Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 90

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I had first posted this in the vandal project not knowing this notice board was here, my mistake. Pretty self-explanatory but a first on this site I think. Recently a Wikipedia user Surtsicna, has apparently taken it upon themselves to rid this site of ancestry family trees for Wikipedia English as has been the conventional norm (and still is for other language Wikipedias) since it's inception. Not one other person has deleted a single ancestor tree with them as they have unilaterally deleted hundreds of for themselves, always citing the articles' content of being "not relevant" or "not important" in the edit details for the removals. They keep citing a talk page as being a "consensus" for them to do this, but a number of people clearly have a problem in the page itself with their behavior, and obviously, many more people in general would have a problem with it. I have tried to explain that arbitrarily going through and choosing individually which Royal family trees will remain and which ones will be deleted is not neutral, and obviously very bias, they keep being very dismissive and rude, and are watching and blocking anyone from restoring any of these hundreds of Royal Family Trees which they have taken it upon themselves to decide to remove.--JLavigne508 (talk) 15:59, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:WALLOFTEXT. Ain't nobody got time for dat. Elizium23 (talk

) 16:05, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

No hurry, it isn't going to get any better lol.--JLavigne508 (talk) 16:10, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

The relevant discussion is at Template talk:Ahnentafel. One user dismissing the conclusions reached after a months-long discussion does not make my edits "biased". Surtsicna (talk) 16:05, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

No one is going to read that discussion and it does not appear to of been closed with a conclusion. PackMecEng (talk) 16:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Whether you will read it or not, it is there. Surtsicna (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I agree with you. PackMecEng (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

if a dozen Wikipedia editors have a dispute in the template talk space with nobody to read it, does it form a consensus? Elizium23 (talk

) 16:33, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

JBW has attempted to explain things to JLavigne508, but apparently to no avail. Specifically, JBW told JLavigne508 that merely refusing to accept the result of a discussion does not entitle one to edit against it; that requesting a third opinion is pointless if the third opinion is going to be dismissed; that requesting an administrator's assistance is pointless if the administrator's advice is going to be dismissed; and that describing edits by others as "vandalism", "trolling", and "defacing" is not productive, especially when aimed at editors who produced virtually the entire article. And here we are now. Surtsicna (talk) 16:20, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Third opinion was raised for three articles as originally linked, not for the hundreds of pages affected by yourself that I was then unaware of, and as I stated at the top of this post I had tried searching for a venue such as this the first time and couldn't find this notice board at the time and mistakenly filed it on the wrong page. I don't know what you are referring to but all of these articles were written by people 15-20 years ago that are now long gone (I think I am starting to see why). Please stop being rude and dismissive of people, and putting things out of context.--JLavigne508 (talk) 23:37, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

• This is a content dispute between two editors who have very different opinions on inclusion of family trees in articles about members of Royal families. I have no opinion either way on that issue. However, I do have opinions on several aspects of how the dispute has been handled. I have commented on some of the issues elsewhere. However, I have one comment which is relevant here. This is nothing whatever to do with
  neutral point of view. JBW (talk
  ) 16:40, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I have explained in my response on my talk page to yourself and in the top of my post here, that I was unaware of where to take this until now, this is exactly the place for this.--JLavigne508 (talk) 16:45, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

My first reaction is that royal family trees are important because royal positions are hereditary and members of the family who do not hold the crown usually have positions of authority based on their membership in the family. The relationship of royalty in different countries was also important for determining alliances. But I haven't heard the other side of the argument. Were these family trees overly detailed or did they lack reliable sourcing? A genealogist determined the over 4,000 people next in line to the British throne. But I wouldn't support its inclusion in articles about members of the royal family. TFD (talk) 19:21, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

If my understanding is correct, the dispute is not over whether we should have the family trees, but over whether extensive family trees should be included in each article about each person, as opposed to in a more limited range of places, such as article about particular royal families. However, I have not read all of the relevant discussion. JBW (talk) 19:34, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Correct.

without any basis in academic practice. Surtsicna (talk

) 19:58, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Lady Jane Grey's family tree is important and belongs in her article because a major part of her story is the dispute over her claim to the throne. But the article on Elizabeth II does not have her family tree. She became queen because her father was king. If people want to know about her family, they can go to Succession to the British throne. I agree that there is no reason why Leopold's ancestry belongs in his article. Also, that's not the type of family tree that is helpful to readers. For Prince George of Cambridge for example, his royal ancestry is more important than that of Kate Middleton, Diana or the the late Queen Mother. TFD (talk) 20:32, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Heck, look at what I've been through 'recently' at the articles 1920 & 1922? Go figure. GoodDay (talk) 20:12, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

The issue is not whether to include trees or not because all of them will never be removed anyway, so it automatically defaults to bias to say which individuals or which family lines are "not relevant" and "not important" and should have the ancestry information deleted, and which ones aren't, which has been done for hundreds of individual articles and dozens of royal lines (ancestry info removed for all or nearly all members of

Dukes of Bavaria, and many, many, more, while other individuals' and royal lines ancestry were left alone) all done by a single individual in recent months, which is an obvious gross violation of neutrality and falls under Wikipedia:Tendentious editing. --JLavigne508 (talk

) 21:59, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I think it's similar to images. We include them if they are "an important illustrative aid to understanding." (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Choosing images.) Since Lady Jane Grey's claim to throne was based on heredity, a chart showing the relation between the late king and his heirs meets the criteria. The chart itself does not contain any extraneous information such as the ancestors of distant ancestors. On the other hand, how useful is a chart showing all Elizabeth II's great great grandparents? And why do we do this for royalty and nobility, but not commoners? The argument that titles are hereditary doesn't work, because we already have articles listing the holders of specific titles. TFD (talk) 01:19, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Editing some articles before or instead of others is not bias. What is relevant and important is determined by inclusion in or exclusion from reliable sources specializing in the subject (

WP:PROPORTION). Surtsicna (talk

) 10:28, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

This is not a debate to include or not include every article's ancestry information, the ones that have been affected here are for major historical figures according to main stream scholarship, and the edit details given for removing them by this individual are concerning at times going into disturbing: see (Philip the Bold - Revision history) for a good example, "(Removing an unsourced and pointless chart. A chart that names irrelevant great-grandparents while failing to name essential relatives is simply useless)." In all of the ancestry trees removed during this person's edits it cites the "relevance" and "importance" of major historical figures in the edit details. This is not the main stream opinion (if people do not like looking at ancestry family trees for major historical figures then there are many alternative sites to go to online, but this website does not support fringe opinions and adheres to main stream conventions and norms). The fact that this was done (seemingly maliciously) all by a single individual in a number of these major historical figures' pages and not others, and considering this had been done for dozens upon dozens of them in recent months, amounts to a high degree of disregard for neutrality towards the subject in general and the individual articles' backgrounds in the edits in question. Please stop bringing up royal articles that have not been affected by this person's recent wave of edits, most of the royal article pages that did not include ancestry information prior to this were not considered to be as relevant historically, and this website's proportionality was widely looked at as quite appropriate with regards to this matter before this recent spree of concerning and frankly troubling edits.--JLavigne508 (talk) 09:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

"Disturbing", "maliciously", "vandalism", "trolling", and "defacing". Please do keep this going. No, people should not go to other websites to avoid being blasted with genealogy; there is

a policy explicitly stating that Wikipedia is not a genealogy website. And once again, no, it is not the "main stream opinion" of historians/biographers that everyone's great-great-grandparents need be named. It is not "main stream opinion" of historians/biographers that Philip the Bold's great-great-grandparents need be named; absolutely no biography or reference work specializing in Philip or his family names them. Provide evidence for your assertion or drop it. Surtsicna (talk

) 10:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The evidence is your edits and words, the bias is more than obvious. The fact that no one had noticed this until now (it was bound to be at some point), don't blame me for being the messenger. Nothing like this was done in the

Plantagenet Dynasty articles or several others, while you targeted other ones. If it is a policy against genealogy, then you would have to remove the trees for those respective articles, and every other one included, otherwise, again, what you have done is a wide spread case of personal bias and violation of neutrality. I'll say again, please stop being rude. --JLavigne508 (talk

) 10:41, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

At this point I suspect something must be off. No-one could seriously call another editor a malicious troll, a disturbing vandal, and then go on to say: "Please stop being rude." Surtsicna (talk) 13:34, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

You are either putting things or taking things out of context. I have never said the words "malicious troll" or "disturbing vandal" to anybody in my life never mind here lol, and yes, like the example cited above, I found a number of your edit details in this group concerning and a few down right disturbing, and also disturbing is that no one else noticed so many sections removed on this website. It doesn't matter if the intentions were good or bad, or somewhere in between as is often the case for people contributing, it doesn't matter, there is a good argument that articles were not the best served by your recent large amount of edits in this case. Nothing personal about it, if there was a harshness of tone perceived as such that was not my intention, and I will try to take heed of that, and likely was also due to myself being unfamiliar with the jargon here (difference between POV, vandalism, bias, etc.) I think a lot of the referred to edits could really have been given much more thought, my opinion, take with that what you will, it happens, and you felt you did not have to discuss the large amount of content you removed, so I am not going to just brush aside so many pages altered like that under any circumstances.

The argument for a consensus seems very weak (very limited scope, large amount of dissent, highly unorganized, very removed and isolated, unended conclusion, among others) and nor does it apply as this has been undertaken unilaterally and applied very biasly. I will point out one more time that all of the ancestry information on all of the existing biography articles will never be removed (literally impossible and nonsensical obviously), so all we can do is try to keep it as proportional and neutral as possible, which there is a VERY strong case that this exercise has undermined that on this site (if the intention was the opposite, I would strongly urge anyone to consider that). I'm sure the vast majority of people including yourself are smarter and/or more sane than me are you happy lol, but in the context of this site that is irrelevent anyway. I'm not calling anyone nor have I once called anyone on this website (or anywhere as far as I can remember, maybe I should more) stupid or crazy or whatever, that is not my business here. This is giving me a headache, but I have not switched over to another language's Wiki yet, and I'm confident in the system of this site and the state of it is what matters.--JLavigne508 (talk) 07:30, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd say, put the limit at great-grandparents. GoodDay (talk) 00:13, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

These look like good removals, why would we allow different standards for regular and royal biographies? I would also note that these royal lineages are in general “polite” ones which often stray from the historic or scientific. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:39, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with User:Horse Eye's Back. Doug Weller talk 10:31, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

• Yegods, the walls of text. Can no one in this dispute summarize briefly? JLavigne508, it doesn't matter what other wikis do, stop talking about that completely in this discussion or anywhere else. And your entire argument of 7:30 15 June could have been boiled down to "It's impossible to remove this stuff everywhere so we should just keep it and improve it." That's incorrect, to begin with, but my point is your entire two paragraphs could have been stated in 16 words so it should have been stated in 16 words. —valereee (talk) 12:31, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

Why do we list all these relatives who are not

) 00:41, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

The wording in the lead of this article has been disputed. Original author, who appears to have a specific interest in content about right-wing extremism, has re-added the content back multiple times now, and the content remains. At this point, it seems to be an issue about consensus.

Disputed content in lead is as follows: "popular among members of the far-right." Brian Reading (talk) 20:45, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

"Original author, who appears to have a specific interest in content about right-wing extremism" here... As I've explained on the talk page, I restored the content while discussion was ongoing, and when discussion was apparently abandoned after acknowledgement that sources taking some other view apparently don't exist. As I also said there, I'm perfectly happy if it turns out that my opinion is overruled by consensus, but it seems to me that this is one of the more noteworthy things about LBRY, which otherwise does not enjoy a whole ton of coverage in reliable sources.

The New York Times, the Global Network on Extremism & Technology at The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, The Guardian (and The Hill, though this is largely based on The Guardian's reporting), and New Hampshire Public Radio all remark on the fact that LBRY platforms (namely Odysee) have become popular among the far-right/white supremacists/extremists. Those are four (or five, with The Hill) quality sources out of only twelve total reliable and independent sources used in the article (the rest are

MOS:LEAD

instructs that The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.

The arguments against inclusion appear to be that a) mentioning right-wing users on Odysee doesn't accurately reflect the coverage of the userbase, and b) there are left-wing users on Odysee. Brianreading himself acknowledged that a) is really just that it doesn't reflect what he believes coverage of the userbase should be, as he said "I do still hold the stance that there is an implication in the lead that its usage is dominated by far right political content and users, and that this is not factually true, but since no original research is allowed on Wikipedia, I will leave this issue be for now." As for argument b), this for one appears to be original research (I don't believe any existing sources in the article mention leftists, though one mentions apolitical channels), but also would not contradict the statement that the platform is popular among the far-right even if it was sourced. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 22:14, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I've commented on the talk page, but there needs to be a check to make sure this isn't cherry picking a few sources (even if they are high quality ones) by doing a source survey to determine where the language should fall and make sure we (as WP editors) aren't pushing the issue ourselves. To reiterate what I said there, a quick and dirty Google News search shows only 1% of the sources talking about the far right ties, but this doesn't consider the acceptability of sources (as numerous crypto works are among the hits), but if that 1% holds, then this is not a factor to be pushing into the lede no matter the weight of the journalism behind it - body of the article, yes. --Masem (t) 22:21, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

By all means, please do. I wrote most of the article and I included just about all the acceptable sourcing I can find, but if there's more out there I'd love to know of it. You're quite correct that many of the GHits are crypto blogs. Among those hits are also articles about unrelated topics that link to videos on Lbry/Odysee but don't have any value as a source, and a handful with very passing mentions of LBRY. There are also some sources in there that I explicitly avoided using: Media Matters for America (RSP entry), a press release, Reclaim the Net, etc. I do think twelve total sources is actually a fairly complete list of the available sourcing, as this is a relatively small platform even among alt-tech platforms. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 22:32, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT

to suggest that the quality of sources shouldn't be taken into account. Depending on the quality of those sources, it may very well carry more weight than anything even mentioned universally in the lower-quality sources. That is a topic for discussion.

