Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 67

The 2003 statement of Jimmy Wales

We should avoid tempering with the statement made by Jimmy Wales in 2003. The key point here is simple: WP:Reliable sources is a guideline, not a policy. If WP:NPOV would be misleading, not useful or any thing of the sort without it, then it would be part of the policy, but it is not. The original statement of NPOV without any mention of reliable sources reminds us of the essential of NPOV, as it was when declared not negotiable in 2003 and many times later by Jimmy Wales. Not only it is possible to understand NPOV without any reference to reliable sources, it is also easier to misunderstand it in the context of reliable sources. This policy is the place to explain what is the neutral point of view. It is not the place to emphasize the complex notion of reliable sources, which can too easily be misunderstood in a way that conflicts with the essential of NPOV. As a strict minimum, please do not temper with the original statement of Jimmy Wales.

I am not against the reliable sources guideline. Nobody can be against it. Common sense is telling us that we must use reliable sources. We would not use a source that claims that Einstein wrote "E = mc³". There's no issue with the guideline per se. The issue is that it can be very badly misinterpreted and, therefore, it is best to keep things modular: there is a place to emphasize the neutral point of view and there is a place to emphasize reliable sources and the NPOV policy is not that place. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:48, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

@Dominic Mayers:, when you write "tempering", do you really mean "tampering"? If so, please fix that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:57, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, the plain intent of Wales's statement is that we temper with it. EEng 05:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Why? Wales is not a God and his word is not consensus, it actually carries no more weight than any one else's (nobody would take seriously the suggestion that we should do someone because Sanger did it... I don't see why Wale's name carries any more weight, he's just another washed up old time editor albeit one who still maintains at least a modicum of the communities respect... Not that he isn't rapidly squandering what he has left). For me its natural, NPOV builds on RS... Not the other way around, without RS NPOV doesn't exist but without NPOV RS would be fine. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I very much feel the same way and I suspect very much that Jimmy Wales himself does not think differently. That's not the point. It just happens that he wrote the policy that has been a kind of contract between Wikipedia and the community. This contract cannot be changed lightly, not even by Jimmy Wales, especially something that was presented as not negotiable and thus to remain permanent. He is bound to that contract as much as we are. He would change his mind that I would not care. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:31, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

There is no contract (neither is there anything truly nonnegotiable or permanent on wikipedia, such a contract could not exist). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:32, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there is even a kind of legal contract, because you cannot change the mission of a non for profit organization without risking losing your status. But, I was not thinking in legal terms. Of course, there is a kind of implicit contract when you make millions of people contribute to a project under some policies. You cannot change them just like that. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:41, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Policies and guidelines are not the charter... And there is no risk of losing your status as long as the change doesn't take you outside the regulatory requirements even if we did want to change the charter. I would also note that if the community wanted to make wiki for-profit it could... That is within our power, we just wouldn't. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:56, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually, NPOV might have been initially a part of the charter, but, as I said, I am not thinking in legal terms. The most important thing here is that a discussion here between us does not represent the "community". If you really want that the community changes the policy in a significant manner, you need to do much more than that. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

In non-legal wikipedia terms there is still no contract. In general it is held that consensus represents the community, we aren't discussing a significant change to the policy (or any actual change at all, just the wording) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

In re if the community wanted to make wiki for-profit it could...: This is not true, and now we know beyond any doubt that HEB isn't a lawyer. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation is set up as a 501(C)(3), not as some sort of fancy irrevocable trust. Wikipedia is an asset which can be sold to whoever the foundation wants, as long as they get fair market value for it Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

"The community" has no legal right to do that. The Wikipedia trademark and domain name are assets which the Wikimedia Foundation can sell to whomever it wants. If they do so as part of a conversion to for-profit status, then it has to be done at fair-market value. However, "the community" cannot do this. "The community" has exactly the same rights as any random person on the street. "The community" has the right to vanish and the right to fork. "The community" does not have the right to convert the WMF to a for-profit, nor to transfer Wikipedia to a for-profit organization. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

The Foundation is a subset of the community, everyone involved with the Foundation is a community member. In this hypothetical (because none of this shit is ever going to happen) anything the community wants the Foundation wants too. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:40, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

An awful lot of word have been written, but I still don't see the point of it all. That NPOV must be based only on reliable sourcing is in the first sentence of the policy. Reliable sourcing is a requirement of WP:V, a policy and also non-negotiable, WP:Reliable sources is a guideline on how to determine a reliable source.
NPOV/V/NOR must all be interpreted together, as no one policy over rules any other. Anyone wanting NPOV to over rule the others would need to get consensus for that from the community. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:35, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that in the correct way to understand the policies, they do not contradict each other. I even agree that the basic notion of reliable sources is so basic and natural that there is no need to make it explicit to explain the essential of NPOV, just like we don't need to explain what a road is to explain the way to Paris. This is exactly why the emphasis on reliable sources is problematic. It says that there are extra restrictions associated with reliable sources that are emphasized, but we don't know what they are. When it comes to decide what is a reliable source, because it is determined in guidelines, not in a policy, NPOV (and V and NOR) should have a clear priority and they should not be made less clear by strangely emphasizing what depends on guidelines. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd agree on most of that, and workshopping clearer language would help. But you point that reliable sources is a guideline is just semantics, the word reliable sources in the lead is linked to WP:V. That a guideline is also called 'reliable sources' is neither here nor there. Reliable sources must be determined by policy for NPOV, the lead of the policy makes that clear. If you wish to discuss how reliable sources are determined this isn't the correct page, but it must be done. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this policy is not the place to discuss what is a reliable source. The problem is that you are saying that, nevertheless, it is perfectly fine to constantly bring out reliable sources in that policy. People aren't naive. They see there are hidden complexities, because if it was only the obvious, it would not be emphasized so much. Bringing out complexities too early, when they are not needed and it is not the time to discuss them cannot be justified. The motivation is most likely that some people believe that some sources must be used and other sources must not be used—some of these people being possibly biased—but they want to publicize the importance of this as early and as often as possible in the NPOV policy, even though it is not at all the essential of NPOV and it is not the time to explain it. This is not good. It brings the focus away from the policy, because of a different agenda. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:39, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

This heading has gotten too much activity for me to follow (which is usually a red flag). I'd just strongly say no, we shouldn't rewrite Wikipedia policy based on the state of Wikipedia twenty years ago. Nor should policies be rewritten by the whims of quotes attributed to one Wikipedia founder, or one editor's interpretation of a cherry picked quote. It's been standard practice as long as I've been reading Wikipedia -- WP:NPOV should never negate WP:V and WP:RS. All our policies and guidelines should be read together. And in many cases, we should state the relationship between policies explicitly, so that editors can't WP:WIKILAWYER away the policies that are inconvenient to their point of view. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:01, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. RS is often mentioned because we need a policy to remove fringe theories, etc. We also need a clear policy for not taking sides, not engaging in debates, but describing them, etc., because these are the foundation for a rational construction of the encyclopedia. All of that converge toward a same goal. I am not pursuing further any discussions here, but I wanted to agree on this, especially on the importance of reliable sources. Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Emphasis on Reliable Sources and suppression of Jimmy Wales own words about not taking sides

Despite the above warning about not adding emphasis on "reliable sources" and emphasizing instead what is the basic of the neutral point of view, the following edit was made. The phrase and the article should certainly address the controversy without taking sides, which are the exact own words of Jimmy Wales about the basic of NPOV in the exact context where they were used by him in 2003, was removed. Also, an emphasis was made on "Reliable sources" by adding the color green.

In one way, using reliable sources is just common sense. Nobody can argue against using reliable sources. The problem is that there must be something beyond the obvious, because there is no point in emphasizing the obvious, but we do not know what this non obvious thing is. Because of this ambiguity, an emphasis on reliable sources out of context creates more confusion than anything else. It weakens the policy without adding anything to it beyond the obvious. For this reason, I advocate a more modular approach in which reliable sources is mentioned less often and when mentioned it should be emphasized that it cannot means anything against the basic of NPOV explained in this policy. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:06, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I applaud Dominic Mayers for removing the words "[in reliable sources]" here, indeed those words should not exist in what purports to be a paraphrase of Mr Wales when the original text has no such words. I do not applaud Dominic Mayers for removing the word "(scientific)" here. And the paraphrase should have included scientific since that is what Mr Wales explicitly included. I also acknowledge that Mr Wales later said ... as a general rule, I think that almost any argument, on any topic, which has premises beginning with "Jimbo said..." is a pretty weak argument. but like to refer to his opinion anyway -- in fact I just did. I do not understand why Dustfreeworld changed to green. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:10, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Update: Dustfreeworld changed the sentence to remove green but made a different word brown. I think MOS:TEXT's words -- "Prose text should never be colored." -- apply. I intend to remove brown if nobody but Dustfreeworld objects. I also intend to restore (scientific) if nobody but Dominic Mayers objects. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I would be for removing the whole "Paraphrased from Jimmy Wales" sentence. There no need to cling to one person's words in a policy document. Policy is meant to reflect practice, not be set in stone decades ago. However for the moment I think it should all go back to how it was (no colouring, no scientific), as it has all been obviously contentious. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:50, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I removed brown since nobody came to support it, since MOS:TEXT appears applicable, since ActivelyDisinterested also said "no colouring". I mentioned "scientific", and that it was opposed, in section "Adding reliable sources in Jimmy Wales statement". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:28, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping in ES, sorry I didn’t follow the discussion and only notice this today. Per MOS:COLOR, it seems to me accessibility is the main reason that colored text is not preferred. If I understand it correctly, if “its status is also indicated using another method” (e.g., italics?”, it is ok to use colored text.

MOS:COLOR,

Articles (and other pages) that use color should keep accessibility in mind, as follows: Ensure that color is not the only method used to communicate important information. Especially, do not use colored text or background unless its status is also indicated using another method, such as an accessible symbol matched to a legend, or footnote labels. Otherwise, blind users or readers accessing Wikipedia through a printout or device without a color screen will not receive that information.

FYI, brown was added because in another discussion a user has misinterpreted the policy by citing what Jimbo said, even with the italics in place (I think someone might have explained the situation further above ...) I don’t feel very strong about this, but if brown is to be removed, perhaps bold emphasis should be added, so that people won’t miss the point. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 17:25, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested has restored emphasis with italics markup; MOS:EMPHASIS says that's not preferred; I say the whole sentence is bad; but anyway there's no brown and it's wonderful to restore to pre-May-30 stable version; so let's defer argument about that. WP:COLOR says Colors are most commonly found in Wikipedia articles within templates and tables. which wasn't the case with the brown change, so I believe the only applicable PAG is MOS:TEXT which, again, is Prose text should never be colored. Admittedly this post might contain green text but Template:Talk quote inline is specifically for talk pages. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:23, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

MOS:TEXT applies to how text is formatted in articles, it's part of the first sentence of the page. MOS:COLOUR applies to 'articles (and other pages)', as accessibility is crucial for all pages not just articles. I don't think any of it forbids coloured text, not that I think it's necessary in this case. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

