Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

Joe (talk) 15:22, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What something is is through clear, objective tests or evaluations, such as through scientific measurement or simple observation against a long-established definition requiring no interpretation. There may be limited debates here due to shifting knowledge - Pluto being a planet vs just a astral body for example - but for the most part, if you have any competent person that can understand the same process to determine what that topic is, they should always come to the same conclusion.

What something is characterized as is based on subjective measures, and thus will depend on who the person making the description will be. This not only affects, for example, the application of value-laden labels, but as well as what are the most salient "features" of the topic that are not part of what the topic "is". As an example of the latter, Kevin Spacey to some may be an "award-winning actor" while to others, a "sexual predator". Anything where there is a matter of opinion, judgement, or the like where there is even the possibility or room for counterarguments even if these aren't voiced should all be treated as characterizations of a topic.

Now related to multiple other concurrent discussions, with time, if academic sources tend to all agree that a topic - one that is no longer active or alive or whatever - meet some subjective characterization, then maybe there's room to treat that as fact. We're talking, if here in 2020, topics likely before 1950. The problem is editors want to use media sources to do that job, which is absolutely not the same as academic sources as cautioned by RECENTISM. Media is fine for facts, but we should not be trying to include their opinions or characterizations unless they are essential to understanding the topic, and when that's necessary, that's got to be presented as characterization of the topic, spoken out of Wikivoice with attribution and after we've gone through what the topic "is". Calling a spade a spade is great if that's based on a sizable body of academic works, but should be not be the case if we're basing that on current media. --Masem (t) 16:18, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But not all cases are subject to a simplistic "is"/"characterized as" distinction. For example, I would argue (along with the sources, including scholarly ones) that Carl Benjamin's antifeminism is a defining aspect: it is a major reason he receives the attention of scholars (though anti-immigrant sentiment factors there as well), and perhaps more importantly it was a huge part of how he gained his bully Youtube pulpit through the GamerGate movement. "Antifeminism" isn't a label people apply to Benjamin because they DONTLIKE what he says: his path to notability was entirely wrapped up in his avowed opposition to feminism and feminists. There may he cases where WP would be better to let actions speak rather than labels, but Carl Benjamin just isn't one of them Newimpartial (talk) 17:04, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What I've said doesn't mean we don't include "characterization" (of which calling CB under "antifeminism" is certainly still characterization since you've just shown it's a subjective label.) Characterization, no matter how loud it is from the media sources, should be presented after the fundamental objective statements as to not impact the initial tone of the article, and always in some type of attributed sources to take it out of wikivoice. That is, in this case, CB's notability is strongly tied to his characerization of being antifeminism and that absolutely need to be stated early in the lede per WEIGHT, but no P&G requires us to open with why a topic is notable in the first sentence, only that this is given somewhere in the lede at some point. --Masem (t) 17:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not here to shadowbox about which sentence of the lede something goes in. There have been versions of Carl Benjamin where the antifeminist activism featured later in the first paragraph, and I was fine with that. But I still disagree with any reading of

WP:LABEL that would require undisputed characterizations, or characterizations that are undisputed among high-quality (in this case, academic) sources to be attributed in the lede and denied wikivoice. I am for most purposes a philosophical realist, and Benjamin is AFAICT objectively anti-feminist; I entirely disagree that it is a "subjective label" in this instance, in the sense you mean. Newimpartial (talk) 17:24, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

This is the slippery slope fallacy when it comes to LABELs and claiming no dispute exists when you only limit to where the dispute must be from high quality RSes. This is where we entire the fact that RSOPINION is fair game for the source of points of dispute that can be used for labels (even if we don't actually include those sources), as well as common sense that a term would be taken as a disputed term and there is an absence of any sources that dispute it; the nature of the term itself should be sufficient to consider it in dispute.

The thing overall is that wikivoice cannot be judgmental at all, and taking such labels only used in the media in the short term is judgement. Editors should be very much aware that overall there's been a culture war that's been leading to an information war, and WP is at the center of that. No question we have to fight off the misinformation that is trying to be propagated (eg why we have deprecated numerous sources recently) but at the same time, we have to recognize that the press itself is fighting that way in the direction to paint the far/alt-right in a negative light, for numerous valid reasons. But because of this new approach over the last 5-6 years, that makes their coverage more judgmental on these topics - doesn't reduce the reliability of what they report factually but does beg how much we should focus on their commentary and analysis in the short term per RECENTISM. Its why we should be waiting for the academic sources that come later in time, separated from the events that will not be anywhere close to judgmental and consider if they use the same language then. Of course, if the press's broad opinion has the WEIGHT, it obviously should be included, but LABEL as well as

WP:OUTRAGE tell us to keep all that outside of Wikivoice. --Masem (t) 18:07, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

No, Masem, I am not engaged in a slippery-slope fallacy. I am naming two scenarios: one where all available sources agree (and none contest) an attribute, and a second where all of the highest quality (e.g. academic) sources agree and there is no dissent within that domain. In both of those cases, I am saying that the distinction you are maintaining between "factual" and "opinion" labels cannot be maintained in some important cases, and the consensus of the sources should stand as a description of reality in these cases. Your assertion that the "antifeminist" characterization of Benjamin is limited to the media is simply incorrect; the idea that the term is "judgmetal" and unlikely to be maintained in future (vs. recent) scholarship strikes me as a truly weird kind of CRYSTAL gazing. There is nothing about terms like antifeminist, anti-transgender or anti-Jewish that makes them suitable for articles about long-dead historical subjects but inappropriate to more recent ones. All of these can be - and are - used by reliable sources to accurately describe important attributes of our BLP subjects. Removing them based on CRYSTAL or CRYBLP concerns seems the opposite of an encyclopaedic approach, to me. Newimpartial (talk) 18:21, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The first fallacy is claiming "all available sources". WP is not a walled garden or ivory tower as to ignore what happens beyond what we list at RS. RS is important to block out what we include for facts, but we have RSOPINION, and as soon as you start digging at commentary and criticism from sources otherwise deemed RS for fact, you have created fair game to start looking beyond the RS to see if there's other opinions out there to consider if there's more that just the "RSFACT" sources. Otherwise, this logic states we basically can pretend that there is almost no right-leaning views that exist because there are no RSes on that side of the board, which is of course wrong. Contrast this to when we designation scientific theory as fact -this is through peer review and sound scientific principles that are meant to eliminate the possibility of other options. With press and subjective language, you simply cannot prove the negative - that no counter views readily exist. That's why as we get more academic works - the ones that do have peer review with the historical perspective, we now have more something like the scientific fields as to say there's no other options and thus move to a more factual usage. (And I will stress, have little care myself for any of these far right entities. It's just that if this balance is not dealt with now, it will continue to spiral out of hand to other topics beyond the far right.

The other fallacy is the emphatic need to include these terms. Again, WP needs to be non-judgemental, neutral, and impartial, and that starts with how editors approach articles. I've dealt with far too many editors that work on topics who are entering the topic believing they must show the person is "bad", which is basically against RIGHTGREATWRONG. We absolutely need to leave it for the reader to decide for themselves and focus first on writing the basic bio pieces common for any biography, and the consider how to incorporate the controversial bits knowing these are notable facets but they have to integrate in a way that keeps WP non-judgmental. This doesn't mean whitewashing or whatever removals people may claim, 99% of the time it is simply reordering and word choice of the existing text. --Masem (t) 21:47, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But you are making a BOTHSIDES claim here that doesn't align with reality. The "other side" on Sargon and feminism doesn't claim that Benjamin isn't opposed to feminism; they argue that he is opposed to feminism and he is right. In his own words, This is what feminism has wrought – a generation of men who do not know what to do, who are being demonised for what they are - the reader shouldn't "be left to themselves" whether Carl Benjamin opposes feminism. Everyone - including the scholars, including his supporters, including Carl himself - agrees that he does. Trying to exclude or adopt WEASEL language about this obvious fact in his article would absolutely be WHITEWASHING. Newimpartial (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But that goes to BPP's point: does he call himself "anti-feminism"? It doesn't appear to be, where it seems to be more about favoring men's rights. (It's like why pro-choice supporters on the abortion debates aren't called "anti-life supporters".) Certainly his position is readily characterized by the mainstream sources as "anti-feminism" , no question, and that's no going anywhere, but looking over the walled garden is clear this is not a universal truth and thus cannot be stated in wikivoice. We don't and can't include those sources that fail RS (no need to create false balance), we don't have to even mention that there's conflict per

WP:LABEL. No where else on WP do we apply characterization in Wikivoice except in these areas, which is why there's the problem. --Masem (t) 23:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

But someone who declares themselves opposed to feminism is anti-feminist, just as someone who declares themselves opposed to fascism is anti-fascist and someone who declares themselves opposes to the Jews is anti-Jewish. These aren't LABEL issues; this is a matter of basic English-language syntax and Arisotelian logic. Newimpartial (talk) 23:35, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's still a characterization issue, and one I know I can attest to since I've been on that side that is a result of the race to trying to pigeonhole people (where my arguments to try to keep topics neutral have been argued to saying I'm pro-right). I don't know in depth of CB's statements he made, though I'm well aware he is strongly outspoken against the modern wave of feminism as it impacts men's rights. Yes, that may be (and in this case most likely is) anti-feminism but I can also see that some may argue that's pro mens-rights. Whether he's said himself he's anti-feminist I don't know, and if he has self-labeled as BPP has asked, that simplifies matters. But absent anything CB has said about himself, we have to take the media's use of that as a broad pigeonholing characterization that can't be said in wikivoice. Even if it was the case he used the term to self-identify, as it is still a term that is a characterization, and not something that can be measured or determined objectively like one's career, it still needs to be used as a point of characterization, which means it should be not spoken in wikivoice, and cannot lead off an article if we are to maintain a neutral, impartial, and dispassionate tone that NPOV/BLP requires for writing about these people. The article still is going to reflect on CB's overall stance that speaks against feminism, and by the second sentence of the lede should establish that, the reader is still going to learn this, but we can't force that to the reader, they need to be able to come to that determination themselves. --Masem (t) 13:54, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to BLUDGEON this further, so I won't respond at length. That you see the media's use of (such a label) as a broad pigeonholing characterization that can't be said in wikivoice is clear, and is a perspective you have maintained tenaciously in this and similar cases. However, I haven't seen any substantial consensus of support for that interpretation, here or elsewhere. Newimpartial (talk) 14:15, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is written in policy via

WP:IMPARTIAL how exactly we're supposed to present controversial aspects in Wikivoice. It seems patently clear that applying a label like "anti-feminism" to CB is a controvserial stance so IMPARTIAL 100% applies. But then I know the argument is "but there's no other view presented in the high quality RSes" but that's the other problem is that the high-quality RSes isn't the extent of the real world. We are not blind or deaf to everything else, and we're smarter than that than to know how to apply IMPARTIAL appropriately. That's exactly what has been argued throughout this entire thread from the OP's post. We have given away from what IMPARTIAL requires and instead adopted the tone the high-quality RSes have used because editors feel that's the only sources we can even listen to, which creates the problems. WP cannot write like this and asserting "But this is fine" is creating the problem. --Masem (t) 14:32, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

To try to clarify (again) - I am, by and large, a philosophical realist. I therefore recognize that that are cases where the "consensus of the best" sources may represent only a limited perspective on reality and depart from overall accuracy. For example, there are issues where NPOV derived only from the best English-language sources would depart from a BALANCEd global NPOV, for this reason.

However, in the specific case of Carl Benjamin, there are literally no sources making the claim that he isn't antifeminist; that it is patently clear that applying a label like "anti-feminism" to CB is a controvserial stance is a kind of thing I've heard from (usually avowed centrist) WP editors, but I have never once seen this argument made in the "real world". Op-edsters for example would be much more likely to argue, "people say he's antifeminist, but what he says about feminism is true", rather than objecting to those using the "antifeminist" label.

Finally, IMPARTIAL follows and must be read in the context of FALSEBALANCE. We do not include FRINGE perspectives in articles where doing so would lend undue attention to the viewpoints of small minorities, and we do not provide in-text attribution when saying that a conspiracy theory is a conspiracy theory. Editors going out of their way to insist on attribution for labels that are uncontroversialy applied to BLP subjects are, objectively, engaged in undermining NPOV and encyclopaedic tone through FALSEBALANCE. Newimpartial (talk) 15:02, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the CB argument is that you can't prove a negative as well as the fact of the other points that Levivich is pointing out (the sourcing is not as strong as claimed that these are all stating "anti-feminist"). We can do a survey of sources and come to a fair idea how frequent a term is used but that can't 100% conclusively say "no source doesn't say this" since it is impossible to search all sources

But wholly separate is to the last point, because what this comes down to is again my point of differentiating anything that is objective (like a BLP's career and nationality) and what one is characterized as (whether that is a positive or negative characterization). Wikivoice can never speak directly a characterization as fact, period, because of the nature of being characterization of something that cannot be proven, only asserted. Near-universal characterizations can be described as such and forgo the need for direct inline attributions in the lede, "X is widely considered to by Y" is acceptable like that assuming the body has said details, or such assertions can be applied to specific facets which can be taken as fact (like what someone specifically says or does) "X is known for their views on Y", and this is all to maintain the tone. This is not a false balance issue but staying far more middle-ground/conservative in how we provide information rather than the "absolute" that the media write, thus keeping us impartial and dispassionate about the topics. As soon as you take the tone of the press, you take us out of that mode, even if this is reflecting the near-universal consensus of those sources. That's the incompatibility of media writing versus encyclopedia writing, and as we are not a newspaper, we have to change that. No other real encyclopedia writes in a tone like this. --Masem (t) 15:24, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from your proposed distinction between "facts" and "characterizations" (which alongside most philosophical realists I oppose), I think our key disagreement concerns the scope and application of the following: Near-universal characterizations can be described as such and forgo the need for direct inline attributions in the lede. To me, CB's antifeminism counts as a "near-universal characterization" within the context of his notability as a public figure. While I would have no problem with phrasing the lede as "CB is a Youtuber known for his antifeminism" rather than "CB is an antifeminist Youtuber", I don't agree that what is at stake there is a more "middle-ground" or "conservative" tone. Newimpartial (talk) 15:48, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Key is that WP is not supposed to be judging topics but let the reader come to the conclusion. In a case of a person who's notability is tied to being controversial in the media as with CB, we have to be very careful of preloading the article with that stance, otherwise we've pre-judged the topic for the reader. We obviously can't avoid it nor should we bury that lede, but it is about establishing as much as we can factually state about CB - as we would at any other bio page - before moving into what makes him notable as a result of his controversy. It drastcally improves the tone and shows to the reader we (Wikipedia) are not making that judgement, but the media at large, letting them decide if the media's portrayal is correct. When we write instead in this aggressive tone that immediately applies labels even if they are well supposed from the press, it disposed the reader as well as other editors, and it encourages only negative additions to the article, which is not what we want. We're still writing encyclopedia biographies, not entries for the SPLC. --Masem (t) 16:03, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Masem wrote: "No where else on WP do we apply characterization in Wikivoice except in these areas, which is why there's the problem."

Wikipedia says: "The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. The concept of vital energy is pseudoscientific. Black salve, also known by the brand name Cansema, is pseudoscientific alternative cancer treatment. Unani medicine is pseudoscientific. Zero balancing is pseudoscientific. Reparative therapy is pseudoscientific. The literal belief that the world's linguistic variety originated with the tower of Babel is pseudoscientific. The basis of the Kon-Tiki expedition is pseudoscientific, racially controversial, and has not gained acceptance among scientists. This theory is pseudoscientific. This theory is pseudoscientific. [Note: That was a different theory than the first one.] Candida hypersensitivity is a pseudoscientific disease promoted by William G. Crook, M.D. Crystal healing is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine technique. It is a pseudoscientific supernatural explanation. The Immune Power Diet is a pseudoscientific elimination diet. Ear candling, also called ear coning or thermal-auricular therapy, is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice. Magnetic therapy is a pseudoscientific alternative medicine practice. Pseudophysics is a pseudoscientific practice. Reverse speech is a pseudoscientific topic."