Bear in mind that it may very well be that those remaining 99% of sources have good reasons not to mention a recognizable political slant to the network's userbase. It would be entirely unsurprising to me if an outlet that focuses on crypto took a hard line approach to a "no politics in our articles" rule.

In any case, four reliable sources are plenty to establish the fact, and, as I mentioned, the fact's importance is also spoken to by the quality of the sources who deigned to mention it. Unless there are equally high-quality sources explicitly refuting it, it's not a contentious claim, and needs to be discussed with it in mind that this is just a rote fact about the network, not treated like a contentious claim.

Tell me all about it.

22:36, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Here are two quality sources that mention the content in a different sense. They are really easily found, so I'm not sure why they haven't popped-up yet:

• https://www.zdnet.com/article/blockchain-based-odysee-keeps-your-social-media-content-online
• https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/odysee-launch

One really important thing to note here is that the platform is really big among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, open source enthusiasts, and those who simply want an alternative to YouTube. It's weird to single-out only the content and users who use it only for political purposes. Brian Reading (talk) 23:11, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

The TechCrunch source is citation #4 in the article, and one of the twelve I counted above. The ZDNet source looks to be a good one—it was only published a few months ago (after I finished most of my work on this article) which is probably why I didn't see it. I will look to see if it has usable content that can be added. I will note that my skim of it shows that it says, "There are concerns that far-right, or extremist content will find it has a permanent home on platforms such as Odysee, with little moderation or takedown." It's not a strong enough statement that I'd add it to the citation list in the lead, but it's disingenuous to suggest this is somehow a contradictory source. As for your comments about the platform's other users, this again is what I was talking about when I mention you appear to want to counterweight what reliable sources have published about LBRY with what you think reliable sources should be publishing about LBRY, which is not how

WP:NPOV works. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk

) 23:22, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

In order to suggest it is disingenuous, I think you'd need to know my intent. I'm simply showing that there are articles which discuss the content with far less importance placed on politics, and that it is at least one reason that its inclusion in the lead should be re-examined from the words that you've written there. Please don't try to frame my arguments here. My words are my own. Brian Reading (talk) 23:46, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

(To MPants) In a source survey, weight of source quality would play into that (eg: if you know how MetaCritic arrives at its aggregate score for films/etc., a similar concept would apply here: one NYTimes article likely would equate in weight to 2 or 3 articles from a more local newspaper, for example, in summing these up), so I'm not discounting that the fact the NYTimes and other high quality sources have stated that and that's going to be a major consideration. The level of detail also must be included (are the articles in-depth or just name dropping - name-dropping articles should be discounted in said survey). But, and purely hypothetical, after discounting all unusable sources, if it was still 10 high quality sources that included "right wing" to 500 usable sources that did not, that would still beg the question that focusing on "right wing" in the lede would be inappropriate but still a worthy article in the body. One also should consider if the same work uses the term over and over again. LBRY comes up twice in the NYTimes per gnews and only one time with "right wing" (though the other article is more a "what is blockchain?" explainer article and not quite sign coverage.) If it were the case that we have 5 NYtimes articles but only one of those mentioned "far right" with LBRY, that's probably a point in favor of keeping it out of the lede. A simple Gnews search result is not the end-all solution here, there's work to be done.

An issue here, and this is what I'm seeing common on the far-right spectrum, is that editors are coming in with the preconvienced conclusion "this is a right wing entity" and have a handful of appropriate sources to support that as to push the need to stress that point. That sourcing is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for inclusion at the lede level (but sufficient for the body) under NPOV - its why I stress that you have to make sure these are not cherry-picked sources, particularly for obscure entities. A source survey to show the label or similar factor is that wide-spread in the sources and not just used by a handful is critical. This of course all assumes this is just to talk about the characterization which has no other impact on the entity; if we were talking a situation like Parler where the app's far right nature is what got it in the news and in trouble with the app stores, then obviously that's going to be lede material regardless of what a source survey may say. --Masem (t) 23:58, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Regarding An issue here, and this is what I'm seeing common on the far-right spectrum, is that editors are coming in with the preconvienced conclusion "this is a right wing entity" and have a handful of appropriate sources to support that as to push the need to stress that point: I created this article on January 29. It looked like this for quite some time (with no mention of "far-right" or anything else political in the lead). I didn't add anything about far-right users to the lead until May 31, after the publication of The Guardian, NHPR, and GNET sources. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 00:13, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Looking at least at the Guardian + NHPR sources, the issue even taking those at face value is that the lede addition (and the body too) is missing a good part of the story, in that it is the fact that it is the site's relatively unrestrictive content allowances (by design) that have drawn not only the far right to it but other groups like conspiracy theorist, extremists, etc, all in the wake of social media taking action against these groups and misinformation in late 2020. This certainly should be documented in the body, but it is a far more complex thought that needs more care for inclusion in the lede, assuming a source review deems its appropriate there. That is, simply focusing on "the site has drawn far-right" is missing the forest through the trees from a neutrality aspect - there's a larger story that needs to be told with that. Or alternately, because this is still a rather new site, RECENTISM applies - again, in the body, this is one of the reasons LBRY appears notable (but not the sole one) and so should be documented, but we should be cautious on giving it so much weight in the short term until we see how the site reacts to all this. --Masem (t) 04:03, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

We can certainly expand the article if you think anything is missing, although the things you mention (minimal moderation, a migration of users from social networks that cracked down post-Capitol attack) are already mentioned in the body. As for adding to the lead, I'm not against suggestions for what you think would be a more balanced representation of the sourcing, but I was largely trying to avoid more detail in the lead as I thought it would make the statement even more prominent in what is currently a pretty short introduction. Regarding recentism, LBRY is six years old. The company has already reacted to extremist content on their platform (see The Guardian). Certainly if they change their approach that ought to be incorporated, but I don't think this is a good argument to omit a prominent fact about the site from the lead. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 14:55, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The Odysee part (video hosting) of LBRY is only 6-7 months old from last Dec, and that is what all the reactions are drawn to, not the other content backed by blockchain/crypto for the prior 6 years. That's why RECENTISM comes into play. That Guardian article is from May so we haven't yet seen LBRY yet fully implement anything (if they are), though we know how they stand (they aren't going to remove videos just because they have an extreme ideological POV, but will if they promote direct violence, etc.), and that's not well documented in the body (or at least, the way the article is structured, with "Content and Users" before "Moderation", the thoughts written out in the Guardian + NPR articles don't flow into the article well.) If something must go to the lede, it should be along the lines that "LBRY uses an open and libertarian approach to content moderation, which drew a high proportion of content from far-right, extremists, and conspiracy theorist users to its Odysee video hosting site from December 2020 onward, after other social media sites blocked the use of their services by these groups." or something along those lines. That captures a larger picture of the entire issue at hand, and not just the "the site has far right videos" which is too narrow a cut. --Masem (t) 15:09, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

LBRY has run media hosting sites on top of their blockchain technology under various names (spee.ch, then LBRY.tv and Odysee) since October 2017. Some of the sourcing is specific to Odysee but some (NYT, for example) is discussing LBRY's platform in general. That said, your recommendation around the organization makes sense to me. Something along the lines of your suggested lead sentence might also make sense, though I don't want to make any changes to the lead while this discussion is ongoing. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:24, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Just my read into more sources, its not like this isn't wrong or inappropriate to include - ignoring the crypto sources (which are not reliable for the most part due to extensive COI problems), the primarily coverage of LBRY is from tech sites and then the recent post-Jan 6 spat of mainstream coverage. Its a situation similar to

Discord (software) after the '17 Unite the Right rally - though there, Discord took steps to eliminate the use of its software by alt/far right groups and thus that association is not called out as a major factor (eg appropriate application of RECENTISM). But yes, assuming nothing changes to the site's moderation approach, just expanding to something like what I suggest would seem reasonable in the lede, though that's only a wording suggestion, there are ways to improve that. --Masem (t

) 15:28, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

• A notable feature of the site is its openness to extremist content that YouTube would remove. Section 3 of the main body describes this. The lead should summarize the article's content, so the well-sourced statement that the site is popular among the alt-right belongs in the lead; it is not undue. NightHeron (talk) 00:02, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
  • But does "extremist content" specifically mean "far-right" content? From what I understand, LBRY is open to all content (whether extreme or not), whether left or right, and not simply far-right wing content. Actual content is from the left, right, apolitical and government institutions (ex: The White House). Brian Reading (talk) 01:05, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
    • does "extremist content" really mean "far right" content? - In the present time, yes, it does, and tbh assuming good faith with regard to a question like that is difficult. Also, I would like to remind everyone in this discussion, that the content in question is not political. Rallying people to commit acts of violence and terror as a means of achieving your ideological goals is not politics. Regarding left wing vs right wing: how many insurrections and attempted coups against the state have there been by leftists recently? Further, how many leftists have been publicly, on social media and elsewhere, been advocating violent takeovers of the state, targeted violence, etc, recently? So yes, at this time, "extremist content" is by and large limited to the far right. Sorry that the far left has let you down by failing to counter balance the far right with calls for violence and terror of their own, so we can say "both sides have...yada yada", but it just is the way it is. Firejuggler86 (talk) 04:01, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
    • Answering that question doesn't matter. We have reliable sources that say that LBRY hosts extremist content and far-right content, with at least some overlap between the two. Our article appropriately notes what the RS are saying, and the lead appropriately summarizes the article's contents. As suggested above, removal of the far-right descriptor is most likely if you find a selection of RS that reject the label or a large enough body of RS that omit mention of right-wing extremism that mention of it becomes undue. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 06:02, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
    • @GorillaWarfare: It seems clear that you have an understanding of how these disputes are meant to be carried out that many of us are failing to grasp. Could you confirm that if we would provide a body of reliable sources that either reject or omit the far-right label, that this would substantiate our concerns that the inclusion places undue weight on a portion of the site's user base? I do appreciate you’ve taken a fair amount of abuse from other editors on this matter and respect that you’re doing the right thing in defending the formal procedures, though perhaps you can understand that many of the people engaging in this discussion are likely to be users of the platform themselves and feel the insistence has been on assigning them to an extremist group that they do not wish to be associated with. I may be willing to put some time in to see if this can’t be done in the proper manner but do I at least have some assurance that you’d be willing to work with me in order to come to a suitable arrangement?--Jorsh Wah (talk) 00:07, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
      • @
        WP:RSP. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk
        ) 00:29, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Snake Oil

("oil from a snake" and "the pseudoscience term")

Snake oil has an RFC for whether this article should be split into two articles: "literal oil from a snake" and "the pseudoscience term." A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:59, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The original title was: Nature of Amhara ethnicity section was added to affect NPOV of the article, by including fringe statements and deliberate misattributions to give false perception of broader support.

• Cordless Larry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Dawit S Gondaria (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hello this is my first time using specialized noticeboards, and i was doubting whether this should have gone to the fringe noticeboard, so if this more suited to be in another Noticeboard, kindly move me there.

The discussion is about the Amhara people#Nature of Amhara ethnicity section which i believe was one of the section added to the Amhara people to negatively affect the NPOV and quality of the article and arguing for it's removal. You can see the discussion in at Talk:Amhara people, a User, and a adminstrator @Cordless Larry has added the most content in that section.

These are the diffs added by User: [[1]] & [[2]] & [[3]] & [[4]] & [[5]] & [[6]] & [[7]]

I have at depth explained on the talkpage each diff, what he misattributed to who, what text he altered/corrupted: a sizeable part of the contributions by the user are the views of Takelle Tadesse, an otherwise unknown author who made controversial statements including comparing Amharas to nazi's and has denied the existence of Amharas(a view held by a minority) post 1991 Ethiopia. User has attempted to give his view broader support by altering text of otherwise neutral author Gideon P.E Cohen creating perception he made the statement when it in fact Takelle Tadesse. He has several times misattributed statements to other authors including Donald Levine, an expert on Ethiopian studies.