More heat than light
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
If its a paraphrase and not a copy it can have words that the original comment doesn't. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:18, 1 June 2024 (UTC) Sure, but the paraphrase must still respect the fundamentals and "reliable sources" does not help explaining the essential of NPOV. It is something added, because we want to put some restrictions to the neutral point of view, but it is not even clear what these restrictions are. It cannot just be that we want to avoid sources that would claim "Einstein wrote E = mc³," because this is obvious. It is instead an open door for much more restrictions than that, but it is not clear what they are. It just weaken the policy without adding anything to its clarity. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:59, 1 June 2024 (UTC) The fundamentals are that NPOV is meaningless if you haven't already established what is and isn't a reliable source. This also seems to be the point Wales was making in a larger sense. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2024 (UTC) Yes, again, of course, I repeat myself, nobody argues that we can use unreliable sources. We can also say that it was implicit in the original statement of Jimmy Wales. However, that does not make reliable sources a fundamental aspect of NPOV that must be constantly emphasized. Obviously, you are simply ignoring and not responding to my arguments. Dominic Mayers (talk) 15:34, 1 June 2024 (UTC) I apologize, perhaps rather than ignoring them I simply do not understand them? I don't understand how reliable sources aren't a fundamental aspect of NPOV when NPOV is determined entirely by what is in reliable sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:34, 1 June 2024 (UTC) I am surprised that I need to explain this. Of course, the content of the article must come from reliable sources. Isn't it obvious that this point is so general and basic that it says nothing essential about NPOV. Emphasizing such an obvious point makes people rightfully aware that some extra complex restrictions are being advertised, but these are not about the essential of NPOV. NPOV is about not taking sides, providing extra context, the arguments, etc. It is not about reliable sources, just like explaining the way to Paris is not about explaining what is a road and complexities about the concept of road. If you suggest complexities related to the concept of road while you explain the way to Paris, then it creates confusion. It is a diversion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:46, 1 June 2024 (UTC) We do take sides though... We side with reliable sources... NPOV is not inherently neutral as in reality agnostic. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:28, 1 June 2024 (UTC) No, we do not take sides. That is exactly what NPOV is about: not taking sides. That is why we provide the context, give the arguments and even attribute whenever it is pertinent. If I write "John said X", I am not taking side with John regarding X. As far as the reader is concerned, I might even disagree with John. Similarly, if I give John's arguments, it does not mean I accept them. It only means that I let people know what are John's arguments. The fact that you do not understand this and say "we take side with reliable sources" reinforce a lot my conviction that insisting on reliable sources only create confusion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 19:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC) NPOV is our side and NPOV is determined solely by the publishing of reliable sources. Neutrality in this context is a position, not a lack of a position. To put it another way we don't take no point of view we take the neutral point of view. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:45, 1 June 2024 (UTC) Yes, of course, the neutral point of view is still a point of view, but it is not any of the points of view in sources, reliable or not. The only exception, but it is not really an exception, is when the content taken from the source is not really a point of view, but a simple not controversial fact. For example, "Le SS Normandie appeared twice in the Adventures of Tintin" is a simple fact and there is less insistence in that case that we take the neutral point of view. We could, for example by writing "The famous commentator Horeau mentions that ..." , but it is delicate, because it could create the opposite effect, if it gives the impression that we doubt an otherwise reliable source: we do not take sides in favour, but also not against, the sources. That is why excessive attribution is not what NPOV is about and it should not be used to present facts as (doubtful) opinions. The general idea is that an encyclopedic style is neutral in the sense that it is more informative than it is affirmative or doubtful. Of course, while you do that, it may very well happen that a point of view appears as valid, especially if a point of view is presented as the point of view of mainstream science, but this still can be done while adopting the neutral point of view, i.e., without taking sides. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:22, 1 June 2024 (UTC) It is not any of the point of views in reliable sources... But it is determined entirely by them. A change to what we consider RS automatically changes what is NPOV, they opposite does not happen. NPOV in this context isn't fixed, its constantly shifting. There is no exception, you're confusing POV with opinion (facts, opinions, and anything in between are covered by NPOV). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:27, 1 June 2024 (UTC) Bingo! From Wikipedia talk:NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content#"Neutral" means alignment with RS, including their biases.: "Editors are "neutral" when they are centered right under the point where most RS congregate, regardless of whether that is to the left or right of center. We do not "move" or "balance" content to the center to keep an article "neutral". That would be editorial, non-neutral, interference in what RS say. Maybe you should read my essay about this: NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content. At Wikipedia, "neutral" does not mean what you think it means. It really doesn't. It is not a middle position. It is not a position without bias. At Wikipedia, "neutral" means alignment with RS, including their biases." That's how I see it. We center ourselves under RS and move with them. We follow the scientific method and "follow the evidence". -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:41, 1 June 2024 (UTC) TL;DR: If you believe that the essential of NPOV is simply a respect of the proportion in reliable sources, you are simply mistaken. Now, the longer version: I understand your explanation of NPOV. I think you might agree that it is not a very deep and complicated understanding of NPOV. I hope you do not doubt one second that I can easily understand what you think NPOV is. Basically, you are simply focusing on the simple notion of proper weight. This being said, let us compare this with the actual policy. Consider the first practical concrete advice in the policy: Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that genocide is an evil action but may state that genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil. The emphasis through this first practical advice is on the attribution of opinions. Also, the policy clearly states that we should not take sides: it is still there in the nutshell: Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides. A key sentence that is provided in the policy's explanations is Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. In other words, when discussing a subject, we should report what people have said about it rather than what is so. These are all key points that existed and were well emphasized already in 2003. In 2003, there was a greater emphasis on providing the arguments as a way to achieve neutrality. It is less emphasized today, but it is certainly still a very useful approach. I admit that nowadays these points are mixed with many other sentences that are about weight and proportion as when it is said at the start representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. This can explain why you miss the points I just brought out and focus more on the simple notion of weight and proportion instead. However, weight and proportion have never been the main central points of NPOV. In fact, even the section that we call Due and undue weight actually refers to a 2003 statement of Jimmy Wales that was used to introduce No Original Research, not the notion of weight. Moreover, the original statement of Jimmy Wales included If your viewpoint is held by a significant scientific minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents, and the article should certainly address the controversy without taking sides. — Jimmy Wales (but emphasis in mine) The notion of not taking sides was clearly central at the time, not only in that sentence. It is still central today, mentioned at the start in the nutshell, but I agree that it get lost among other sentences. So, I understand that you do not seem to take it into account. Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC) How can "weight and proportion have never been the main central points of NPOV." be true if today those are the central points of NPOV? As you yourself noted, that is what the current first sentence is all about. I don't like this close reading of Wales, it strikes me as messianic... At the end of the day it does not matter what Wales said or what Wales meant. Their opinion carries the exact same weight as yours or mine. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:47, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I explained many times why weight and proportion are not the central concepts. Moreover, it is not a close reading of Wales. It mainly refers to the current policy as it is now and make some reference to what it was in 2003. I don't see how I can continue this kind of discussions which does not respond to the essential of my arguments, but instead deforms them and superficially say that I am messianic, confused, etc. Dominic Mayers (talk) 05:57, 2 June 2024 (UTC) So they're not central... But the introduction of this page which presumably covers all of the central concepts talks about no other concepts... How do you square that contradiction? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:20, 2 June 2024 (UTC) The nutshell says Articles must not take sides,... The section Explanations emphasises describe disputes, but not engage in them. and its first main practical advice is about attribution. I already pointed out what you say about the lede lead. You are not adding anything to what I already explained. You focus on some sentences, whereas I bring out the big picture by considering the current and historical context. Dominic Mayers (talk) 07:26, 2 June 2024 (UTC) Do you appreciate the irony of lecturing your fellow editors about their supposed lack of understanding of big picture and the historical context while referring to a "lede"? There are no ledes on Wikipedia... We have leads. See WP:NOTALEDE for more. You didn't answer the question, how do you square that contradiction? If that results in you repeating yourself indulge me. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 07:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I just explained the situation: You focus on some sentences, whereas I bring out the big picture by considering the current and historical context. It says it all. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:30, 2 June 2024 (UTC) You actually seem to be rejecting both the current and historical context, for example by insisting that weight and proportion have never been central concepts when they clearly and unambiguously have been and currently are. I think its that denial of objective reality that is rubbing people the wrong way... I don't disagree with you philosophically its just that almost every fact that you write is false and most obviously so. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:51, 2 June 2024 (UTC) You are discrediting my arguments without any specific. Please stop. It's not even an invitation to discuss the specific of my arguments, because we have passed this stage. I lost confidence that there is a genuine interest in a good discussion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:00, 2 June 2024 (UTC) People disagreeing with you is not the same thing as them not having a genuine interest in a good discussion... A good discussion means that people are going to vigorously disagree with you and point out when you say things that are objectively untrue. Also where did you pick up using a stop sign like that? It doesn't strike me as civil and I haven't encounter someone spamming stop signs before. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:02, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I am not interested. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:06, 2 June 2024 (UTC) Then say that you have lost interest next time, don't cast vague aspersions at other editors. Other editors have a genuine interest in a good discussion, if you don't thats ok but spamming stop signs and casting aspersions isn't. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:08, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I am not doing any thing wrong in using a stop sign. This accusation is part of what you need to stop. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:10, 2 June 2024 (UTC) Again you're saying things that are not true and then attempting to shut down any rebuttal. I didn't make an accusation, I asked you where you picked it up, said that it struck me as uncivil, and that I had not seen it before. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC) Ok, you win "accusation" was not the best word to use. The point is that I am not interested in your judgments about me. And as long as you will keep making judgments about me, I will ask you to stop. If it helps to achieve the goal, I will not use the stop sign.Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:22, 2 June 2024 (UTC) @Horse Eye's Back:, if you have the impression that I confuse things, then the communication has failed, and you should consider the possibility that the explanation is simply that you have difficulties in getting rid of your misunderstandings. I do that for myself all the times. I expect the same from you. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:48, 1 June 2024 (UTC) Yes... "The only exception, but it is not really an exception, is when the content taken from the source is not really a point of view, but a simple not controversial fact." gives me the impression that you think that there is an exception and that the exception you think exists is for simple non-controversial facts. I don't think I'm confused here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:45, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I don't know what to say. I do not intend to start a discussion about whether you are confused or not. I just want to say that I am not. Dominic Mayers (talk) 04:52, 2 June 2024 (UTC) You are clearly confused about NPOV, half a dozen editors have told you so. The problem is you not all of us... And your proposed solution that other editors just stop pointing out that the things you're saying aren't true isn't going to work. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:54, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I explained why I removed scientific, but it can be put back with a footnote that explains that the context was an attempt by someone to include his own scientific original research and that the policy itself was never limited to scientific knowledge. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:37, 1 June 2024 (UTC) I also responded above to the argument that Jimmy Wales has no special authority regarding the policies. I believe that he would himself agree that the policies stand by themselves and adding his name in front of them does not make them better. As explained above, that is not the point. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:47, 1 June 2024 (UTC) I'm sorry that my bold edit kicked off all of this. For context, I thought that edit might help because I saw an editor (~700 edits, ~9 months old) quoting that as if "extremely small minority" referred to the number of editors in a discussion. It is possible to quote the present version (If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia) as meaning "If you are the only editor who wants to include that material, then it does not belong on Wikipedia". It is not possible to quote my longer version (If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority of reliable sources, it does not belong on Wikipedia) as meaning anything about the number of editors holding the viewpoint. I don't feel strongly about it, and the very next sentence addresses this point (Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public.), so I don't think that it's very important either way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:06, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I understand that this edit in itself was very innocent. It is just that the emphasis all over the place on "reliable sources" is not, however, innocent at all. The idea that the foundation of NPOV is nothing more than having a weight that corresponds to the proportion in sources is so wrong. Adding the requirement that the sources must be "reliable" as if this was the key missing concept to make it right is just contributing to the confusion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 05:26, 2 June 2024 (UTC) The foundation of NPOV is described in the first sentence of the policy, that NPOV means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. No one is adding that reliable sources are required, that is what the policy says. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:25, 2 June 2024 (UTC) I already replied to that argument above. Yes, it requires a more in depth discussion, but it's does not seem that it is going to happen now. I don't see a true interest for such a discussion. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:34, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Recurring arguments about the structure of the policy

I just want to point out a recurring argument regarding the structure of the policy. The argument is simply that the first sentence in the lead does not mention explicitly concepts principles such as "do not take sides", "do not engage in debates, but describe them", "attribute opinions" and therefore these are not central concepts principles of NPOV. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Are those concepts or are they ways in which concepts are operationalized? If we want to interrogate just one of them "do not engage in debates, but describe them" is not a concept, its guidance on how to follow the concepts. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:50, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I believe I understand your point. If I understand correctly, you are saying that they are not mentioned, because they are principles that are needed to achieve the goal, not the goal itself. I am curious to know what others have to say. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

More or less, but when I think about it the policy itself is a principle and the goal is the creation of an encyclopedia. If you wanted to call NPOV, V, and NOR our core principles I would agree with that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:44, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Adding reliable sources in Jimmy Wales statement

I want to comment the addition of "reliable sources" after it was suggested to keep the stable version. I see the "reliable" in "reliable sources" as a replacement for the word "scientific", which was there in the 2003 statement. Having nothing to replace "scientific" would not be representative of the original 2003 statement. The diff comment should have explained that, but I figured that out anyway. It is still problematic because "reliable sources" refers to much more ways to reject sources than what was considered at the time, but I am not going to argue about that. I believe now that it is not an important issue. Dominic Mayers (talk) 06:17, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I would agree that “of reliable sources” is not needed in that particular bullet point. The key to that point is that we can (and should) omit viewpoints held by “a small minority” - because mentioning such fringe views gives them UNDUE weight. It doesn’t actually matter how reliable a particular source expressing the view is, what matters is how widely it is held. Blueboar (talk) 11:13, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

The problem comes with the ambiguity... For example wave–particle duality is a viewpoint held by an extremely small minority... Hardely anyone outside of the field of physics knows it exists and thus hold no opinion on it, the same problem occurs for most scientific viewpoints which are just too obscure to be of notice to most of humanity. We aren't actually asking a question about the general poulation, we're asking a question about subject matter experts... We aren't asking who out the general population subscribes to wave–particle duality we're asking who out of the relevent expert population subscribes to wave–particle duality. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

+1 to removing the entire thing, or, at a minimum, rewriting it to more accurately match modern practice. Levivich (talk) 16:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with removing it. Procedurally, we should return to the last stable version and drop the discussion. Content wise, Blueboar said it. If a viewpoint is held by a small minority, we wouldn't give them undue weight. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:46, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

By "last stable version" I assume you mean as of 30 May 2024 i.e. before this bold edit by WhatamIdoing. I suggested above (see post as of 16:15, 16 June 2024) that I intended to put back "scientific" but there was opposition. I suggested above that I intended to remove brown, and so far there has been no opposition. Deleting the whole paraphrase surely should be a separate thread, eh? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to note I've added back the italic that was there before recent changes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:19, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I removed brown. I strongly believe the addition of "in reliable sources" in the paraphrase should be reverted too. I think Blueboar at least believes that it's not needed. I think Shooterwalker believes it should be reverted since that goes back to a stable version. I think Dominic Mayers believes, and then doesn't believe, I'd like to read a clear final yes-or-no. I ping Mathglot since the re-addition that Dominic Mayers is pointing to was made by Mathglot. So am I interpreting right that it's okay to revert so "in reliable sources" is gone again from this spot? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it should be reverted to the stable version. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose reverting it, the discussion has become a complete mess and the issue is clarified by the sentence that follows it anyway. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I am neutral-to-supportive. The point is to revert to the last non-controversial version. It seems that's consistent with removal. If anyone objects, we can get stuck in the weeds again. But my hope is this can allow everyone to take a short break. The NPOV policy is fine and we can revisit this discussion later. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:38, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Seeing multiple approvals for going back to before the kerfuffle started, I have restored to as of before 30 May 2024. I see that, as well as reverting WhatamIdoing's bold edit about reliable sources, as a side effect it restores shortcuts WP:NOV and WP:NEUTRAL. I think Levivich had removed them. If this was an approved change, then I apologize and will re-remove the shortcuts if nobody else does. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:51, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I personally felt that removing the shortcuts, unless there has been a serious discussion about it, could be disruptive. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:21, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Reverting a bold edit doesn't require serious discussion and isn't disruptive, it's WP:BRD. Levivich (talk) 12:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

No worries, I took them out again. Levivich (talk) 12:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I will not try to defend my comment about the disruptiveness of having less shortcuts. I am not an expert in these things and the comment was perhaps not necessary. But, I was not referring to the bold aspect of the edit. I was referring to the final outcome of the edit. There was no judgment on any editor. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

"Reliable sources" has two different meanings....the real world meaning (which is vague but good) and the wiki-meaning which can have many problems and is a gold mine for wiki-lawyering. Given those two different meanings, I'd rather not see any expansion of the term here. North8000 (talk) 18:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Suggest attention at Pamela Paul

I would suggest NPOV participants to look in at this article, where contentions are being made by new editor @User:Standing and Staring, of terms to describe this NYT Opinion writer, contentions that are not based on others' stating the terms, but rather based on on that editor stating the terms (conclusions), and providing what they believe to be primary source evidence of their assertion. I believe this violates WP:OR, WP:VERIFY, AND WP:NPOV. The discourse is at the 1RR stage. (I am a retired faculty member, and retired Wikipedian, and was looking in at that article to do WP:VERIFY type edits, and seem to have just mis-timed my presence with this red-letter editor's appearance and POV editing.) 98.206.30.195 (talk) 23:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

You could tag it as having {{POV}} problems, or you could post a request for help at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard (the official place to ask questions about fixing non-neutral articles) or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red (the most active group writing about women). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:06, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Posting at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard may be an idea, it tends to have a lot more watchers and this is a BLP article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:35, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

What do to about NPOV?

After barking up a number of wrong trees, I think I'm finally at the right place. I'm concerned about what's happened to WP:NPOV since October 7 in that it's become weaponized in a pursuit of having one's narrative reflected.

When I first encountered this I was frustrated; I was shouting at the clouds about WP:ADVOCACY while everyone was tiptoeing around me. While it may only be an explanatory essay, as a subsection of WP:NPOV, it should have some sort of jurisdiction. I don't see it any different to COI whereby an editor is conflicted/compromised because of this.

People have biases and that's fine, but not at the expense of independence, balance and neutrality.

But as people are putting their own agenda and concerns over and above Wikipedia's - discussions and votes have been reduced to a kangaroo court. Wikipedia should reflects the facts - the truth. There should be nuance as real life is. It shouldn't be about sides and who can muster the most votes. It shouldn't be about pushing through RFCs and closing them just so we can win them. There should be no winning here, but this isn't the case. Far from it and if this continues, the biggest loser will be Wikipedia - if it loses its reputation as a neutral independent encyclopaedia the damage is significant.