I could go on, but maybe we can already agree that we do apply characterization in wikivoice outside right-wing politics. With enthusiasm, even. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudoscientific theories are disproven via the scientific method and peer-reviewed studies, and thus once disproven, can be stated in Wikivoice. This also applies to conspiracy theories that have been well-established by highly-reliable sources following investigative reporting to be false/wrong (like Pizzagate), and to fringe science. Importantly, none of these are subjective value-laden aspects compared to what LABEL describes (objective measures are being used to distinguish these facets from reality), so this is completely different concept. --Masem (t) 02:21, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You say that it is a completely different concept, but

Expelled: No intelligence allowed was one of the OP's chosen examples, and it consists of a FRINGE, disproven claim, spun out at length into a conspiracy theory of exactly the kind you are describing. So the concepts do not seem to be all that different in practice. Newimpartial (talk) 11:39, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

The content of what Expelled covered included pseudoscience, but to apply that to the film as a documentary and to spin that as calling that "propaganda" in Wikivoice is inappropriate. Or, another way to look at it, to call someone promoting a fad diet as a sham artist in wikivoice just because we can call the science they try to claim as BS woud be inappropriate. One can objectively prove these "theories" are wrong or incorrect and with those sources label them in a Wikivoice-factual way, but no one objectively do the same with anyone's or any group's personal intent or motivation for doing something, and that's where Wikivoice cannot make the factual leap to make others' characterization as fact. --Masem (t) 14:00, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So you are saying that there is a category of promotion of misinformation, information that has been proven false per RS, where we have to WEASEL the language and refer to it as "documentary"? Like Plandemic for instance? Because I don't think there's a policy basis for not saying that people are promoting misinformation or CT when that is what they are, in fact, doing. Stating in Wikivoice that the Plandemic videos promote falsehoods and misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic seems obviously factual and appropriate to me, not as what you call a "characterization" requiring attribution. Likewise, the lede of Expelled observes, Although intelligent design is a pseudoscientific religious idea, the film presents it as science-based, without giving a detailed definition of the concept or attempting to explain it on a scientific level which means to me that the reference to the film as "propaganda" rather than "documentary" has been substantiated as a factual claim. The fact that some people react to terms like "propaganda" and "misinformation" as though they were emotional labels, independent of content, doesn't mean that they lack demonstrable, evidential criteria - criteria that are amply met in the cases of Plandemic and Expelled. Newimpartial (talk) 19:02, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikivoice cannot be judgmental, at least while things are still recent. Whether something was intended to be a documentary or propaganda, Wikipedia can't be a part of making that determination and Wikivoice has to stay with the most neutral description (this being a documentary). Do you know objectively what the intent of the filmmakers were? No, you can't, no one objectively can, save the filmmakers themselves. We can never judge intentions, only read them, and when that happens, it has to be stated from reliable sources and outside of WP voice to avoid the NOR issue. Again, I think alot of this comes from editors wanting to fight misinformation (a good thing) but at the cost of doing what the press is doing, which is calling them out on the BS they spew. Unfortunately, WP cannot do this and stay neutral, and requires a more tempered approach. --Masem (t) 19:30, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, Masem; a documentary film is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record" while a propaganda film is communication that is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda. One term is not more inclusive than the other or more "judgmental" than the other: they simply refer to different things. The statement that Plandemic and Expelled are not documentaries is objective in your sense and is certainly not a matter of POV. To remain neutral, WP cannot call either Expelled or the Plandemic videos "documentary" because that is simply not what they are, and the reliable sources confirm this A description can never be "neutral" if it is both factually incorrect and unsupported by RS; that language choice is what we call "obfuscation". Newimpartial (talk) 20:13, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Then let's go label An Inconvenient Truth as propaganda as well since its doing the same furthering of agendas (no , I am not seriously suggesting that). Propaganda is a value-laden label, just as much as white supremacy and the like, because it is as subjective. Just as I've been saying elsewhere in this thread, we can historically judge when something is propaganda (eg we clearly can recognizing much of the Nazi propaganda out of WWII because we have had decades of academic study to recognize this), but we should very cautious to apply the term factually to modern works and if its approprate to mention from its use in RSes via WEIGHT, it should be used with attribution. --Masem (t) 20:22, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudoscientific is also a value-laden label. So's hoax, and yet we have dozens of articles that use "hoax" in the name or directly call the subject a hoax. This guy actually "is" anti-feminist as well as also being "characterized as" being anti-feminist.

@Masem, it turns out that pseudoscience is not primarily identified by its inefficacy, and very few research dollars are dedicated to investigating possible relationships between string theory and whether that new brand of hair products is a decent detangler. Whether something is pseudoscience is determined primarily by its explanation. You may remember people joking during the 1980s that they knew so little about electronics that if their grandkids asked, they'd have to tell them that their televisions worked because little Japanese men were running around inside the box to make the picture. If given seriously, that explanation would be pseudoscience. Their televisions would have worked anyway.

For altmed and related commercial products, we accept sources that editors would normally classify as quite low quality, such as a couple of websites with no professional editors or other checks and balances that we find among traditional journalism or similar publications. We're okay with that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Again: there are objective ways (outside WP in RSes, to avoid the OR) to determine if something is pseudoscience or a hoax, that's the scientific method to prove/disprove the science, or through proper investigative reporting of facts to determine the veracity of events. It is impossible to prove with any type of objectivity if creators of a work that may present pseudoscience or a hoax set out to present it as a documentary or as propaganda, though often Occum's razor will apply to how we want to think their intent was (just as we cannot prove out if a person's intention is to be anti-feminist or the like without a statement of self-assertion). (And also, if we have WP articles calling topics as pseudoscience or hoaxes without support of RSes, even if it seems obvious, that is OR and needs to be removed. But I would be surprised to find these articles to meet notability guidelines and still not have any coverage of the pseudoscientific facets from the RSes that are also providing the notability.) --Masem (t) 21:04, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we need to go into people's intentions. It is possible to "be" anti-feminist without "intending to be" anti-feminist. This is true for just about every possible intention. Haven't you ever been the target of an inept favor? People very frequently "intend" to be helpful, but that doesn't mean that they "are" helpful. Consider also "I didn't intend to kill him", which doesn't get homicide reclassified into a death by natural causes, "I didn't intend to get drunk", which doesn't make people less drunk, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings", "I didn't intend to Reply All to that e-mail message", etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:47, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Even if one could set an accepted, standard definition of these value-laden labels, whether someone is an anti-feminist (as an example) still is only something that that person knows that they are; everyone else is using observation of what they say and do to make that judgement. Again, a person who knows (only to themselves) they are trying to promote men's rights with zero intentions of trending on women's rights may still come off as anti-feminist in their external behavior because "promoting men's rights" is often seen as a core part of being anti-feminist. (I am not saying Benjamin fits this). That's why these labels have to be seen as characterizations and judgements that should be kept out of Wikivoice. We don't have to say a single word in favor of the person or entity being called the label, we just have to take that these labels are near-universally controversal or contestable terms and thus words as such outside of WP's voice per NPOV policy. --Masem (t) 00:35, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No. I simply do not agree that you have to intend to tread on someone's rights to actually do it. "Anti-feminist" does not mean "person who intends to oppose women's rights". It means "opposition to some or all forms of feminism", which this guy actually does. There is no difference between "opposes feminism" and "is anti-feminist". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But you're still looking at what Benjanin has done and thus what RSes have characterized him as, but cannot speak to what he actually intends. He could actually intend to be anti-feminist, he could instead actually intend to want to promote mens rights while staying equal with women's rights but inadvertently speaks more negatively against women's rights in an unintentionally manner, or a range of cases between those. No one but Benjamin will never know for sure (no one can peer into his mind and make that determination); the only case where we could say with some degree of confidence in Wikivoice is if he affirmed what the RS characterization of his actions were, that he was anti-feminist; or if we had enough passage of time to have better clarity of other more academic sources or distancing of time to know how to frame things better without the RECENTISM of current events clouding issues. That's the distinction we have to make here, and why labels are tricky things to be kept out of Wikivoice. Attribution or similar wording to show their origin, sure. --Masem (t) 22:31, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say about An Inconvenient Truth, but the WP article currently describes it as "a documentary/concert film" - that is, a documentary about an event (a Gore speech), not a documentary about climate change. The speech itself may ask be promoting an agenda, but the film is presented in wikivoice as documenting the event, not the underlying phenomenon.

The point you have consistently been missing here is that "documentary" as a label is every bit as value-laden as "propaganda". For WP to imply that an audiovisual work is documenting reality, when it is not, would be a violation of NPOV and more fundamentally of

A documentary film has zero values associated with it; it one of the accepted genres of film for non-fiction works intended to carry information. Whether that information is biased or not, the documentary label doesn't care (our article on documentary film even mentions their use as political tools). Expelled is classified as such in movie databases as AFI [3], IMDB [4], and AllMovie [5]. Propaganda, regardless of how one might dislike the material these push, is a type of documentary film, but whether something counts as propaganda or not depends in the eyes of the viewer, making that classification subjective. The fact that most media do consider a film like Expelled to be more propaganda does mean that we should ultimate describe that this is how the media describes it, but it has to be out of wikivoice because it still remains a value-laden label. To take an example of this being done properly, Zero Dark Thirty was called out heavily by the media as a propaganda film but you'll notice this is only brought in within the third para of the lede of that article and outside of Wikivoice. That's keeping the judgement away from Wikivoice. --Masem (t) 21:46, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, Masem. "documentary" as a category does carry a value-laden purpose: namely to "document reality, primarily for the purpose of instruction" etc. Please don't confuse the use of "documentary" as a category in movie databases, with the more rigorous sense in which we use the term on WP. Propaganda is not a subset of documentary, and not only because some Thrillers, etc. are also propaganda films. Newimpartial (talk) 21:58, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, on calling films documentaries, this is grounded in how they are categorized by film organizations (see

WP:FILMLEAD "At minimum, the opening sentence should identify the following elements: the title of the film, the year of its public release, and the primary genre or sub-genre under which it is verifiably classified"). This is again avoiding applying value-laden judgement in wikivoice. --Masem (t) 22:06, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

That is MOS, not policy, and anyway FILMLEAD does not actually appeal to "film organizations"; rather it specifies, Genre classifications should comply with WP:WEIGHT and represent what is specified by a majority of mainstream reliable sources. Actual articles on WP seem to follow the reliably sourced criticism of the film in question more than they do the "film organizations", so that What the Bleep Do We Know!? is generally classified as a documentary in databases, but WP treats it as a pseudo-science film. Newimpartial (talk) 23:01, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think this disagreement we are having about what counts as a factual statement (in this case, concerning CB) is a great example of how the fact/value distinction just doesn't work in settling these disputes. And there are plenty of ways to evaluate veracity and objectivity without handwaving to those particular metaphysics. Newimpartial (talk) 22:27, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For me, to have a statement like "anti-feminist" in the lede and be an objective fact is if he actually self-identifies with that term. Does Carl Benjamin consider himself anti-feminist?Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 17:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We don't require that standard for many other labels, so why here? The lead at Al-Qaeda calls them an "extremist" group. Do you expect us to find an official statement from them that says "yeah, we're extremists"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The labels in the lead have to be an objective fact, not a subjective opinion verified by many well-respected sources. I personally find it very problematic myself how anti-feminism is defined as well. I don't believe it a viable term to use so actively unless self-identified because of how loose the term is and how modern-day chooses to use it. The word Wikipedia identifies suggests there are different waves of antifeminism (just as there are different waves of feminism) but will not label it. Hypothetically, a 1st wave feminist may not agree with modern-day feminists. Does that make them both a feminist and an anti-feminist? I just don't agree with such a subjective term being used as an objective fact unless they self identify as one.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 22:27, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't answer the question about extremism, though. Even I have to admit that "extremist" is a subjective and value-laden label, but there it is. Newimpartial (talk) 22:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The word "extremist" was added earlier this year, after going without it for most of its existence, and it doesn't seem to be an improvement to me. --Yair rand (talk) 23:04, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to add that if being an extremist is a label that is once again relying on subjectivity, then we can have that also removed. But i by no means am saying that we need to get rid of all labels. My point is that labels that are heavily subjective shouldn't be used so bluntly in the lead as an objective fact. Its just not encyclopedic.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 19:16, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And my point is that I don't see any basis for "extremist" beyond "many sources state" - it seems inherently subjective and perspectival - whereas "anti-feminist", "anti-fascist" etc. can actually be discussed using evidence (including, but not limited to, self-description) and evaluated without bias, objectively. Newimpartial (talk) 19:36, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked into the term extremist the same way you looked into anti-feminist? Are you sure without a doubt that the word extremist has no academic definition that can be evaluated without bias, objectively? The majority of the sources you claimed were scholarly, were in actuality more journalistic. Which is a big reason why i'm against using the word as an objective fact. No matter what you say in this situation, the fact is that anti-feminist is indeed a subjective term.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 20:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the alleged rule that says the labels in the lead have to be an objective fact, not a subjective opinion verified by many well-respected sources?

Where is the logic in believing that self-identification makes something an objective fact? If I self-identify as the Queen of England, is it an objective fact that I'm the Queen? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, the three sources I added here were all peer-reviewed scholarship. And my point about "extremism" isn't that there can't be some esoteric definition used by scholars, of which I am unaware. My point is that "feminist" and "antifeminist" are subject to real world fact checks (e.g., does the BLP subject support or oppose explicitly feminist positions or actions), while extremist does not, at least not the way it is used in (some of) our articles. But your reaction when presented with an actual subjective and value-laden term seems, err, different than one would expect based on your blanket generalizations. Newimpartial (talk) 21:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see two of those, but the one I can see ("Drinking male tears:") in fact does not call Benjamin anti-feminist at all, not directly. He's mentioned to set the stage in like of Gamergate, but that's it. The paper broadly talks of "pickup artists, men’s rights activists, anti-feminists, and fringe groups" and at no time makes any attempt to catalog Benjamin into those. It is absolutely wrong to use that for a BLP sourcing for this purpose. And to that point, it is often that men's rights activists are seen as anti-feminists but that doesn't mean all men's rights activists are anti-feminists, and from what I see of Benjamin's arguments, that is where he places himself (even though most believe he has a very strong stance against women having the same rights as men). I mean, all of use probably would readily recognize that as being anti-feminist, but again, being clinical and impartial, we'd simply say this is a characterization well-stated by the press, but not as a fact. --Masem (t) 22:07, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I already provided that same quotation at greater length here, along with the content of the other sources I provided. The "Male tears" piece is concerned with CB's "followers" so, no, I wouldn't use it to LABEL him, but it definitely connects Benjamin to the misogynist FRINGE with some authority. Newimpartial (talk) 22:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That paper is quoting Saarkensen (who is a valid critic in this case relative to GG, no question) but she's not the academic here and that quote is not reflective of the academics that wrote the article. That's extremely tenacious use of that paper for that assertion, because the authors themselves make no reference otherwise. Looking at your explanation, the second source (given what you quote)( is also not talking about him specifically, though yes, can be used to talk about the people that seem to avidly follow him, so it would have to be carefully used. Perhaps there's more in that source. Both of those sources would need to be carefully used due to the BLP issues. --Masem (t) 22:44, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember that I was not offering those scholarly sources for the lede of the CB article. When I spelled out the sources, for example, I was answering this request: Would you kindly quote where in those three papers the authors introduce Carl Benjamin as an "antifeminist YouTuber", or use the words "antifeminist" and "Carl Benjamin" in the same sentence, or in the same paragraph?, which each of the sources does. What seems very clear from these three sources is that none of these scholars consider antifeminism to be a purely emotive or "value-laden" label in the sense that our LABEL policy discusses (though each uses the term for different purposes). Newimpartial (talk)

The problem I see Newimpartial is that you confuse journalism with "scholarly/academic". And we need to make sure it has its proper weight. If there was some academic/scholarly paper saying "Carl Benjamin: The Mind of an Anti-feminist" where it not only defines what an anti-feminist is but also confirms that Carl Benjamin is one, then you'll have more weight in this conversation that we can look into. You claim the word Extremist is used only because a bunch of sources said so, and you find it subjective, you have continued to ignore the question: "why?" Why is anti-feminist something that can be identified objectively and not extremist? This is important to me that you clarify with actual academic/scholarly definition and analysis. I don't feel comfortable you continuing to use extremism is a subjective value-laden term without properly establishing why and why anti-feminism isn't one.

With that said, you have not proven that the usage of the word "anti-feminist" isn't purely emotive or "value-laden". For example, have you found sources that refer to him as an anti-feminist when doing an interview or not reporting anything negative?