I find mind boggeling to the level of synthesis, misattributions and extremist fringe this User/administrator went, it appears he has a obession with this article, and i'm also arguing to have his conduct on this article as a administrator be investigated. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 13:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I know something about this area and will take a peek. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:28, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Thankyou @TrangaBellam Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 14:43, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Dawit S Gondaria has recently posted a very long comment at Talk:Amhara people#Removal of nature of Amhara ethnicity section, a compilation/synthesis WP:OR contains and push fringe theory WP:Fringe that is outright offensive, supported by misquotes and misattributions adding to WP:RSP and WP:NPOV concerns, which I've not had time to read, let alone respond to. However, to address some points made above, I don't have an obsession with this article. I added material based on scholarly sources to the section concerned to try to address concerns that were expressed at Talk:Amhara people/Archive 1#Concerning the article "disputed ethnic classification of amhara. I'm surprised to read that I've "several times misattributed statements to other authors including Donald Levine, an expert on Ethiopian studies", as the material attributed to Levine was already in the article before I made additions. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

As for "altering text of otherwise neutral author Gideon P.E Cohen creating perception he made the statement when it in fact Takelle Tadesse", I've checked what I added from Cohen, and it's a direct quote from an article he wrote. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The additions that I did make can be seen here and here. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:51, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

@Cordless Larry You didn't mention Gideon P.E Cohen was expressing Takelle Tadesse view not his own, which is in the source and can be confirmed by everyone. You alterted the text in such a fashion that is misleading, and make it appear that it is Gideon P.E Cohen view, thus giving the appearance of broader support of what you are pushing.

●Text in the source, end of page 191 and begin of page 192 Full text: The question of whether the Amhara can legitimately be regarded as an ethnic group has also been raised, given their distribution throughout Ethiopia, and the incorporative capacity of the group that has led to the inclusion of individuals from a wide range of ethnic or linguistic backgrounds (see Takkele 1994; Tegegne 1998) ●What Cordless Larry added: Cohen, writing in 2000, there is some debate about "whether the Amhara can legitimately be regarded as an ethnic group...given their distribution throughout Ethiopia, and the incorporative capacity of the group that has led to the inclusion of individuals from a wide range of ethnic or linguistic backgrounds".^[1].

As for Donald Levine, even if the text was there before, you reverted back and then added your addition without checking the source, and confirming whether Donald Levine actually made that quote which he didn't Encyclopeadia Aethiopia made a selective statement, put out of context from what Clapham(Not Levine) actually discussed in his 1969 book Haile Selassie government. Wy are you even a adminstrator if you can't even check the sources? Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The words I used from Cohen are a direct quote, so they're appropriately attributed to Cohen. He cites Takkele and Tegegne as examples of participants in the debate he's describing. If you want to add that detail, that would be fine by me.

On Levine, being an administrator isn't conditional on having access to offline sources. If someone had pointed out a problem with it, I'd have gone to greater effort to find and check the source, but what I reverted was this removal, for which source concerns weren't mentioned. If the quote needs to be corrected or the attribution changed, that can of course be done.

How this all adds up to POV-pushing by me, I don't know, but I'll leave that for others to judge. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:14, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I've now seen and checked the Levine source, and here's what he writes: "Even so, Amharic-speaking Šäwans still feel themselves closer to non-Amharic-speaking Šäwans than to Amharic-speakers from distant regions like Gondär and there are few members of the Šäwan nobility who do not have Oromo ge­nealogical links (Clapham 1969:81)". So yes, he cites Clapham, but nonetheless the quote is from Levine. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:07, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

@Cordless Larry It makes a big difference by excluding Takelle Tadesse. ●Besides the controversial statements(comparison to nazi's, denial of existence) he made in 1994 at a debate, he is a nobody in Ethiopian studies(Prove me wrong). He is taking the centre stage in the fringe theory you are pushing, with the most statements pointing to him. It's points to POV-pushing by you, a administrator who don't second guess and cross check controversial inflamitory statements made by a nobody, Takelle Tadesse doesn't even publish material(or maybe you can find something)? His fringe(denial of Amhara existence) is a minority view held by post-1991, no credible non-political renowned authors deny the existence of which 20+ million people self-identify. and Takkele Tadesse inflamitory, comparison to nazi's is unacceptable. In no way is this a reliable impartial source. The way you framed the sentence by Gideon P.E Cohen and left out Takkele Tadesse(your most fav source) who view he was mentioning, makes it POV-pushing.

@The quote needs to be removed for one(as should the entire section), i explained in the talk page: that no comparison has been by Clapham between Amharas from Shewa & Amharas from distant regions from Gondar It was full of contradictions which i pointed out. It also makes a big difference that it was not a quote from Levine. In modern context, that statement would be viewed as a sick joke given the frequent episodes of violence that occur in Oromia against Amharas. In no other reliable sources do the make that comparison, and neither has Clapham. Encyclopediae Aethiopia gave no context and no examples, even with the genealogical links of the royal family, examples on page 7 were given that Galla's were ousted when they came close to controlling the throne. In page 81 there was a distinction made viewing the Shoan(Shewan) Amharas as invaders and settlers. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 20:22, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't even know who Takkele Tadesse is, Dawit S Gondaria. All I've added is based on academic sources that I found using Google Scholar. If any of the authors I've cited have been discredited or demonstrated to be fringe sources, then I'd happily remove them, but you'd need to provide evidence of that. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Re "It also makes a big difference that it was not a quote from Levine": It is a word-for-word quote of what Levine wrote in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. The full quote is "Even so, Amharic-speaking Šäwans still feel themselves closer to non-Amharic-speaking Šäwans than to Amharic-speakers from distant regions like Gondär and there are few members of the Šäwan nobility who do not have Oromo ge­nealogical links (Clapham 1969:81)", and you can check that for yourself. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:29, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Content from Encyclopedia Aethiopica page 231: The district of Manz became the cen�tre for the development of a political dynasty culminating in Negus Sahla Sellase (1813-47) and

Emperor Menelik II (s. Levine 1965:30- 38). Over time the term A. came to be applied to a wider range of people, although the meanings of that appellation have varied . In some contexts it denotes a native Amharic speaker; in others, a Christian; in some instances, it has denoted a member of the ruling nobility (Chernetsov 1995). Most of those so labelled, however, have tended to identify themselves, not as ethnic A., but as denizens of local regions - Goggame, Gondare, Manze and the like. Royal chronicles of the 14th-18th century, consistentl y refer to A. onl y as a geographic region in Wallo, never as an ethnic name, and the same is true of Christian and Muslim annals up through the 19th century(Chernetsov 1995:20f.) . Only in the last quarter of the 20th century has the term A. come to be a common ethnic appellation, comparable to the way in which Oromo has become generalized to cover peoples who long knew themselves pri�maril y as Boorana (Borana), Guggi, Macca and the like. Even so, Amharic-speaking Sawans still feel themselves closer to non-Amharic-speaking Sawans than to Amharic-speakers from distant regions like Gondar and there are few members of the Sawan nobility who do not have Oromo ge�nealogical links (Clapham 1969:81). ●@Cordless Larry Again Wrongly attributed to Donald Levine Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 20:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

@

WP:SHOUT. We can hear you. –Austronesier (talk

) 20:48, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

All of that is written by Levine. He's the author of that entry in the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, hence why his name appears at the end of the entry on p. 232. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:46, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Takelle Tadesse author you say? What did he publish, share it? Takelle Tadesse fringe theory: Denial of Amhara existence. ●I answered on the talk page. During the first millenium A.D. the inhabitants of Amhara were Agew peoples who developed a distinct South-Ethio Semetic tongue, Amarinna or Amharic.^[2]. Under the kings of Amhara, as Yikunno Amlak and his succesors were called by contemporary Arab writers, the Amhara sphere of influence expanded considerably.^[3] Besides his fringe statement, he makes nazi comparison. How is that NPOV? Takelle Tadesse is rememberd for one debate where he made history with his controversial remarks. I'm eager to see what you can find on Google Scholar.

It makes a big difference, just like how you didn't mention Takkele Tadesse when attributing to Gideon P.E Cohen. It narrows down it's support to the source. Clapham's quote from 1969 citing by Levine, is full of contradictions, namely which i already mentioned that Oromo saw Shoan Amharas as invaders and settlers, and Clapham gave no examples of who in the nobility have Galla blood, except for some members in the Royal on page 78, who were ousted when they came close to controlling the throne. I also said that there's no other reliable sources that compare Shoan Amharas ties with Shoan Oromos as being closer than to Amharas from distant regions. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 21:29, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I didn't cite Tadesse or Clapham; Cohen and Levine did (N.B. Levine doesn't quote Clapham, just cites him). If you have a problem with Cohen and Levine's use of sources, you'll need to take it up with them. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Cordless Larry That is a lame excuse Example: if i added French-Canadians are nazi's and French-Canadians don't exist citing a author who cited a controversial remarks by someone with dubious credibility. I can basically make the same lame execus as you did and say i didn't cite that guy, but Cohen did, take it up with them. So is that how Wikipedia works? So basically i can indirectly add controversial views if authors mentions controversial remarks by someone less credible? I just have to basically do what you did at the beginning, and attribute it to the reliable authors, and very important detail; not mention them citing the source of the controversial remarks. I learned a lot of how you do things admin. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 21:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia works by summarising

reliable sources, which Cohen's article and Levine's encyclopedia entry would seem to qualify as. If you've got other sources that show that Cohen and Levine are wrong, then please do present them (though note that Cohen isn't even necessarily agreeing with Takkele and Tegegne, just citing them as examples of the debate that he's saying exists). Cordless Larry (talk

) 22:01, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Note to anyone reading this: Dawit S Gondaria has been editing the wording of their comments after I've replied to them, so if anything in my replies doesn't make sense, that might be why. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:16, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Neglible rephrasing, see the diffs. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 22:28, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Note: I'm inviting editors from other Noticeboards, to cross check on issue's like fringe and reliable sources. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 22:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

@Cordless Larry Reliability depends on context, which is lacking when you addedd Clapham's 1969 quote: "Amharic-speaking Shewans consider themselves closer to non-Amharic-speaking Shewans than to Amharic-speakers from distant regions like Gondar and you recently expanded with [[8]] but left out what followed in page 81, which is At least in Shoa where the process of assimilation has gone the furthest, it's therefore impossible to make any clear division between the two groups, though the actual effectiveness of the process can only be gauged in time of crises.^[4] Age matters in a reliable source, this is inaccurate, because divisions are very clear. I said earlier In modern context, that statement would be viewed as a sick joke given the intercommunal violence between Amharas and Oromos in Shewa(both in Oromia's side of Shewa, and Amhara side of Shewa, also administrative division)^[5][6] Now if you don't care about the modern context and the clear divisions and violence. Surely you can establish a majority view with more reliable sources that are also recent; that Amharas in Shewa & Oromos in Shewa feel closer to each other than to Amharas from distant regions? Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 02:52, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

As I've already explained, that's a quote from Levine, not Clapham. Levine cites Clapham for support, but the words are Levine's, not Clapham's. I also didn't add the quote to the article - another editor did. Your inability or unwillingness to accept this is verging on a

issue.

If you think more material from Levine should be added, then the place to propose that would be the article's talk page, not the NPOV noticeboard. Cordless Larry (talk) 05:21, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@(

WP:CIR is uncalled for, you reverted it back and kept the controversial section, and now we are here scrutinizing everything about it. Dawit S Gondaria (talk

) 05:53, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

No, Levine isn't quoting Clapham. See here; there are no quote marks. I think you're confusing citing an author with quoting an author. Cordless Larry (talk) 05:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:TALK#REPLIED. Cordless Larry (talk

) 06:12, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

My mistake it's still early. Your newest addition did quote Clapham[[10]], nevertheles, any analysis or interpretation of the quoted material from Levine, your earlier addition, which is supported by the same Clapham, where you quoted your latest addition however, should rely on a secondary source. All i'm asking is for the claim to be backed. Levine is citing Clapham the original source, what did he say? I elaborated that. Again

WP:RS, original source matters, age matters and context definitely matters. Stop dodging what i asked, and back the claim. Dawit S Gondaria (talk

) 06:24, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

No, I didn't quote Clapham. I corrected and expanded the quote from Levine and clarified that he's drawing on Clapham's work, which is very clear from the diff. Sorry, I'm not going to engage here any more unless other editors have questions for me, given your continued misrepresentations of my actions. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:28, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@(talk) I'm not covering up anything, i acknowledged my mistake and mixed up where you are quoting Clapham in your newest addition and your earlier addition where Levine cites Clapham in the original source. It's still fundamentally doesn't change what i'm asking for, what i elaborated, and what policies i'm referring FYI, in your newest addition is not Levine's own words anymore, it's exactly the words of Clapham on page 81 these words: and there are few members of the Shoan nobility who have no Galla blood. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 06:40, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Another misrepresentation: my addition doesn't use the word "blood", so it can't be those exact words. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:55, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

(

WP:RS, and i'm certain you understand that's where i was going with this. What i don't understand is why want to avoid this. Any other editors input is welcome. Dawit S Gondaria (talk

) 07:19, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@ You reverted this [[12]] "Amharic-speaking

WP:RS I made strong arguments for the inaccuracy of the statement due to age, and not in line with modern context backed with sources. I asked you to support what you reverted/added with reliable recent sources backing the claim; "Amharic-speaking Shewans consider themselves closer to non-Amharic-speaking Shewans than to Amharic-speakers from distant regions like Gondar. If you're not backing the claim , then i'm removing it from the section. Dawit S Gondaria (talk

) 07:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I reverted to the consensus version of the article pending discussion on its talk page, which is standard practice per

WP:BRD. Discussion took place but no one mentioned these concerns you're now raising. You raised the concerns on the article talk page yesterday, and then before I could even read your comments, you opened a case here. Cordless Larry (talk

