Wikipedia talk:Relevance

Awaken this?

After years of thought, and observation at contentious articles, I believe relevance is the most important missing content guideline. For the last couple years at another more general essay I've been developing a rationale for the existence of such, analysis of what is needed and why, and the general nature of a solution / guideline. I though of seperating it into a wp:relevance essay with the goal of making it become a guideline and found out that this exists. My work developed elsewhere is:

Adding relevancy guidance would substantially increase Wp:npov's effectiveness

Wp:undue does not provide sufficient guidance to resolve contentious articles and generally fails on these. Adding relevancy into its guidance tools would help this situation. One place to start would be to say that when there is a dispute, one condition for inclusion of material is that it be directly ABOUT (not just be related to) the subject of the article.

Exploration of situations that would benefit from this

WP:npov seems best designed only for the classic POV case, where there is a statement which purports to be objective fact in dispute. But the far more common case is where POV warriors seek to leave an impression on the reader via the quantity and nature of content which leaves the desired impression. This may be:

• On the topic of the article, or
• Where the POV promoter inserts material into the article to further a POV on a different topic.

An example of the "on the topic" type would be if Rush Limbaugh announced that Barack Obama is the worst president in the last 100 years, and many newspapers reported (simply) that he made this announcement. And then an editor puts a section on this into the general Barack Obama article. Technically, the editor is not inserting/citing/having to argue the "worst president in 100 years" statement, they are just saying that Limbaugh said this. They just want the very real impact and impression of the presence of "worst president" type words in the article. A second example is that if John Smith, a person who is a second cousin of Obama is convicted of child molesting, and the conviction is covered by several newspapers in a matter-of-fact manner. And an editor places a section into the general Obama article regarding that topic. They make no other argument that needs defending, they just want the impact of child molestation related material in the Obama article and its juxtaposition with Obama material. Most would say that these should not be in the article. And, if there were a large amount of such material in the article, most would (intuitively) say that such POV's the article. But policies and guidelines provide little guidance regarding this. The sourcing is not only on wp:solid ground, the coverage really can't be questioned, as it was matter-of-fact regarding these matters. Ditto for the "objectivity" of the text put into the article, it is simply matter of fact coverage of Limbaugh's statement and the 2nd cousin's conviction.

Probably the policy/guideline most looked at for guidance on this would be wp:undue. But it is oriented towards covering opposing views on a particular statement. In these cases, the "statements" are just what was said in the speech, and the facts of the conviction. It gives guidance only on coverages of two sides of an issue. But there is no debated "issue" in this material, as it is a statement of facts regarding what Limbaugh said and of the conviction and of the relation of the child molester to Obama. Even worse, wp:npov says what can be interpreted as "must include" for these statements.

Solution

For contentious inclusions, create a standard that contested material must be directly and clearly about the subject of the article. Not just related to, but directly about. Under this analysis, the coverage of Limbaugh's speech is most directly about Limbaugh's speech, not Obama. And the child molesting material is most directly about John Smith, not Obama.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:21, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Shortcut

A shortcut be made for this project page like there is for others. USaamo ^(t@lk) 09:26, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree. I'm hoping that this can stay succinct enough to be useful and widely linked to. North8000 (talk) 14:02, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

the meaning of "removed"

Hello Editors what is is the meaning of "3 times removed"? the example did not help, my question is "who removed what"?.--Abu aamir (talk) 15:45, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

@Abu aamir: This is using one of the other meanings of the word "removed". Taking from a few on-line dictionaries, those definitions are:

• "distance in degree of relationship"
• "...separated in relationship by a particular number of steps of descent".
• "distant by a given number of degrees of descent or kinship: A first cousin once removed is the child of one's first cousin or the first cousin of one’s parent.The grandchildren of one's first cousin are one's first cousins twice removed."

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:57, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

thank you @North8000:, your answer is very clear.--Abu aamir (talk) 16:43, 18 May 2021 (UTC)