I want to make it clear I am not a follower of Carl Benjamin, and I definitely do not agree with his views or methods. But, Wikipedia neutrality matters to me. I have yet to see proof that the word anti-feminist is a label that isn't emotive in the context of journalism.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 03:28, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have given three academic sources in my previous diff, which use "antisemitism" in different ways but none of which treat it in a purely emotive or "value-laden" manner. Per

WP:SEALION

, I will not be going any further to accommodate new goal posts. There has never been a requirement that only peer-reviewed scholarship focused on a particular political ideology can be cited when using descriptors for a BLP subject.

My argument has been (1) that scholarship does indeed place CB in The context of antifeminism (and other FRINGE views) and (2) that when the term "antifeminism" is used, scholarly sources are not engaged in mudslinging or content-free derogation but are making a substantive evaluation. (The argument had been made that the term "antifeminism" itself was essentially emotive rather than factual, so I went to scholarly sources in part to indicate that this isn't the case.)

I would now add (3): without confusing quality journalism with scholarship, it seems clear to me that serious journalism is also able to assess the nature of a BLP subject's e.g. ideological orientation and to apply appropriate labels to it. Community consensus, expressed in policy, does not require that BLP articles be restricted to peer-reviewed scholarly sources (though we should always use the best sources we have). I think two reasons this is the case are, that we trust editors to distinguish better from worse non-scholarly sources, and that we recognize that the better sources outside of scholarship (such as quality journalism) are able to distinguish fact from fiction and accurate from emotive categorization in a way that is useful for our articles (including BLPs) to reflect. Newimpartial (talk) 13:32, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You have found academic sources and specific to Benjamin, though I dispute two of them, but lets just say all three of them are good. But they are still all recent, and this is the key problem. Again, I've compared to how we'd handle a situation in the scientific world: if a new theory came out - such as the recent announcement by NASA of water on the moon to use something practical - we are not going to write that as factual yet in wikivoice because the theory hasn't been borne out yet. It is going to take more time to test and validate, even though mainstream media are talking of it in a factual tone. Only once we actually have a system that likely can extract that water on the moon and validate its operation would Wikivoice then say it factually, but until then we'd speak of it as "NASA stated that they have found evidence for.." or the like.

Turning back to the social side, we can't bury our heads to the social war that's going on, and we know that both academics and media on the left are fighting the attempt to sway information from those on the right. The media side is focusing on that as well as their livilihoods, so they have a vested interested here while, while not affecting the reliability of their fact finding, is affecting their tone and makes them far more accusational and confrontational to the right (pretty much as they are fighting fire with fire, the right-leaning media started that). The same type of tone is in at least the one article I can see of the three; the article is far from the clinical nature I would normally expect from an academic, but having seen numerous articles related to studies around Gamergate typically from liberal-leaning academics, indicative of those that are also being critical of the right .. in other words, I see them showing their opinions a bit too much for what I would normally expect academics in social sciences to be. (not to take sides, like we are). Not to say these aren't RSes here, but again, judgement is getting clouded by being too invested in the culture war and the recentism around it.

Assuming this culture war dies out in the next 5 years the most ideal sources to document someone like Benjamin and whether any labels apply would be academic sources written 10 years out from now or longer, following by in-review media sources, where we can reasonably expect no one is directly influenced by current events. In such cases, if those did exist, then it would seem to me to be fair game that if there were enough of them to be able to use the labels factually in terms of characterization in Wikivoice. But if 10 years go by and we don't see any such sources, we can still rely on the sources that were out today, but still should be careful on wording the labels outside of Wikivoice because of the RECENTISM issue. The reason I have generally pushed on the academic sourcing side is that this usually comes much longer after the events to avoid the RECENTISM issue at least in the scientific side of publication. If the social sciences are pushing out these articles faster and come off this nuanced, that still creates a problem from RECENTISM with regards to how to treat the label in wikivoice. --Masem (t) 15:59, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As far as your first paragraph is concerned, Masem, it doesn't seem to correspond to how WP articles, such as Water on Mars, are actually written. Without being grounded in WP policy or practice, it reads more like "how Masem thinks articles on controversial topics should be written", but transposed to hard science, so I have difficulty seeing its relevance except as a reiteration of your POV.

The second paragraph raises what I take to be the key epistemological difference underlying this discussion: do we think that quality journalism and recent academic sources are fundamentally biased, to the extent that whether man-made climate change or white genocide are real things, or conspiracy theories, are questions where we have to balance BOTHSIDES? Are the standards of evidence for those who assert that cultural Marxism is a real thing comparable in some sense to those who label it a conspiracy theory? My own take on the "culture wars" is that WP should apply consistent standards of evidence, and if scholarship that maintains a consistent standard also tends to reach consistent conclusions about what is real and what is conspiracy theory, then the supposed "bias" in this case is part of reality and should not be treated as a flaw in the sources.

To the last paragraph: thanks for having me read

WP:RECENT, but I find your use of that explanatory supplement quite one-sided here. It also recognizes that One of Wikipedia's strengths is the collation and sifting through of vast amounts of reporting on current events, producing encyclopedia-quality articles in real time about ongoing events or developing stories, and it nowhere suggests that we should hold off on explicating controversial topics until the dust has settled and the controversy, faded. Frankly, we would not have BLPs at all if there were a requirement for the distance of time and scholarship before a WP article could be written. And the idea that some of the scholarship itself might be too much influenced by current events features a misunderstanding, I think, of how scholarship is performed. All scholarship reflects, in one way or another, the conjuncture in which it is produced, and it would take an argument I can't currently imagine to convince me that scholarship that is motivated by concerns proximate to the topic researched is of less quality or reliability than scholarship motivated by more distant concerns. The criterion, as with all scholarship and journalism for that matter, should be in the way evidence is used. And so the idea of discounting scholarship if it doesn't have a 10-year trendline of previous studies on the same topic for comparison is, fortunately, not based on or compliant with WP policy in any way I can see. Newimpartial (talk) 18:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

If you look at Water on Mars, the word "may" appears over 70 times on that, clearly establishing that most of the article is based on theories and observations and not stating the definitive proof of water on Mars. That's exactly what I am saying in how we write scientific articles on new discoveries that have not yet had the test of time to become scientifically accepted.

And you seem to be implying that I am saying we can't talk about anything controversial about BLPs or the like, which is not at all the implication. If the WEIGHT of sources is clearly there as is the case of Benjamin to cover that a vast swath of media and/or academics at the present time consider him anti-feminist as an essential part of his notability, we should absolutely document that; my point is that we need to document that in a clinical manner. We document controversies but don't become part of them. This isn't false balance issue (that would be saying that we'd need to include more material from Benjamin's side to make the coverage equal), but simply that something that is controversial in the short term may not really be that in the long-term, especially when we consider the state of the world and the media's unhindered response to that. This is the essence of

WP:OUTRAGE

but it is also be cognizant of the whole situation happening in the world out there for the last decade, not just in this comfy zone provided by the high quality RSes.

Also, we shouldn't be trying to conflate the very real thing of "white supremacy" or "anti-feminism", ideologies that are well documented for decades, with the issues of calling out people and groups based only on the short-term media's observations. We absolutely should write on the ideologies of anti-feminism in a factual voice as it has been a well-studied topic, though obviously there's new theories and concepts that get added over time that should be added with appropriate language in Wikivoice to note they are not yet accepted parts of what is included in anti-feminism. (Same would be true with new theories in climate change). And I'm sure there are historical people that are well documented in these studies as examples of anti-feminists. But when it comes to persons or groups today, we simply don't have the wisdom of time to properly be judging in Wikivoice, considering all factors in play, so as to be clinical, we should be taking the same approach as with scientific articles, simply not stating these factually in Wikivoice but indicating their origin.

Again, most of the time to get to where I've suggested we should be, this is just a matter of changing existing statements to make the tone far less accusational in Wikivoice, like "Benjamin is anti-feminist" to "Benjamin is widely considered anti-feminist", and perhaps an ordering change of information to start with objective and going to subjective, not a neutering of this key information from articles. Though I will say that a fair number of ledes on these articles also tend to stuff in smaller incidents (already documented in the body) that are not directly related to notability but make the person look "bad" just because there's space for that. For example, in the current lede of Benjamin's article, the 2nd para is good (this strongly establishes why he's notable), but I question at least the need of the third para, as while that created a burst of coverage during the election, that doesn't seem to be an enduring factor about him, compared to what the second paragraph says. This is all a part of documenting controversies but not getting involved or taking sides even if it feels much of the rest of the world has.--Masem (t) 20:26, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with removing the third paragraph of the CB lede, or with widely considered antifeminist, though I still prefer "rose to prominence with his antifeminist videos on YouTube". But what what you said previously about science articles is quite unlike what you are now saying about Water on Mars. You had said that we would avoid Wikivoice, as in "NASA stated that they have found evidence for.." or the like, but in-text attribution is not prominent in the Water on Mars article. The lede of that article, for example, consisted almost entirely of unattributed "is" statements based on the current scholarly consensus, with only one "may" hypothetical. This is not at all the meticulous process of distinguishing "theoretical" from "factual" statements that you described previously.

You keep saying that you are concerned about calling out people and groups based only on the short-term media's observations but when presented with recent non-media, scholarly sources, it becomes clear that no level of source quality will satisfy you, only persistence over time. And this is a weird sort of CRYSTAL argument on your part: that maybe, some day, new sources will become available that question the accuracy of these characterizations (although none have to date), so we should attribute them until enough time has passed. And I just don't see anything, in

On the lack of attribution in water on Mars, you'll note that I've been saying the same type of limited attribution can be used on an article on Benjamin if you're talking about labels that are widely used. You don't need to say "Benjamin is considered to be anti-feminist by the New York Times." but simply "Benjamin is widely considered to be anti-feminist." That aligns with the same type of scientific approach in keeping claims of fact out of Wikivoice on the Water on Mars article. I read that lede as appropriately keeping most of the theories about the topic as theories and not as fact, only factual to what we have observed only from various probes and where there has been scientific corroboration on the results.

And this isn't a CRYSTAL issue, as sources may never appear about Benjamin or others in the far future but he clearly will remain notable. To give a better example, do you think it would be practice to try to summarize a criticism of Trump's presidency at this point with the current media sources? Heck no - the media is clearly hostile towards him for good reason (he's been hostile towards the media in addition to the culture war) and we've yet to see fallout from his term of office, in addition to what might be a second term. We'd probably not be at a place to do that until 5-some years after he's out of office when the full implications and outcomes can be assessed. We can have some short term aspects as there is plenty of WEIGHT to do that, but per RECENTISM and NOT#NEWS we should keep this to just enough and a high level coverage so that a reader with no idea of US politics can understand the larger concerns. While Benjamin's case has nowhere close the impact on the world as Trump, the same principles around RECENTISM applies. Should no new sources come around in time, we can then rejudge the now-current sources with better hindsight and write better around them without being so caught up in events. --Masem (t) 22:24, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe: Re Esurnir's maxim, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. We don't describe the actions as crimes; we leave that judgement up to the reader. We tend not to have Criticism sections in biographies. Historical articles are typically sufficiently NPOV that one wouldn't be able to tell whether the authors supported or opposed any given action, as they should be. Nothing should hint at the author being eg pro- or anti-genocide. Listing objective appointments and actions and such is basically what the lead has looked like for most of the article's existence. Are you suggesting that it shouldn't be? This is pretty basic NPOV. --Yair rand (talk) 21:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I really, really, really hope that every editor here is "anti-genocide" and I don't see any problem with our coverage reflecting that... – Joe (talk) 07:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And that is exactly the problem. Wikipedia is a neutral source. Editors, who want to have their opinions shown, can edit

anti-Semitic, gruesome and immoral in every sense of the word. However, such characterizations do not appear in the text: the facts speak for themselves. And that is how it should be written in an encyclopedia. Best regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 11:24, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

@

homicidal cannibalism, which some people actually hold? Surely we are not to be neutral about them?"), requiring that we present them neutrally. NPOV is a binding policy which is non-negotiable. Articles may not be anti-cannibalism, anti-genocide, anti-human-extinction, or anti-anything else. This is fundamental to what Wikipedia is. --Yair rand (talk) 23:23, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Articles may not be anti-cannibalism, anti-genocide, anti-human-extinction – I will add this to the collection of utterly astonishing and deplorable quotes from this discussion. – Joe (talk) 07:17, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe: but that is what NPOV means. We all agree that Wikipedia articles must be neutral. That means articles cannot be pro or anti anything, regardless of one's personal views or how widely those views are or are not shared. Thryduulf (talk) 11:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf, I don't think that's quite right. Articles must be pro-something if all the reliable sources are pro-that thing, and anti-something if all the reliable sources are anti-that thing. The goal is not to leave people wondering whether or not a hoax was a hoax, whether the Alternative cancer treatments that Facebook is adverstising are just as effective as what their oncologists recommend, etc.

There are subjects over which reasonable people (and, relevantly, reliable sources) can disagree, but neutrality 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", not "articles cannot be pro or anti anything, even if all reliable sources are 'pro' and none are 'anti'." If all the sources are 'pro', then the article can't be neutral unless it is also "proportionately" 'pro', too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing: yes and no. If all the reliable sources are pro (or anti) obviously our article will be presenting only that viewpoint, and our readers should not be left wondering wether the subject is or isn't a Good Thing. However, we should be careful to always show not tell, including in that situation. "Quack Mixture is a syrup manufactured by BadCorp marketed as a dietary supplement that will cure various diseases and ailments including the common cold, influenza and Covid-19. All reliable medical authorities agree that the mixture conveys no medical benefits and indeed may be harmful for some people. It has been banned by regulators in the EU, USA and 27 other countries." rather than "QuackMixture is a fraudulent and harmful fake product that, despite marketing claims, does not cure the common cold, influenza or Covid-19." (please can someone add some sub-headers to this section, it's not easy to edit currently). Thryduulf (talk) 02:21, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@

pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine." I am only partly joking when I say that some editors would like to have that sentence read "Although it doesn't work, homeopathy, which doesn't work, is a type of alternative medicine that doesn't work". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Search Carl Benjamin and read the text in the box to the right. Wikipedia editors are writing for google and not a reference work. fiveby(zero) 20:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Fiveby: Google just takes information and create their own infoboxes and link to whatever they like. That doesn't mean that the editors edit for Wikipedia. If you notice there's also links to facebook, Instagram, and twitter too.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 21:09, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good company. fiveby(zero) 21:37, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I feel some editors are unintentionally using WP to wage the fight in the ongoing culture war in an inappropriate RIGHTGREATWRONGS matter, knowing that WP is read by many and has influence (such as appearing in Google search results like this). It is important that we do not allow those agencies that are deep in the culture war get their way on WP and we have to fight off mis/disinformation campaigns from these agencies and those that want to support them, absolutely, but that doesn't mean we swing the other way to treat those groups in an unencyclopedic fashion. Again, Wikivoice is amoral here, and we're not supposed to be taking a side here. --Masem (t) 22:21, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I hope my hyperbole is not taken to mean that it's not important, or that the difficulties aren't apparent. I think lots of editors do phenomenal work. fiveby(zero) 23:26, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Fiveby: I think you're right on the money. I don't feel that the way the lead starts at Proud Boys really doesn't conform to generally accepted MOS for biography yet there is such a great bickering over tha first line. See all the discussion at Talk:Proud Boys and Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#White_supremacy_and_the_Proud_Boys. I think how it gets picked up by Google is why such a big deal is made over the first line. Graywalls (talk) 21:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

...all those RfCs asking: should the first sentence of the lead describe X as Y? and filling the talk pages. fiveby(zero) 21:37, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

After reviewing all the information that I saw, I'm going to also weight in and agree with Masem and Levivich that these labels are not encyclopedic and it is not for Wikipedia to label these people. I believe this especially holds true if the person doesn't align or confirm alignment with those views.