Additionally WP:NOTNEWS has been completely ignored as Wikipedia has is some instances, become basically a newspaper.

I'd love to work with some senior editors/admins on this and see what we can do about this. MaskedSinger (talk) 06:35, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Well... @MaskedSinger, I have a lot of sympathy for you. However, I don't think it's entirely a solvable problem. This is a "we have to let humans in here, many of whom have human failings" problem, not a "formal policy" problem. It affects every controversial area, and has for decades. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply @WhatamIdoing - Even if it isn't solvable, why can't we try and improve the situation?

Everyone's true north should be is Wikipedia an encyclopedia that is impartial and independent and neutral? MaskedSinger (talk) 06:43, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The policy hasn't changed in the time that you described, and doesn't need changing. WP:AGF, this should already be everyone's true north. I think the point is to go forth and apply this policy, which can be hard in practice. If there are articles that fail, the discussion should start there. Shooterwalker (talk) 10:54, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Policy hasn't changed for years, but the problem is that we've been more permissive of content that is against NOTNEWS - particularly when it comes to talking-heads opinions from everyone and their sibling - on current topics, using the fact that "oh, it appeared in RSes, it must be true." rather than using critical thinking to think first before adding and to work towards summarizing rather than detailing the news. When we write to that level of detail, it creates significant problems across multiple policies including NPOV. Masem (t) 12:42, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker@Masem I love that you replied and we're discussing this. So thank you for that. What can we do to keep this conversation going - from looking at Wikipedia holistically and having its best interests at heart. MaskedSinger (talk) 13:07, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

How much of this could be mitigated by encouraging encyclopedic summaries instead of detailed, blow-by-blow descriptions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing It seems to be that the first of all commandments here is AGF and trumps everything else. That's fine but, if someone is actually acting in bad faith, what can you do about it? The person who has Wikipedia's best interests at heart is punished because theyre casting aspersions, making accusations. If all things are equal, 100% you have to AGF but if they're violating NPOV, you should be able to question their GF without everyone freaking out. MaskedSinger (talk) 06:04, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

If we understand "bad faith" as deliberately trying to hurt Wikipedia, then I don't usually find that editors engaged in POV advocacy are trying to hurt Wikipedia. Instead, they are usually (from their point of view) trying to help Wikipedia, by making Wikipedia match the beliefs, etc., that they have developed and believe to be true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: While I agree with your theory of mind approach to understanding the issue, I'm not so sure this is a helpful perspective in practice. The notion that intent matters seems to be something that most people believe and take for granted. But not all systems work that way. Some systems do not care about intent. They only care about the consequences of someone's action regardless of intent. The intent of an editor is very often something we can't observe or verify. It is possible, and perfectly reasonable in my view, to look at biased editing, advocacy, POV pushing etc. from that perspective, where the observable is the negative impact on content or the dynamics of interactions between editors etc. and intent is treated as unknowable/irrelevant. Either way, the Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct's prohibition against "Systematically manipulating content to favor specific interpretations of facts or points of view" is pretty clear. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:54, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Our Wikipedia:Assume good faith rules are based on the idea that intent matters. Specifically, if someone is obviously trying to hurt Wikipedia, then treat it as vandalism, but if they're not obviously trying to hurt Wikipedia, assume that they're trying to help, and just aren't very good at it, and occasionally even that they might have a point, and that what looks like a "negative impact on the content" or "biased editing, advocacy, POV pushing etc." is actually an improvement consistent with the WP:YESPOV part of this policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing How in theory is this different from a paid editor? CEO of a Fortune 500 company has a 3 line Wikipedia article. Hires a PR company and they improve the article significantly - abiding by all Wikipedia guidelines except for UPE. Now theres a great in-depth encyclopedic-worthy article.

Have they hurt or helped Wikipedia? MaskedSinger (talk) 05:33, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Creating a great in-depth encyclopedic-worthy article is helping.

Our traditional reason for worrying about this is that they tend not to create a great in-depth encyclopedic-worthy article. Instead, they usually create a rather mediocre page that is crammed full of buzzwords and paints the subject more favorably than is warranted.

More recently, a minority of editors are very worried about whether allowing any COI edits at all, even if the edit itself is entirely desirable, causes Wikipedia to have a sort of Ritual uncleanliness. This is often expressed in terms of "reader trust" or fears about "Wikipedia's reputation". I do not share this view, as I think the content is more important than the contributor, but I also believe that COI edits generally result in bad content, so in most cases, I would also reject edits from a COI editor. The only difference is that I would reject them because the edits are bad, whereas these editors would reject them because the editor is 'bad'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I thought of another example. Someone edits their own article and we don't know it's them - what they do is completely within the guidelines interms of sourcing, etc. Helping or hurting Wikipedia?? MaskedSinger (talk) 15:09, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

If it's completely within the content guidelines, it's helping. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Most of the problem that I see when NOTNEWS is tied are editors operating in good faith, but slipping into poor editorial practices because they have a viewpoint that is generally backed up by the media's tone and approach to covering something, that they want to make sure that those news articles are included into WP to validate their viewpoints, because that otherwise appears to meet content policy, but that lets slip problems of taking short-term news coverage as being necessarily the best sourcing, which in the long term is not really the case. For example, most editors on WP, like the bulk of media, have left-leaning tendencies when it comes to US politics. This makes it very easy when it comes to articles on American politics to find no end to criticism of people, agencies, and other aspects that lean more to the right. We are clearly from the news coverage likely not to necessarily have articles that make sure figures look like angels (eg we're not going to use FALSEBALANCE to ignore valid criticism), but the way some of these are written make them look like the worst possible people that existed, because "oh, that's how the media presents them". While we can't change the public perception, we still have a duty on WP to write neutrally and impartially, and that generally means toning down the rhetoric that the media has no problem dialing up.

I'm certain that with Oct 7 and thus anything in the Israel/Palestine (IP) area, this has gotten even worse due to how strongly the major figures (not directly involved with the conflict) are sticking to one side or the other, and my impression from the media is that situation is even worse than the US politics one. If we were starting to write about the current conflict, but ten years down the road with far more academic sources, as we have with conflicts likes WWII, we've have a far better window to know what are actually important viewpoints and aspects that were judged by academics and historians to focus on. We're trying to judge that window now, and that's where these implicit editor biases come in, because the combination of media bias and editor bias creates what seemingly may be proper under WP's content policies, but has major problems. Masem (t) 12:51, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Well said! Couldn't agree with you more!! MaskedSinger (talk) 15:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

This highlights a flaw in how (too) many of our articles on current events are written. We are supposed to read lots and lots of sources first, and then summarize them with due weight.

Instead, we (too) often reverse that process … we first decide to add some bit of information we think is important, and then find sources to support what was added. This reversal results in Due weight being applied as an afterthought, instead of being applied as a preliminary part of the process.

Admittedly, preliminary analysis is difficult to do with current events, because there may not (yet) be “lots and lots” of sources to summarize and weigh. But it is, to my mind, a crucial part of writing a neutral article.

Blueboar (talk) 15:40, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

This reversal results in Due weight being applied as an afterthought, instead of being applied as a preliminary part of the process. Yep, this is the main issue. The policy is too much about the final result and too little about the process itself. Interestingly, "due weight" outside Wikipedia refers to the process. For example, when it is said that a judge must give due weight to facts or arguments, it means that the judge should not discard any argument without a good reason. The corresponding requirement in Wikipedia should be that editors must give proper attention to the sources and make sure nothing important is omitted. Also, when the focus is on the final result only, what is rejected determines what is included. As a consequence, one naively thinks that knowing what to reject is enough. When the focus is on the process, this is not true. When we consider the editorial process, what kind of information must be added becomes very important. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:02, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Shout out to Maproom's excellent essay on this (which you maybe were alluding to already): Wikipedia:Writing Wikipedia articles backward. It's focused more on article creation than established articles, but the principles still apply. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

There is no need to search info or do some non trivial editorial process only when the sources are not polemical and not too opinionated. Otherwise, you need "backward" aspects (search for information) in your editorial process. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:26, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

The way we *should* be writing current event articles in the short term is to focus primarily on the crystal clear facts and omit speculation and opinion, unless that itself is part of the story. Its fine if we are overblown on factual details at this stage, as that doesn't present a NPOV problem, and that helps with rewriting in summary later (That said, I HATE HATE HATE articles that are 90+% proseline, which is just lazy writing efforts). But its when editors start trying to judge what analysis and opinions are important when those haven't been identified by RSe themselves, and that creates the NPOV problem that I talked about above. Short term opinions from those unassociated with the event but otherwise commenting or reporting are it should be considered inappropriate to include until a point some saner summary of these can be made. Masem (t) 18:39, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

articles that are 90+% proseline: Thanks for the reminder that I need to get back to COVID-19 pandemic in California and other articles. Anyone who hates a Wikipedia:Proseline should feel free to join in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I think you're onto something there. And the problem is wider than current events: a lot of the POV problems we see in science and history articles recently can be traced back to someone rushing to add the incorporate the latest research (or more often than not, the garbled news media summary of the latest research) into articles. The result is the equivalent of Wikipedia:Proseline for science: a list of contextless 'findings' with no regard for whether anyone else finds those claims remotely plausible. I think the general public knows that Wikipedia will not accept unverifiable material or material based on unreliable sources. But the smoke the media blew up our collective arse around COVID, all that "last good place on the internet business", is making a lot of editors to forget the wisdom of WP:WEIGHT, WP:PSTS, Wikipedia:Recentism, etc. – not all "reliable sources" are equal and being a few years out of date isn't a bad thing in an encyclopaedia. – Joe (talk) 10:33, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Joe, +1 on all counts. This seems to me a mix of rushing to include new updates, both by our editors and by our major sources. Search engines bias towards recentism and popularity, as do media outlets of record. Both increasingly give more visibility to high-profile opinions, and separately to every instance of a hot take, than to rarer balanced overviews. This also affects sources of peer review. So a casual researcher writing up the state of X and assigning weight to the # of takes in plausibly reliable sources, might really believe that the Biggest Event in the History of X was a moment of recent drama which led to 90% of all current search results. – SJ + 13:21, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree, recentism is what many editors too often highlight, and news-feeder is what they are doing, regardless of NPOV or anything else. It is too radical a suggestion, but it would make sense to internally split the project, into Encyclopedia, and Current Events or News Digest (sub orged by year, like the old year books). Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:31, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I mean, we have Wikinews as a sister project that no one seems to remember exists.
We do need more editor awareness and investment to limiting what "breaking" news goes into articles to be more discriminatory, and to come back to these articles and improve the summary approach every so often as to bring more recent developments into an educational narrative. Thats a factor that all the four content policies feed into. — Masem (t) 14:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

But that's not where are ediors go to write their current events and news digest articles, as I suggested that's why there were Year Books alongside encyclopedias (ofcourse, the Yearbook comparison is not perfect as at least, it had a chance to look back on the year and make judgements). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:14, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Being a few years out of date is bad for an online encyclopedia. The readers and the public at large have spoken: Wikipedia is a summary of current knowledge, up-to-the-minute current knowledge, not just historical knowledge. There is no changing that. Trying to remove current events from Wikipedia is a fool's errand; it's been tried before and fails every time. And while too-new information is a problem (WP:RECENTISM), IME too-old information is as much or more of a problem (WP:AGEMATTERS); I've seen as many problems caused by editors rushing to add the latest news, as I have from editors using outdated sources and obsolete information. The answer is to strike a balance, to use the best sources and information available, to use them properly, and to update with better sources regularly. That's a tall order; we have too many articles and not enough people to do it; but AI source summarization will help (give that technology another year to develop and we'll all be using it to write articles). But there will be no world in which Wikipedia doesn't cover an ongoing war or health crisis or sporting event using news media reports. It's not media or search engines or sources that have recency bias, it's people, that's who wants the latest information, because that's the information that really matters, and that's why media, search engines, sources, and Wikipedia, will provide it. "I'll tell you what happened today in a couple years when we have the benefit of hindsight" is not something that people will ever accept. Levivich (talk) 14:30, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, I would not have put it as "out of date", but rather as tested, confirmed and reconfirmed; but still regardless of what should be done, it is not being done and that's the point with NPOV and recentism. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

On the point about balance and bringing this around to NPOV, we of course are going to cover current and ongoing events with near real time updating.and we should not discourage that, as long as editors use common sense to know what breaking news will likely have relevance in the future, and come back later to rework if too much was included. But key here is that in the short term we should be urging editors to avoid inclusion of opinion pieces and similar, and only as the topic ages to start incorporating viewpoints once we can see those emerge from a DUE/WEIGHT approach. And that is a factor that NPOV does not actually address yet. Masem (t) 14:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that would require a "new" policy/guideline, even if added here, and would be breaking articles governed into a subset. It is probable, editors generally don't understand or acknowledge the real limitations of news, even the best. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I think any change along these lines would be a combination of updating Weight to talk about how short term sources should carry far less weight than long term, and then making sure RECENTISM as a guideline hits these points as a do/dont type aspect. But that's just my thoughts Masem (t) 15:33, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Is a short-term source something like a news article, and a long-term source something like a book? We might think of the 'shelf life' of breaking news as being a couple of days, and a regular news article maybe a month to a year, but a book often seems useful for a decade or more. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

It clearly depends on the topic, but I would generally catalog books and review-style journal articles as long term, while average news reporting as short term. Mind you, newspapers like the NYTes often publish long form articles that can be taken as long term, while books can be rushed out before an event has stained making it long term. It is going to be based likely on the duration of the topic or event at hand. And keep on mind this aspect is more important when it comes to any type of intellectual transformation, like analysis or opinions, and far less on patently clear facts which short term sources are fine for. What we do want to avoid is trying to craft a story from these facts in the short term that would get us into NOR problems (like accidental causation claims) — Masem (t) 22:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

To @Levivich: Being a year out of date is bad. Being a few weeks out of date is less bad. Mentioning that an event from the last few weeks is unfolding without presenting any conclusion of how it will unfold or what the implications will be, is probably good.

The media-hype-cycle problems I've seen usually take place over a period of 2-4 weeks. During a cycle [while it is in the public eye], advocates try to ensure their point of view is reflected in the lede of the Wikipedia articles on the topic. We can set both norms and policies that avoid that and make WP less fertile ground for that sort of advocacy. – SJ + 23:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Notes

Implications for due weight for trending topics

TLDR for this section: what changes might strengthen our commitment to a) avoiding recency bias overall, not being news / overweighting historical articles on news, b) giving bursts of recent sources less weight than older sources in determining balance of independent views and proportional coverage, and c) giving more weight to thoughtful experts than to pundits and partisans?

I came here to discuss exactly this; having run across a comment today that suggested WP:DUE implies that as news media publish more and more articles about an event, that event should take up more and more space in related Wikipedia articles.