) 08:44, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

And you've now removed words from the middle of a quote from Levine, thus turning it into a misquote. I've reverted that. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:46, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@

WP:RS age and context of which Levine is basing it original source Clapham on and i challenged you and asked you to substantiate your (now partial quote) with recent reliable sources that support the claim(now partial quote): "Amharic-speaking Shewans consider themselves closer to non-Amharic-speaking Shewans than to Amharic-speakers from distant regions like Gondar. If this is truly accurate you can easily substantiate that by adding reliable recente sources. Please stop avoiding this. Dawit S Gondaria (talk

) 19:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I linked to the discussion in my first reply above; it's Talk:Amhara people/Archive 1#Concerning the article "disputed ethnic classification of amhara. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm relatively new on Wikipedia, and may have made some policy errors(if it is one) like not waiting long enough for Cordless Larry to reply on talk page, but i saw clear NPOV and clear fringe issue's on the article in two sections; i went through the diffs, i went through the sources and made my case. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 19:08, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm coming a bit late into this discussion, and I'm not sure that I can provide anything useful beyond what Cordless Larry already presented here. He patiently explained his edits, not holding anything back, and it is clear that his edits are fully in line with Wikipedia's rules. The text in the diff says <<According to Gideon P. E. Cohen, there is some debate about "whether the Amhara can legitimately be regarded as an ethnic group...">>. He gives the correct citation in which Cohen indeed reports on this debate, citing his own sources. Here in this discussion Cordless Larry gave us the full text of what Cohen wrote, proving to us that he did not misquote Cohen (and no, it is usually not necessary to quote the sources that the author of a secondary source used). Dawit S Gondaria, please note and accept that Cordless Larry with no word indicated that he himself believes or doesn't believe whether Amharas have had an ethnic identity before 1991. He just gives us a source that proves that this identity has been under discussion, as his diff states. Let me also advise you that expressions like "pushing POV" and "extremist fringe" in situations where this is clearly not the case display a clear assumption of bad faith in an editor whose conduct in all instances I have seen so far has been beyond reproach, particularly also in this situation. This choice of words is not going to help you to win any support in this discussion. You are not going to gain anything by a continuation of these baseless accusations which are rather a testimony of your lack of understanding how sources are used in academia and on Wikipedia.

Furthermore, I believe that you are not giving Takkele Taddese enough credit when you denigrate him as a nobody. He was active as a sociolinguist during the 1980s and 1990s, and produced publications such as this and this. Addis Ababa University certainly deemed him qualified enough to publish his writings. LandLing 22:30, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

First of all i want to note that LandLing is not a uninvolved editor, and has made his own additions to the controversial sections. I tend to focus on @Cordless Larry because most of the reverted/added edits come from him. ● Correction: The diff [[18]] says: According to Gideon P. E. Cohen, there is some debate about "whether the Amhara can legitimately be regarded as an ethnic group...given their distribution throughout Ethiopia, and the incorporative capacity of the group that has led to the inclusion of individuals from a wide range of ethnic or linguistic backgrounds".^[7] The source says: The question of whether the Amhara can legitimately be regarded as an ethnic group has also been raised, given their distribution throughout Ethiopia, and the incorporative capacity of the group that has led to the inclusion of individuals from a wide range of ethnic or linguistic backgrounds (see Takkele 1994; Tegegne 1998)^[8] The problem: Is the way Cordless Larry phrased his edit, 1. He left out that he was citing Takkele Tadesse, and 2. He added According to, for anyone reading and not checking the source, you would think(i sure did, before checking the source) that implies there's a broader support namely from Gideeon P.E Cohen, which is not the case he was only mentioning Takkele Tadesse(most of the fringe comes from him in the section) I take issue with this because from what Cordless Larry left out from the source, made it look like he misattributed the view to Gideon P.E Cohen, a neutral source and gave false impression of broader support.

@LandLing As for Takkele Tadesse, frist of all i want to commend you finding anything about him at all. It doesn't change that the most fringe in the section are his controversial statements, not from a publication but from a debate from a congress in 1994. How is that reliable? ●Context Following the introduction of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, Donald Levine added a preface in his 2000 edition discussing this. On page xviii ^[9] he stated; From Marxism they salvaged only the Stalinist principle (which of course was never respected in the USSR) of self-determination up to seccession. The new ideology of Ethiopia was to view it as consisting of an aggregation of numerous ethnic liberation movements. In order to promote this ideology, its supporters had to find an oppressor from whom the various ethnic groups had to be liberated, and they found it in the image of the wicked Amhara. This was the political climate of Ethiopia post 1991, when Amharas lost power and were persecuted by the new regime. Takkele Tadess from Addis Abeba University with his fringe and inflamitory statements made at a Congress rightly should rightly categorized as fringe and unreliable. It's hard to shore up the credibility of otherwise a phantom proffesor(though his fringe views is affecting NPOV of Amhara people article today). Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 23:58, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Selfdisclosure: Yes, of course I am not uninvolved, which is what gets me into this discussion. What you fail to realize is that neither Cordless Larry nor I have any interest whatsoever to elevate or play down the role of any ethnic group in Ethiopia. For five years I was a very happy guest of Amhara region, for which I am grateful, and at the same time I feel free to report on circumstances or discussions that may appear less than just plain complementary in the eyes of some of the readers. Both Cordless Larry and I are primarily interested that the rules of Wikipedia are adhered to, both when stuff is added to an article, and when people want to remove stuff. When claims are not or only insufficiently sourced, they can and should be deleted. When statements are well sourced, they must not be deleted. And given the situation here, in spite of your protestations to the contrary, there are a number of reliable sources demonstrating that there is a debate about the Amhara ethnic identity. You claim here that these sources are not sufficiently reliable, but the only evidence you provide on that is your word that you believe them to be fringe and POV-driven. When we provide evidence that your claims are based on faulty assumptions (such as what Levine or Cohen really wrote, or about Takkele's academic credentials), you expose us to excurses on Marxism and Stalinism in Ethiopia, which are not related in any way to the matter of this discussion - that you accuse an even-handed editor/admin of driving fringe theories, and that you want to delete well-sourced content (according to all relevant policies of Wikipedia), apparently because you don't agree with the claims made. This, by the way, fits exactly into Wikipedia's definition of

POV-driven editing. It is time for you to leave this behind. What you should do instead is to look for reliable sources proposing views different to those presented in order to balance what has been written so far - this would ensure a proper NPOV-treatment of the matter, as opposed to removing sourced content that you don't agree with. LandLing

07:30, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The only thing I attributed to Cohen is the claim that there's a debate, which there clearly is. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:49, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

And back to Takkele: the contribution cited by Cohen and in the article is not an off-hand remark thrown in at a bar-room discussion, but a peer-reviewed chapter in the proceedings of an International Conference of Ethiopian Studies. It is a perfectly valid reliable source. LandLing 09:17, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@

Herrenvolk philosophy, this is an inflammatory statement, accusing another's people group elite adhering to a nazi ideology while at the same time ●Obvious fringe: Say Amharas don't exist, a view held by a insignificant minority which Cordless Larry tried and failed to broaden the support for this fringe view by misattributing the view to Gideon P.E Cohen. What the discussion many months ago Talk:Amhara people/Archive 1#Concerning the article "disputed ethnic classification of amhara is showing that Users were expressing clear concerns for the fringe/inflammatory content in the article, but couldn't articulate the problem well enough. Now Cordless Larry

has claimed some of the content has been there before he reverted and are attributed to other editors, which is why it's important to get the broader community involved and scrutinize this article and it's editors going back months, maybe years.

There needs to be clear seperation made on all what kind of discussions/publications scholars made regarding

WP:FRINGE

if there was a broad significant minority show me more publications, journals, research by more reliable sources in quantity and substance that say Amharas don't exist.

The Nature of Amhara ethnicity section(and social stratification section) definitely negatively affect the NPOV of this article, it looks like Nature of Amhara ethnicity it might have been deliberatly created to sneak in fringe statements some unknown so-called scholar made with political connotation rather than based on research publications. It's only here on Wikipedia and opinion forums, that fringe statements are sustained, no wonder it's deemed less accurate than [12] Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I didn't add the "fused stock" material myself, I just reverted its removal pending discussion on the talk page. This is standard practice when someone removes a section of an article without first gaining consensus, as explained at

WP:AN/I. Cordless Larry (talk

) 17:35, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@Cordless Larry Please report me, and i will show the diff and the source, what you left out(has also been raised, Takelle Tadesse 1994, Tegegne 1998) and added(According to) and made it look like Gideon P.E Cohen shared that view Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 17:40, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

On the matter of Herrenvolk philosophy: It is certainly not a positive concept by any standard, but your claim that it is an accusation of adhering to a Nazi ideology is inherently not correct. The word Herrenvolk came up in Germany in the second half of the 19th century, used by colonialists and imperialists such as Carl Peters. They actually took it (and translated it) from a French white supremacist who wrote about it in 1855, and the Herrenvolk ideology was (ab)used as justification by the promotors of colonies in Africa and elsewhere. It was also picked up by Friedrich Nietzsche, who developed it into his Übermensch concept. All this was then hungrily assimilated by the Nazis when they came to power more than a generation later, but it is not per se a Nazi concept, and it is not okay to accuse Takkele of comparing the Amharas to Nazi ideologists solely based on the use of that word, as it has a much longer history. For all I know, Takkele is an Amhara himself. LandLing 21:21, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE

show everyone all the publications, journals and research by more reliable sources in quantity and substance that say Amharas don't exist & Herrenvolk philosophy elite politicans Takkele is an Amhara himself that's funny and irrelevant, but you can show the source of that too. But more importantly show that his views doesn't belong to a insignificant minority.

As i time and time again clarified above, and now in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Bad-faith_accusations_by_Dawit_S_Gondaria and i emphasize everyone to compare the changes @Cordless Larry made regarding Gideon P.E Cohen, and why my good faith turned to bad faith. Again Cordless Larry left out question raising: Has also been raised(By who?) & Takkele, Tegegne & Added: According to everyone who assumes good faith, reading the altered edit will see it as Gideon P.E Cohen view which is not, unless you check the source, and see what he removed, my faith rightly diminished and my so-called accusation against this administrator Cordless Larry are indeed well founded. Again calling on the wider wikipedia community to get involved. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 23:27, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

You keep throwing around the template

WP:FRINGE. Have you actually read the page behind it and compared it to what is going on here? You want us to blank an entire section because you believe that it promotes fringe theories. In response we have shown you that the views held in that section are indeed discussed in the academic literature, and we also showed you that the sources presented are reliable - this is our useful contribution to an NPOV discussion on this page, and we can't do more. The only thing you can do now to keep this debate alive is to present your own sources that state something different, but instead you have given us walls and walls of your own thoughts, with not a single reliable source thrown in to balance the sources that are already there. I will stop my engagement in this discussion here, because I don't expect anything substantial from you that moves this discussion along in the Wikipedia way. LandLing

06:28, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

A reminder that what the article says is "According to Gideon P. E. Cohen, writing in 2000, there is some debate...". The view being attributed to Cohen is that there's debate, not Takkele's views as part of that debate. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:16, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Sources

S2CID 144103747 . ^ Donald N. Levine in Greater Ethiopia; The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society, 2000, page 72 ^ Donald N. Levine in Greater Ethiopia; The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society, 2000, page 73 ^ Christopher S. Clapham in Haile-Selassie's government, 1969, p.78-81 (1969: page 81) ^ https://borkena.com/2021/04/05/shewa-robit-killing-under-federal-government-investigation-report/ ^ https://www.theafricareport.com/57957/ethiopia-understanding-oromias-mayhem-after-hachalus-murder/ JSTOR 41931261 . JSTOR 41931261 . ^ Donald N. ::::Levine in Greater Ethiopia; The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society, 2000, preface 2000 page xviii ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amhara_people&diff=985581696&oldidpeak for other users, =985549697 ^ a b Takkele Taddese "Do the Amhara Exist as a Distinct Ethnic Group?" in Marcus, Harold G., ed., Papers of the 12th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, 1994, pp.168–186. ^ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amhara

) 18:56, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Attention is needed for this

original research advancing a POV in favor of a contentious label. Terjen (talk

) 21:17, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Direct quote from

WP:NOR: "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards."--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕}

) 22:49, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Can somebody come close this RfC that is getting way out of hand and going way beyond the scope of its proposal? Thanks. --Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:56, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Is this the right page for reporting editor behavior?

Nope… this is where we talk about articles that may not pass our WP:NPOV policy. Blueboar (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

The editor has made edits that violate Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and has deeply insulted me. I got a message on my talk page saying where I can report him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GBFEE (talk • contribs) 22:33, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a dispute between

talk · contribs). The dispute has now been reported at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#MordvinEvgen and sex difference_information. EdJohnston (talk

) 22:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Dear members of the community, I would like to ask for your help. There is an article which from my point of view is not neutral. Most of the voices against seems to have a different point of view. Briefly: there are three articles about current conflict in Ukraine:

) 18:00, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

• Short answer: read
  WP:POVNAME
  .