Terms such as "far-left" or "far-right" or even "alt-right" and even "Facist" are not encyclopedic and they are indeed bludgeoning tactical terms that media has continued to use. There is room to be labeled "Far-left" or "far-right" but I believe after the political meltdown. I truly believe Wikipedia needs to be more strict with these terms. In this modern age, it's almost impossible to be subjective. Even scholars have their own political alignments. So we can't rely on subjective opinions on where someone is aligned with and call it an objective fact. There's some

recentism at play by labeling with these terms when at this time it's common to use them as insults.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 22:07, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Be that as it may, in the case of Carl Benjamin, that he is "known for his opposition to feminism" or "for his antifeminism" is an objective fact, and that he is "opposed to feminism" is something he himself has stated. There are various ways this can be stated in the article, but leaving out this basic piece of information - which is the main reason for him to be considered notable - would be most unencyclopaedic (and also a NOTCENSORED violation). Newimpartial (talk) 22:23, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You've just contradicted yourself with that statement, as there's no way that we can consider any of that "objective fact". Objctive fact is something demonstrated though something comparable to the scientific process, not just "because so many journalists said so so it must be true"; we do not use that approach anywhere else on WP, and to continue to argue that shows how broken this is --Masem (t) 23:06, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Objective social facts are facts that are established by rigorous social-scientific processes, such as those used by sociologists and historians. Not all of these processes have to wait years after the fact for such data to be collected, as many professional ethnographers or demographers could tell you. In the case of Carl Benjamin being noted for his opposition to feminism, this has already been established by scholars and quality journalists who have looked at the reporting about him and observed the online communities he has been part of. Given the extent of the documentation available for this (recent) history, this is a verifiablen, objective fact. That Benjamin has stated his opposition to feminism is, in fact, part of the historical record already. You are strawmannig me ("because so many journalists have said so") in a discussion where I have presented scholarly citations on this as well as journalism; in point of fact I am not the one applying different standards of evidence on this topic than in the rest of the encyclopaedia. Newimpartial (talk) 23:24, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes subjective attributes are presented as facts in professionally written encyclopedia. For example https://www.britannica.com/science/chloroform "has a pleasant ether like odour." "plesant" and "ether like" are subjective qualities, yet these are stated as facts. In my opinion, that's about as accurate as describing lemon as having "lime like flavor" and perhaps not everyone finds the odor "plesant". "denser than water" is an objective fact. Graywalls (talk) 23:38, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Which itself would extend from the scientific literature, given that smell or taste of a chemical is something impossible to quantify except against other more common things. (Eg its well known that cyanide has an almond-like taste but that's the last thing you'd want to verify). But here again, this is something that the scientific literature has come to agreement to use via peer-review as a means to assess chemical odors, which the EB just replicated; it is something still determined through the scientific process, and not really comparable to the use of value labels to describe people which can't be proven out, only asserted. --Masem (t) 23:51, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Objective social facts are facts that are established by rigorous social-scientific processes, such as those used by sociologists and historians Which I agree with, and why we should we be waiting some time (Years) until these sources actually arrive with that rigorour process that takes years to complete to make that determination, and not using the current media. Doesn't matter how much material there is, we're still far too close to these events to establish if this is how history will document him, for example. Completely different standards are being applied here, because if the same standards were used across WP, we'd be calling Hitler evil, Casablanca the greatest movie ever, the Beatles the greatest musical group ever, and numerous other things directly in wikivoice and right up front in their respective articles. It is a very selective twist of policies that editors have applied across the right-leaning set of topics (the ones the current media have shown high detest for) only. I don't think this is intentional, its fighting back against the culture war, but it is showing how badly these articles are written in terms of tone and presentation of media and public opinion in wikivoice compared the rest of the encyclopedia. We can't be in this blame game (that's a job for a liberal-leaning wiki, not us) even though it is really easy to slip into taht mode. --Masem (t) 23:51, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that Carl Benjamin is anti-feminist is simply not in the same category as describing the Beatles as the greatest musical group or Casablanca as the greatest movie. The former can be documented using logical and impartial criteria, while the latter are subjective judgements. Many of the other statements in article ledes objected to by the OP, such as describing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed as a "2008 American documentary-style propaganda film", rather than a "documentary", are simply more accurate than the whitewashed versions they replaced - not only do they give more information, but the information they give is more accurate. There is no justification for presenting Expelled first as a documentary and then noting criticisms of its veracity, when the reliable sources have concluded with very good reasons (that don't have much to do with any "culture war") that it is propaganda. Newimpartial (talk) 02:22, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The arguments are exactly the same - the bulk of the media say so, there's no counterargument, so we need to present it that way as fact is effectively the logic here, and that's why its wrong. Taking a look at the Expelled talk page, the change to label it a propaganda film is only recent (last 2-3 years) and thus part of this same twist of using Wikivoice to be judgmental, and represents the same problem here; the talk page uses the same logical faults ("none of RSes same its nothing but proganda, so it must be fact that it is"). Given that the filmmakers appear to have earnestly made it a documentary, it should be presented like that --- BUT clearly because its touching on fringe concepts, its contents should be called out where appropriate in line with FRINGE and we can certain reference that major sources considered it more a proganda piece. Almost all of these problems (making the jump that the "majority of press agree on point of contest/controversy/subjective nature" means it must be an "objective fact") is drawing WP into this culture war when we need to be distancing ourselves and not taking any sides or the like. The more we keep doing it, the more we continue to create conflicts and have editors drawn to try to "fix" it by flooding with misinformation. Staying neutral and impartial on these topics will significantly help prevent that. --Masem (t) 02:59, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:NPOV

states that Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it.

If we call the film a propaganda movie, we take sides and violate the very basics of the NPOV-rule. Thus, the best we can do is explaining the falsehoods, inaccuracies, and the tricks the producers pulled both during production and editing. And all without editorial bias. That is not "whitewashing." That is making a good article. Best regards, Jeff5102 (talk) 09:01, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FALSEBALANCE is on the same level as IMPARTIAL for a reason. Not all issues have two (or more) comparable sides - sometimes there is "one side" that is based on what actually happened, and an "other side" based on a conspiracy theory. And in that scenario, User:Masem, "not taking sides" is in fact taking a side, and we call that activity WHITEWASHING.

Also, nobody in this discussion is using the argument the bulk of the media say so, there's no counterargument, so we need to present it that way. I have pointed this out as a strawman twice already, and will not be responding to it further since it is not my position. If you haven't read correctly my account above of how social facts are known, that ain't my fault. Newimpartial (talk) 11:52, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories. It is not about denying persons to defend themselves in their own article. In short: Carl Benjamin is not on the fringe when it is about Carl Benjamin. Jeff5102 (talk) 13:29, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

(

WP:YESPOV, if we know that a stand is controversial or contestable , we're not supposed to present it in WS as fact, but with sometime that implies its attribution, and that's all that needs to be then be said if there's nothing that can be reliably sourced in counter-argument to that. Just as we can't say "CB is anti-feminist" but can say "CB is widely considered anti-feminist", we can't say "The Beatles are the greatest musical act of all time" but we can say "The Beatles are often considered one of the greatest musical acts of all time", without the need to any any counter-points or any other sourcing from what exists already (eg avoiding the false balance), but keeping characterization out of Wikivoice and thus keeping it neutral and impartial. --Masem (t) 13:36, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Both of you are arguing about a counterfactual. Carl Benjamin isn't defending himself against accusations of antifeminism; he argues rather that feminism really is the problem. The fact that he takes an antifeminist position is pure

WP:BLUESKY

. Likewise, to note that Benjamin rose to prominence through his participation in Gamergate and his antifeminist activism isn't becoming involved or taking a side, it is making a factual statement backed up by scholarship as well as quality reporting. Nobody disputes these facts - not the BLP subject, not the right-wing disinformation machine, nobody. But certain avowed centrists among the WP community imagine these documented facts to be "contentious" and thereby create FUD that makes them appear so. They are not, except in the minds of certain WP editors.

Perhaps, Masem, you believe that if everyone including the BLP subject understands that subject to inhabit a contentious identity, like being a flat-earth advocate, that WP must nevertheless attribute that characterization because being a flat-earth advocate is taking a controversial position. If so, this seems to me to be a complete misreading of LABEL, which is intended to cover situations where the labels themselves are contested, not ones where everyone can agree that a categorization applies but some are for and others agin' the position categorized. Newimpartial (talk) 14:30, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have more common sense to understand that even if there is an absence of any direct contentious to the use of a label in any source, even those not in RSes, the use of such labels should be taken for granted as a contestable aspect, particularly in the absent of direct self-identification, that's the whole reason they are value-laden labels - you can't prove the negative. Otherwise, we're presenting a position of only allowing what the media presents as their view to be our view in wikivoice, which is absolutely not acceptable. As I mentioned, only with significant time and academic analysis can we even begin to consider adapting labels to be fact but that's after allowing the academic process of peer review and the passage of time to distance analysis from current events to be able to judge that. Otherwise, we are simply making WP be an engager in the current culture war, which is not a role we're suppose to take.

Self-identification is where things change. If a person has said they were a flat-earther, we'd present that as one of those areas they present. A good example (properly written) pulled from the category appears to be David Wolfe (raw food advocate), where we state, neutrally, what he is in his career, and then note his pseudoscientific beliefs which is what he is notable for , but without any additional commentary to that. That's putting the characterization secondary to the objective facts about the topic, but still covering it as appropriate to the WEIGHT of sources. Trying to pushing characterization before is not our place. On the other hand, from the same flat earth category, somethng like B.o.B is clearly badly worded that sets an immediate negative tone by the forced inclusion of the non-objective "conspiracy theorist" term in the lede. That he does promote conspiracy theories including flat earth should be noted in the lede, which it does later, but you can see how that small inclusion at the time immediately taints the entire read of the article, and given how small the section on his views are compared to his musical career, that's even perhaps UNDUE. This is the type of blame game that editors are likely unintentionally doing because of this attitude, that we have to call out these "bad" behaviors on such topics, which in reality WP needs to be far more impartial on. --Masem (t) 16:15, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't see much there that engaged with what I said in a meaningful way, so I wasn't going to reply. However, I think I should address the assertion that you can't prove the negative. This is a nonsense argument in this context - people try to prove the negative of these labels all the time. People try to show that

National Socialist party wasn't antisemitic, are taken as nonsense - not because you can't prove a negative, but because the negative is so obviously false. Newimpartial (talk) 23:36, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

And those arguments go to the "sufficient time passed" factors I've mentioned: we have more than enough time in academic analysis that scholarly determination has made that distinction that clearly define the Nazi party as antisemitic in a factual basis from an academic view. We're not using media of the 1940s to make that distinction, but academic analysis from the decades that followed. --Masem (t) 23:59, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am reasonably confident that Hitler is characterized as a Nazi, and the Nazi party is labelled antisemitic, from their very first respective mentions in encyclopedias. And I doubt very much that discussions of Pound and Heidegger in encyclopedias and similar reference works left out mentioning or characterizing these BLP subjects' Naziism and Fascism until "sufficient time passed". Masem, your claim here seems entirely unsupported by evidence - just because so much time has passed by now does lend support to the hypothesis that it only recently became possible to make these characterizations. Newimpartial (talk) 01:24, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The First paragraph of the Adolf Hitler-article is:

[Hitler] was a German politician and leader of the Nazi Party. He rose to power as the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then as Führer in 1934.[a] During his dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust.

Please note the absence of words like "antisemitic", "racist" or "far right." Without these characterizations, it is perfectly clear to readers that initiating World War II and perpetrating the Holocaust is very bad already. That is no coincidence. After all,

MOS:LEADBIO tells us to write clinically, and let the facts speak for themselves. These concerns are especially pressing at biographies of living persons. Even after all the discussions here, I do not see good reasons to divert from this rule. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 10:08, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

I'm not sure what you are saying here, since the leader of the

Nazi party is literally a Nazi - the opening of the Hitler article. And anyone following that link will find that The Nazi Party ... was a far-right political party in Germany and at the end of the lede in the 1930s the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. As I stated above, Hitler is labelled as a Nazi, and the Nazis are characterized as antisemitic, as I believe has been the case for as long as either have held encyclopaedic attention. Newimpartial (talk) 13:08, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

There is a difference between "the nazi-party is an antisemitic and anti-Marxist party" and "Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, although this was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders, and in the 1930s the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes," as the complete quote goes.

And on your other point: indeed, now it says immediately the Nazi Party is "far right." This was inserted in June 2017 by User:Jaco IV, a user who was blocked a year later, and turned out to be a sock puppetteer. I would say that the article could do without this label, if the discussion page was not Talk:Nazi_Party/Archive_6#Semi-protected_edit_request_on_8_July_2017 visited by one-time editors whose fringe-theory expressed the opposite. In situations like this, I understand the labeling.

Still, that does not change

MOS:LEADBIO tells us to write clinically, and let the facts speak for themselves. These concerns are especially pressing at biographies of living persons. I still believe that this rule stands. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

I agree that we should be clinical, but CB is quite clinically and impartially antifeminist, and that he "rose to prominence through his antifeminism" is a purely accurate statement that does not imply POV. Obviously for his many followers, his antifeminism has been a feature rather than a bug. Newimpartial (talk) 17:46, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what people mean when they say feminist these days, let alone an antifeminist. Looking at his article, he opposes Reclaim the Internet and social justice feminism. Reading antifeminism#Definition tells me nothing about Benjamin, and really the political views section does not either. Editors ref-bombing the labels and failing to actually describe the person. His views are probably somewhere in between oppisition to just the two things mentioned and revoking the vote and founding Gilead, but I really have no idea. Seven talk page archives and this is the best Wikipedia can do to serve the reader? fiveby(zero) 00:30, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is safe to sat that people who blame feminists for the rise in misogyny are antifeminists. Newimpartial (talk) 01:58, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Women Against Feminism is antifeminist [6], as was Lucy Dawidowicz [7], among other notable women. I read "CB is an antifeminist" and I think "Oh, like Dawidowicz?". No, not like Dawidowicz. Not at all like that. That's why the label is meaningless... it has too many meanings. Lev!vich 02:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-feminists may not have any more in common than feminists do, but that doesn't imply that either term is meaningless. Next thing I know, you'll tell me we shouldn't be talking about libertarians or anarchists because there are too many different kinds. :p. Newimpartial (talk) 02:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for bringing up anarchism. I went to the article of Noam Chomsky, and saw his article starts with his professions and expertises. Only in the end of the first paragraph, it says that Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism. That is how to "write clinically," and is so much better than describing him as a anarcho-syndicalist and libertarian socialist linguist and philosopher. Or, even worse, if we let his enemies characterize him: an America-hating, Holocaust-denying anarchist. We do have reliable sources to back these claims up, but charactarizations like those would turn the article into an attack-page, and attack-pages do not belong on Wikipedia. Instead, I do think the Chomsky-lead is a good example on how encyclopedic leads should be written. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 09:01, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes all that for the first line. When you search Proud Boys on Google, the right side box shows "The Proud Boys is a far-right and neo-fascist male-only organization that promotes and engages in political violence in the United States and Canada. Proud Boys|Wikipedia". Clearly, I think one of the huge motivation behind such a long winded bicker over the line is for the control of how it shows up on Google. Graywalls (talk) 22:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• My thoughts: a well written, neutral article lead starts by defining WHAT the topic is, and THEN discusses WHY the topic is NOTABLE. The facts can be presented in one sentence or many... but the order is what establishes the neutral tone. So... we don’t say “Hitler was a genocidal German leader”... we say “Hitler was a German leader who was genocidal”. Blueboar (talk) 00:48, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - this discussion is long, intense, and informative. After weighing and measuring the different perspectives that were presented, I closely align with the arguments presented by
  subjectivity. Our editing should be pragmatic reflecting a dispassionate tone; i.e. encyclopedic. Granted, WP doesn't have firm rules, and content and interpretation can evolve over time but it should not go in a direction that may prove detramental to the project's neutrality. With the slang characterization of opinions in mind, use your imagination and I'll just say everybody has one, including our readers. They should be the ones forming their own opinions based on what they glean from our neutral, accurate and factually presented articles. Atsme 💬 📧 10:18, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  I Agree completely with Atsme, Masem, Levivich and Blueboar. NPOV on Wikipedia has long been described as "absolute and non-negotiable" and part of that is not labelling people as pro or anti anything. When people descirbe themselves as pro or anti something, or there is a strong consensus of academic literature that so describes them then we report that characterisation without labelling them ourselves. Thryduulf (talk) 11:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  But in MOS:LABEL, this only applies to Value-laden labels—such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist or sexist, terrorist, or freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion. Are you seriously suggesting that anti-racist or pro-irridentist activism are "value laden" in the same sense as the examples given? If so, what about "environmentalist" or "climate change activist"? Do they count as well, even though they don't have "pro" or "anti" in the name? Because if the scope of MOS:LABEL is supposed to be that wide its language needs to he clarified, for sure. Newimpartial (talk) 11:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  IMO, yes MOS:LABEL should apply to all labels. What is "value-laden" is subjective. We should describe someone as "an activist for environmental issues" rather than "an environmentalist", unless "environmentalist" is the only term they use to describe themselves. Thryduulf (talk) 12:15, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, self-described labels should be fine. When a politician was a life-long member of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, then there is no problem in calling him an "Anti-Revolutionary politician" (though "politician of the Anti-Revolutionary Party" is better). That said, I also completely agree with User:Atsme. We are here to make, as she says, neutral, accurate and factually presented articles, to have readers form their own opinions, not to tell them how to think about persons,organisations, documentaries or music groups. Is there a way to highlight her words as the conclusion of this discussion? Best regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 12:38, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very late to this party (I normally don't follow VP). The original editor makes a very compelling argument. I 100% agree that we need to use fewer labels and let the readers draw their own conclusions from the actions, events, etc discussed in the article. What is the answer? Not sure but seeing the problem sure is a step in the right direction! Springee (talk) 22:48, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I do want to stress that I don't think there's an argument to disallow the use of labels. But when they are used, they should not be in wikivoice if the labels are primarily originating from recent media and not from academic sources. A concurrent argument would be when the sourcing of such labels in quantity is sufficient to not require named attribution in lede/summary statements, and when it should be more specific to whom is making the claim by naming the speaker(s) (differentiating between a label widely used to describe a person/group, and a label used somewhat more selectively), and of course avoiding one-off label claims even if coming from one single high quality RS. --Masem (t) 23:08, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

...but for some subjects, "recent media" is the best, and sometimes the only, source, and for non-academic subjects, high-quality media should not be despised.