Related quotes:

• WP:NOTNEWS is often ignored; we've been more permissive of content that is against NOTNEWS (Masem + user:MaskedSinger)
• "The problem is that as time goes on, the volume of articles outputted increases, skewing WP:DUE towards WP:RECENTISM. So based on the current definition of WP:DUE, I would favor A or B, because this topic has had a lot of discussion in the press. Hope we can find a different way to evaluate DUE-ness in the future." - @Vice regent: on Talk:Anti-Defamation League

To Joe's point above, another recent article where I ran into this was LK-99, where almost all physicists in the subfield had little to say about it: it looked like Yet Another High-temp Superconductor Crank, this happens regularly, there was nothing special about this case compared to others [it wasn't even the most plausible cranky research in the past few years - others even passed peer review once], &c. But a handful of people took it seriously, and were amplified by hundreds of otherwise-reliable media outlets, all covering the same few points with a custom hot take. Here are some thoughts using that case as example:

1. Speed + Recentism: editors generally felt that all articles on this topic should reflect the latest frothy coverage in news outlets. Those viewing any RS mention as demonstration of notable coverage, wanted to mention LK-99 in every article on superconductors, in various ledes as the 'latest development', &c.
   • A stronger commitment to NOTNEWS would have been helpful (perhaps w/ a specific exception for a single Timeline section in the main article to address the prominent interest of many readers and editors, but specifically not propagating NEWS into other articles.)
2. Weighting by buzziness, vs by repute: Editors wanted the article on the alloy to cover the optimistic crank claims (widely repeated as 'claimed by the preprint authors') proportional to how often they appeared in, e.g., search results of general-purpose reliable sources.
   • There are sources specific to superconductors and high-T superconducting, and most of these had little to say about it (official panels set up to review the paper take time; only preprints had come out to date). Their non-commentary was harder to mention or cite in the article.
   • By reputation, the most reputable scientists all pointed out how unlikely this was to play out, or highlighted concerns with the observed effects, or ran their own replications which failed to find sc without entirely ruling out the possibility. In that case, editors rarely weighted sources by in-field reputation, beyond a very basic "RS / non-RS". I'm not aware of MEDRS levels of attention to expertise in any topic outside of medicine.
3. Weighted by volume of coverage, vs by independent reliable assessment: As more and more articles came out reporting a handful of unproven claims (such as unpublished replication studies that announced on blog posts they had seen positive results), editors argued the sheer volume of coverage merited inclusion, in the article and the lede, of both the existence of the most-talked-about claims and extensive details about them.
   • While those claims were generally the least-well justified and the most easily rebutted by other scientists, the publication ratio of pundits incentivized them to repeat such claims, to scientists with time to rebut the claims, was at some point well over 100:1. We might want policies to highlight that, in NEWS scenarios where one can expect this sort of mismatch, a single expert assessment of a claim is worth hundreds of pundits repeating it.
4. Amplification of drama: Because lots of sources write about drama and responses to it, some editors want to include that as now notable in its own right, in articles on related topics. This is where Wikipedia tends to be weakest: where we leave extensive space for drama in articles that are nominally about something else.
   • Specifically, if a bunch of partisan "it's over" / "we're back" articles are getting a lot of attention, the ideal article would not include them or people critiquing or debunking them. But often our articles have extensive timelines of these seesaws rather than downgrading sources that engage in such things as obviously less neutral and reliable on the topic.
   • Finally, these issues seem to come up most prominently for topics that become trendy for professional pundits to weigh in on. Perhaps we can also more explicitly down-weight punditry, even when it appears in an RS -- or at least distinguish "reviews by a field expert in an RS" from "commentary by a pundit employed by an RS to continually produce takes".

– SJ + 16:40, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

So... I think it's complicated.

First, to reinforce something that @Levivich said, the public expects up-to-the-minute coverage here. When a major 'event' happens (e.g., when Queen Elizabeth died), the relevant Wikipedia article gets a lot of page views. People read our articles primarily in the first couple of days, while the more authoritative sources are still sending their drafts through their internal review processes. Once more official sources are available, then interest in the Wikipedia articles tends to decline.

Second, NOTNEWS is one of those WP:UPPERCASE problems. Here's NOTNEWS in its entirety:

---

Editors are encouraged to include current and up-to-date information within its coverage, and to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events. However, not all verifiable events are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Ensure that Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Original reporting. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories. Wikipedia does not constitute a primary source. However, our sister projects Wikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be primary sources. Wikipedia does have many encyclopedia articles on topics of historical significance that are currently in the news, and can be updated with recently verified information.
2. News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and Wikipedia is not written in news style. For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage (see WP:ROUTINE for more on this with regard to routine events). Also, while including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews.
3. Who's who. Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic. (See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons for more details.)
4. Celebrity gossip and diary. Even when an individual is notable, not all events they are involved in are. For example, news reporting about celebrities and sports figures can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to overly detailed articles that look like a diary. Not every facet of a celebrity's life, personal details, matches played, or goals scored warrants inclusion in the biography of that person, only those for which they have notability or for which our readers are reasonably likely to have an interest.

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Personally, I'd summarize it this way:

We do not want articles to be out of date. We do want articles about some current events. However, we also do not want articles that are only:

1. Original reports. Don't write "I just witnessed the tornado picking up a house" or "Reports from people interviewed by a Wikipedian indicate that the tornado picked up a woman riding a bicycle". Do cite news reports that were published today, if that will help you write a decent article.
2. News reports. Don't write about everything that's in your news feed this morning. Don't overemphasize today's news. The tornado was big, but it's not the only thing that ever happened in Kansas. Also, don't mimic the style used by newspapers and magazines.
3. Who's who. Just because Dorothy got mentioned by name in a source doesn't mean that we have to inflict a BLP article on them permanently. Or even mention her name anywhere. She could be "a local resident" instead of "Dorothy, a local resident".
4. Celebrity gossip and diary. Nobody actually cares what color tie that politician was wearing. Encyclopedias produce summaries, not endless details.

Does this align with your understanding? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I think we need an additional bullet which is not there yet, on what "enduring notability" means and how to handle "breaking" hot takes vs news about events with a small fact base and a large range of projected implications. News outlets tend to repeat exaggerated claims ("someone said this, if true it would be newsworthy"), we don't need to. A single note that "researchers issued a PR claiming they had cured death, a common claim in this subfield" is fine, we don't need to include every RS that repeated this claim and opined on what that would mean for the world if true. – SJ + 23:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sj, I think that some aspects of "not news!" should be much less contentious. For example, we know that the Super Bowl will happen every year. We know somewhat in advance which teams will play. I don't know if there is "enduring notability" behind a sentence like "On February 30, 2025, the Red Team and the Blue Team will play in Hypeville", but I do think that sentence should be added prominently as soon as the facts are known. It may be "breaking news" on the first night, but it's also obviously worth including. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Fully agreed. I don't think we're discussing "factual updates" here but "how much space to give to common hype / dramatized controversy / other attention hacking". Claims that should be tuned down / not included in a lede:

"A predicted this will be the most watched Hypegame ever"

"B noted the energy invested in halftime shows and ads is rivaling that put into top films"

"Described as the most iconic sporting event in the country"[1][2][3]

"Since a contentious ad campaign crossover with Pepsi [earlier this month], described by RollingMoss as [scandalous], Hypegame has been persistently associated with [scandal]" – SJ + 17:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

About different ways of weighting things (e.g., by media buzz and volume of coverage):

In medicine-related articles, I have often found it more practical to write something about high-profile news than to have a fight over whether to include it. Specifically, I find that a sentence or two that acknowledges but downplays a given event ("On Octember 32nd, researchers issued a press release claiming that they had cured death") is usually enough to help readers (they will get a more precise and accurate statement here that they'll see in the headlines, and a few of them might even read our hand-picked sources) and to stop edit wars and drama.

And, if we're lucky, someone will mark their calendars to improve the article a few weeks later, where "improve" often means "quietly remove that bit about science by press conference, now that nobody really cares about it any longer". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The other strategy that has worked, and that we recommend at WPMED for persistent problems (news-related or otherwise), is to write a really good article, but this requires a lot more effort than can be dedicated to most subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

A smaller lift that "write a really good article" is "write a really good sentence noting that an extraordinary claim was made, noting that such claims require extraordinary evidence [and none was forthcoming], and noting how often such claims have been made in the past by authors in similar situations, none of which have to date panned out." There's some house style needed here that is not OR. – SJ + 23:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Reply to SJ: That reminds me of the "cold fusion" debacle of the 1980s. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• One proposal is the following. For certain topics we should prefer articles that coverage a fairly large part of the topic. So, for example, for ADL, we should prefer sources that cover most of ADL's history. At the very least, we should use such sources to determine WP:DUE weight, at least broadly speaking, to different parts of the article. So if an article on the overview of ADL gives most weight to its history in the 1940s period, then so should we, for example. Also consider this discussion I had with Someguy1221.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 21:52, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  That makes sense to me. – SJ + 23:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  In that vein, it should be that we prefer sources that are more comprehensive of a topic, and more distant in time from the period the topic was most relevant (like for the ADL, since it's founding). These factors typically work hand in hand but there are cases where a short comprehensive summary would work, or where we have to use multiple articles from the long term to establish a comprehensive picture. Masem (t) 16:27, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, of course, but that assumes that there has been some time and distance, and it doesn't help us when the complaint is that the hurricane is happening today, or the winners of the Oscars are being announced right now, or the Big Game is at half-time – and we've got to stop them from starting an article about a current event, because Wikipedia is not a newspaper!

  In other instances, the problem isn't that the whole article is new, but that people, using their best judgment, believe that a new thing needs to be included in an existing one. Some of them are obvious (e.g., Michael Jackson died), and some of them are less obvious, but fairly often, we know that it needs to be included, and we're working with the WP:BESTSOURCES that exist, rather than the ideal sources in theory. Especially when an editor is personally uncomfortable with the facts, they may try to delay the addition on any possible grounds, including claims that we need sources "that are more comprehensive of a topic" or "more distant in time" and that "establish a comprehensive picture". But the fact is that if a public figure gets arrested for murder, the article needs to include that, because NOTNEWS itself says that Wikipedia articles should not be out of date, even if the most that can appropriately be said is "The Daily Newspaper reported that he's been arrested and charged with murder". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  Here is an example, though the person was not arrested and it was not a murder, only an involuntary manslaughter: the event was reported the day after. I have no opinion about that. I don't follow current event on Wikipedia and I certainly do not contribute to them. I just looked for an example for myself and decided to share it. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:32, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  If we are focused only on the facts in the short term, and with some common sense knowledge of which facts are those with permanence and part of our encyclopedic coverage, then using short term sources are fine. In some cases, however, some facts may later prove trivial based on how more comprehensive sources cover the topic, and we'll end up deleting those in favor of how these latter sources summarize a topic with the benefit of time. Eg the COVID articles will benefit from time, as well as our coverage of both the Ukraine and Gaza situation. I don't have any issue if we overload an article with short term sourced objective facts about a topic as long as it's understood future edits will likely work to make a better summary.
  But it's when we start getting to subjective statements that we need more patience to wait for these sources. — Masem (t) 20:41, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  Attributed opinions are also facts. It's the idea of attribution: it becomes a fact that it was the opinion of some important person or group. I wonder if someone could find examples of opinions that could be consider immediately important. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:19, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  What it may be factual that "X said Y", that's still for purposes of a NPOV evaluation, a viewpoint, unless that viewpoint itself became part of the story (for example, Trump's recent claim of having no knowledge of Project 2025). When we include attributed opinions, we are still expressing them as verified truths about what the speaker said, but we are not assigning truth to whether the state is true or not, and hence falls into a viewpoint to be considered under WEIGHT. — Masem (t) 13:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  I believe that in most interesting cases of attribution, it is difficult to evaluate the importance of what is stated separately from who states it. It is tightly connected. If it is not tightly connected, the attribution might not be appropriate. But, again, I think it will be interesting to have examples of attributions, if any, that would be appropriate to include immediately, just after the event. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  I suspect that most WP:INTEXT attribution is the rather boring case: "Paul Politician said something about his opponent" or "Chris Critic said the movie was artistic" or "Cigarette manufacturers claim that their products are perfectly safe". Even those can be tightly connected to the speaker, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, finding boring cases that we should not include is easy and this is true as much for attributions as for any other kind of facts. The question is do we have interesting cases of attributions that we would include just after the event. Also, yes, I suppose there could be a tight connection in boring cases as well, but I did not say the contrary. Dominic Mayers (talk) 23:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  For an event, one might expect comments from some type of authority figure. For example, "Paul Presidential said that the government is providing emergency services" or "Bob Business said that the disaster was not his company's fault" or "Ellery Expert said that this event set a new record". The goal with attribution in some cases, particularly early on, is to provide information but to contextualize it as what one person said, rather than as a widely accepted fact.

  For example: Almost 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks, but in the early days, the news was reporting twice that. In those early days, it should say "The Red Cross estimated around 6,000" or "News reports claimed about 6,000", not "there were definitely exactly 6,000 deaths." WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  That seems a good example of an attribution that we would include immediately, but it is an attribution of a direct statement about a fact. What we are looking for is an attribution of an opinion that we would include immediately, because we know immediately that it is very important and will be recalled years later. In other words, I am asking if there are counter examples to MASEM's suggestion that attributions of opinion should not be included immediately after the event, because they should be deal with as if they were opinions, not facts, even though they are actually facts: it is a fact that the opinion was expressed. ... The more I think about it, the more I believe that attributed opinions always belong in the category of boring facts, but I am still open to counter examples. Perhaps, a fictive and unrealistic counter example would be a statement by Biden reported in the most respected newspaper, viewed in all major TV news that Trump was the greatest president of all times and will be again the best president ever if reelected. Dominic Mayers (talk) 23:46, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  For all purposes, we must by default take attributed opinion as a viewpoint for the purposes of DUE and WEIGHT. It is right that "X said Y" as an attributed opinion is verified and meets WP:V but we should not treat it as a "fact" for purposes of writing articles. Masem (t) 17:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  I would agree. Do you think its worth proposing changes to policy? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 16:50, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  Two points that I think should update policy: 1. A thousand op-eds about Y (or drama Y_d in the history of Y), over the course of a few weeks, are often not significant from the perspective of enduring notability. The latest drama is generally not suitable to include in the lede about Y. A thousand people saying "LK-99 could be huge! If the authors' claims are true, we could have antigravity, cheap fusion, and fast space travel!" isn't notable in the history of physics, or of superconductors (which has had hundreds of such claims, each trying to outdo the last; notably the real physics superconductivity breakthroughs never resort to press releases).