Longer answer: It depends - Did we (Wikipedia) come up with the name, or are we following source usage? If the former, then you might have a point. If the latter, then it would actually be non-neutral to reject the most commonly used name for it.

Finally, if the issue is objection to the name (or description) used for this article, then AFD is not the right venue. We don’t delete an article about a notable topic just because the article’s title might be problematic. We have a separate system for examining and reaching consensus on problematic titles (see: WP:Requested moves otherwise known as WP:RM).Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Blueboar! Unfortunately lobby of not neutral point of view is strong here. And this is not commonly used named but in some countries this is how some political power wants to present the situation. The fact is that this article mostly duplicates another article (the titles are different but the content is same) describing War in Donbas--Sputnik13 (talk) 04:22, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

(taking no position on this matter one way or the other)Sputnik13, when articles are merged, though - which I think is what you're proposing - the article titles that are not kept (AFAIK) are typically not deleted, but are instead turned into redirects to the article title that is kept; and also the talk page discussions are copied over manually. That way, none of the editing history is lost. You can try doing a BOLD merge of these articles on your own, but don't be shocked if you are reverted :). Firejuggler86 (talk) 21:17, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

FYI,

Ukrainian crisis is covered in the background, but not part of the topic. Due to the large size of these articles, I shudder at the thought of suggesting someone BOLDly merge any of them, much less an editor with less than two dozen edits in the article space. —Michael Z

. 20:04, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello all, I am a longtime lurker and new to editing so please forgive me if I make any egregious errors.
- Talk page dispute (I encourage you to read this as both myself and Alex both made excellent points even if I still disagree with them overall.)
- Problem quote: "Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying have spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic on numerous occasions.[5][6][7]"
- What I suggest: Delete the statement in the lead, but leave the much more reasonable Covid section near the bottom of the article.

- Arguments for removal of that statement (This is my direct commentary/opinion since I am alleging the NPOV breach):
1. According to

and yet other sources breach the same terms in my opinion and are included as valid such as this VICE article.

6. The talk page details several claims of breaching NPOV, and while some of those are certainly editors with malicious intent (as I write this somebody is currently in a revert war with one of them), some of them are not (like mine) and you can view their history on the talk page.

7. Recently there has been some controversy regarding the lab leak theory originally presented by the Trump administration last year. Politifact certified the claim as "pants on fire" yet recently retracted it because they fell into the same pitfall the entry currently is which is that you cannot allow non-experts to comment on volatile and developing medical issues before you have all the facts (which is the stance the CDC/WHO/NIH/EMU are all taking regarding Ivermectin).

- Arguments against removal of that statement (These are direct quotes taken from the talk page from multiple sections):
1. "Vice is not a super-strength source, that is true. But here it's reporting plain facts that are easily verified, so it's fine. Ivermectin promotion is misinformation per multiple top-level medical sources, and Wikipedia needs to be clear about that to be neutral.".

2."In medicine the assumption is that something does not work unless and until sufficient evidence disproves that assumption. This is more or less what all the

applies."

Thank you. 24.23.4.56 (talk) 22:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC) FrederickZoltair (talk) 02:33, 3 July 2021 (UTC) (I am 24.23.4.56 and recently registered)

One aspect that is brought up in the reasons to keep: While we 100% have a responsibility to label misinformation as misinformation, that speaks nothing towards putting information in the LEDE. The statement, as is, (As well as the previous statement related to membership in the "intellectual dark web") read as huge scarlet letters on the article, in part because they provide little context or information beyond the accusatory finger-pointing in Wikipedia's voice. There perhaps is reasons for these to be in the lede, but as the IP identifies, there's a requirement for the lede to be dispassionate and impartial, and that might require discussing more about the matter and making sure that attributed statements are clearly made as attributed ones. There is a separate question which is related to whether, in a DUE summary of the article, if these are appropriate parts of the bio to highlight in the lede, given that they don't take up as close to the weight of the discussion about the college (COVID is one paragraph, the dark web one sentence), which again calls to making those appear as scarlet letters. We're not here to blame BLPs in wikivoice and focusing on only negative attributes in the lede that short is definitely a problem. --Masem (t) 23:18, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Our obligation is to summarize the subject as the sources do, and this seems to be getting significant coverage. We can argue over whether that coverage is sufficient to justify inclusion in the lead, but your argument that you feel that coverage of the topic is a huge scarlet letter and should therefore be omitted or downplayed is an argument grounded in your personal passions and feelings, and is therefore completely unsupported by policy. We achieve dispassionate impartiality by reporting the facts as the sources report them, with weight appropriate to the weight they assign, not by putting our thumb on the scale based on an editor's personal convictions about what ought to be covered or what neutral weighing in the sources should look like. Even if the sources are more negative than you would prefer, we are still required to reflect them; and doing so is the only way we can cover them neutrally. Putting our thumb on the scale, as you suggest, in order to impose your personally preferred idea of balance on an article is a violation of our neutrality. --Aquillion (talk) 13:05, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

That's not true; I looked for corroborating sources (yesterday) and currently Vice seems to be the best sources on this matter related to Weinstein, and few other RSes have picked it up. (This also may be due to its RECENTISM aspect). I would argue differently if this was something frequently discussed when looking up material about the person, but this is clearly not the case. Now, perhaps in a few weeks or so, there will be more sources and this situation might change, but as of right now, how this is written with that focused in the lede is an inappropriate reflection of sources for a BLP. --Masem (t) 13:17, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Masem, What about these? [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] They don't all explicitly call Weinstein's claims "misinformation" but many of those refer to information that is elsewhere heavily referred to as "misinformation" or otherwise heavily imply the information is misleading or false (e.g. that the vaccine is "cytotoxic."--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:00, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I am specifically looking to sources that name Bret Weinstein in more than just passing (the Reuters article and the Slaon are examples that his name only comes up in passing). And while we recognize that what Weinstein is pushing is per MEDRS misinformation (and the body handles this quite well neutrally), it is an non-neutral, OR stretch to speak that in WP voice particularly in the lede, in addition to the RECENTISM issue. It's easy to piece-part criticism to say "well, its right there!" to try to justify the lede but no, there really isn't that much out there specifically that can be worked from given what I actually can see on the specific issue that's being highlighted, and the shape of the rest of the article. (That said, at least a few of those articles seem to be information that should be added to the article like the Politifact one if this point is to be bolster)

And keep in mind the other half of the equation here is tone. The scarlet letter facet is because the statement is so blunt and out of left field and thus seems accusational. If this holds up post-RECENTISM considerations, there's likely a way to phrase things in the lede to not make it so decidely accusational but a narrative of why this applies so that the reader understands the point it came from. --Masem (t) 15:46, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

• Something to consider whenever a famous person goes viral for spouting misinformation… we don’t have to “correct the misinformation” if we don’t mention the misinformation in the first place. Blueboar (talk) 02:49, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
  • That's true, but when it's getting picked up by multiple sources and is the most interesting thing about the person (witness the influx of SPAs on that article), being silent starts to become a NPOV violation in itself, and can make Wikipedia look dumb. That said, there's no compelling reason to have this is the lede just now, and there is a bit of editorialzing in the current text.
    talk
    ) 06:15, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

If

) 15:50, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm unsure whether it should be in the lede, especially so stridently. Could a way through be to take a step back and say something like "Weinstein and his wife HH have been criticized for spreading misinformation ... "? This is a stricter summary of the body.

talk

) 15:54, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it needs to be clear its Covid misinformation.Slatersteven (talk) 15:56, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Of course.

talk

) 16:05, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Then I would agree.Slatersteven (talk) 16:13, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

To be clear: the body already incorporate sourcing from an expert at Science-based Medicine to this point under the COVID section, and there is clear "taking ivermectin is not yet proven to be effective" caution sourced to MEDRS after explaining what Weinstein had shown, so we're already making this point in the article in the body, so this is good. It is whether DUE + RECENTISM makes this a point to be promoted to the lede; if only a few sources call him a peddler of misinformation out of many covering him, that's probably not appropriate for the lede. --Masem (t) 16:26, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Alexbrn, Yes I would agree with that. Sort of a middle ground to say "has been criticized for" and I think that is what our BESTSOURCES say. "Weinstein and his wife HH have been criticized for spreading misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic." would be my recommended text. As per the recommendations of Masem above. Better to couch it in "X says" rather than in strict wiki-voice.--Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕}

) 16:59, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I think this is fair and have no issue with that wording and think it makes the entry much more neutral. FrederickZoltair (talk) 21:06, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

For context: In WW2 the owners of

) 11:07, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Here's at least one source mentioning Peet's Coffee in this context: https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2019/06/04/peet-coffee-wake-call/XrJtIiY5MPYCycCGxglaSK/story.html. Several others mention Peet's in the headlines. Anaxagoras17 (talk) 04:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Writing Dr Robert Malone out of history is shameful. Hard to believe that you participated in this rewriting of history. I donate to you every year, but will never again donate funds to a turncoat company like yours. Shame. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.44.27 (talk • contribs) 08:50, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

The problem seems to be more than Malone (and no reliable source) has written himself into history as the supposed "inventor" of the RNA vaccine. Wikipedia doesn't lend spurious credence to antivaxx narratives. (For background, if anybody is interested, this is being fuelled by some stuff doing the rounds in the crank-o-sphere.[29]).

talk

) 08:55, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

A month ago, I uncovered strong evidence that six users, with 6,000 edits among them, were engaged in either sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry. After comparing notes with

topic area. I would encourage people to read the full SPI, but here's the most important part NPOV-wise, documenting just a fraction of the consensus manipulation that these accounts have engaged in over the years:

As you can see, it was a sophisticated manipulation of consensus, even staging disagreements over minor things to avoid drawing suspicion. And again, that's just the top of the iceberg. I'm pinging Joshua Jonathan, who, as I understand it, had their suspicions about these accounts for years, in case they'd like to give more background.

All of these edits to BAPS-related articles have relentlessly promoted material favorable to BAPS and removed material unfavorable to it. The RfD that drew my attention to this came about because these editors were working together to suppress allegations that a BAPS mandir used slave labor, citing a distorted interpretation of

, a separate non-profit aid organization which has spearheaded a number of projects around the world addressing healthcare, education, environmental causes, and community-building campaigns.

To me, it's clear that basically all of this topic area needs a thorough review for widespread NPOV issues. Based on the Editor Interaction Analyser report, here are the BAPS-related content pages and talk pages that these editors (including the two five currently under review and the two blocked after I posted this message, Actionjackson09 and Sacredsea) have edited the most, as well as a few about Hinduism or religion more broadly. This is not to imply that every edit made to these pages was problematic. To see which edits were made by these users, check the Editor Interaction Analyser report.

In closing, I'll note that, as with any religion, there has been an amount of POV-pushing against BAPS over the years, including by at least one sockmaster (WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Swamiblue) who may well still have some socks floating about. That said, Moksha, Apollo, et al.'s well-coordinated disruption over the years has given them the clear upper hand POV-wise.

I'm not sure which WikiProjects would be best equipped for subject-matter expertise on this cleanup, but I welcome people to cross-post to any relevant projects. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 04:18, 25 June 2021 (UTC), updated 02:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Tamzin: I'm truly, deeply impressed. By the sheer amount of pages involved, and th work required to restore npov; but also by the fact that you were able to uncover this. Ever since I started editing Swaminarayan-related pages, I've felt "Someday they'll be blocked." It reminds me of this comment diff by User:Winged Blades of Godric: "you folks are moving about; the page will either get sysop-protected or you two, blocked for slow-edit-warring." User:Ms Sarah Welch will also be interested to hear about this. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:26, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Good catch on Actionjackson09! (Gosh, Hell of a first edit there. Can't believe I missed that.) Adding five more pages to the list, based on their contribs. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 06:36, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I would like to help with some of the review/clean-up. I feel trying to focus on historic facts about the overall faith will be most beneficial. One trends I have noticed is a push to represent interpretations made by Baps as universally accepted in the religion. Mainly they pushed Akshar-guru and Akshar-purshuttum-darshan as concepts established by the founder of the faith but historically, the concepts didn't exist until Baps separated a century later since that belief is why they separated. Second trend is 99% of images the group sourced was Baps images that specifically promoted that branches leaders. There is a lot to sift through and I would love to be an off-the-bench role player in helping where I can. I move slow but I do move lol. JJ has started on the main pages where the most POV-pushing was done and is balancing that. I will read through the scripture pages this weekend and see what I can find as stand-out misrepresentations. Please don't hesitate to call me out when I make a mistake. I take coaching well. I don't intend to make mistakes but probably will haha. Amazing job by the admins here all around for identifying this bad behavior. Kbhatt22 (talk) 18:44, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

For the record: User:Chipsandipz is brand-new account, adding NPOV-tags to BAPS-related articles. That's typically too, for a brand-new account. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:37, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

They've been indeffed as a sock of one of the various sockmasters in the topic area. (P.S.,

don't put linebreaks between indented list items. :) ) -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi.