I do not think that we should be afraid of stating, in "wikivoice", things that are very widely stated in

WP:INTEXT attribution. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

For recent topics, recent media may be the current best source, but it should be recognized as "recent" and that means RECENTISM applies. This doesn't mean we ignore the media, because much of the time their notability is tied to how they are characterized by the media and actions/events that stem from that. But we have to recognize that the media does not have the "wisdom" that time and sufficient academic review can give, so it is wrong to call them the "best" source", at least while things are still current. To compare it to the scientific world, even if a peer-reviewed paper came out tomorrow in the journal of Nature that said we can get cold fusion with graphene, Diet Coke and Mentos, and there's sound scientific theory behind, we would not write that immediate as fact in Wikivoice, but instead something like "Researchers from such-and-such claims they achieved cold fusion..." in the short term. If other researchers were able to replicate it, bring it to scale and show it to be correct, then we may later change it to fact. This is the same vector that climate change theory became accepted as fact over multiple decades. Now, I do understand that we may never see academic analysis of some of these people or groups years down the road, which okay, sure, at which point if there's nothing else that shows conflict in the long-term future, then the consensus that had been developed now could be taken as fact, but we should absolutely wait on that.

On the matter of writing towards that, I've talked elsewhere of the idea of a source survey that serves double duty for this as well as satifisying future complaints "but no sources say this!". If we want to incorporate any of those labels on Spenser's article, the first step would be to take a good number (100 or more, but 200+ is better if we can) of what we do deem as RSes over a reasonable source range and time range that Google News will give hits on (say, 2014 to 2020), and find out how many apply the label of interest (eg neo-Nazi, conspiracy theorist, etc.) to him in that context against how many many that don't. If its a reasonable high percentage that do (and to me, 25% or more is reasonable high), we're talking a broad use of the label which can be reflected in Wikivoice without stating it as a fact that "Spencer is broadly considered to be a neo-Nazi." without having to name sources, presuming that the body is going to state this again and have a paragraph or so that gets in to the evidence from these sources to explain why this is the case (he expresses neo-Nazi beliefs? He sides with neo-Nazi groups? I dunno exactly what is used, but when you read on SPLC why they label a group as a hate group, they give reasons why, this is the type of "documentation" I would expect). If only 10-25% of sources say this, or the source selection is very narrow, then it probably is necessary to name the specific sources that use the label. If its' less than 10%, then you're probably looking at only a handful of individuals using the label, and that's something probably to keep out of the lede and may itself be a fringe/undue view to include. (These are very very rough guidelines but it gives the idea of addressing the concern of having a bazillion source names in the lead when its not really necessary). --Masem (t) 20:08, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• RECENTISM is about breaking news, not about subjects that don't interest scholars.
• Given that you can create a BLP on the basis of just two (2) independent reliable sources, why do you think that we could realistically have 200+ reliable sources that all talk about the same aspect of a typical BLP?
• I notice that on the one hand, you're advocating for only mentioning negative things that scholarly sources say about BLPs, and on the other, you say that you like the SPLC as a source. Are you counting their website/database as a scholarly source? I don't. I count it as a reliable source, and I think we should use reliable sources for this kind of content, not merely reliable sources that were published in the academic literature.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RECENTISM is more than just breaking news; it covers many facets related to how to cover topics that are recent and making sure to focus on facts over opinions.

Keep in mind that in terms of notability, WP is looking at enduring coverage. We want to know why a person is notable over time, not for a spat of coverage. (The essence of

WP:NEVENT as well). Someone it just takes one event to cause a change in perception: arguably this is the situation around Andy Ngo after that Proud Boys incident in Portland, or how we view people like Kevin Spacey

caught (convicted or not) in the #MeToo movement that seeming changes how the tone of writing in the media which gets reflected in Wikipedia. So just because 200+ sources all might focus on, say, the anti-feminism of Benjamin here, we're still writing a biographical article and need to write that clinically and neutrally. If those 200+ sources were all over a period of a few months representing just a burst of coverage, and nothing since (which I know isn't the case but hypothetically), maybe the event that triggered them wasn't as significant as implied by the source count. Even if those 200 sources are spread over time, but all they just do is name drop the person with the label and do not explain further, that's not helpful either. If it is notable facet, it will be covered in an enduring manner.

SPLC may cross both but it depends on context. For example, they recently did an article to look at the origins of the monuments in the South and their ties to the Confederacy and other groups. That would be a scholarly article. On the other hand, their typical database of cataloging groups into hate groups would be more media/advocacy and needs to be attributed - but still a reliable source. Remember, the issue here is not doubting the quality or reliability of these sources, but simply the context of how we present their information in Wikivoice to keep a clinical , neutral, impartial tone on topics that may be highly controversial otherwise in the media and current scholarly works, per

WP:OUTRAGE; Wikivoice cannot be judgement or imply judgement on current topics, but only can lead the reader to understand what that judgement is if that has the WEIGHT of coverage. --Masem (t) 17:18, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Actionable proposals This is a valuable discussion, with some good points raised by both sides. I think there's common ground to be found here – is anyone willing to propose some actionable guidelines or suggestions that we can compromise on and implement? I have an initial idea to get the ball rolling, but I'll first put my cards on the table (skip to my suggestion below if you don't want to hear me wax lyrical). I lean in the opposite direction to Masem, Levivich et al. and sympathise most with the arguments made by Guy and Newimpartial. I recognise the valid points made about the slippery slope of labels and moral judgements, and think it's worthwhile seeing if we can take steps to reduce this trend as some of the examples above have simply taken this too far.

WP:FALSEBALANCE

. If we're going to cover conspiracies/extremists, we have to call them what they are. So, on that basis...

• Suggestion:

The use of politicised labels (perhaps there's a less nebulous term for this? can we define this?) in the first lead paragraph:

1. must not rely on or cite opinion, editorial, commentary or feature articles, even from media judged as RS;
2. requires widespread (not universal) RS coverage from academic articles, published books or factual reporting only in media judged as RS (e.g. the news section of broadsheet newspapers with excellent reputations, press agencies); —can we include sources like The Economist (excellent reputation but does not separate analysis from reporting) here? My gut feeling would be we should, but then again, on what basis?

and no dissenting coverage in RS (not including dissenting coverage in non-RS, opinion pieces in RS etc.)

This may well be a stupid suggestion, but at least this way we can still call David Duke a white supremacist. Can we come up with a better one that we can build a consensus around? Rhetorical debate is only helpful up to a certain point. Jr8825 • Talk 04:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is necessary the right way. To use the Carl Benjamin example, the lede absolutely should mention the "anti-feminism" label somewhere, because the WEIGHT of sources that use it (even if it is going to be out of Wikivoice) is undeniable and it is part of why he's notable. It's more simply, going to what Blueboar said above, that our ledes should start with the more objective, factual elements (what I've said "what the topic is") and then move onto the subjective assessments if that's what they're most notable for ("how they are characterized") with those characterizations kept out of wikivoice if we don't have the wisdom of time to use more academic sources for it. More generally, editors need to step back and make sure it is not Wikivoice looking like it is the one being critical here, and that we are being clinical and impartial in the coverage of the lede, and should not be overly focused on painting people like Benjamin as "bad" but summarizing the sources as to explain that. --Masem (t) 14:12, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do you notice that I suggested this could be only for the first lead paragraph? Perhaps, instead of labels, we should focus on reducing value-laden judgements? Jr8825 • Talk 14:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate Jr moving this discussion towards some concrete improvements via an actionable proposal. I agree that what we're really talking about is how to strike the right balance: it's not about "labels" or "no labels", but about when, where, and how to use which labels. For my part, most of my focus has been on the use of labels specifically in the lead sentence. I think the specific parameters set out above are reasonable, and could be incorporated into

MOS:1ST. However, I think a better approach than trying to devise must/must-not rules (which is always very hard to do site wide across topic areas), would be to focus instead on how a lead sentence should describe the topic, with encourage/discourage language, and specifically addressing labels in the course of that guidance. Currently a lot of MOS:1ST is focused on technical formatting issues rather than giving advice about how to write good content. That advice is contained in other essays and stuff, and perhaps some of that essay guidance should be incorporated into the MOS guideline. Lev!vich 18:22, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

BTW when I think of "guidance", I think of examples like Jeff's above: I went to the article of Noam Chomsky, and saw his article starts with his professions and expertises. Only in the end of the first paragraph, it says that Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism. That is how to "write clinically," and is so much better than describing him as an anarcho-syndicalist and libertarian socialist linguist and philosopher. Or, even worse, if we let his enemies characterize him: an America-hating, Holocaust-denying anarchist. We do have reliable sources to back these claims up ... Lev!vich 20:17, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Lev!vich. Regards, Jeff5102 (talk) 19:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:BLP). I think that it's fine for Wikipedia to have relatively low requirements for politicised labels in articles that aren't BLPs, such as deceased politicians (e.g. Hitler) and political organizations. What would you think about adding "in BLP articles" to your proposal? Kaldari (talk) 22:11, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

@Kaldari: - I have no objection to this. Jr8825 • Talk 22:16, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that, since factual claims cannot be sourced to opinion pieces anyway, it seems somewhat redundant to insist that these labels not be sourced to opinion pieces. It only makes sense to me to include such characterizations in the lede if they represent factual (ultimately, evidence-based) descriptions, and we don't use opinion pieces for that. Newimpartial (talk) 22:31, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Newimpartial: I agree, I would describe the purpose of my suggestion as making more explicit/a restatement of existing principles. While I don't have the experienced to judge how frequently it happens, I have come across a considerable number of feature/analysis pieces (and even opinion pieces) being used to support value-laden terms on the basis that they are published by RS such as the NYT, Washington Post, Guardian etc. In particular, I think it's easy for editors less familiar with media literacy to conflate editorials and 'long-read'-style feature articles with NPOV. I suspect the decline of printed newspapers, with nicely delineated news and comment sections, and the spread of online news/social media makes this more of a concern than it would've been in Wikipedia's early days. It's an easy mistake to make even for more experienced editors, if the URL/title doesn't explicitly say "comment" or "opinion". Jr8825 • Talk 22:55, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have to contend these days with even major, traditionally-reputable, serious media organizations completely doing away with the distinction between news, analysis, and opinion. Lev!vich 23:00, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(Perennial favorite Forbes (well, Faux too, but that already earned the RSP designation of "never use for politics"). Is there anyone else doing that right now? --Izno (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2020 (UTC))[reply]

Two examples front the current front page of CNN: this starts out as straight news but about halfway through, plenty of analysis and opinion gets mixed in. This is straight analysis not obviously labelled as such (for comparison, here is an example of labelled analysis). Both are in the "politics" section, where columns and contributor op-eds are still clearly marked, but in-house news/analysis gets real mixed. I think all "politics" sections are like that now. Partly it's Trump's fault. His administration has put out so much misinformation over the last four years that mainstream media has responded by doing inline fact-checking. Could we cite the first article to say that Trump is not happy about campaigning? Could we cite the second article to say that Obama pulled punches to use late in the campaign? I don't know; I can't tell. Lev!vich 23:38, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

While this practice started with Fox News since its inception, the use of it by the sources we'd call more reliable started with the Assoc Press's "accountability journalism" push in a more ethical manner in 2008 [8] which nearly every other major paper has adopted. And this is a well known issue - The Economist, CRJ American Press Institute. And considering that accountability journalism is to make these people of higher power "accountable" for what they do, that's completely against WP's neutrality, which is why this style of report is a problem and causing these issues. --Masem (t) 00:16, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That is as may be, but to me there is a significant difference between a long-form, evidence-based analysis piece by a qualified subject matter journalist, and an editorial or op-ed intervention. It doesn't take much work for a volunteer to make that distinction, IME, beyond a critical look at the byline and an examination of the evidence cited or referenced. If WP editors can't make that distinction for themselves, I don't think we can blame legacy media for that. Newimpartial (talk) 00:33, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Except its clearly not happening given this entire thread. To point out from the Economist article These pressures are changing the way newspapers report. Last year ap’s style book declared: “Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable.” Some organisations have embraced, even emblazoned taboo words: “A Fascist Trump Rally In Greenville” ran a headline last year in the Huffington Post. Others are inserting more value judgments into their copy....Disenchanted with objectivity, some journalists have alighted on a new ideal: “moral clarity”. The phrase, initially popularised on the right, has been adopted by those who want newspapers to make clearer calls on matters such as racism. Mr Lowery repeatedly used the phrase in a recent Times op-ed, in which he called for the industry “to abandon the appearance of objectivity as the aspirational journalistic standard, and for reporters instead to focus on being fair and telling the truth, as best as one can, based on the given context and available facts.” The editor of the Times, Dean Baquet, called Mr Lowery’s column “terrific” in an interview with the “Longform” podcast. Objectivity has been “turned into a cartoon”, he said. Better to aim for values such as fairness, independence and empathy. This is the problem , those values that are being praised by this approach in the press are incompatible with the encyclopedic form, but there are editors that stand on "but the media reported this, it must be true" stance. We need to editors to be aware of this type of reporting and recognize this, and the easiest way is simply to know that value-laden labels should never be said as fact in Wikivoice from this current period. --Masem (t) 00:45, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still stuck on the first part of that quotation: Last year ap’s style book declared: “Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable - try as I might, I can't see the problem with that change. If the journalist has correctly assessed the truth and relevance of the term "racist" or "racism", I don't see why using it, rather than a euphemism, would be a problem (1) for journalism or (2) for article writing here. The Economist piece is also downplaying a key argument being made by those it is quoting, namely the distinction between objectivity and the appearance of objectivity. It seems to me that this is clearly what is meant by objectivity has been "turned into a cartoon". The point is not to embrace partiality and ignore objectivity; the point is that the euphemisms, bothsides-ism and FALSEBALANCE that had been used to maintain the appearance of objectivity had led to coverage that was less objective and less truthful than it should have been. While the obligations of WP editors are not the same as those of journalists, I don't think our articles gain anything when they obscure the (reliably sourced) truth and the best available characterization in favor of imaginary WHATABOUT considerations or concessions to FRINGE POV. Newimpartial (talk) 01:11, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, we're going in circles here, and illustrating quite nicely how our job as Wikipedia editors is not simple at all. This is why it's worth trying to find some common ground, it helps to be as explicit and clear as possible in guiding editors on how to approach areas such as current affairs, where these difficulties are most apparent. News & analysis inherently merge into each other – it doesn't make RS less serious or reputable. Perhaps stricter rules in (BLP) leads will encourage editors to inform themselves about this. (The Economist, which wears its self-described liberal values on its sleeve, has never separated factual and analytical articles, priding itself in its "distinctive blend of news, based on facts, and analysis, incorporating The Economist’s perspective"). As along as media sources are transparent about the values they apply to their reporting (even if they don't explicitly spell this out in individual articles), having an independent perspective, or "soul" (to quote

fact-free journalism does

!