  2. We should be particularly careful about a sort of 'social proof citogenesis'. If Wikipedia editors find it notable to quote op-eds that say "Y_d changed public perceptions of Y", and stick that into the article about Y, other more reliable sources which would never cite op-eds directly, may start referencing Wikipedia to show that in fact D changed perceptions of Y. (by definition, if 100M more people read the Wikipedia article than the minor op-eds it summarizes, that's true.) It is doubly important to avoid this because so many advocacy groups take this into consideration, and spend time on WP trying to use our articles as the mechanism for getting a claim [usually about a product, person, or group] into the public sphere. – SJ + 23:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

• An example of an opinion that should likely be reported immediately: the Pope makes a comment that could indicate a significant change in Catholic dogma is being considered. Blueboar (talk) 01:14, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

  Nixon said "I am not a crook".

  For that matter, any accused person denying guilt should normally have their denial included as a matter of neutrality. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

  In the same vein, when a natural or man-made notable disaster happens, the reactions (and ideally actual steps to restore normalcy to those affected) by the region or national leaders are reasonable, while those from other countries that are just, for all purposes, the equivalent of "hope and prayers" reactions are not necessary to include. Unfortunately, these reaction sections tend to end up filling with these latter aspects. Masem (t) 17:23, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  ^ This is a significant problem. Perhaps we should address that specifically.

  Taking a hypothetical earthquake in Mexico City (they have a lot of them), and thinking about the early days, offhand I'd say:

  • The 'reaction' from the president of Mexico is worth including: "The President of Mexico said he would do everything necessary".
  • The 'reaction' from close neighbors, especially (in this case) from the US, might be worth including, but not in the lead/not prominently: "The US President expressed concern." ("Close" includes non-geographical relationships.)
  • The 'reaction' from distant countries is not worth including.
  • The significant practical actions from anywhere in the world are worth including: "Canada offered $20M in disaster relief supplies, the UK offered satellite communications support, and China sent railway engineers."

  Once significant/academic sources become available, then I think that "hopes and prayers" can be eliminated, even from the local head of government, as there will be more important things to say.

  What do you think? Would you make a different recommendation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, that goes along with how I think we should be discriminating of including immediate reactions in such cases. I would also add that in such cases, media and non-govt reactions typically also should be ignored (if we start getting into man-made disasters like mass shootings) Masem (t) 19:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  The annual California wildfire season usually gets these kinds of responses:

  • Government officials: We're sending firefighters. Evacuation zones are over there. BTW, campfires are illegal now.
  • Neighboring government officials: Hopes and prayers!
  • Meteorologists/experts: Everything is super dry, and the wind is going to be bad for the next few days.
  • Various advocacy groups: This just goes to show what happens when you let people live there/you allow electricity in rural areas/we haven't stopped climate change.
  • Various targets of blame: Nope, it's probably not our fault, and we're pretty sure that it was caused by some guy using our transmission towers for target practice, or maybe by lightning, even though it hasn't been raining. Please don't blame us.
  • Various affected people: (First 48–72 hours): We are just so grateful to be alive. The rescue services are incredible, and everyone is working together. (After that): I'm angry and tired and broke and everything's disrupted and I haven't slept well since we got here because other people's babies keep crying and I don't know what to do. Why can't a government official at least tell me if my house has burned down yet? What's so hard about driving through a wildfire and making a list of all the houses and whether they're damaged? I blame them all.

  (For that last one, we probably need an article on the subject. I've read that disaster relief orgs use the switch from gratitude to anger as an indication that the victims are past the worst. You don't yell about what's going to happen next week when you're consumed by whether you'll survive the next few minutes.)

  For this list, I'd want the relevant officials and experts soon, but the rest are not urgent. Affected individuals probably shouldn't be named/quoted (ever). The blame givers/blame avoiders can be reserved until we're sure that this is likely to have some enduring relevance. That could be fairly soon (e.g., if it's confirmed fairly soon that the fire was probably caused by an electrical malfunction), but we don't want the article history to run "It was electrical malfunction – oh, oops, it was vandalism – oh, sorry, it was lightning". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:58, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  Another way to think about this us how would we write about a 10+ year old event today if starting from scratch? I can tell with certainty that the amount of reaction material would be very minimal and mostly delegated to actual steps by officials and others to bring back normalcy would be included while anything that amounts to just words and not actions would be omitted. That's the problem that how we writing breaking news articles day explemifies, that editors have no filter of what actually would be part of our summary approach if we were writing about the topic ten years later, both on degree of factual detail and of talking head material. We need an approach in NPOV to at least have editors think of what appropriate reactions that will be impacyful in the long term and part of an appropriate ten year smart rather than trying to emulation the news. Masem (t) 15:08, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I did that last October: Oklahoma county commissioner scandal. I didn't include any quotations (except from two words from a report). There's nothing about the immediate reactions, no daily diary of how many people were arrested or tried on any given day, or any sort of blow-by-blow description. It focuses on the problem (theft of public funds), the cause (an institutional structure that let individuals spend millions of dollars with no oversight), and the results (some people went to prison, and some laws got changed). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

  Thoughts on examples:

  Report promptly:

  + Summary of a statement by the subject, or by official sources

  + A statement by a field expert, offering not just a hot take but putting an event in context

  Be judicious:

  - A statement by a professional pundit or contrarian

  - A statement by a scholar in the field who has a standard take on such things, and provided that take mapped onto this recent event. [Pope and Antipope commenting on one another's authority]

  - A statement forecasting the future ["we are so back / it is so over"]

  - A detailed statement by an accused person attacking their opponents

  - Repeating verbatim the statements of a PR campaign (for or against a topic) – SJ + 19:26, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Fake names of editors

Why are editors allowed to use “stage names” and not real, verified names? Does that ensure neutrality or the opposite? 68.132.121.58 (talk) 00:15, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello, fellow American. It sounds like you are looking for the article List of people imprisoned for editing Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Rearranging

The current Table of Contents looks approximately like this:

• 1 Explanation
• 2 Achieving neutrality
  • 2.1 Naming
  • 2.2 Article structure
  • 2.3 Due and undue weight
  • 2.4 Balance (includes BALASP and GEVAL)
  • 2.5 Selecting sources
• 3 Impartial tone
  • 3.1 Describing aesthetic opinions and reputations
  • 3.2 Words to watch
• 4 Handling neutrality disputes
  • 4.1 Attributing and specifying biased statements
  • 4.2 Point-of-view forks
  • 4.3 Making necessary assumptions
• 5 Controversial subjects
  • 5.1 Fringe theories and pseudoscience
  • 5.2 Religion
• 6 Common objections and clarifications
  • 6.1 Being neutral
  • 6.2 Balancing different views
  • 6.3 Editor disputes
  • 6.4 Other objections

Inspired by the discussion above, I'm thinking about rearranging this to become something like this:

• 1 Explanation
• 2 What to include and exclude (previously "Achieving neutrality")
  • 2.1 Naming
  • 2.2 Article structure
  • 2.3 Due and undue weight
  • 2.4 Balance (includes BALASP and GEVAL)
  • 2.5 Selecting sources
  • 5 Controversial subjects
    • 5.1 Fringe theories and pseudoscience
    • 5.2 Religion
• How to write neutrally
  • 3 Impartial tone
    • 3.1 Describing aesthetic opinions and reputations
    • 3.2 Words to watch
  • 4 Handling neutrality disputes
    • 4.1 Attributing and specifying biased statements
    • 4.2 Point-of-view forks
    • 4.3 Making necessary assumptions
• 6 Common objections and clarifications
  • 6.1 Being neutral
  • 6.2 Balancing different views
  • 6.3 Editor disputes
  • 6.4 Other objections

Does this idea sound like it's worth pursuing? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes. A side-by-side version makes it easier to see what you are proposing:

Comparison of NPOV ToC, rev. of 17 June (left) and proposed (right)
ToC from current revision Proposed new structure

HTH, Mathglot (talk) 01:53, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I left the original numbers in place, so it's sort of 1 – 2 – 5 – 3 – 4 – 6, with a couple of changes to section headings (wording and levels). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

+1. Levivich (talk) 13:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I'd support that re-organzation. WhatamIdoing, want to do the honors? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:28, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done. Now I have a new set of questions:

1. Is ===Naming=== about "What to include or exclude" or about "How to write neutrally"?
2. Is ===Article structure=== about "What to include or exclude" or about "How to write neutrally"?
3. Is ===Making necessary assumptions=== about "What to include or exclude" or about "How to write neutrally" or about "Handling neutrality disputes"?
4. Is ===Attributing and specifying biased statements=== about "How to write neutrally" or about "Handling neutrality disputes"?
5. Is ===Point-of-view forks=== about "What to include or exclude" or about "How to write neutrally" or about "Handling neutrality disputes"?

I'm currently thinking 1) HTWN, 2) HTWN, 3) WTIE, 4) HTWN, and 4) WTIE, but I'm not wedded to my first impression. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I made most of these changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Consolidated discussion on wp:weight

Many agree that this needs discussion but lament that it has been scatterred in piecemeal discussions. May I propose a methodical consolidated discussion as follows:

Topic: WP:Weight Specifically the main sections regarding this which are: "Due and undue weight" and "Balance"

Table of contents/sections:

• Listing of issues/problems
• Discussion of issues and ideas
• Workshop potential changes
• Finalize proposed changes

The end goal would be creating the 1 or 2 most widely supported proposals and deciding on the next step (RFC or ?) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Listing of issues/problems

Succinct listing only, no discussions here. Note that problems in wp:npov policy wording can a problem/issue which in turn causes problems - somewhat 2 different things, both may be listed here.

1. Wp:weight is often (mis)used to exlude useful enclyclopedic material in general, even it isn't about 2 opposing "sides" on an issue. North8000 (talk) 19:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
2. Due weight is a central concept in this policy, and it needs to be mentioned in the nutshell at the top. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:20, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
3. A main cause of problem #1 is that while the wording and intent of wikipedia weight is to cover viewpoints, it is usable and often used to exclude undisputed enclyclopedic material where it is not a viewpoint.North8000 (talk) 21:04, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
4. Sourcing is at the core of of wp:verifiability and wp:nor. This policy moves that into a totally different area. Which is to have editor assessment of the amount of coverage in sources completely dominate over editorial decisions regarding inclusion/exclusion of material. This leads to numerous specific types of problems. North8000 (talk) 12:21, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of issues

Here's an example of #1 and #3. A US government website says that it has a "Help Starving Children" program with $182 million dollars available in 2024 in grants to starving children, with backing specifics. Someone puts that in, where it is germane to the article, sourced to the US Government website. Now wikilawyer POV warrior John (who dislikes the US government) comes along. He has no doubt about the veracity of the statement or the sourcing for it on wp:ver grounds. But he doesn't want something good sounding about the US government in the article. So he deletes it citing wp:weight, saying that it is wp:undue because it is not covered in published secondary sources. Secondary sources do not cover this type of mundane, useful enclyclopedic information. North8000 (talk) 21:16, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I think we need to focus DUE on viewpoints, and strengthen BALASP to cover the non-viewpoint content. I think that a sentence (or paragraph) amounting to "Write an encyclopedia article" would be helpful. Editors need to be given a policy-based permission to include ordinary facts (e.g., when and were a person was born) even when sources don't dwell on them at great length. We include some kinds of ordinary facts because that's what encyclopedias do, and not because most sources mention it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Alternatively, maybe the mistake of using DUE to govern details and not just viewpoints has become so entrenched here that we just fold BALANCE into DUE. The terminology is odd anyway, since in common conversation we'd be more likely to reference "balancing viewpoints" and "undue detail". I agree about ordinary encyclopedic facts, though maybe it's a common enough caveat that it doesn't need to be mentioned here (the parallel I can think of is WP:CATDEF, which no one really cites to remove non-defining but obviously encyclopedic categories). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I mainly want to have one section for viewpoints about a subject (whose presence and prominence in the article depends on what sources say) and another for ordinary facts describing that subject (whose presence in an article depends on what's appropriate for an encyclopedia article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:41, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it's helpful to have those two sections, regardless of what they call them. I guess I'd maybe label the whole thing "Due weight", to keep some consistency with historical references and links, and have subsections for viewpoints and facts. I also think the presence of facts is also commonly dependent on what sources say, though there are exceptions, like obviously appropriate biographical bits. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:18, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Whether one should spend more time talking about, say, a company's product line or that one day when the factory exploded is going to depend on the sources. But some stuff is just basic: Every decent encyclopedia article about a company should have some basic information about when it was in existence, how it was started, where it operated, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

We also have to ask: “what is the actual topic of the article?” Is it an article about a company, or an article about an explosion? We are going to cover different things in different ways (with different DUE/UNDUE determinations) depending on what the article is about. Blueboar (talk) 13:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Whatamidoing, you just drafted the most massively missing policy which is "Write an encyclopedia article". :-) Since it's not in any policy, it can't be brought into consideration when making editing decisions. But putting it into this policy would be good. North8000 (talk) 12:45, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

This is not the right place for this discussion. I personally will not contribute here. This entire section should be moved in the village pump where it belongs. There is no single section that prevails over all the other sections at this stage. This section is not special. One can always open a new section that will present its own big view on the whole thing. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

This is a lot of detailed work to develop ideas and proposals. IMHO probably too detailed and voluminous for the village pump. Also it is about this specific policy. Also, it is just a framework for a discussion, not to present it's own view. Of course it does not "prevail", but maybe it will be seen by some as a catalyst / method to move forward vs. a zillion overlapping discussions which fade out. But I wish you the best wherever you choose to contribute. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I am nobody. I cannot tell what others should do, but I think personally that it is not fine to have this discussion here. So, I wrote a summary of this thread in the village pump and commented it over there. That is certainly not against the thread itself. I might not help what is called a "consolidation", but I use a page that says at the top "The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss already proposed policies and guidelines and to discuss changes to existing policies and guidelines". So, I do my best at that level too. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

The only problem I see with the scenario you just laid out is the blatant personal attacks... John is likely right and you're likely wrong about their motives (at the very least you have failed to assume good faith). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

It's a hypothetical defined by what I wrote, including John's actual motivations. But it does mirror a common reality. And when there is a preponderance of evidence, there is no more "assuming" or "guessing" it becomes understanding the situation, even if one keeps that understanding to themself.North8000 (talk) 20:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

If John was an editor we would be discussing a block or a ban... Even as a hypothetical its uncivil and creates a strawman as you will never be able to discern an editor's intent like that IRL so it just comes off as slandering a whole class of existing editors (for example the evidence free claim that this mirrors a common reality, please provide diffs to support your asserion). What if John isn't a wikilawyer and POV warrior? What if you're wrong and should have AGF? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:46, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

The point of WP:WEIGHT is that the way we organize content is a viewpoint. If we have an article about crime, and 80% of the article is about one country, it begins to imply a viewpoint. If we split that country into its own article, the implication is even stronger. There is no hard and fast rule for what is or isn't appropriate, and editors will always need to discuss how to best apply this principle. (I also think that MOS stuff helps, so articles are forced to follow a general template that enforces a certain organization and scope.) Shooterwalker (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Asking for a reliable, independent secondary source is one of the best tools we have to shut down a POV warrior. Yes, wikilawyering can be a problem, but I would be against opening the floodgates where anyone can add any kind of primary research, with no benchmark for what is reasonable. This would be a major change in WP:NPOV, and would likely violate WP:OR as well. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