16:02, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Hey Tamzin, I am trying to review the smaller articles since they are more in my weight class and I can move at my snails pace. I am putting in notes above on what I find/any change I made plus leaving talk page entries but am holding back on tagging it as approved in the above list. Should I do that? I am leaving the approval tag off so you can review before the final approval. Just want to make sure I am doing that right. Thanks! Kbhatt22 (talk) 02:46, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm interested in signing up for this project. I will be available to improve the quality of some of the articles listed here with the approach of adding citations where needed and removing unencyclopedic language with the intent of addressing NPOV and quality issues. I have gone through the list of articles here and at Wikiproject Swaminarayan, and I feel that I can contribute to the BLP and deceased persons articles as well as the temple articles.

I do not want to be entangled in another situation like the one mentioned here, so I would appreciate being notified about concerns regarding my future edits. I take constructive criticism well. Additionally, I will take this opportunity to show that I have more to contribute than a handful of edits on one of the temple articles. Hexcodes (talk) 06:59, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• The Rise and Fall of the Black Hole Paradigm (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views
  )

I don't know if I am in the right place for this, but this article, made by one user, consists entirely of praise. Maybe the whole thing is undue, and it is probably also fringe. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:37, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it was a mess, and mostly sourced to unpublished and unreliable sources. It's basically a stub now. The subject does appear to be fringe although I couldn't find any reliable sources specifically calling it that. Woodroar (talk) 15:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

In regards to debt trap Diplomacy. I would like to build a fair consensus here on whether the newer articles citing real research, are correct and the older sources citing politicised hearsay should be avoided or accepted as factual on Wikipedia.

P. S. I initially posted this on (reliable sources noticeboard) but for some reason, Was told that it may be better to come here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Debt_trap_diplomacy_and_misleading_media :/

For those who need some minimal context, this is what I know:

The mainstream media initially wrote in 2017 and 2018, that such a thing of Debt Trap Diplomacy, was very real and already happening and that Sri Lankan port lease was indeed a debt for Equity swap after defaulting. However later on In 2019, 2020, 2021. There have been more and more updated mainstream articles and academics where they now cite completed research from western Think tanks who strongly oppose the concept and calls it as a wrongful myth that is being distorted by past misleading media narratives and loud politicians. And explains why.

https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-hambantota-port-deal-myths-and-realities/

Obviously the older set of articles and the more updated articles cannot both be right as they say opposite things. And I think it's the bleeding obvious on who is correct. It's the more updated articles with actual research from professional thinktanks, compared to the older articles without research but relying too quickly on classic speculative hearsay and outright lack of fact checking those dog whistling claims.

Like Some editors have been arguing with me that a a 2017 NYT or BBC article claimed that Sri Lanka port was indeed debt trap Diplomacy as Sri Lanka was overwhelmed by Chinese debts, had to default and ultimately give up sovereignty of their port. And they say such information is true info. But there is so many things wrong about those outdated articles. I could list multiple reasons why the above info is outright false but i will just show the links of newer research and media that does that for me.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy/4-sri-lanka-and-bri

The NYT times article was wrong in so many things that it was just false propaganda to be honest.An article in the DIPLOMAT strongly called the theory as a MYTH and blamed misleading media narratives for distorting the truth. I believe they are telling the truth about that and they are a reliable top source.

So yep, occasionally western mainstream media can get things wrong and mislead either due to human biases and the willingness to take others at their word like Iraq WMDs. Then years later the newer mainstream western articles will correct it afterwards and showing the real evidence.

I believe that older articles are not reliable sources as they rely on biased hearsay from pundits with an agenda. But the newer articles are reliable as they rely on objective research from independent western Think tanks and academics. And they should be the ones recognized as "reliable and neutral sources".

Nvtuil (talk) 14:03, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

talk

) 14:33, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Long War Journal

Please take part in Talk:2021_Taliban_offensive#Maps. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC on first-ever “emergency” episode of The Joe Rogan Experience

A discussion is going on at Talk:The Joe Rogan Experience to include or exclude a statement on the “first-ever” “emergency” podcast. Input would be appreciated, thanks. SmolBrane (talk) 19:49, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

University of the People

I am finished editing University of the People, but it was suggested I post it here.

There are POV issues everywhere on the page. This is not limited to a single user or POV. There are issues with the university's location (post office box, past addresses, Israel, shared offices, etc.), accreditation, enrollment, faculty, fake news, subsidiaries, partnerships, phone access, Simone Biles (You're awesome!), ranking, computer centers, spam, sources (bad for different POV, good being removed), claimed falsified images, and so, so, so much more. It looks like the same war has been going on for a few years. It makes me dizzy just looking at the talk page.

The page has been fully protected 4 times since November 2020, and it is currently protected.

I hope more experienced editors can bring some sense to it. I'm going back to my world of gymnastics. SimoneBilesStan (talk) 03:48, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

You might also have mentioned that your account was created on 22 June 2021 and has 33 edits, all of them related to University of the People. Johnuniq (talk) 05:36, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and this does not change the POV issues on the University of the People article. If you would like to scrutinize my edits for POV issues, I highly recommend you start with my edits on the Talk:Simone_Biles page. It makes for some interesting reading. SimoneBilesStan (talk) 14:17, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

It would be nice if you would actually lay out what each issue is case by case and then we can examine it. General "NPOV issues" is not usefull.Slatersteven (talk) 15:19, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Holy wall of text Batman! You sure went all out on Talk:Simone Biles I’m just not sure I can follow your argument nor am I seeing your point vis-a-vis POV. On a side note you should probably review

WP:TENDENTIOUS. Horse Eye's Back (talk

) 16:31, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

• I think this is going to be a perpetual problem with the semi-notable remote institutions of higher learning, the amount of OR I’ve seen thrown down on that page is simply wild as is the number of involved editors. Of course its natural for people to want to pump their alma mater (especially for the bottom of the barrel schools), but when it turns into whitewashing and puffery it becomes an issue for us all. I would also note that there appears to have been a coordinated editing campaign around University of the People, its founder Shai Reshef, and his partner Rotem Reshef. All three had pages built primarily from press releases and all three were created (and maintained) by SPA (for example Ornabuilder [41]). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:21, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Canadian Indian residential schools

I would like to ask for additional eyes on this article, which concerns a topic on which emotions are currently running high. There is no dispute per se but the article relies overmuch on the widely ignored report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and repeatedly quotes, without attribution, historic racist tropes from the 19th century. I am under the impression that care should be taken when calling people "savages" but am being told that this language is fine because it was used in a government report, and besides, this is a featured article.

To be clear, I believe that editors there are acting in good faith, and the article is the best it could have been, probably, at the time it was written. At least, that is what I am hearing. I am not married to a particular proposed solution except that I would like the article to be accurate, adhere to Wikipedia policies, and avoid insulting indigenous people in Voice of Wikipedia. I do not seem to be making much headway and have just tagged the article; but perhaps I am mistaken somehow. Either way, I am attempting to escalate what I believe to be a problem, and would appreciate any help, or alternately, explanation of why there is no problem. It currently seems to me that this article could be merged into the article for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with little loss of information.

To point out another red flag, the egregious June 3 2021 op-ed by Alberta premier Jason Kenney does not seem to have a place in the article, nor any of the other denialism that the article is seeing on its talk page. The presentation seems to imply that the government issued a report, a few people apologized, and there is no problem now.

I will post a notice about this post on the talk page, since there is no actual dispute with anyone else. Elinruby (talk) 22:45, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

The reason you don't have a dispute with anyone else is that you have not discussed these concerns on the article's talk page. It says above, "Before you post to this page, you should already have tried to resolve the dispute on the article's talk page. Include a link here to that discussion." So my suggestion is to close this discussion thread, you can discuss your views on the article's talk page and come back if you don't find other editors agree with you.

While I don't want to argue with you here, I would point out for the benefit of other editors that I don't agree with your assessment and note that you in fact argued for the inclusion of Kenney's editorial which you now say is undue.[42]

TFD (talk) 00:21, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: on the contrary. Have you actually looked at the talk page? Please don't muddy up a very simple request. I would like some assistance with helping the article comply with MoS. I am not assigning blame, nor asking that it be assigned. If you don't want to help, that is fine. I am looking for someone who does. ;) Elinruby (talk) 01:36, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Just noticed your erroneous comments about other editors, specifically me: if you re-read more slowly, I think you will find that I am in fact saying it is

WP: DUE. I vehemently disagree with the man's comments and deeply dislike his policies, but nonetheless, he is a prominent opposition politician and there is no way his op-ed on the front page (!) of a national newspaper isn't notable. The fact that this could *happen* is notable. I in fact quoted him from this op-ed on a related page, but it's national, or at least regional, public discourse, not just Kamloops. I mentioned him above because there is no place in the article to put this. The op-ed is most definitely not an apology, which is the closest match. It's also talking about the removal of statues after bodies were discovered in Kamloops, which I can't find in the article either, nor mention of churches being burned, although I think I support the latter omission pending the investigations. Basically, it needs to be updated to talk about more than six-year-old news, fresh eyes appreciated Elinruby (talk

) 01:56, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I can't find Kenney's op-ed. Are you sure you aren't confusing it with Paul Bunner's 2013 op-ed? Kenney condemned that and is providing money for First Nations to search for unmarked graves, but has defended John A. Macdonald. It might be better to mention it in Kenney's article. TFD (talk) 03:19, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know how to explain to you how to Google. National Post, June 3, page A1. It's there. But this is a throwaway example. The point is the hyperfocus on the report and ensuing non-neutral discussion. Please feel free to review the article, or not. I am not going to debate with you whether recent news events are real. Elinruby (talk) 07:15, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I already posted this on the article talk page but I'll also repost here - the article seems to represent POV of its 2 super-editors at least one of whom may be purging the article from factual, numerical, referenced information.

Block-deletes and block-contribs by Nikkimaria and SanLeone, respectively; neutral POV? On July 11 Nikkimaria removed around 7,500 characters from the article within less than 1 hour. A cursory glance at just one of those edits (of around 15 altogether), on mortality rates, revealed what looks like an effort to "dedramatize" or perhaps remove context and useful leads from the issue, purging not opinions but referenced numbers (!) from the article. Another glance at the article edit history revealed that Nikkimaria and SanLeone are the two most active editors of the article (for whatever reasons). I do not have the time to go through 7,500+ character removal by Nikkimaria to see whether every edit is objectionable or not. Clearly, the article currently reflects not the Neutral POV but slants towards the POV of its most active editors. I do not know how to solve this. If I were Nikkimaria I would refrain from block-deletes, SanLeone from block-contributions (5,000 characters in one go) and open the space to other contributors. Where does commitment end and narrative control begin? I apologize in advance if my point is offensive - we all try to make Wikipedia better, and some are more committed than others.--109.140.79.8 (talk) 14:03, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I replied to this on the talk page.SanLeone (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

• Can we close this to avoid cross-posted discussions? Conversations are going along just fine on the talk page of the article. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:13, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Larry Sanger is back

Larry Sanger is back with more criticism against Wikipedia, thoughts? X-Editor (talk) 22:26, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Larry has an account, so if I shared my actual thoughts I'd be blocked per

Tell me all about it.

22:34, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't even remotely see how it is a proper use of this noticeboard to mention some disgruntled busybody's latest blog. Zaathras (talk) 23:21, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

What Mjolnir said. See also

b

} 04:47, 7 July 2021 apparently to neatly

Apparently he criticizes Wikipedia for being biased for left wing ideas. It's probably best to ignore him.

talk

) 05:01, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I read through it, and the problem he's trying to put out seems to be mostly that to fix, we would have to engage in creating a false balance and draw from deprecated sources on most of the topics that he touches on. This is, of course, an impossible starting point. That said, there is the factor that he does point out that on some of our topics, Wikipedia's bias towards one side of the story is shown out through how they are written. Eg his point on the impeachment of Trump articles seems accurate in that there's no real coverage of the Republican stance on the matter (outside of voting against the action in general). We are meant to simply document controversies and that means in situations like this we have to also document the other side (which should be incredibly easy for US political news from standard RSes) even if editors may not agree with it. Or if we don't want to do that, we should avoid getting too far into documenting the reactions and commentary from one side of the issue and stay to the fundamental facts so that we're not appearing as if we're talking a side. But again, I certainly would not say we have to go as far as the suggested that he has made there; most are simply unworkable from the start, but there is food for thought about making sure we don't write too much bias into wikivoice on these articles. --Masem (t) 05:38, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Masem, Eg his point on the impeachment of Trump articles seems accurate in that there's no real coverage of the Republican stance on the matter (outside of voting against the action in general). If you go to the actual cited section (Donald Trump#First impeachment (2019–2020)) you can see that it's exactly what Larry says it isn't: a dispassionate recitation of the facts. The fact that those facts reflect more poorly upon one side than the other really isn't our problem. We're not Republican activists. It's not our job to make the Republican party look respectable when discussing facts that bring them into disrepute, and if it ever became our job to do that, it'd be because Conservapedia managed to affect some kind of hostile takeover.

Larry is one of those guys who just can't accept that sometimes, one side of an argument is right. I know others like that, it's not uncommon. Some people just can't wrap their heads around the fact that problems in real life rarely have such clean-cut solutions as "split the difference and call it a day".

It's a little surprising, really. What, exactly, does Larry think that section needs to say from the "republican perspective"? Are any of the cited events untrue from that POV? Well then, are we supposed to "fairly represent" a POV that isn't grounded in reality by pretending it is? Hell no.