@Izno: re: who else distinguishes between analysis and news: take a look at The Guardian, with its (rather undeserved) reputation among conservatives for being horribly biased. It rigorously (yet subtly in its online version) separates its "hard" factual reporting from its "soft" news sections. Take this article for example, which appears to the untrained eye to be an opinionated news article, but, if you scroll down to the end, you'll see it's tagged as 'features' (i.e. stories about news). All Guardian articles that are not pure factual reporting are tagged under 'features', 'opinion' or another relevant section. Compare this with its actual news reporting, which is tagged as 'news'. Here's an excellent example about climate change causing a train crash, demonstrating why it has its well-established reputation for fact-based reporting. This is what distinguishes a RS from a non-RS, but it's unreasonable to expect all our editors to be making this distinction all the time. That's why I think it's worth spelling it out for contentious topics. Jr8825 • Talk 01:18, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your "excellent example" of fact reporting and summary as "climate change causing a train crash" is a excellent example of how distinctions of "fact", "news analysis", and "opinion" are meaningless in the face of WP editors inability to critically read and evaluate sources, and their willingness to interpret them according to their point of view. fiveby(zero) 14:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Fiveby: You missed my point. It's an article whose title connects climate change with a train crash. My point is that The Guardian does not editorialise on the issue, it's simply reports the facts and statements of relevant politicians because it's the news section. Even the title is paraphrasing a government official's quote. To spell it out more clearly, my point is that you while you might expect a source like The Guardian to make a point on climate change, it doesn't. It's a good example of robust factual reporting. Jr8825 • Talk 17:14, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reluctant to push this further, but I find your criticism of my ability to read and evaluate sources a bit rich, given your recent (reverted) edits disputing the Daily Mail's inaccuracy. Jr8825 • Talk 17:25, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are some things i might use The Daily Mail for, finding factual information not one of them. I am disputing Wikipedia's accuracy. Michael Matheson is actually quoted further here. Guardian stretches the truth a bit, editors here do a great deal, and What we don't want to do at this particular point is to start to speculate about what actually caused it becomes climate change causing a train crash. Wikipedia has fine policies concerning neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research, but those policies are left behind when it is easier to divide editors into the right side and wrong side of an issue. fiveby(zero) 18:46, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a bit harsh. I do not think at all this is a competency issue with most editors particularly in these topic areas. I would say that some editors are strongly driven by their feelings towards a certain topic (whether it is like or dislike of that topic area) to let that cloud judgement and/or their willingness to evaluate sources critically in such cases. But I know it has been hard to discuss the changing nature of the media and its reporting style and how that impacts how WP should use these sources because of the "blind" trust some editors maintain for these works despite the evidence that the changing style moves away from elements that we can use appropriate while staying neutral and impartial. --Masem (t) 14:55, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What I would say is that we are in the middle of a cultural shift, and are all experiencing it in different ways. Language that is "woke" to one person is "neutral" to another, and language that is "impartial" to one person is "euphemistic" to another. This isn't a context that allows for truly general rules, I think, only principles. Newimpartial (talk) 18:03, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's true, but it's also tautological: we are always in the middle of a cultural shift; there has never been a time or place in history when that hasn't been the case. What do we do about it? We don't impose our (editors') beliefs about what is woke/neutral/impartial/euphemistic. Instead, we follow the sources, and impose their beliefs. The question is: which sources? We get a different answer when we look at academic sources v. media. (And a different answer depending on which media we look at.) Lev!vich 18:58, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, here is where my take is different from yours or Masem's: I don't think we really do get a different answer from academic sources vs. quality journalism. Academic sources over the last 10 years, say, use similar (though more nuanced) language to most journalistic sources over the last say 5 years - indeed, a lot of the language choices that have changed in this cultural shift probably came to journalism by way of academic discourse (which doesn't mean they originated there). So while the inclination I seem to detect in Masem is to set aside the most recent of scholarship until there is less turbulence in these language communities, I hold a view closer to yours I think, Levivich, that these issues are going to be with is for some time and we just have to navigate them. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We also have to acknowledge that journalism has changed within the last decade, and there is political bias involved more than ever, even to high-quality journalists. I still don't agree Journalists should be the deciding factor to label someone's ideology just because they believe they fit that criterion. To me, labeling their ideology it's very similar to label someone's religious belief. I understand that can be an extreme opinion, but i think its very important that we have labels that involve ideology. Especially BLPs who in the next ten years could identify as a Nazi, or as a new 4th wave Feminist. Even if it holds no value-laden, or used to spread a negative reputation, we're still labeling someone's own personal beliefs with words like feminist/anti-feminist.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 22:07, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And where I differ from that is, that I don't agree that there is more political bias involved than ever. What I think has changed over the last 10 or so years, is a shift in the dominant political bias in reputable media from "let's make up terms that sound neutral, so that we (the media) can seem objective, even if it distorts what is actually happening" to "let's call things what they actually are, as best we can tell". And it is not at all clear to me that the second thing is in fact less neutral than the first, only that it may sound less neutral to people who are used to the old obfuscations. Newimpartial (talk) 00:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Than "ever"? "Ever" would have to include the period of Yellow journalism plus various forms of state-controlled media and wholesale suppression of media. The Walter Cronkite era of "de-politicized" news was a historical anomaly, and it only existed in a handful of countries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So in your eyes, you believe media hasn't become more bias, almost the opposite direction?Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 20:57, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

More than when and where? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, my question is directed toward Newimpartial, not you.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 21:01, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry; I didn't recognize that question as addressed to me. To answer it, I think we need to look at journalism at least as a field rather than a spectrum. Let's use left and right for political orientation (obviously a simplification) and the vertical direction for something like "expressiveness". So the Wall Street Jounal and the New York Post might be about the same distance to the right of the origin, but the WSJ would score much lower on expressiveness. Now it might seem that the more expressive sources are less reliable in general, but I'm not sure how true that is: Huffpost and the Guardian might score about the same for expressiveness, but the Guardian's news stories do not show the reliability problems that have plagued Huffpo.

So if this map makes any kind of sense, I would say that the last 10 years have seen a number of dots on the graph move up and to the left, while Fox made its dash up and to the right 15-20 years ago. During the postwar consensus in the US, the dots were clustered towards the center and much further down, and the UK print media have always been much more widely scattered in cartesian space than US print media ever were, while the same was never true of UK broadcast media. Does this make any sense? Fundamentally, I suppose I am saying that it isn't necessarily more "neutral" to be lower on the expressive dimension - 1960s US coverage of race issues is a good example, where it went out of its way to use pseudo-neutral language but was far more distorted in its reporting than the more expressive media of today. Left and right, expressive and not are characteristics of style, but what we should concern ourselves with when we use journalistic sources is the accuracy of their statements and their consistency with other sources. Newimpartial (talk) 15:31, 31 October 2020 (UTC) I suppose reliability would be a third dimension in this model, so that the Guardian would be close to Huffpo in X and Y but quite a bit higher in Z. The New York Post would be above the WSJ in the Y dimension, close to the same X but quite a bit lower in Z. Etc. Newimpartial (talk) 18:07, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On one small point I agree with Newimpartial. It's not really about academic versus journalistic sources.

It's more about finding multiple sources that present a particular view, and then stating that view in Wikivoice, without establishing that it is a consensus view among the sources.

One example that's come to my attention recently is the Proud Boys, who are described in the first sentence as "neo-fascist". This is supported by four sources, and no doubt many more could be found.

Now, are they neo-fascist? Particularly in the carefully descriptive sense one would expect of an encyclopedia, meaning something like "adherents of a philosophy that has its origins in the works of Giovanni Gentile, albeit modified for later developments"? I don't know. They might be. I have not looked into it deeply. But what I can say is that looking at the tone of those four sources does not especially convince me.

What an "actionable proposal" for this might be, I don't know. As a rough-and-ready rule of thumb, I might say that if a group is described by a particular term by sources from the four poles, conservative, progressive, libertarian, and communitarian, then it can be so described without attribution. So if you can find them described as "neo-fascist" in the Wall Street Journal, Vox, Reason, and Utne Reader, then go for it. But if you have to cherry-pick from a particular viewpoint, then it should be attributed. It's not perfect because that doesn't exhaust the political space, but it's a lot better than the current situation. --Trovatore (talk) 05:21, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I would suggest that rather than focusing on kicking out sources (or kicking out opinion/editorial page sources), we should do a better job of identifying for the reader the type of source being used. For example, saying that an article from X news site, or an editorial from Y newspaper, says whatever is in the point being cited. BD2412 T 00:00, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind the source, or the quality of the source. After all, sources should return in the main part of the article, and prove their value and validity there (see

MOS:LEADCITE). To return to the Noam Chomsky

-examle: you will find hardly any references in the lead, and his politics is not sourced at all. Still, it is a good lead. For me, this discussion is more about how the lead is written than how the lead is sourced. Therefore:

• Suggestion 2:

Wikipedia-editors should take strong care that lead paragraphs:

1. has to be written in a clinical and neutral tone, see
   MOS:LEADBIO
2. do notattribute political viewpoints to persons or organisations as factual traits (thus, [Chomsky] aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism as opposed to [Chomsky] is an anarchist philosopher.
3. Instead, start with birthname, and birthplace, then go through the person's professions, expertises and his/her career. Or, in the case of organisations: name the founding date, founders, expertises) Then, in case it is relevant, convictions can be mentioned in a distant way (as in: "X aligns with XYZ-ism")
4. Avoid to bring up your own opinion: even though every sane person should agree that Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a propaganda movie posing as a documentary supporting a pseudo-scientific idea, don't tell the reader that: show the facts.

Is this something?~Regards, Jeff5102 (talk) 14:14, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

+1, I think it's a step in the right direction. #1 I agree with but I think it's a bit of a "throw-away"... a vague statement that no one would disagree with and is already adequately stated in various PAGs ... I think we're more at the point of defining or fleshing out what "clinical and neutral" means for a lead, rather than simply restating core principles; #2 I think is the "meat" of the "something", I think perhaps more examples like this would be helpful; #3 I'm not sure I agree with, I think that's too restrictive or one-size-fits-all. I think the first sentence should state why the subject is notable/important, e.g. Albert Einstein, which starts with the few things he's most notable for, and doesn't get into the details of his career until later. I'm not saying that the lead of Albert Einstein conflicts with #3, but I feel like #3 doesn't say everything it needs to say; as to #4, I agree with the general guidance "show don't tell" but I'm not sure about the (implied) suggestion that "propaganda" is a label to be avoided (or that any particular label should be avoided). As an example, I cannot imagine an article about Triumph of the Will that doesn't include the word "propaganda" in the opening. I'm not sure if the same applies to Expelled, but I think it'd be better in general guidance to avoid that kind of specific question, perhaps by choosing a clearer example. Lev!vich 06:30, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with

NRA-sympathizing editors to describe Bowling for Columbine as a "documentary-style pro-gun-control-propaganda-movie." That is not the road Wikipedia should take.Jeff5102 (talk) 09:09, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

I would generally suggest that reference to someone's views should generally be made obliquely. For example, rather than the aforementioned [Chomsky] aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, we should say (assuming it can be supported) that [Chomsky] has been described as aligning with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism. BD2412 T 06:36, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This removes all forms of bias and I fully support this option.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 16:29, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I also seek attention to the lack of NPOV in the Joseph Nicolosi article. - 45.125.220.162 (talk) 18:53, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you are concerned about it describing Conversion therapy as "pseudoscience" instead of "bad science", then it's probably easier to find sources that call it pseudoscience. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Again, this Nicolosi-article is an example of how Wikipedia-articles changed as compared with four years ago.Jeff5102 (talk) 10:11, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like one of the issues is also with undue weighting of criticism from news media sources, especially in articles on topics that don't have much coverage so most of the coverage is negative. For example The Post Millennial, mention of a single controversy with one no-longer present editor who previously worked for Russian outlets seems to be too much for a Lead paragraph, but it is justified under the idea that the Lead summarizes the article. A lot of politically charged and media outlet pages similarly have this problem in which every single controversy covered by a media source is listed in the lead. Another such article is The Daily Caller. Marquis de Faux (talk) 05:16, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Section break

I often put Wikipedia's content policies in a one sentence nutshell: Wikipedia is to be an accurate summary of what Reliable Sources say about a subject. I have resolved some messy arguments when one side reluctantly faced the fact that the content-they-object-to was indeed an accurate summary of what the sources said. Continuing the argument be futile. I also notice above repeated mention of "truth", "facts", or "proof". We do not debate truth on Wikipedia, such arguments carry zero weight. On the internet somebody will spend 42 months in a nonstop argument about the truth of anything, Wikipedia can't and won't engage argument about "truth". If the sources say the moon is made of cheese, then the article will say the moon is made of cheese. If sufficiently many Reliable Sources say the moon is made of cheese, if zero percent disagree with that, if the sources which don't explicitly address it are compatible with it, our summary can and does simply repeat the statement without in-text attribution (but we will ref it). Whatever Wikipedia says, it's not about truth or facts or proof, it's only about whether it is an accurate summary of the sources. If someone has a problem with what the sources say, it is futile to argue those concerns on Wikipedia. Alsee (talk) 17:59, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said above, I am not interested in what reliable sources say: I am interested in writing good, unbiased articles. Like I showed in my first bit, the last few years Wikipedia has become more partisan (and thus, less neutral), and resorts to name-calling when describing persons, organizations and documentaries. I do not believe that is a healthy development.

When that name-calling and those partisan descriptions are the result of an accurate summary of what Reliable Sources say about a subject, then that is saying a lot about the decline of those “Reliable Sources.” That is disturbing, to say the least. Regards, Jeff5102 (talk) 09:58, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Alsee, I think what you are discussing ends up being part of the problem. Note that I'm not questioning your summary rather questioning if this is really what we want. For many (perhaps most) topics this method often works just fine. However it fails when many sources either repeat the common refrain or repeat the reaction to something without actually analyzing the something. Consider the example of the Ford Pinto, the rear impact fires and the infamous Pinto Memo [[9]]. From the mid 70s through perhaps 1991 it was understood that the Pinto readily caught fire when impacted from the rear and that Ford had calculated that it would be cheaper to fight the lawsuits vs fix the problem. This was so well known that the narrative was widely repeated and even used as an example of unethical corporate behavior in academic material. It also is largely not true. In 1991 a legal review paper[[10]] spent a lot of time diving into many details of the Pinto case. It was one of the earliest articles that explained why the popular view of the Ford's attitude towards safety and the Pinto Memo were wrong and perhaps the paper that caused many other sources to reexamine their understanding. Were we writing the Ford Pinto article in 1992 we would have a problem in that we have lots of sources that repeat what is basically conventional wisdom and one source that actually looks at the primary sources to refute that conventional wisdom. Most of the sources repeating conventional wisdom provided little in the way of sourcing for their claims while the law review paper was extensively researched and argued. But we would have said 1 RS vs many RS thus.

I think a better way to approach this is to use the large volume of sources discussing the Memo to indicate that it is important as a topic but once we establish the (sub)topic is important we then strive for an IMPARTIAL and, when reasonable, a detailed discussion of the topic. That means if 20 sources say "Ford was immoral" but one source says "Ford engineers and managers did X, Y, Z" then we give equal treatment to these discussions vs 20:1 reaction:investigation. Things like this seem to come up a lot in political topics where many sources will criticize someone for something they said but few will actually discuss the controversial statement in context and detail. We should.

