording changes or other direct suggestions for changes, most people will be much more receptive to discussing it here. It's just that nobody else much wants to participate in a long wandering talk about the philosophical and semantic issues that you and Bensaccount are discussing. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course, harm will be done. If we are accepted in this talk page, without a gang that keep considering us as trolls, spammers, etc., perhaps after a while others will join us. We do want to see others participate in the process. This is an ongoing process. It is the opposite that is obviously true: No harm will be done if we are accepted in this talk page. It can only be good. Again, as I said to FM, if you see that some harm is created because we remain in this talk page, ask yourself why you feel that way? What are you afraid of? -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 20:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Large quantities of insular text drive new participants away from a Talk page. You are accepted—your current project is not. Vive la consensus. — Saxifrage ✎ 21:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

You mean vive la majorité (the majority). Obviously, there is a majority of editors (of this talk page) that are against policy when they exclude the view of a minority of editors from this talk page. Here is the real situation. When one dislikes a viewpoint, then it is seen as a problem. For example, one feels that it dilutes the good viewpoints, it confuses people, etc. OTOH, if one likes the viewpoint, it is not a problem. Therefore, you are just saying that you don't like that we present in the talk page a viewpoint that challenges the statu quo of the policy. This challenge is "the harm" that is done. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 23:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW, if the problem is "large quantities of ...", then it should be OK that we move back the essential, and continue our discussions here. If you do not like the idea, it must be that the problem is exactly what I said above. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 23:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Taken to your talk page, as this is again getting ridiculously long and is not about the policy page. — Saxifrage ✎ 02:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No thanks. We discuss this here or nowhere or in your talk page, but in any case it cannot be the end here. -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 03:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

My conclusion is that it is fine that we selectively remove something that it is very long if we keep the essential here. I will not oppose to such a suggestion, if I feel it is justified. It remains that any selective removal should be done with a consensus because otherwise it is against policy. Vive le consensus! -Étincelle (formerly Lumiere) 03:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)