For the example, (which illustrates a common reality) it's also a tool of a POV warrior.North8000 (talk) 20:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I still (personally) consider that a discussion of the policy with no concrete proposal should happen in the village pump, because, first, it is a sure way to consolidate discussions in one place, second, it may annoy people that are only interested in proposals for concrete changes and want a more peaceful talk page around this important policy, third, I don't see that the discussion will have less impact in the village pump and, most importantly, fourth, I think this particular discussion has a valid point and I already agreed with it, though I criticized strongly that it is restricted to basic informations. I wish it would happen in the village pump. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:36, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Village pump is meant for concrete proposals, otherwise it us filling it with a lot of noise. It is far better to develop a concrete idea from currently vague motions here by editors with direct interest in this policy, then propose it to a larger audience at VPP. It is reasonable to advertise this discussion at VPP as to draw more editors, but the bulk of editors that read VPP want to Wade past the noise and know exactly what is being proposed as to !vote on it. Masem (t) 01:32, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

This is weird, because it is totally the opposite of what it says at the top of the page. There is a need to clarify this with the community, Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:36, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

It says at VPP "to discuss changes to existing policies and guidelines." implying that the change to the policy or guideline in question should already be known. Masem (t) 02:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I am not convinced that you have the correct interpretation. Dominic Mayers (talk) 02:10, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Proposals seems to think that proposed changes to policies and guidelines happen on their talk page. The village pumps are only mentioned as an optional source of advice for developing ideas and for announcing RFCs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I concur with Masem and WhatamIdoing. As with most of Wikipedia, you'll find fuzzy guidance rather than specific rules. This has the likelihood of becoming a larger sort-of "workshop" (with a any proposal phase coming separately and later) IMHO that leans even more towards not putting it at the pump. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:30, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

IMHO, it's the contrary. The pump is the right place, because there is nothing in its description that says otherwise and, usually, the talk page of a policy is not for that kind of discussions. Perhaps a compromise would be to create a subpage at the pump specifically for NPOV or even due weight. It is such an important policy and the domination of DUE (and BALANCE, etc.), not DUE per se, is so problematic that this would be justified. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:06, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

exclude useful encyclopedic material

Once more, we arrive at the core contradiction of this project: nobody knows what an encyclopedia is, or what one is for. There is literally no definition of encyclopedic that is not a clear tautology (i.e. "akin to the Britannica"). This drives people insane, but I think it's possible to be at peace with it.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, which is why the core content policies (WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR) are what they are. We explicitly reject the possibility that our own knowledge can be used to decide questions about content. Instead, we necessarily insist that a relatively well defined group of reliable sources exists, and so we delegate that work to them. We literally have no real notion of what encyclopedic material is other than WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR—as well as WP:NOT, though it only provides pragmatic examples and does not attempt to define its terms or justify its examples on a deeper level.

It bears explicating that a valid response one could have to your Help Starving Children example illustrating point #1 is, "That's just what it feels like to be on the wrong side of WP:NPOV." It's deeply unsatisfying, but I don't see what can be done about that. Remsense诉 15:44, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems like the list of issues is relatively stable. Maybe we can move on to workshopping? @North8000: did you have a suggestion for 1, 3, or 4? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:37, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers: Response: Will do (below). Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:36, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Workshop potential changes

For #2, I'd propose re-writing the nutshell to emphasize WEIGHT, as well as BALANCE. My proposal is "Wikipedia should present views and details in proportion to their coverage in reliable sources." If others think we also need to capture the important concept of neutral tone, it could be "Wikipedia should use a neutral tone and present views and details in proportion to their coverage in reliable sources." We might consider using "aspects" instead of or in addition to "details", to point readers more firmly toward BALANCE. In general, I would appreciate suggestions that use language that is present in the policy, so readers of the nutshell know what keywords to expect in the policy. The current "sides" language is used in the nutshell and nowhere else. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:37, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone have any feedback on this proposal? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:23, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I quite like it, but I think the present This applies to both what you say and how you say it. is quite valuable as well. Would your 2-sentence proposal also including the above tacked on be too long for the nutshell? Remsense诉 14:30, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd agree with changing the nutshell to "Wikipedia should present views and details in proportion to their coverage in reliable sources." I would avoid using the word "neutral" though, as it's circular in context: this policy defines what "neutral" is, on Wikipedia. No objection to including the "what you say and how you say it" line, but if we keep it (if we are communicating that we should follow sources for both content and style, not just content), then I'd change "in proportion to" to something like "in accordance with". ("Proportion" doesn't invoke style, just content.) Levivich (talk) 14:50, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not think it is circular, because we are not defining the isolated word "neutral" but rather the noun-phrase "neutral point-of-view" - of which a "neutral tone" is a constituent element, but is only a part of the whole. So these are separate concepts that just happen to share the word "neutral", and I think it is a reasonable expectation that editors understand the plain meaning of the words "neutral tone" without needing the policy to define it (i.e., WP:CIR, &c).

That said, I strongly support including the "must be written in a neutral tone" clause. This is, IMO, a critical component of NPOV, equally important with the due weight component. The due weight element should apply only to the question of inclusion/prominence of FACTS; too, too often, zealous POV warring editors use WP:WEIGHT to ALSO justify writing articles in the same soapboxy language as our partisan sources claiming WP:WEIGHT requires it. But our sources are not encyclopedias and that isn't how encyclopedias are written. And the more such practice becomes widespread here, the less credibilibility Wikipedia will have as a serious encyclopedia. 73.2.106.248 (talk) 00:43, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, in the average person's ears I think "neutral tone" is closer to what NPOV means than "neutral content"—in that we present and assume the majority side, but don't praise it.

Every time I think of tone vs. substance vs. structure lately, I think of the line in WP:When sources are wrong: we do not conduct original research, but we do conduct our own tertiary analysis. It can be really easy when we're struggling with what the best editorial decisions are, to reduce our ideal roles to being mere conduits for as close to the exact words others have said as possible—this is functionally untenable for intellectual and social reasons atop the obvious legal ones, imo. There's an eternally slippery slope in where to draw the line between changes in style versus substance—but the solution is not to pretend that we cannot make any editorial choices at all, and must always defer to sources when we can trick ourselves into finding something we think we can defer to, if that makes sense. Remsense诉 00:54, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Writing neutrally, even just the stylistic aspects, covers more than just impartial tone, but I wonder whether "impartial tone" would be sufficient for the nutshell. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Number 1 and #3 are related in a "problem causing a problem" type way. And this proposal also partially helps on #4. A proposed solution is that add wording that the current wp:weight provisions are applicable to "view" & viewpoint type material, including where where the wording inherently expresses a viewpoint. And develop a different standard (which can be brief) for material where that is not the case. One that emphasizes: the reason for inclusion is to include relevant encyclopedic information that is useful for the reader which meets the wp:ver requirements. North8000 (talk) 18:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Related to #3, we could provide some information about the difference between viewpoints, opinions, and facts. For example:

viewpoint

a conclusion that depends upon the position or circumstances from which the matter is considered. For example: This policy will help these people but hurt those people. Political conservatives praise it because it promotes economic growth, but socialists oppose it as being unfair to most workers. Alice sees the treaty as primarily being about pollution, but Bob sees the treaty primarily in terms of business expenses. Economists view the war from the lens of economics, armies view it through the lens of military science, and engineers view it through the lens of technological innovations.

opinion

a conclusion or judgment that reasonable people could differ over, particularly one involving human values, aesthetics, or other matters of personal taste. For example: That was an exciting movie. Low taxes are better than high taxes. This candidate for elected office is more appealing than that one. Coffee tastes good.

fact

a piece of information that cannot be reasonably disagreed with because it aligns with objective, consensual reality. For example: The company was founded in 1912. It was the most popular song in 1964, in the US market. Smoking tobacco causes lung cancer. The politician said that he was not a crook.

This might help people figure out whether they need to be giving due weight to various viewpoints vs balancing factual aspects in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Maybe the simplest test in practice (between view/opinion and fact) is whether or not anyone is contesting veracity of the statement itself (vs. the contesting the inclusion of the statement).North8000 (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Meaning that if the veracity could genuinely be contested, then it's a fact, and if it can't, then it's not?

We could perhaps add: Viewpoints depend on who is speaking/their different ways of viewing things; opinions can vary between people but can't technically be wrong (except for people who think coffee tastes good ;-) ); facts can be wrong but can't vary between people.

For example: The current mess in Gaza started on October 7th (fact, which could be wrong, e.g., because it could have started a different day). The current state is a good/bad/mixed/necessary/pointless/harmful situation (opinion, which will vary but can't really be wrong). From the POV of the ordinary Israelis, the attack was unprovoked and unfair, but from the POV of Hamas, the attack was revenge for the Israeli government's past discriminatory treatment, and from the POV of Russia, it was an effective way to distract NATO governments from the Russo-Ukrainian War (viewpoint). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that you are working on broader questions than me, which is cool. I was thinking of a more basic differentiation. Which is that if nobody is questioning the veracity of the statement, the new "lower" bar for inclusion would apply. For example:

1. "Mary Smith is a good president" An editor disputes that statement. So the higher current bar for inclusion prevails
2. "Mary Smith is the CEO of a "save the puppies" pet shelter. Or "Mary has a PHD in Economics from Harvard" An editor who doesn't like Mary would like to exclude these from the article. But unless they contest the statement itself (e.g. say that she didn't get that degree from Harvard) the new lower standard for inclusion would apply. Would not require a preponderance of coverage in secondary wp:RS's.

North8000 (talk) 15:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I think that causes problems with trivia. Nobody will dispute the veracity of a statement like "Paul Politician wore a solid blue on Tuesday, June 25th", but a lot of editors will dispute the encyclopedic relevance of such a statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

The question here is NPOV regarding those. Do they inform with enclyclopedic information or do they distort the article? I think that some reliance on editorial decision making, but having to be to implement that goal would help solve the problems in that area. North8000 (talk) 15:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

"Mary was a good president" probably distorts the article, because people might have different views, even if we're talking about a highly effective, universally well-liked corporate CEO instead of a politician. Also, it's vague and generic. OTOH, it the subject is genuinely "widely considered one of the greatest ____ of all time", then saying that does not distort the article.

Adding trivia like what color clothes the politician wore, which can be a major discussion point in media for women, will distort the article, despite being indisputably true, verifiable, and uncontested.

I think veracity per se isn't quite the word we're looking for. Distortion feels better, but it also feel tautological. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Here's what I had in mind regarding distortion by inclusion/exclusion. Regarding by exclusion, I'd offer my example that I gave at the start of the "discussion of issues" section. By excluding basic coverage of what the program is and what it offers, it will probably lead to distorted coverage.....just other people ("sources") opinions of the program or coverage of when the director was caught cheating on her husband. By distortion by inclusion, it might be a large section in the Charles Manson article (I'm making this up) on details of how he had a rough childhood, and every award he received as a child, and covering some small donations he made to charities. North8000 (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

"Articles should provide an adequate description of the subject, such as information that would ordinarily be provided for similar subjects. For an event, this might include the Five Ws; for a person, it might include when and where the person lived and some information about their family and education, as well as what the person is notable for"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

A line in the When sources are wrong essay stuck out at me, simple as it is: We do not engage in original primary or secondary research, but we are creators of original tertiary analysis. I concede that pragmatically, we have to make some of our own editorial decisions (e.g. what is and isn't encyclopedic) otherwise we'd be locked in to borderline plagiarism at worst and we'd be borderline useless at best. But the fact remains that encyclopedic remains a bit of a semantic black hole here. Maybe it'd be helpful to explain what we mean in different terms? Remsense诉 02:51, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense, you said something similar above, but I'm not sure that we really have such difficulties with the concept of an encyclopedia. We have an article at Encyclopedia, which says that encyclopedias are supposed to have articles that are longer than a dictionary definition and contain summaries of knowledge about the subject of each article. That knowledge is supposed to be primarily factual (as opposed to linguistic, moral, etc.) in nature.

Despite the couple of editors who drop ==Etymology== sections near the top of some articles, we don't really seem to have much trouble with this. The disputes we tend to run into are more about style (e.g., should I copy the casual/outdated/jargon-filled style of the sources I'm citing? Is this information too detailed to be appropriate for a summary, or is that article too opinionated to be factual?) and what to do about factual information that doesn't look quite like a traditional encyclopedia article (e.g., lists, tabular information/data, or articles that are presently very short). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:06, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Of course we operate based off a general sense of encyclopedicity, but hopefully it's understandable how it seems a lot of our content policy is built upon a word that simply isn't that well-defined other than "akin to how the Britannica was". Moreover, just because we have a working notion of what the word means doesn't mean it will help inform others when written in a didactic policy. The example distinction between "linguistic" and "factual" information you've made is slightly odd also, as a search of Britannica's website for etymology will find many such sections: surely they're important to a general discussion of many topics?Remsense诉 16:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The word that is most problematic in terms of being not so practical is not "encyclopedia", but "weight" as used in UNDUE, BALANCE, etc. I wrote the essay Find and then present the points of view about that and I would appreciate commentaries. The essay does not say that this notion of weight has no counterpart outside Wikipedia, in other words, that it is completely a Wikipedia's jargon, but it strongly suggests it. I believe it is entirely a Wikipedia's jargon. The essay does not say either that the notion of weight in sources does not exist in Wikipedians' practice, but it also strongly suggests it. I believe that, in practice, we don't use a notion of weight in sources. In practice, we simply read the sources to understand them and determine the relevancy of different contents and their relative importance. The essay says that this editorial process is important and neglected in the policy. I would not be surprised if someone shows to me debates that refer to "weight" in sources as if it was a real quantity that can be measured, say using the amount of characters attributed to the content in sources, but most likely these debates will be artificial, just as in an argument about who will win if the flying spaghetti monster fight with a Unicorn. By this I mean that there is no real intent or mean to measure the "weight", just like there is no mean to observe the flying spaghetti monster in a fight with a unicorn. I am not referring to the notion of weight in the article. Once we have read and understood the sources as a part of a complex editorial process, it is possible to make a judgement on the relative importance of points of view and determine on that basis that a view point takes too much space in the article. This notion of weight in the article is still a Wikipedia's jargon. This time it has a practical meaning. Yet, as a jargon, it should not be used, especially because it is very confusing: "due weight" in that jargon has a completely different meaning than outside Wikipedia, as explained in the essay. Dominic Mayers (talk) 16:52, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The word might be ours, but I don't think the concept is ours. An article that doesn't give due weight to the various viewpoints about the subject and to provide a balanced summary of the subject isn't a good encyclopedia article. In fact, the most famous example of that was the French Encyclopédie, which for ideological reasons ended up with articles that were supposedly about, e.g., a small town, but whose wildly unbalanced contents were primarily about a single resident of the town. It was criticized for this problem in the 18th century, just like a non-neutral and unbalanced Wikipedia article ought to be criticized for it in the 21st century. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the notion of too much space given to a content is universally bad. I am criticizing the use of a bad jargon here. It is bad, because "give due weight" outside Wikipedia is simply about the attention given to what is available in sources or from witnesses in the case of a judicial trial, nothing more than that. It is not about the article or about the final ruling in the case of a judicial trial. Moreover, you have not commented on the essential. I cannot tell how often people do it, but some times people somehow assume that we can measure the weight in sources, as if the notion of weight could replace the usual complex editorial process. It is implicitly done in the policy, because little is said about that process, in particular, inclusion of information, giving the arguments, etc.. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:43, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Giving due weight cannot replace "the usual complex editorial process", because it is part of that usual complex editorial process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