Perhaps this can be summarized by saying we need to spend more time on the factual thing and less on the subjective reactions. Springee (talk) 13:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the areas where en Wikipedia has the most problems and is most losing it's credibility are where where it reflects a large scale real world contest. And the two biggest categories within that are where there is a culture war, and US politics. And face it, a lot of editors WANT the article to be biased and so it is a question of giving better guidance in our policies and guidelines especially wp:npov and also the definition of RS's. One thing that would help in an immense range of areas is to evolve the wp:RS definition to where it reflects actual reliability. More specifically a context-specific definition that reliability means degree of expertise and objectivity with respect to the use at hand. And since not every source can be established as such, say that that is a gauge of strength, and the more controversial the content the stronger the required strength and vice-versa. The problem is that in this area sources have transitioned to often being participants rather than coverers. The ham-handed approach of defining an overall source as an RS or not an RS based on a few trappings or a (political) vote ("consensus") in Wikipedia is now obsolete. Also, modifying wp:NPOV to say that we are here to present information not characterizations. Characterizations are usually not information. A rough gauge for where a characterization becomes acceptable and useful would be if 90% agree on it and if it provides information. Finally another good change would to introduce degree-of-WP:Relevance as a factor in content inclusion/ exclusion decisions. Person B's opinion (=talking points) about person A in the person A article is not info on person A, it is info about person B's opinion/ talking points, even if Person B is a "source" North8000 (talk)

Second the above. Things like the RSP list are problematic. If a lower quality source produces a very well reasoned article with evidence etc we should give it more consideration vs say a subjective description in a generally reliable source. We definitely should stop assuming no good information exists in "unreliable" sources as well as stop assuming that reliable sources never mix subjective assessments into their facts etc. This doesn't mean treat them as equal but currently we are rather arbitrary when it comes to including/excluding sources. Springee (talk) 13:42, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Before this circle-jerk gets awkwardly close to a climax, I want to point out that there is a kind of saw-off between those who "value expertise or depth of analysis" and those who "reject characterization". It seems to me that the logical relationship between these two things would be that characterizations by experts in the field would be accepted, and characterizations by non-experts would be rejected. But what I have actually seen out there in article-land is that the editors who "reject characterization" also reject the whole idea of expertise in social sciences, so they reject the views of experts/academics along with those of non-expert journalists. And meanwhile, many of these same editors are comfortable with self-characterizations of BLP subjects - even in Wikivoice - when these are often the least expert commentators of all. These observations make me skeptical of the POV that says that the more accurate labeling of political and social issues by academics and journalists over the last 15 years or so is some kind of challenge for encyclopaedic writing. Newimpartial (talk) 14:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument might be rhetorically satisfying but fails to address the concerns at hand. Perhaps if you had specific examples it would help. Springee (talk) 14:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are enough examples in the parent section that I don't feel the need to point elsewhere. Newimpartial (talk) 15:05, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that it is good to characterize small or large agreement as "circle-jerk gets awkwardly close to a climax" North8000 (talk) 15:12, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I counted four messages (by three editors) that were mutually self-reinforcing; rather than seeing that trend continie I wanted to ruin the vibe. Newimpartial (talk) 15:19, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's called agreement. North8000 (talk) 17:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Next time I'm in a bathhouse, I'll try to remind people of that. :P Newimpartial (talk) 17:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is , we are an encyclopedia. We are not supposed to be as indepth as the sources we use, and in fact should be encouraging readers to go to the sources to read more. In terms of current events, while factual information does not changes, positions and characterizations do rapidly change and that's simply something we should not be documenting in the short term, but our references provide those links for readers to learn more. We can capture, in attribution, when there is broad characterization, but it should be treated as that, and not as facts of the situation, because of the immediacy of reporting. Also I don't think anyone's said we're automatically going to take self-identification automatically in wikivoice. If self-identification matches with the broader characterization, there I don't see a problem saying in wikivoice, but self-identification alone would still require attribution. --Masem (t) 14:56, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Masem, you have suggested that we wait for posthumous reports or decades of scholarship to develop consensus characterizations in this area. My essential difference from your position is that I think "broad characterization" can be established much more quickly than you do - not for "current events", but certainly within five years or so. Supposedly "contentious" labels that have been used consistently for several years by high-quality sources and have never been contested by RS should not be considered "contentious", because nobody is actually contending about them. On the other hand, I totally agree that where self-characterizarion and RS characterization match, attribution should not be used. Newimpartial (talk) 15:05, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It really depends on the situation. In the US, we're still in the midst of a culture war that started at least around 2016, and given the trend on this election, could go to 2024 if not beyond. Saying to wait five or even ten years should be after that situation has completely cooled down, so it would be inappropriate to be talking characterization-as-fact for people and events from 2016 in 2021 given the current state. But remember, I'm not saying we can't include characterization at all. If it is clear that such characterization is so common among the reliable sources (and I've talked of source surveys that should be documented to prove this out so that we're not be accused of piece-mealing this characterizations), its clear DUE to include a type of attributed characterization statement, even if that's "X is broadly considered to be Y" to avoid having to name all sources that say it, just as 1) it is not treated as fact in Wikivoice and thus 2) placed secondary to an establishing objective sentence or phrase in a lede of the article which is defining the topic is as neutrally and non-characterizing method as possible. This has miniminal impact on what we already have in most of these articles, but it drastically changes the tone of the articles for the better as they do not come off as attack pieces from the start, which is where we get criticized for acting just like liberal media. --Masem (t) 15:27, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with North8000. However, I do believe that the NPOV-guidelines give enough guidance in these matters.

WP:PG states, policies are standards all users should normally follow, and guidelines are generally meant to be best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. This means that a statement like "it's only about whether it is an accurate summary of the sources" is incorrect. It assumes that using texts from "reliable sources" automatically implies neutrality. Actually, it is the other way around: it is the editor's job to keep articles neutral by selecting the relevant facts, and remove the bias from it. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 19:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

I would very much like to see certain types of allegations removed from the lead section of articles, and support the #1 Suggestion list above. While i agree with @

WP:LABEL that says "[...] are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution". A referenced statement is not automatically in-text attribution, and adding a single source's words would be, in my opinion, undue weight for the lead (unless that source was the top expert in that subject, which isn't a claim any newspaper can really back). That same in-text attribution may be perfectly acceptable in the article's body. I think this specific instruction asking for these claims to use direct speech is widely ignored across Wikipedia, and we would go a long way simply by doing more to enforce that policy. YuriNikolai (talk) 02:33, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

But this section applies to value-laden labels that express contentious opinions. There is - and has been for some time - a sustained conflict about which labels are or aren't considered "value-laden" in this sense - viz. the discussion of "documentary" and "propaganda" above - what counts as "contentious", and when a characterization is merely descriptive (I for one hold that undisputed characterizations should always count as descriptive and never require in-text attribution). Newimpartial (talk) 02:49, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the discussion above on the use of the words "propaganda" and "documentary." Your arguments are not that convincing. When you say that documentaries are there to "document reality, primarily for the purpose of instruction," then Expelled does document the reality as perceived by it's makers. As are The Exodus Decoded, and Michael Moore's documentaries (which all are, rightfully, described that way on Wikipedia). There is not much difference in Michael Moore shoving an idea through the throats of his viewers, or Ben Stein, doing the same. Thus, the best thing to do is to keep the wordings in leads neutral, as it was four years ago, and avoid words as "propaganda" when it is not suitable. (Newimpartial, if you really think I am wrong in this, please edit the articles on Michael Moore's documentaries, and replace the phrase political documentary with documentary-style propaganda film. If something important for Wikipedia, it is that it is impartial and consistent.) Regards.Jeff5102 (talk) 13:07, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Prevention of violence as an argument for an edit request

Sometimes in Wikipedia's back channels like WP:Volunteer Response Team or similar, word comes to Wikipedia editors that the subject of a biography is under threat of violence. Maybe there is a stalker, a history of criminal violence, an actual murder attempt, or any other crazy background. More commonly, maybe we have no information except a random Internet person with no context saying that the subject of an article is under threat.

The requesting person asks Wikipedia editors to remove content, like removing the real name (which is different from the

WP:COMMONNAME) or removing personal details like relative names, residence, date of birth, or whatever. They may want WP:Revision deletion

also.

Sometimes staff of the Wikimedia Foundation ask community volunteers to execute changes. I understand why they do this: having community members do it means that the edit will be as discreet as possible. However, for the sake of community safety and sanity, I can think of reasons why community members should not do this.

Recurring situations where someone makes this request:

• Political commentator threatened in some country or another
• Victim of domestic abuse or crazy stalker trying to avoid attention
• Anyone caught in a controversy or scandal, and now facing online mob threats

Questions: Suppose that somehow we get a request to remove information from an article with the urgency of preventing violence.

1. In what ways if any is a request to prevent violence different from the same request, but without anyone having a threat of violence?
2. Does anyone recall this discussion happening anywhere in any wiki forum? If so where should anyone look to find any previous discussion of this?
3. What special considerations should we have, if any, if an edit request suggests that increased risk of violence is a consequence of not making the edit?
4. In what way does the wiki community allocate editorial decision making power? The default is wiki community always having editorial control. Under what circumstances might the community defer the editorial decision to paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation or any other third party expert?
5. To what extent do Wikipedia community members respond differently depending on any evaluation of the seriousness of the violence?
6. To what extent is there social danger or risk of harmful mental stress for any wiki volunteer making decisions when threats are in play? If the danger and risk is significant, should we mitigate that?
7. If the Wikimedia Foundation holds confidential information and on that basis makes an edit request to volunteer editors, then does that mean it is okay for volunteers to execute the WMF request without understanding more context, or alternatively do we need some kind of Wikimedia community oversight for such a process?

Missing data that I want is knowing often these requests occur. My guess is 100-200 times a year, but probably the WMF could say if they wished.

I know these are tough questions. Anyone feel free to share thoughts about the general circumstance without directly responding to the questions. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is absolutely not something volunteers should be dealing with. We're not remotely qualified, equipped, or responsible. Such requests should be forwarded to [email protected] per Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm, whether they appear on-wiki or through OTRS etc. That guideline is also clear that volunteers should not attempt to assess the seriousness of the threat themselves.

I'm surprised to hear that the WMF would delegate acting on such requests to volunteers. If that's happening, I think it's something that ought to be discussed with T&S directly (and probably not publicly, for obvious reason). If you have some details on examples of this, could you please send them to [email protected]? – Joe (talk) 14:02, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe: Okay, I sent an email to ArbCom with a way to find one particular case of this. In the email I said, "I am not making any particular request of ArbCom, however, if anyone wanted to respond, then I invite anyone to go to the village pump discussion and briefly give an opinion on whether and in what sense this issue is worth discussing in the open wiki community. Also it could be helpful after seeing this if anyone gives an opinion about the extent to which I correctly and sufficiently described the situation. I would be content with a  response like, 'if anyone wishes to discuss this, then that could be useful' or 'this does not seem urgent to discuss now'." Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Joe that any threat of harm should be forwarded to [email protected] as a first resort. The WMF should not direct volunteers to make edits pertaining to public safety, and volunteers should feel no obligation to action a WMF request. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:05, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OSPOL. As an OTRS agent, I would not handle it myself, and it would depend on the actual request as to my course of action. Atsme 💬 📧 10:41, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Thanks for the follow-up email Bluerasberry. Looking at that example, I'd characterise it more as T&S advising or drawing attention to a potential problem with an article an rather than a request in direct response to mitigate a threat of violence (which they would of course handle themselves). I have seen things like that before, and in my experience T&S are careful to phrase them as a request for someone to look at the article and reach an independent editorial judgement, rather than a direct edit request. I would approach them with that in mind. In any case, ArbCom has a meeting with T&S next week so I will raise this and get their view. – Joe (talk) 11:39, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Joe Roe, Did you ever get T&S's view on the subject? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:25, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek and Bluerasberry: Thanks, yes, we talked about it in the last ArbCom–T&S meeting. They confirmed that these should be interpreted as a heads-up rather than a direct request, asking a volunteer to reach an independent editorial judgement about something that was brought to their attention. They wouldn't ask volunteers to respond directly to threats of violence. – Joe (talk) 12:12, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@CaptainEek and Bluerasberry: Thanks, yes, we talked about it in the ArbCom–T&S meeting last week. They confirmed that these should be interpreted as a heads-up rather than a direct request, asking a volunteer to reach an independent editorial judgement about something that was brought to their attention. They wouldn't ask volunteers to respond directly to threats of violence. – Joe (talk) 12:12, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe and CaptainEek: Thanks, you did a lot, it was useful, and it was more than I expected. I really appreciate you sticking yourself out for this. I also appreciate that ArbCom participation is such a big commitment, including to have those conversations with WMF staff.

The T&S response still answers none of the above questions I presented. That is fine because they are tough questions.

I suppose there is no need for ambiguity. WMF T&S sent a ticket over sharing that a person was the target of stalking and a bomb threat. Along with that info there was a suggestion for edits. If the bomb threat was important info to share then I think the wiki community needs documentation on how to respond to edit requests paired with requests to save a life. If the bomb threat was not relevant, then WMF T&S could have withheld that information so that volunteers do not have to process it, and so that they can treat the edit request like they would any other. I need to think about this more but I feel like the WMF is claiming the power to make a decision about whether to direct volunteers into the situation, but the WMF is not claiming the responsibility for what comes as a consequence of the volunteer decision. If WMF is engineering a situation to direct volunteers to make decisions in the context of violence then I somehow the wiki community should discuss the matter among itself.

I am not sure what I think or feel about this. I suppose I want documentation and acknowledgement of the situation. Also I wish T&S would report statistics about how often this happens, so that we can determine how often this happens. I only posted here because I have seen this situation with regularity. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent transparency report indeed provides such statistics. --Izno (talk) 14:29, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Are we inadvertently giving vandals magic words that result in changes that otherwise would not be made? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:02, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

B.C. versus B.C.E.

Why does Wikipedia use BC for dates prior to the Christian year Zero? Using the more accurate BCE (Before Common Era) would be more inclusive and less Christian-centric. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JPinPhilly (talk • contribs) 01:49, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We don't disallow BCE, see

MOS:BCE, but it depends on the context. --Masem (t) 02:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Per Masem, we allow whatever dating style the article prefers (this also includes whether to put "AD" before or after the year). Inclusivity is not generally affected, IMO, since a) most people don't generally care, and b) BCE/CE is still ultimately based on Jesus's nominal birthdate. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:28, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really depend on "the context", but the established style. Two things we don't allow are "B.C." or "B.C.E." Johnbod (talk) 05:20, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Because trying to prescribe a particular style leads to hilariously pointless disputes. – Teratix ₵ 14:11, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Both are equally permissible as long as the article is consistent, provided you drop the periods. And arguably, using the term Common Era to refer to the calendar era based on the birth of Jesus is more Christian-centric. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 05:53, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Should we move WP:ONUS to WP:CONSENSUS?

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Wikipedia policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Should

WP:CONSENSUS § Achieving consensus#Onus

to clearly define Onus as applying to new additions, removals, and modifications?

WP:V § Verfiability does not guarantee inclusion

would remain virtually unchanged. 04:29, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

New section under WP:CONSENSUS § Achieving consensus
Onus Shortcut WP:ONUS "WP:ONUS" redirects here. For "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion", see WP:VNOT . The onus to achieve consensus for changes to verifiability does not guarantee inclusion ). For the analogous sanction, see the Consensus required restriction.

Diff adding Onus to WP:CONSENSUS

Current text of WP:V

Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion Shortcuts WP:VNOTSUFF WP:ONUS "WP:ONUS" redirects here. For the responsibility to demonstrate verifiability, see WP:BURDEN . See also: WP:IINFO While information must be verifiable to be included in an article, not all verifiable information needs to be included in an article. presented instead in a different article . The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

Proposed change to WP:V

Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion Shortcut WP:VNOT "WP:VNOT" redirects here. For the onus to achieve consenus for disputed changes, see WP:Consensus § Onus. See also: WP:IINFO While information must be verifiable to be included in an article, not all verifiable information needs to be included in an article. WP:ONUS to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

• Diff of change to WP:V

Added underlined text to WP:CON#Onus proposal. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:43, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (onus)

• Support as proposer. The concept of onus is about the consensus-building process, and we need clarity that it applies to additions, removals, and modifications, consistent with
  WP:NOCON. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:29, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]

It appears that there is still no consensus on the interpretation of ONUS, so these policies will still need to be clarified in the future even if this proposal is rejected. The interpretation shared by at least Bradv and I is different than others. Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:42, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Wikipedia's quality comes just as much from what we keep out as from what we let in. This proposal results in making it much harder to keep some things out. It significantly changes the meaning of
  WP:OWNER or someone who happens to have it on their watchlist but doesn't know the topic well, reverts you because you "removed sourced content" and it looked fine to them, and says that per WP:ONUS (the new version being proposed right now), you need to get a full-on consensus to get it removed. (Likely, a new or irregular editor would give up at this point.) Yes, there are ways to do so, but they may not get enough attention to develop a new consensus for removing the material, and even if that did happen, this alternate version of ONUS made it much harder to do so.