Larry's biggest failing is laid out right in the third paragraph, when he says "But neutrality is not the same as objectivity." Yes, it fucking is. If objectivity is not neutral, it's not objective. If neutrality is not objective, it's not neutral. You can't separate the two like that. Neutrality without objectivity is uncertainty, a false balance. It's imagination and wishful thinking, not reality.

See this old discussion where Larry threw a temper tantrum after I dared to disagree with him that we weren't doing enough to promote pseudoscience. I mean, he literally argued that a reader shouldn't be able to tell whether or not Intelligent design was a pseudoscience while reading our article on it, which is just completely removed from reality.

As I said above: In my experience, Larry doesn't have anything to say worth listening to. The only thing I'm aware of that he's said that was ever worth listening to was whatever he said to Jimbo back in 2001 that led to him being considered a cofounder of this project. Nothing he's written since then has ever risen above the level of the stoner-naval-gazing me and my friends used to do in high school.

Tell me all about it.

12:55, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

There is a difference between the false balance position - where in a situation where the facts or broad public opinion fall against one side but we're asked to try to make that side look equally right - and documenting the controversy - the case of simply iterating the position of one side of a controversial area no matter how right or wrong their are. There is no question that WP's handling of the impeachment will end up reading favorable towards the Democratic position given that they led the case both times, the media backed it, etc. and as I said, it would be false balance to pretend like the Republican stance was equally enjoyed as a sound position and should be given the same amount of weight. But that said, it shouldn't be outright ignored or absent since we're supposed to be documenting controversal material. We should know what their stance was beyond simply opposing it. As long as it can be found in RSes (which being US politics this should be trivial) a brief summary of why the GOP blocked it (beyond the obvious sky-is-blue reasons) should be included to go along with why the impeachment was sought by the Dems. We don't have to give any significant weight to that stance (no false balance required) but it should be properly documented.

I will disagree re your point on neutrality and objectivity. I've argued elsewhere many times on this so I won't go too much but I will say, many of our articles on post 2016 right-lean political and ideological topics (including alt- and far-right people and groups) are written in line with our "neutrality" requirements, in that content is generally sourced, attributed, follow UNDUE etc., but easily fail the objectivity aspect because you can easily read the vile and dislike towards the topic from the involved editors in the tone and focus of these articles, especially compared to similar types of articles of "disliked" people and groups from other periods in history. Most of the time, fixing these articles would not be a change of what material is present but the order and presentation of said material. Now, I do not agree with any of Sanger's specific issues with the articles named in his piece (it gets back to the false balance problem again), but I do think all those named do have general broad problems in tone and construction that do not present an objectively neutral article even though they present a factually neutral article. --Masem (t) 13:39, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

That's all fine as a matter of principles. But Larry is citing that example of a place where those principles aren't being followed... Except they are. Larry's lying (or so biased that he can't recognize the reality) when he describes that section.

As far as documenting their stance: it's done. See the following:

• The Trump administration subsequently released a memorandum of the July 25 phone call, confirming that after Zelensky mentioned purchasing American anti-tank missiles, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate and to discuss these matters with Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.
• On January 22, the Republican Senate majority rejected amendments proposed by the Democratic minority to call witnesses and subpoena documents; evidence collected during the House impeachment proceedings was entered into the Senate record.
• Responding over the next three days, Trump's lawyers did not deny the facts as presented in the charges but said Trump had not broken any laws or obstructed Congress. They argued that the impeachment was "constitutionally and legally invalid" because Trump was not charged with a crime and that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. On January 31, the Senate voted against allowing subpoenas for witnesses or documents; 51 Republicans formed the majority for this vote.
• Trump was acquitted of both charges by the Republican Senate majority, 52–48 on abuse of power and 53–47 on obstruction of Congress. Senator Mitt Romney was the only Republican who voted to convict Trump on one of the charges, the abuse of power.
• Following his acquittal, Trump fired impeachment witnesses and other political appointees and career officials he deemed insufficiently loyal.

All of those quotes document Republican positions, including the sole Republican who dissented from the consensus. You'll note, I'm sure, that none of them mention Republican arguments except for the one which documents the Republican argument in the trial.

But Larry's implication is that the Democrat arguments are put forth. Except that's not true. The only Democrat argument even mentioned in that section is the argument during the trial, just like with the Republican arguments.

The only Republican stance excluded from that section which doesn't have a matching exclusion from the Democrat side are false claims of fact; conspiracy theories surrounding Hunter Biden embezzling from Ukrainian businesses and bribing his way into power and Hillary Clinton trading Uranium for cash which is somehow relevant because DeMoNcRaTs ArE eVuLz!!1! But there's a damn good reason we don't cover those in articles and sections like this. Specifically, they're bullshit.

The countless talking points put forth by both Democrats and Republicans surrounding that impeachment are excluded entirely and equally. Larry's not just wrong about this: he's being dishonest about it. Whether that dishonesty is an unintentional result of deeply held political convictions, or deliberate attempts to spread misinformation for personal gain is beside the point. He's not raising any good points; he's making statements of principle which are either ridiculously ignorant or widely agreed-on, then he's falsely claiming those principles aren't being followed when they quite obviously are. This is

Tell me all about it.

14:26, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that the overall matter is going to be decidedly anti-Trump due to nature of the sourcing in the first place, there still are points that look like editors trying to do everything they can to justify Trump's guilt in Wikivoice - eg lack of objectivity. Eg:

Impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump which is linked through First impeachment of Donald Trump

in the section "Inquiry", that article has more inclusion of commentary of all sides involved. That said, the summary of that brought into the First impeachment article in the "Inquiry", while it does need to be short and clearly has to omit much, still seems excessively weighted towards the Democrats view, and has a single line at the very end to speak about what Trump and the WH were saying about the situation. Also, the First impeachment article is littered with commentary throughout the article from various speakers (roughly one every other paragraph) so its not right to say "The countless talking points ... are excluded entirely and equally".

The other factor here may be the obsessive amount of detail going into these articles that gives them the appearance of being non-objective, given that we're to be a summary work. The level of detail is meticulous, which may be reasonable while the impeachment was going on so that we had a running timeline, but now, years out, it should be trimmed way down so it doesn't look like WP was obsessed with this level of detail over the impeachment, particularly given that sources reflecting back don't have that level of detail too. That's another common problem with this objectivity vs neutrality. Yes, an excessively-detailed article can be neutral, but is it objective if it is so detailed to look like we were rooting for the impeachment to go through?

I totally agree that 99% of what Sanger had written is stuff we can ignore as against policy and inactionable, but there are a couple valid nuggets of concern that I and others have been raising for some time that are in his words about the state of some articles over the last recent years. --Masem (t) 13:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Eg: Impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump which is linked through First impeachment of Donald Trump in the section "Inquiry", that article has more inclusion of commentary of all sides involved. That said, the summary of that brought into the First impeachment article in the "Inquiry", while it does need to be short and clearly has to omit much, still seems excessively weighted towards the Democrats view, and has a single line at the very end to speak about what Trump and the WH were saying about the situation. But that's not an issue with our content or even the nature of the sourcing; that's an aspect of the situation, itself.

Whenever there's any sort of investigation, no matter how comprehensive the sourcing, there's going to be a lot more to be said about the investigators and the investigation, as well as the theories they're working under than there will be to be said about any response from the investigated party or group. Look at our coverage of the Impeachment of Bill Clinton, which is weighted similarly towards the Republican efforts and views in the section about the investigation. It's just a matter of their being more to say about one "side" than the other.

I think Larry's problem is that he's viewing these things as competing narratives. While these competing narratives certainly exist, they're tangential to the actual subject. When viewing this as competing narratives, there's the tendency to want to weight both sides equally, but of course, there's the famous line from Colbert, "

Reality has a well known liberal bias

".

But the reality (pun intended, thank you very much) is that these subjects aren't competing narratives, but sequences of events, and they need to be seen as that, not as competing narratives. If one of those narratives matches the known facts better, then that narrative will be seen as being supported by a dry recitation of the facts, which is what our articles are doing.

When you add to that the bias of our sources (seen in the editorializing which is done in almost all coverage of then-current politics), and add in the lack of competence many people (including Larry) seem to have when it comes to judging the reliability of sources, making unreliable right-wing sources seem more reliable than they are, it all paints a picture of bias.

But once you recognize that the proximity of any given political narrative to the facts is not something that can or should be adjudicated here, there's just no ground to complain.

As I've said many times before: if the facts don't fit a narrative, then the narrative should change. If Larry doesn't like the way we write about politics, then he'd be better served by re-examining his own political views than by complaining about what he perceives ours to be.

Tell me all about it.

14:30, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I completely agree that Sanger (and many many others) are trying to push a narrative that would never be able to be supported by WP polices or any work that is based on a neutral or objective approach. But, I will argue as I've done before that we often take too much of the current media's stance in Wikivoice, rather than waiting for what the long-term, 60,000-ft view of a situation when there would be a better sense of what the proper approach should (eg the NOT#NEWS/RECENTISM issues). This is related to the other discussion we're having re: Trump's mental health at BLPN. We know the media do not have the objectivity they used to have 20 years+ ago, though by no means this makes them unreliable nor demand we include unreliable sources. We just need to be fully aware this introduces a new systematic bias on how we should approach a politic topic that we should be careful not to reproduce in Wikivoice. That's not to say we cannot report the widely-reported criticism or controversy that is being discussed now, but we should avoid excessive coverage of this, sticking to high-level facts and avoiding excessive commentary until some time has passed and we have a better assessment from long-distance sources looking back to know what type of judgement and weight we actually should be giving the topic. That might happen to be the same that the present media is giving, but it could also be significantly different. Eg: whereas during the Iraq War coverage was highly patriotic and seemed highly favorable of the US's actions there, it has long since turned sour as something unnecessary. Any story like this can change with time, and hence we should be very careful about trying to introduce any material that is beyond a factual basis. Is it likely that in 10 years that the impeachments are going to be seen as nonsensical and something completely different? Very much unlikely, but to what degree they will define Trump's presidency and legacy is yet to be known, compared to how we can judge Nixon's (extremely significant) and Clinton's (a small impact overall), since we have years since they happened to know for certain and thus know how to write those articles.

Basically, my point is that while Sanger is very much wrong on a lot of things here (what we're all agreeing on), his writing is fumbling around issues that I know myself and others have expressed as concerns in these areas that should be discussed for resolution, with solutions that look absolutely nothing like what Sanger is proposing which go against policy. --Masem (t) 18:16, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that recentism is really a factor in any of the examples mentioned, because, as I've said, they consist of dry recitations of the facts. The facts won't change with time. Our coverage of those narratives almost certainly will, but Larry wasn't pointing to that coverage and complaining that we're favoring one side; he was pointing to our dry recitation of facts, and complaining that favored one side.

Unfortunately, Larry (as so many right-wing figures before him) seems to have forgotten that the

Tell me all about it.

18:40, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Because this is getting way off point from Sanger's article and a different matter, I'll just leave this that there's a facet you missed in my comment that our "dry recitations" of RSes today, which we know currently have a systematic bias and less objectivity due to the new type of journalism today as well as the cultural situation of the last several years, introduce those systematic biases into our articles without filtering that out as we are supposed to, and thus leaving that lack of objectivity from the RSes in place. Most of that can be resolved with wordsmithing and reorganization of content - nothing anywhere close to the scope that Sanger wants (false balance, whitewashing, etc.) - but these are issues that should be addressed so that we have both neutral and objective articles. That's the case, if we're going to use current sources rather than wait for those that are at a distance and will have a more objective, disconnected view of events to work from. --Masem (t) 00:46, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Who cares what he thinks?Slatersteven (talk) 12:58, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

He doesn't seem to understand our policies at all. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 14:22, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Go to his contributions, filter by the talk namespace, and then look through all of his more recent edits. Be prepared to be amazed.

Tell me all about it.