We have an important agreement here that Wikipedia is based on a complex editorial process, but this agreement is not useful until it leads to a text of the NPOV policy that better takes this complex process into account, especially the fact that it requires that we find all relevant informations. In particular, as I tried to explain, some people somehow think that "give due weight" (with its meaning in Wikipedia's jargon) requires only that we use some magical method to directly compute the weight of each point of view in the sources and then respect the same proportion in the article. It's problematic, because, with this magical way of thinking, they don't appreciate that the actual method to evaluate the relative importance of the points of view is this usual complex editorial process that requires that we actively look for all relevant informations. This problem seems to exist in the current text of the NPOV policy, which fails to acknowledge the different kind of information that often need to be included. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:07, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

• I doubt that there is a single editorial process.
• If editors don't believe that they need to "actively look for all relevant information", then they have not read this policy. For example, the first sentence says articles need to contain "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". It does not say articles should contain only "some of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic", nor "all the significant views that you are personally familiar with", nor even "all the significant views that you agree with". How can anyone include "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic" without searching for a wide variety of sources?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

• I doubt that there is a single editorial process., but we must try to agree on the key rules that guide that process for each one of us. That's what we are trying to do here.
• The policy says these things, but it used to be more specific. It used to say that arguments might need to be provided, etc. A case that might be of interest to you is that it does not say that a basic info such as where a person was born does not need reliable sources to show that it is relevant (only reliable sources to guarantee that the information is correct). In other words, currently the text of the policy is not well balanced and focus too much on due weight (with its meaning in Wikipedia's jargon) to reject information and not enough on the editorial process per se, which must use patterns of inclusion of information. When to apply these patterns must be determined on a case by case basis, but it would be good to discuss more these patterns in the policy.

Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a link to a version with more specific statements about needing to provide arguments? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

In the original 2001 version (just pick the oldest version), an example is given in which it is said that arguments must be given. But that is not the key point. The key point is that even today, it is true that giving the arguments is a way to obtain a neutral point of view. Once that key point is understood, then it is worth mentioning that this example was removed, but it's not more important than that. Dominic Mayers (talk) 00:20, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

You're talking about the quotation from Jimmy Wales that says "An encyclopedia article should not argue that laissez-faire capitalism is the best social system. (I happen to believe this, by the way.) It should instead present the arguments of the advocates of that point of view, and the arguments of the people who disagree with that point of view."

I'm not sure that I agree with him.

To begin with, I'm not sure that we should be presenting arguments for/against why a given political philosophy is best. An encyclopedia should be more interested in the facts: laissez-faire capitalism leads to greater wealth for the investors, less wealth for ordinary workers, and more pollution for the earth; it can only exist in practice when courts strongly protect individual autonomy, enforce contracts, and punish fraud; etc.

It doesn't make sense for an encyclopedia to give arguments like "Alice says it is best because _____" or "Bob says it isn't best because _____". The article should primarily present facts like "The right of workers to unionize and to strike against an employer isn't compatible with laissez-faire capitalism" and let the reader decide whether limiting workers' rights is an argument 'for' or 'against' laissez-faire capitalism.

Even if it makes sense in some cases, I think it's not the right thing to do for all subjects. Arguments 'for' and 'against' might make sense for political philosophies, but they don't make much sense for, e.g., artistic appraisal or settled facts. It might be suitable to have a list of arguments for and against a government policy, but it would be silly to have a list of arguments for and against the fact that cigarette smoking is unhealthy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

This is why I refer to providing arguments as a pattern. It is a pattern in the editorial process, just like a statistical strategy is a pattern in scientific research. Which statistical approach must be used depends on many things. Whether or not Jimmy Wales proposed a good example for that pattern is not the most important issue. I am not saying that I agree with your specific criticisms of the examples considered, but I do not want to enter into this, because I believe the "provide arguments" pattern and other patterns cannot be proven correct by examples until people agree on their purpose. The general idea is more important and it is a primary notion that cannot be defined. This is why in the essay I make reference to that notion outside Wikipedia using accepted contexts. If we had some common concrete objectives such as our health, how much money in our bank account, etc. it will be simpler, but we don't. We need to connect with our deepest inner values concerning what is a good article. It is at this level that the notion lies. Dominic Mayers (talk) 17:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Huh. I tend to take the opposite view: a pattern can't be proven correct (i.e., useful and appropriate) until there is some example where we agree that following that pattern makes a better article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

It's the reasonable way to look at it. The problem, as I explained, is that we must share the criteria for the "useful and appropriate" part. Dominic Mayers (talk) 01:45, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

The only criterion that really matters for that is that editors agree that it makes the article better. Consensus is the wiki way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but you fail to address the issue: what is a better article ? This is where the concept of neutral point of view needs to be discussed, because it is our attempt to agree on what is a good article. I wrote my essay with this in mind. Dominic Mayers (talk) 05:53, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

A better article is the one that the community agrees is better. This is the actual definition in a consensus-based system.

Do you mean to ask something like "What criteria does the community usually apply in practice (or claim to apply in theory/aspirationally), when they are trying to decide whether a given version is better?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I feel the discussion is stalling. We are dealing with meta considerations about the goal, the question or the problem we try to solve. Usually, this should be shared to begin with or easily shared after a few exchanges so that the real useful discussions can occur. Dominic Mayers (talk) 06:24, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a cultural difference, like whether a good paper at school begins with a thesis statement and then provides supporting details, or if it begins with seemingly unrelated details and weaves them together into a proven claim.

I think my starting point is If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I've asked for evidence that something's broken and that the broken article could be fixed providing "arguments". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

This will make us enter into philosophical considerations. I love philosophical considerations, but here is not the place. If you read my essay and write comments in its PdD that are specifically related to the essay and possibly have a philosophical component, I will be happy to respond. Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Providing a very specific example or evidence to the issues you claim is not creating anything philosophical; it cements the discussion to that specific example to determine what you think is wrong and how a policy adjustment could change it. And reading that essay, I am still confused where you are wanting to see development of policy, except that I see the flavor of what we caution about from WP:FALSEBALACE in there - we can't do any type of DUE analysis of what we think is out there, only from what reliable sources say, but some of what you say in that is exactly along those lines. — Masem (t) 00:31, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense, click on Encyclopedia, and read the last sentence of the first paragraph. The difference between a factual treatment of a subject and a linguistic one should be clear. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

"Generally speaking" is rather key, here. It doesn't really seem like you intend to argue that linguistic dimensions are never germane to a general discussion of a topic, so I'll cut this short here. Remsense诉 21:32, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think I'm the one who started using "enclyclopedic" in this thread. My context was that it was clearly main information about a topic which people would expect to find in an encyclopedia article but where POV warriors used this policy (in an unintended way) to exclude it. and I gave a hypothetical but representative example at the start of the "discussion of issues" section. North8000 (talk) 16:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:RPLA of WP:YESPOV

A 2010 edit removed the bolded text serving as a destination for WP:YESPOV and WP:NOPOV in contravention of WP:RPLA. I was confused why WP:Vandalism said core content policies of neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view) but not the NPOV policy itself or its FAQ. To fix this, I archived the content to WP:No point of view.

Should we reintroduce the concept that "'neutral point of view' doesn't meant 'no point of view'"? If not here, we could do it at WP:NPOV/FAQ. 174.89.12.36 (talk) 03:50, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe the current destination is astonishing, and is a much better description of how neutrality should be achieved than the decade and a half old text. Policies are not statutes set in stone they change with time and practice. The current wording still shows that NPOV doesn't mean 'No POV', but rather the POV found in reliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:24, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Can we have a sentence saying NPOV doesn't mean 'No POV', but rather the POV found in reliable sources? Currently this meaning seems present but diffused throughout the first 3 list items, whereas I would like something boldfaced and more explicit.

Per "better ... than ... old text", I self-rv'ed the 3rd page. Either it's just me who's slow, taking days to realize the redirect intended to target the 3 items or it should really be made more obvious. 174.89.12.36 (talk) 15:21, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I would be all for such simpler language, but unfortunately past discussion show that it would likely be controversial. Let's see if anyone else has an opinion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:10, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I've also reverted your changes to YESPOV and NOPOV, whether the current policy should be changed or not they should point to the current policy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:41, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Preferring allegedly neutral sources

@Bob K31416 recently added this sentence:

• "Reliable sources that are more neutral are preferred over biased reliable sources if they both support the same given material.  Biased reliable sources may be used if a more neutral reliable source is not found for the given material."

I don't think this is good advice, and I don't think that the community actually has this preference in practice.

You should use the best sources you can for building an article, but once you know what content is needed, it is not actually important whether a given uncontested fact is supported by a WP:BIASED source or a "more neutral" one. The source needs to be strong enough to support the claim, but almost any source is going to be strong enough to support uncontested facts. Rearranging the deck chairs – I mean, rearranging the little blue clicky numbers, so that the one I perceive to be "more neutral" gets used somewhat more times in an article, and the one I declare to be "biased" is used slightly less, is not an important or valuable activity, especially for the 299 out of 300 page views in which zero readers actually try to read the source.

The important thing is that we get the content right. If the content needs to be "Biden is the 46th president of the US", then it does not actually matter whether that's followed by a ^{[more neutral source]} or a ^{[biased source]}. What matters is that the sentence itself is correct, verifiable, and neutral.

To quote the relevant item from the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/FAQ:

What if the source is biased?

Sources are allowed to be biased or non-neutral; sometimes these are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a controversial subject. However, the resulting Wikipedia articles must maintain a neutral point of view.

The article must be neutral, and it does not matter if the source is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

There is also the issue of who decides which source is 'more neutral', something open to both personal and socio-culture bias. And as you say content has to be verifiable, if the source is biased isn't an issue as long as the content isn't biased. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:17, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

No. The the food article on presidential inauguration festivities, may be reliable, but it is not the source to use for that. And it seems foolish to suggest any source will do. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:21, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

"Not the source to use for" what? That sounds like a perfectly fine source to use, assuming that you are writing a paragraph about the cake served at presidential inauguration festivities, which is, in fact, something we sometimes write about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

For your prior approved use, which should have been obvious. Your defense of crap sources is still crap. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

So you think that a sentence like "Biden is the 46th president of the US" should not be supported by a newspaper article saying "At the inauguration festivities celebrating the moment when Biden became the 46th president of the US..." Instead, you would like to see it supported by a newspaper article that isn't about the festivities associated with him becoming the 46th president. A bias towards "serious" sources, vs "frivolous" ones, is common in our community, and I personally wouldn't start in the style section to find such information.

However, I don't see how that – the question of whether a fact-checked news article on the front page is better than an equally fact-checked news article in the style section of the same newspaper – is relevant to whether the source is "biased" or "more neutral", which is the subject of this thread. The recently added text says you shouldn't cite even front-page, main news articles from The Guardian or The Daily Telegraph or Mother Jones or The New Republic or Politico or Reason or pretty much any other news source for whether Biden is the 46th president, because they're WP:BIASED. Instead, you should preferentially cite "more neutral" sources, of which exactly none are agreed by everyone to be "more neutral" when it comes to political news. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

With respect to your first paragraph, it bares no relationship to what I said. Your last paragraph makes little sense, because it is as of you have no idea what you are writing about or what good sources for the subject are. Indeed, the effect of your argument is, 'Wikipedia does not care about sourcing', we will just send you to look at basically anything. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:58, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Let me see if I can break this down:

• Bob boldly added a sentence to this policy. That sentence indicated that, when you have two sources, both of which are reliable, and both of which say the same thing, and one of them is "more neutral" and the other is "biased", then it is a plusgood thing to cite the "more neutral" reliable source instead of the "biased" reliable source. This is all about which source to have in the little blue clicky number, and not at all about what the article says.
• WP:RSP (rightly or wrongly) says that The Guardian is a biased source when it comes to politics.
• Imagine that you have two sources in hand:
  • a bona fide hard-news, fact-checked story from the "biased" The Guardian that says Biden is the 46th president, and
  • any reliable source at all that is "more neutral", e.g., an article in Food & Wine that's primarily about the food served at the inauguration balls^[*], that also says Biden is the 46th president.
• If you want to follow Bob's advice, you would cite the second source, even if it's what you'd call a "crap source", because it's "more neutral" and the newspaper article is "biased". In other words, so long as the source is just barely non-crappy enough to be reliable, this proposal claims that it is more important for the source to seem "neutral" than for the source to be timely, relevant, fact-checked, appropriate to the subject matter, etc.
• If, instead, you want to follow my advice – which I think is also your advice – you would cite the best source, even if the best source is a biased source. In this simplified example, the best source is the internationally recognized news organization and not the foodie magazine.
  • And if you really wanted to follow my advice, but which is probably not your advice, you also would not worry too much about the strength of the source behind an uncontested^[**] statement of fact, and instead focus your energy on things that actually matter, like how to balance domestic vs international efforts, or economic vs social policies, or political vs personal content, etc., since there's a much bigger chance that readers will read some of the article. In Joe Biden, the median source can expect to be clicked on approximately once per quarter million page views. The first sentence, on the other hand, will be read pretty much every time.

[*] Note that this is only an example; the text as submitted prefers any and all "more neutral" reliable sources over any and all "biased" reliable sources without consideration for any other factors. It could be that there's still a small town newspaper somewhere that everyone would agree is "more neutral".

[**] By anyone who is not part of the Election denial movement in the United States. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Your policy view is still appalling, as it is not focused on doing good work, it is at best a transactional dodge from doing good work. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:42, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I think I am focused on giving accurate reasons for preferring (or rejecting) a given source. If you're working on an individual article yourself, then a gut feeling may be good enough to decide that you'll choose this source over that source. But WP:Policy writing is hard, and one of the reasons it's hard is because you have to get both the rule and the explanation right. That means, for example, that you have to question whether this rule is about independent sources or secondary ones (at one point, Wikipedia's policies used those words interchangeably), and you have to question whether bias is the most important characteristic to care about, and you have to question whether 'bias' is actually the right word to describe the problem being addressed (answer in this case: No. Bob actually wants a rule that says not to cite reliable sources that say something derogatory about the subject if we can avoid doing so).