  The current setup of everything is fine and does not need changing, because it works. "Don't fix what ain't broke." As these policies are at the heart of what we do, any changes must have very good reasons for them, and there is no evidence that this policy needs changing. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:36, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• The proposal does not result in making it harder to keep things out; the proposal is clarifying what ONUS already means -- otherwise ONUS contradicts
  WP:NOCON
  .
• It significantly changes the meaning of
  WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS
  (linked from "longstanding") needs consensus to be removed.
• "[R]emoved sourced content" is not a policy-based reason to restore content; the purpose of
  WP:VNOT
  is precisely this. Your interpretation makes it much easier for POV-pushers to make articles POV by removing content.
• "Removed longstanding content" is not a basis to restore content and the proposal does not change this; we should cite a policy besides consensus when restoring content.
• The proposal does not change that obviously unverifiable content may be removed without seeking consensus. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:00, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If ONUS contradicts

WP:NOCON - of which I am not totally convinced - the solution is not to change a content policy but instead to reinstate this

edit by WhatamIdoing which clarified NOCON and which stood for weeks until reverted by you.

As for POV pushers, POV problems more often come from

WP:Undue weight

on material describing a certain POV, with the solution being removal of the excess, rather than the other way around. And in cases where the removal is POV, it is easy to find a consensus in favor of the material, because editors readily revert such bad faith removals.

Content which is "obviously unverifiable" is easily removed by

WP:BURDEN; a less obvious problem is content that is superficially verifiable but otherwise unencyclopedic (misrepresents sources, original research by synthesis, undue weight, etc.). In cases where there is not a consensus for material, it should stay out, lest the encyclopedia accumulate garbage. We do not privilege material just for happening to lack scrutiny and sticking around for a while. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:57, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

You said "editors readily revert such bad faith removals"; by the same token, editors could "readily revert such bad faith additions", so any text which is longstanding must have implicit consensus. I don't know that that's how we should be arguing this. The edit by WhatamIdoing seems to say: In discussions of proposals to add, modify or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. However...When the dispute is about whether to include something, [The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content]. That does not clarify things for me. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:24, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Editors can readily revert bad additions, yes, but that often does not occur. Think about how huge the encyclopedia is and how little-scrutinized most of it is. Most passing editors are not too familiar with a topic and are biased toward letting through (or not bothering with) something that looks superficially okay. So, some bad material sticks around for a long time and was never reverted, even though in an ideal world, it would have been reverted when it was added. As for "any text which is longstanding must have implicit consensus", in many cases this is only in a very weak type of consensus, per

WP:CONLEVEL, such that once someone shows up to challenge it, there can no longer be said to be consensus for it. Changing this is bad, as has been explained. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:54, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

• Oppose per Crossroads. Anything can be gamed and people should not make a habit of removing text because they can. However, the point of ONUS concerns what should happen if someone removes an assertion saying that there is no citation or that the source is not reliable. Another editor should not restore the assertion merely on the basis that it has been there a long time. The person removing text does not have to prove that the text should be removed. The onus is on the person restoring the text to say why it should be restored (that is, explain how
  WP:ONUS relates to "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion". Johnuniq (talk) 06:27, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose per Crossroads. The proposed changes would significantly weaken the verifiability policy by prioritizing the length of time a claim remains in an article over whether the claim is actually supported by reliable sources. — Newslinger talk 06:34, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. See Appeal to tradition. Verifiability is more relevant than age. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Elevates process over content quality and will only increase the friction faced by editors improving content, when faced by POV-pushers playing the "you didn't notice my edit for several weeks so I have consensus and a mighty discussion must ensue" card.
  talk) 11:41, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose For all the reasons expressed above.Slatersteven (talk) 11:12, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose: They way we are doing things now is not broken and does not need to be fixed. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:28, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The proposal contains two different things in it and so is mal-formed. The general idea of shifting process issues from wp:ver to the correct place (WP:Consensus) is a good one, though, but it would take several different steps of changes to do that successfully. This would also force clarifying the pseudo-conflict between the two policies in that area. North8000 (talk) 13:29, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Whenever the "longstanding" content was first added, it was the ONUS and the BURDEN of the editor(s) adding to comply with content-policy-informed-consensus (even when as is usually the case, it was not discussed, at the time it was added). The ONUS and the BURDEN never shifts, it remains always with the pro argument. In many cases, consensus within policy/guideline is and will be easily achieved and in others more difficult, but the burden and the onus remain on the side that wants the content to be/stay in the article to demonstrate it is within policy/guideline consensus. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:36, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose The only thing I have to add beyond what is already above is ONUS applies in the specific case where the content is reliability sourced. If long standing content is poorly sourced then other parts of WP:V and/or RS etc apply. Springee (talk) 13:54, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• SNOW Oppose. I genuinely don't wish to denigrate the OP here, but this is quite possibly the biggest non-starter of a policy revision (and the most poorly-considered in terms of the massive negative implications to the project if it did somehow pass) that I have seen here in many years. It would drastically alter (or indeed, outright turn on its head) the basic operation of one this project's most fundamental editorial principles, with implications that are more or less impossible to overstate--it would 1) essentially cripple
  WP:V as policy in it's entirety, it would be only be marginally more of a monumentally bad idea. Snow ^{let's rap} 15:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Perhaps my proposal was unclear? It is not meant to change anything, only clarify. I read your comment a few times and I don't see an explanation for how it would cripple WP:V and reverse the meaning of ONUS. WP:ONUS will direct to a new section which essentially means the same thing. We could have both WP:VNOT and a new WP:ONUS mirror each other: WP:V states "V does not guarantee inclusion; the ONUS is on those who seek inclusion to achieve consensus", WP:CON#ONUS could state: "The onus to achieve consensus is on those seeking the change, but V does not guarantee inclusion." I added this line to the proposal. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:29, 1 November 2020 (UTC)Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:48, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose – either this proposal fundamentally undermines our verifiability policy by shifting the onus onto those who want to remove information in certain situations, or it accomplishes nothing other than retargeting a long-standing project-space redirect used in countless talk page discussions and edit summaries. Either way, this is a bad idea. All ONUS says is that just because something is verifiable, that doesn't mean we have to include it. That's a pretty straightforward concept. – bradv🍁 15:59, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bradv, what about where IMPLICITCONENSUS functions in the consensus-building process? My proposal was meant to be consistent with your comment here.[11] Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:13, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In that discussion I was commenting on people misusing

WP:ONUS belongs to the former. – bradv🍁 18:39, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Bradv, ok. Is there a way to clarify all of this? From my limited experience, that cherry-picked line is almost always what people cite ONUS for, and there's no agreement that the status quo ante remains when longstanding text is challenged by revert. NOCON and the sentence from ONUS seem to contradict, and QUO is only an essay. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:52, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They don't contradict – they're talking about different things. Content policies govern what our articles can say, conduct policies govern how we behave, collaborate, and make decisions. The ONUS section is a reference from a content policy to a conduct policy – it says that just because something is allowed according to the content policy doesn't mean it has to be included. And then it refers the reader to the relevant

conduct policy describing how we make that decision. – bradv🍁 19:04, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Bradv, I agree with all of that; it just appears that they contradict. Because the last sentence, "the onus to achieve consensus" describes behavior, I thought the word onus should link to consensus, but which word we use isn't what matters. Is there text in WP:CONSENSUS which already explains the procedure from that sentence from ONUS? NOCON is the only thing that seemed close to me. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:20, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ONUS. The whole page describes how we decide what information to include in an article. There isn't just one proscribed procedure – consensus is determined through discussion. – bradv🍁 19:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

• Oppose. And, really, any notion that a person can come along and remove whatever they want and then others have to justify why that material should stay is not quite accurate. Besides vandalism being an obvious case that we don't tolerate, we do get people removing material on an "
  I don't like it
  " basis. And we can often simply revert and pay those people no mind. Yes, via an edit summary or on the talk page, we may cite a policy or guideline about why they are wrong. But it's often that the content will not need to stay removed while we argue our case about why it should be retained. And when a proper dispute resolution channel is taken, these people usually will not get their way. Frankly, it is a waste of time justifying "why that should stay" in those cases.

• The words "it has to stay unless we get a consensus to remove it" are mentioned above. We already engage in this practice.
  WP:BLP. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 00:02, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Support with Modifications The reason I support is that the policy for inclusion of disputed content right now is too disparate (
  WP:BLP
  ) is as follows:
  • Content Additions/Minor Modifications: Editors should be adding
    WP:NOCONSENSUS
    .
  • Content Deletions/Major Modifications: Since long standing content represent
    WP:NOCONSENSUS WP:Verifiability#Verifiability_does_not_guarantee_inclusion
    .
  • Page Removal Due to
    WP:NOCONSENSUS
    on removal.

I suggest modifying the text of the

WP:ONUS proposal to reflect these compromises between the goals of different policies and guidelines. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 11:44, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

WP:NOCONSENSUS states: In discussions of proposals to...remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. This makes sense because editors may disagree over whether policies such as NPOV and DUE are violated by keeping the content or removing the content. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:36, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

WP:CONSENSUS not a certain point of view. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 09:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

You just created your account on October 11,[12] so you may not realize that removing content can also make an article violate POV and DUE. Obvious Fringe will be removed quickly. Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:50, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is the non-obvious fringe. Even outright hoaxes commonly last for many years; see WP:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia. Material that is fringe can obviously last just as long. And I know from personal experience removing it, and researching how it got there, that it does. Most of Wikipedia lacks much scrutiny. We don't need to make it hard to remove such material. And as I said above, bad faith removals are already much more easily thwarted. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:54, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no edit-warring exemption for disagreements over fringe material.

This is actually pretty simple; if there is a dispute which cannot be solved through editing then keep the longstanding material pending dispute resolution unless there are WP:Edit warring#Exemptions; if there is no consensus the material stays. If the material is clearly fringe consensus will come quickly. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:07, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:POV and other problems. Keeping longstanding content regardless of consensus gives incentive to editors to add their fringe views early on a page on the hope that at some point it will stick if nobody contested for some time. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 14:04, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

What was your account before creating this one on October 11? Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:22, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kolya Butternut Didn't have an account before. Many many years ago used to make contributions without an account, so I have a pretty good idea of how the editing process works. All I needed was just a few weeks of refreshing about the policies and guidelines to know what changes that happened over the years I missed. Knowledge Contributor0 (talk) 11:17, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. "WP:ONUS" is a rule invented and added to WP:V, which is OK, because WP:V is a core content policy. WP:Consensus is different, it is not a rules policy, but describes consensus as Wikipedians understand it. Worse, rules like WP:ONUS jar with consensus decision making, much like vote counting. Imposing a rule like WP:ONUS on a discussion is a strategy that is at odds with consensus decision decision making. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:16, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (onus)

How does this relate to

WP:BRD? It looks to me as if the proposed change would remove a current contradiction between BRD and ONUS, but maybe I am just not familiar enough with the rules network. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

@Hob Gadling, I'm not sure that there is a clear contradiction between BRD and ONUS. Under BRD, which is optional (read the first sentence!) and not applicable to many situations (read the rest of it!), then either you boldly add, and both BRD and ONUS say someone can revert your addition, or you boldly remove, and ONUS says that's okay, and BRD says "Eh, BRD is optional and not always the best approach, so I guess the other guy isn't doing BRD today".

However, there is IMO contradiction between the

WP:NOCON approach and ONUS. According to ONUS, if you blank long-standing content (e.g., something you think is trivia), then the guy who wants to include that has to demonstrate consensus for it. According to QUO (an essay), you have to demonstrate consensus for its removal. And according to NOCON, if the subsequent discussion is a true stalemate (rare, but it happens), then ONUS says it's out and NOCON says it's in. Whether this would actually resolve that contradiction is unclear to me. (I support resolving the contradiction.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

As I said above to Kolya Butternut, I think the best solution to any seeming contradiction would be to simply reinstate this edit. And regardless, even though it may be (as NOCON says) that a lack of consensus (perhaps at a high-traffic article and after a well-attended discussion) "commonly results" in keeping the prior version (whatever "commonly" means), we should not mandate that no consensus for questionable but old material means it has to stay. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:14, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Someone said that anything can be gamed. This is likely the case and I think it applies to the current setup as much as any other. That said, I have long objected to verified properly sourced material being too easy to remove without any good reason other than "I don't like it" and then having to go through all the hoopla to restore it. My 2 cents but I am not going to cast a "vote" on this because I probably need to be on WP another 10 years before I would understand all the procedures.Selfstudier (talk) 10:18, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If it takes 10 years to figure out how procedures work then something's broken. We need to clarify that if content disputes cannot be solved

WP:NOCONSENSUS is reached a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit, with the standard exceptions. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:25, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

I think my proposal should have said The onus to achieve consensus for disputed changes to longstanding content... so that it was clearly meant to mirror the existing WP:ONUS. I don't know how much that omission affected !votes. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:22, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BLP has exceptions: WP:BLPREMOVE requires poorly sourced information to be removed immediately. WP:BLPREQUESTRESTORE places the burden on those seeking inclusion. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 22:17, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLP#Role of administrators Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:39, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Call for Snow close... or maybe not

Obvious consensus is obvious. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:59, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A little more time please. There is obviously no support for this proposal, but there is no consensus on the interpretation of the existing policy. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:21, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Would 14 November be acceptable? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:30, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thank you. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:00, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

About the part of the proposal that refers to "the" analogous sanction (rather than one of multiple sanctions systems), see also Wikipedia talk:Consensus required#Title and Wikipedia talk:Edit warring#WP:Consensus required link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:53, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

El C created WP:Consensus required and he said that the discretionary sanction can largely be seen as a more strict (binding) version of WP:ONUS[13] and both ONUS and CR are the same in so far as the burden of establishing consensus rests upon those wishing to introduce the change.[14] Regardless of whether you disagree, this wasn't my idea. Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:20, 15 November 2020 (UTC) Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:55, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mention you at all in that comment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Second call for Snow close

At fourteen oppose, on support, and one support with modifications, obvious consensus is obvious. I see no point in keeping this RfC open any longer. I don't believe in closing RfCs where I have participated, so would someone uninvolved please close this? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:06, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Undraftifying old articles

I've recently discovered an incredibly commonplace practice of draftifying old articles against the draftification policy (

WP:DRAFTIFY which says that only recently created articles should be draftified. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive 159#Resolve the inconsistency between WP:DRAFTIFY and WP:ATD for more information on consensus relating to this issue. However, if one looks at Special:NewPagesFeed, clicks "Articles for Creation" (which limits to draftspace and not just AfC submissions), chooses only drafts that are unsubmitted, checks all the issue boxes, and sorts by creation date oldest one can find thousands of drafts more than a year moved to draftspace without any discussion. For example, Draft:List of historical women was created in 2002 and later draftified in 2018 with infrequent edits every 6 months that coincidentally prevented G13. Likewise with Draft:Gangsta Blac

which was created in 2003 and draftified against the explicit consensus to ban this practice. Neither of these articles faced AfD, by the way. There are literally thousands of other drafts in position like these, created several years ago, moved to draftspace, and with practically no work on them done since then. There's also many other drafts that have since been deleted as a result of G13 without any discussion. My main question here is exactly what are we going to do with all of these drafts? Some were draftified before the clarification of this policy (e.g. Draft:List of historical women), is it OK to leave those in draftspace? What about those draftified after discussion which went against this practice? Should we move them en-masse back to mainspace? What about drafts moved from mainspace and later deleted under G13? Right now it's pretty clear draftification is still being used as a backdoor to AfD/PROD and many editors are draftifying old articles without any intention of working on them themselves and where nobody cares enough about the articles to save them from deletion. — Preceding

ping|Chess}} on reply) 23:40, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

@Chess: Draft:List of historical women was originally called List of famous women in history, and was deleted in 2006 per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of famous women in history. Draft:Gangsta Blac was turned into a redirect in 2015, unredirected in 2016 using the Content Translation tool, and then draftified after an explicit consensus to draftify articles created using the Content Translation tool. Neither of those are problematic. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:20, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]