I think you might be more intuitive about this than I am (i.e., than I feel I can afford to be with my policy-writing hat on). For example, here:

• Bob says we should always prefer unbiased sources (when we have a choice).
• I say that we need to think about this, because we have a long-standing rule saying that biased sources are okay. Bob's addition would create a contradiction between WP:RS and NPOV.
• You say that if you want to say who the 46th POTUS is, you shouldn't cite an article about the food at the inauguration balls.

That latter point, though I can see the connection now, has nothing to do with WP:BIASED sources. "Shall we cite biased [or derogatory] sources, especially given that RSP has a habit of declaring reputable newspapers to be biased?" has no connection to "Shall we cite a fluffy human interest story about the cake served at an after party, when we could be citing a respectable hard news story instead?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:51, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

If this was talking about source independence, that would be one thing, as implicitly the more independent the source is from the topic at head, the more likely it will remain more neutral (though as noted, it can still possibly be biased). But we can't start with expectance of more neutral sources for the problems mentioned above. --Masem (t) 13:35, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Adding more. Per policy, we also avoid published opinion for facts. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

This is true, but it's not relevant. An opinion piece can be quite neutral ("We think voters have a difficult choice between two equally qualified candidates...") and a purely factual piece can be heavily biased (e.g., by presenting only facts that support my view and omitting facts that prove my preference wrong). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:27, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Don't give me that facetious stuff. It's like you are rewriting policy in your mind to "always use crap sources." And your argument is not improved by your latest, 'its just a matter of semantics.' We don't use opinion pieces because their purpose is to make facts relative in service of opinion, and that is bias. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:44, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe that if you spend some time in the archives for WP:V and WP:RS, you will find that we prohibit citing opinion pieces for facts because opinion pieces are not generally subject to fact checking (at the few institutions that actually do fact checking these days).

The question in this thread is whether we should prefer sources not because they are "more reliable" (or "less crap", if you prefer), but because they appear to be "more neutral" (or "less biased"). An opinion piece can be neutral; a factual piece can be biased. Therefore, when trying to decide whether to prefer more-neutral/less-biased sources, considerations of whether the source in question has some qualities other than being more-neutral or less-biased (e.g., whether it is an opinion piece or a fact-oriented piece) is a red herring. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Since I've been in those discussions, whatever you believe about them is irrelevant. And as I have explained your ideas of bias and neutral make little sense. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:48, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure, we were both in a discussion about this in 2012, wherein @Blueboar said There is a line we can draw between "News" and "Opinion". The editorial staff fact checks "News" articles... they may not fact check opinion pieces (such as op-ed columns). Thus, opinion pieces have limited reliability on Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Objectivity of a source with respect to the item which is citing it certainly does affect the real world reliability of the source in that context/instance. We don't have much on this in policies. The item mentioned in the OP sort of works in opposite directions on this. One portion is of little consequence...it only applies where there there are multiple sources available for the same material and just says to prefer the less biased one. The latter part seems to bless use of biased sources when unbiased ones are not available. This is too complicated to comment on because nearly every possible example will involve interaction with other policy provisions. North8000 (talk) 14:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

• A concern has to do with cases where material is supported by a source and the source is replaced by a more biased source that doesn't improve the support of the material. Or having an edit reverted that would have replaced a biased source with one that is just as good for supporting the material but with less bias.

Is trying to avoid these kind of situations an acceptable goal? Thanks. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:26, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a case in which you want to make case-by-case decisions and defer to any consensus that forms on the individual article's talk page. For example:

• WP:RSP says that "Some editors consider CNN biased". Those editors would probably think that replacing anything cited to CNN with something cited to The Wall Street Journal would be a case of replacing a "biased" source with a "more neutral" source. Others would feel quite the opposite, and would say that the biased WSJ needs to be replaced by the more neutral CNN. I think this would be a complete waste of editors' time, regardless of whether it's replacing CNN with WSJ or vice versa. IMO that sort of edit does not improve anything. I would not make such an edit, and I would not revert anyone who made such an edit.
• OTOH, an article like Donald Trump has problems. We are citing too many WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources. We are citing just too many sources. There are 838 refs on that page. That's not good for anyone. If you replaced 100 of them with sources to a reputable biography, then that would be great, and it really would not matter to me whether the biography in question was Donald Trump is the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread or The Evil Genius Who Will Destroy America or Trump: Advantages and Disadvantages. The fact that Trump was the duly elected 45th president of the United States, and that the Wikipedia article should say this, does not depend one whit on whether the cited source is pro-, anti-, or wishy washy.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Consider the case of a source for the fact that Councilman John Doe lived in Los Angeles in 1992. One source with the information is titled, "John Doe and DUI". It is about a member of John Doe's staff driving drunk and being arrested for DUI and there was an implication that John Doe tried to get the case dismissed, although it was not clear that John Doe ever did that. It also says that some believe John Doe is the worst councilman. Another source with the residence information is titled, "John Doe Elected to City Council", and is a factual news story without opinion or possible misrepresentations. They both are in traditionally reliable sources and have the information that John Doe lived in Los Angeles in 1992. There is a discussion amongst Wikipedia editors with no other details discussed. Those favoring the DUI source prevailed and noted that it is irrelevant whether or not the source is biased. Which source is preferable for Wikipedia? Bob K31416 (talk) 00:40, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

In terms of what you had added, this example would be a case where we prefer an objective, just-the-news article over an op-ed or something more reaching for analysis. I wouldn't call that a case of being more neutral, but being more objective or "absence of commentary by the journalist". Masem (t) 00:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

There's nothing in this story that suggests the DUI news article is anything other than an object, just-the-news article without any 'commentary' by the journalist. That some believe all the other council members are better is, after all, "just the facts". However, we prohibit citing opinion pieces (encompassing both op-eds and the actual 'eds') for factual content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Its more about the "implication" statement there. And that becomes a tough line to learn how to read that, but the equivalent would be how Fox News tends to report on political news on its "news" programs. Its all based on "fact" but in a way to wildly swing the perception and creating implications that are not there. Now, if its other parties that created the implications and the article's just quoting that, I agree that's a "just the facts" news article. Masem (t) 01:00, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Every fact has implications, and the fact that the complaint is about 'implications' can be evidence that the journalist is sticking rigidly to the demonstrable facts and refusing to go even one character beyond them.

Journalists sometimes have to write articles in which they know that Paul Politician has tried to exert some improper influence, but can't get anyone to say that on the record. In that case, the factually accurate article may "imply" something, but the implication is nothing but the facts. For example: Imagine that the employee was arrested on Saturday night, and the usual process is to keep people in jail until the first hearing in court, which will be on Monday morning. Imagine, too, that the actual facts are that the politician has called the jailhouse several times a day since the arrest, yelling that the ordinary system is terribly inconvenient for him and their employee needs to be released sooner and the politician is thinking that it's time for the city to review the jail's budget.

But: Imagine that the newspaper's lawyers say that the journalist can't publish the actual facts unless and until they can get one person who will go on record saying – in effect – "Yes, I really did willfully violate the jail's confidentiality rules by telling a reporter all about the phone calls made by concerned friends and family members, so please fire me."

If we knew the facts, we wouldn't be sneering at the journalist for "implying" the actual facts. It's only because we don't know the facts ourselves that we wonder whether this is a case of being unfair to the politician or actually a case of being altogether too gentle on an instance of abuse of power. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Bottom line: If you don't have evidence that the 'implication' is factually wrong, then you should look to the reputation of the source. If it's good (e.g., Los Angeles Times, for a politician in LA), then editors should assume that any 'implications' are warranted and fact-based. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Any. Either. Both. None of the above (in which case, you'll have to supply a better one).

We are not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, or even to soothe the minor irritations caused by a headline writer. We are adding sources that make it possible for people using the encyclopedia to check whether the information (e.g., that Doe lived in LA in 1992) comes from a reliable source (e.g., a newspaper article that WP:Directly supportsthat particular sentence). If the newspaper with the public-relations-disapproved headline happens to be a reliable source for the material in question, then it is acceptable to cite the reliable source. Whether to do so, as with everything else, is up to editors working on the article.

Were I unhappy with the consensus, my strategy would likely involve finding a much, much better source and re-writing the article from scratch. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:55, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

• My problem with the instruction is that it assumes we are starting with material and then finding sources to support it… when we should be starting with the sources and then writing material based on what the sources say. Blueboar (talk) 20:38, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  Every time someone fixes a {{citation needed}}, that is exactly what we're doing. When you are starting or significantly re-writing an article, you should start with a handful of excellent sources and proceed from there. But when you are just trying to demonstrate that some existing text was not made up by a Wikipedia editor, then you start with the material and find a source to support it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  But that too is the wrong way to go about it. When we see a cn tag, we should read lots and lots of sources that might (or might not) support it. If necessary, we rewrite the material to better reflect what all those sources say. We might add context and opposing viewpoints, or explain nuance. We might even omit the material completely because not enough sources cover it.

  But, ok, let’s say that there are enough sources that cover the material (as written)… at that point it is simply a matter of using editorial judgment to cite the source we think best supports it.

  That is where different editors can disagree. I might think source X best supports it, while another editor thinks source Y best supports it. We could spend hours debating these sources… But that is really a pointless debate since nothing says we can’t cite both.

  As for “choose neutral sources over biased sources”… the only way to know which sources are neutral and which are biased is to read lots and lots of sources. And we may find that a source we initially thought was neutral is, in fact, biased (or vise versa). Blueboar (talk) 00:25, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  {{citation needed}} is a request for one (1) reliable source. It is not a request for a full review of the subject area. If you wish to treat that tag as meaning {{citation-needed-neutrality-dubious-clarify-by-whom-original-research-POV-statement-copyedit-peacock-tone-undue-weight-relevance-contradictory-speculation-inline}}, then I'd never stop you, but that's not how the community actually handles those in practice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:45, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  Which is one of Wikipedia’s flaws. Blueboar (talk) 01:03, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  Or perhaps it is evidence that editors know how to prioritize our work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

• I agree with WAID that this policy should primarily be focused on getting the content right. I mostly agree with the advice in the proposal in theory, but even if I agreed 100%, I would still oppose adding it to the policy. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:24, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia informs the reader with the text and by supplying references where more information on the subject can be found. By unnecessarily choosing a biased reference, the reader is directed towards one point of view. Bob K31416 (talk) 16:27, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  @Bob K31416, did you know that academic research (doi:10.1145/3366423.3380300) says that 99.7% of the time, readers don't read any refs? The reader isn't "directed towards" any point of view in the refs, because the readers almost never read the refs at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

  I agree this text should not be included. Our article text should be neutral but our sources need not be. Neutrality is but one aspect of a source's characteristics we can judge and other characteristics may be more important. In some areas editors cannot come to agreement about whether sources are neutral or not, or take a very broad approach to dismissing or approving of sources, without consideration of the author of the piece or type of article. I can't see how it is helpful to fill our article talk pages with arguments of neutrality which ultimately aren't important if the article text remains the same. I think Bob K31416 is confusing sources with external links. Our sources are not "where more information on the subject can be found" but are closer to "proof we didn't just make this up".

  However, I disagree with WAID that stats about how many editors read refs is relevant to how we choose which to cite. It is like saying that because there are so few people editing Wikipedia compared with those reading it, we shouldn't waste our time making the editing experience any better. I agree that having excellent article text is more important than having sources that are better than "sufficient to do the job", we can't just dismiss the important of sources because few readers look at them. I think we should regard our refs as important primarily to other editors and secondly to those readers who are diligent enough to question what they just read. That there are few such diligent readers is not important. They exist and we should serve them. And of course we should serve other editors, as this is a community project written collectively. Having a great source makes others editors (and diligent readers) confident that the text is well supported.

  There is another kind of source, though, and it isn't one that appears at the bottom of our articles. It is the sources that editors have read and perhaps discussed with others on the talk pages. A non-neutral source can be bad for the article not because it necessarily gets the fact wrong, but because it has the weight all wrong. We end up including information that misleads the readers simply be being told to them as though it was important or fair. We might call them "hate facts" as they are factoids that people who hate the subject love to tell each other. I don't know the solution for that though, because our better neutral sources simple don't mention these "hate facts" at all. And our weight policy is written with "big book on a famous battle" in mind, not current affairs and news articles by generally biased press. -- Colin°^Talk 18:14, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'd like to strongly support this whole comment of Colin's, especially A non-neutral source can be bad for the article not because it necessarily gets the fact wrong, but because it has the weight all wrong. In my view, the bias of a source isn't often relevant to whether it publishes accurate "facts", but it is very often relevant to whether or not we should include these "facts" in articles and whether to give them WEIGHT alongside other facts reported by less-biased sources.

  If we do shift focus in this way, it will remove some of the wikilawyering around "this source is so biased it should never be used" vs. "this source is biased but its facts are as good as anyone else's" - a fairly sterile antinomy that wastes editor time. There will be teething issues, though, since I don't think The Guardian's choice of facts on one side of UK political issues is as tendentious as The Telegraph's in the other direction, but current entries at perrenial sources would suggest that it is equally or more tendentious. Still, were we to adopt this as a community principle, we could work out which biases really should count against DUE inclusion, over time. Newimpartial (talk) 22:04, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Comment - I think the expressed topic, "should a fact be cited to a biased source when a less biased source is available?" is not as important to the enwiki community as are several adjacent topics. Some of these more interesting questions include (in rough order of proximity to the current discussion):

• Should the title of the source be a factor in deciding which source to use, when choices are available? (For example, some RS have headlines the content of which might well fail WP:BLP requirements if stated in an article.)
• What principles should govern (whether and how) facts that are only documented in biased RS are included in articles?
• (related but different) How should editors understand the ways the biases of sources interact with other factors in assessing DUE WEIGHT?
• How do the biases of sources interact with other factors in deciding on terminology in articles (e.g., to assess compliance with WP:NPOV)?

While I am not at all suggesting that the current discussion be expanded to include all of these questions, I think each of them raises more fundamental issues that, if the community reached consensus on any related principles, might resolve questioning about choices of biased and less biased sources en passant, as it were. Newimpartial (talk) 16:42, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

IMO the two most common real-wiki examples where biased sources come into play are:

• Wanting to apply a broad vague negative value-laden term to somebody or some group. My answer on those is to provide more specific informative info in that area rather than such a term. And use sources that do that.
• Using source bias evaluation to try to include or exclude material. Sometimes the warrior just invokes something from wp:verifiability, but usually they also invoke wp:weight. And there, depending on which argument serves their side, they can select and quote parts of policies that say that biased sources are OK, or else seek to disparage the source because it's biased.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:11, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

But it is often a WP:WEIGHT issue (in fact, that's what I came here to say.) We can use WP:BIASED sources, but an article that relies on a non-representative sample of sources that are all biased in the same direction is going to itself be biased, at least if this leads to it giving their views disproportionate representation. The hard part, of course, is figuring out what is representative, but there's a reason why people with complaints of this nature at WP:RSN often get pointed to WP:DUE instead. And this is the answer to the proposal above; NPOV already touches on how to handle biased sources, it just touches on them in DUE. --Aquillion (talk) 02:26, 28 September 2024 (UTC)