14:29, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that is kind of the point, he wants Wikipedia to go back to being a wild west where the loudest and most aggressive voices win. As I recall he hates the idea (period) that we have rules about civility and reliable sourcing.Slatersteven (talk) 14:32, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Something that leaped out at me is that, while he complains about sources he personally considers mainstream being depreciated, he doesn't mention or argue for their reliability at all. When discussing sources, he worries about how "radical" they are (not something we care about at all, outside of

WP:NPOV is about; that's an editor and commentator trying to impose their personal views on our coverage. NPOV is about balancing reliable coverage, so if he wants to include something he needs to argue that the sources covering it are reliable, not "mainstream". And of course even his argument that they are mainstream is off-base, since we weigh that among experts and not the general public - but he hasn't even gotten to that point if he can't argue that the sources he wants to use are reliable. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; naturally it's not going to reflect the same sort of focus and tone that you get from reading the tabloids. --Aquillion (talk

) 18:10, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog: Larry does not understand our policies in 2021 because he has not been heavily involved in Wikipedia since 2002. X-Editor (talk) 21:22, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Larry Sanger claims that Wikipedia only accepts globalist progressive sources in his blog entry. Globalist is a term that has been used by anti-progressive right wingers and far-right people as an antisemetic dogwhistle and based on Larry’s anti-progressive stance, I have a feeling that he is dogwhistling here. X-Editor (talk) 21:46, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

We probably need a poke, and prominent people can provide a stronger poke. Rather than bias/non-bias being an end in itself, I am more concerned that the bias which does exist has hampered coverage of topics in many ways. And the systemic solutions to that inadvertent systemic-based problem would help in a lot of other areas. And the mother of all systemic solutions would be to embed "objectivity and expertise with respect to the topic which cited it" as a metric of the strength and reliability of sources into about 10 places in our policies and guidelines. The wp:weight section also needs a major rework. North8000 (talk) 14:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Yet, I would argue (ironically) is that what Sanger is complaining about is, the very thing he says we need, expertise over gobshitery. It is the attempt to keep out nonexpert opinion that has led to what (he perceives as) left-wing bias. Look at Covid or climate change, for example.Slatersteven (talk) 14:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I've not hung out at those articles. Ont the coverage side, try finding Wikipedia coverage on the undisputed specifics of Hunter Biden's Ukraine business dealings. They are hidden in an article with a "conspiracy theory" title. During his presidential campaign, due to the bad optics, we had and have an entire article on one ride that Mitt Romney's dog took, and his proposals got a lot less coverage. Try to find an article on the immensely notable and notable (only) by that title "Operation fast and furious". These specific articles aren't on my worry list, are are pretty simple examples that I'm aware of of where bias has gone further to actually impair coverage. North8000 (talk) 19:18, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

First hit on the google search for "Operation fast and furious" ATF gunwalking scandal, so it's clear we have a redirect in place. It took longer to type this to find a wikipedia article about it.Slatersteven (talk) 13:12, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

My belief is that some changes and additions to policies and guidelines could fix 1/2 of the entire problem plus 1/2 fix a lot of the other big persistent problems that we have. I also believe the 3-4 expert experienced editors working together in an organized fashion can get that done. Anybody want to try that experiment? North8000 (talk) 18:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that would fail spectacularly in the realm of politics, because (despite the name) it's not a science, but an art. Most experts in politics are, themselves, highly biased, no matter how intelligent or competent they are.

In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that most experts in politics would be far more biased than the typical Wikipedian.

Note that most of the experts who have the academic chops to really help out would, themselves, lean towards leftist or progressive ideals, which means even if they did make concrete improvements, those improvements would be seen by people like Larry as making things worse.

And trying to get actual politicians to help edit our politics articles is like drinking an entire bottle of

Tell me all about it.

19:15, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Per my notes above, my goal would be a lot lower than non-bias. It would be to not let bias damage merely providing informative coverage. North8000 (talk) 19:22, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I saw your comment above, and frankly, I find it a little shocking that this information is so hard to find, and these articles don't exist. However, interest in those subjects stretches across the political isles, so I'm a little reluctant to attribute our lack of coverage to bias. It seems like they might be too touchy to get off the ground, maybe?

I'll say this much: If we could do something to increase editor literacy of technical/scholarly jargon, and get editors better access to technical/scholarly sources, I have no doubt our articles would improve. More highly-educated editors would accomplish that (as they tend to be well-versed in the jargon and to have access to sources), but there are other ways to do that in areas like politics, where more expertise generally means more bias.

And I feel like your proposal would work wonders in less contentious areas like engineering and history, or even less-contentious-but-still-less-scientific subjects like film/television and celebrities.

We've actually got much that situation going in biology, physics and math. Those are subjects of particular interest to me, but I don't often edit in them because I'm just nowhere near the average level of expertise of our most prolific editors there, despite being the guy whom people come to IRL when they have a question about those subjects. I feel like an idiot every time I edit anything more complex than evolutionary theory or basic algebra.

Tell me all about it.

19:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Since most of what we have results from Wikilawyering discussions about policies and guidelines, we need a new once sentence policy that could also be quoted and weighed in those discussions. It would be: "Try to write accurate, informative enclyclopedic articles." it soesn't enter into Wikilawyering discussions. North8000 (talk) 19:28, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Nothing can stop Wikilawyering. It's human nature to bicker, and it's human nature to define and expand rules and systems. Simple, vague rules will only increase the leeway Wikilawyers have to assert their cases.

Tell me all about it.

19:41, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. It's probably too big of a topic to try to tackle here. North8000 (talk) 20:56, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

North8000 Probably, but it warms my heart to see editors who want to fix it. All of us would lose a few more arguments if we managed to perfect our dispute resolution process, and there are days when it seems like most everybody here only cares about winning the argument at hand.

And I'm convinced there are ways to mitigate it. I just don't know what those ways are.

Tell me all about it.

21:08, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree that achieving the existing policy of neutrality in U.S. political articles has proved a problem, based on the length of the various talk pages. But Sanger's main complaint is about the policy itself. I don't think that any source can be unbiased. Mainstream media (what conservatives call left-wing) supports American imperialism, worker exploitation, endless war, mass incarceration, mass surveillance, etc. Conservatives support the same thing, but even more so. If articles gave equal weight to liberal and conservative views, they would still be biased, just slightly more to the right than at present. TFD (talk) 20:37, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

That's why I say try for the lower bar of just not letting bias degrade the coverage. To give a shorthand example. So let's say that there has been a 20,000 word Wikilawyer conversation at the "John Smith" article. Someone found 3 political opponents of his who pass the blanket criteria for wp:rs's who called John Smith a jerk. So there's 20,000 words of wikilawyering to put in "John Smith is a jerk" and another 20,000 words to do so without attribution. My standard would say that due to the objectivity metric they are very weak sources for this particular statement. Second "jerk" is not information. Instead put actual information in, like info on what he did that might have led to or enabled that "jerk" assertion. North8000 (talk) 21:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

If there is an issue with bias due to policy meaning we can't use sources that tell outright lies. Maybe those sources need to stop telling lies? It really is that simple, we go with the sources that have a reputation for checking their facts, and not the ones with a reputation for making stuff up or regurgitating other's lies. We should not weaken policy in the name of false balance.Slatersteven (talk) 13:21, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

It's nowhere near that simple. If you want one that shows the actual complexities, I just noticed that one example that I chose above is one that Larry Sanger chose to analyze. Where is Wikipedia's coverage of the accepted-by-all fully RS'd facts about Hunter Biden's Ukraine business dealings? It's in an article with a "Conspiracy theory" title. What led to that is a complex combination of at least a half dozen factors. North8000 (talk) 14:20, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Here [[43]]?Slatersteven (talk) 14:39, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Larry Sanger once again

Sanger has more criticism against Wikipedia, voicing specific concerns about our coverage of Joe Biden and the Ukraine scandal. Thoughts? X-Editor (talk) 03:13, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

As we all know,

reality has a well known liberal bias. We've already had one thread on Sanger, either this should be merged into the other thread or it should be closed. Hemiauchenia (talk

) 03:17, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: Do you think incorporating Sanger’s suggestions would result in false balance? X-Editor (talk) 04:29, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Andre Wink

(1) Can editors check if the tag on André Wink is justified?

(2) Can the reviews of a book be covered in such extensive detail, quoting multiple lines from each?

Thanks. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:12, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Certainly extensive and there is too much un-encyclopedic praise. It would be interesting if someone could use the reviews and summarizes Wink's points of view or significant contributions to his field. But summarizing each review separately, doesnt seem proper. Cinadon36 19:27, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Prosperity theology

An IP who is a lay member of the LDS Church claims that this violates

WP:NPOV: [44]. Please chime in. tgeorgescu (talk

) 22:50, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

@

personal attacks. GenoV84 (talk

) 22:59, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Specifically, the section in violation is this. "However, Mormonism has an established tradition of entrepreneurship and, unlike adherents of most mainline Protestant denominations, Mormons have very little ambivalence about the acquisition of wealth.[98] A Harper's Magazine report on the relationship between the finances of the LDS Church and those of the Republican Party, asserted that LDS beliefs and practices were like the prosperity gospel and Protestant work ethic "on steroids."[98] This was tacked on to a portion of the "Relationship with other movements" section of the article, in which it mentions that LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks condemned prosperity theology and gives his exact quote. This is clearly an attempt to present a specific point of view by GenoV84, the user who insisted on its inclusion and kept reverting edits that removed it. The quoted section is not criticism of Prosperity Theology, it's assertion is an entirely different one, that the LDS church in fact embraces Prosperity Theology. It's inclusion after the actual quote by Dallin H. Oaks is a clear attempt to warp POV here. The linked Harper's Magazine article is already included further up in the article, under the "Comparisons with other movements" section of the article. There, it is presented in a neutral manner and as an opinion. In the disputed portion included in the "Criticism" section of the Prosperity Theology article, opinion is presented as fact, and the way the section is worded also further warps the POV. GenV84 and tgeorgescu insist that this usage not be removed, even after discussion on the talk page. Both users also resorted to blatant personal attacks, both on the talk page and elsewhere. Another user who I do not know even responded to condemn these false attacks and point out the flaws in their arguments. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 23:05, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

You're not the right person entitled to speak of personal attacks, since you called us So you are fools, and also outright liars, if you attempt to dispute that.

You use I objectively and indisputably proved that it does violate multiple rules as a sort of incantation (Jedi mind tricks). That doesn't fly. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:08, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I am, because anyone looking at both the talk page, my talk page, and GenoV84's talk page can see that the personal attacks began from your side first, and as such are a greater issue and violation than what I responded to those attacks with. Your dishonesty in first making personal attacks and then claiming that the person who responds to your personal attacks isn't allowed to speak about personal attacks is what doesn't fly here. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 23:13, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

But you do try to whitewash your own religion, and WP:NOBIGOTS is an essay about editing Wikipedia. I did not imply that you would be a bigot, just that you need to ponder what it is written there. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:17, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I did not attempt to whitewash my religion. If I had done so, I would have objected to the earlier use of the article in the "Relationship with other movements" section of the article. But when you made your personal attacks, we had already established that I fully supported its usage there. I objected to another user intentionally warping POV to give a specific implication, that is not whitewashing my religion in any way whatsoever. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 23:27, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Your religion has received criticism, which is in full compliance with

WP:COMPORG. Suck it up and be a man. tgeorgescu (talk

) 23:31, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, the IP's edits qualify more as an

attempt to censorship rather than whitewashing. I proposed a dispute resolution on the article's Talk page (well, actually more than one) but the IP still hasn't accepted it, nor has he/she come up with a better proposal, and neither has he/she showed any propensity to find an agreement in order to reach consensus together. GenoV84 (talk

) 23:40, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Yup, it's the IP against

WP:SNOW. Or they would have to make a case that such criticism is patently perverse and illegitimate (by the secular standards of a religiously neutral hard-core fact-based encyclopedia). tgeorgescu (talk

) 02:05, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure about either editor's position here. The content shouldn't be in the "criticism" section it is currently at on the page, and it seems strange to use a Harper's article that says None of the prosperity gospel’s proponents are themselves Mormon. to claim a tie between Mormonism and prosperity gospel. Yet discussion of where Mormon philosophies (and the Protestant work ethic more generally) are similar to prosperity gospel should be somewhere in the article. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:11, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Finally, someone engaging with the actual facts here. Those similarities you mention that should be somewhere in the article are already presented in the article under the "Relationship with other movements" section of the article. My position is that the users bitterly fighting for the inclusion of the disputed section in the article have presented no evidence to explain why the disputed section belongs in the article or what it adds that is not provided by the portion that is already included in the above-mentioned section, and instead keep resorting to personal attacks and accusing me of censorship for advocating for its removal, even though I repeatedly said I support the inclusion of the portion that is already in the "Relationship with other movements" section. Despite this, they keep claiming that I am attempting to censor any criticism of my church, when I have already repeatedly signaled my acceptance of criticism of it included elsewhere in the article. As you say, there are many current issues with the disputed section, and that is why I oppose its inclusion. I have said this repeatedly, but both VGeno84 and tgeorgescu keep responding with allegations of censorship and ignoring what has actually been said. I have never threatened legal action, it is tgeorgescu who first used the phrase "libelous" to debate the sentence in question, and I simply repeated their use of that specidifc term in this context in order to keep the terminology consistent in the discussion. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 02:28, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@力: At [45] they have stated Also, saying that a group that scored high on entrepeneurship and has a good Protestant work ethic automatically equals all the baggage and issues of Prosperity Theology is incredibly libelous, especially when that assertion is used specifically as an attempt to rebut that group's official condemnation of Prosperity Theology. If that's true, all Wikipedia articles about religion should be speedily deleted in order to comply with libel laws. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:19, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm just concerned about the content. If they're making actual legal threats in their talk page comments or edit summaries, you probably need

WP:ANI for a block. If they're just being stupid, a 4im "only warning" may be more appropriate. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν

) 02:22, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

and of course with an IPv6 semi-protection may be more helpful than a block User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 02:24, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Please note that the guy who stated Mormonism is the Protestant ethic on steroids is a cheerfully libertarian professor of economics and a faithful Mormon. So, IP's ire is towards one of their own. It seems like in-group fighting. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:41, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Please note that tgeorgescu falsely represented someone involved with fringe groups of the religion as a "Faithful Mormon," while also leaving out that the individual in question provided no evidence for the claim. So all of their counterclaims and personal attacks so far in this section have been based on false misrepresentations. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 02:49, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

According to

WP:BLP, you have to provide evidence for him being in the fringe groups of the religion ASAP. tgeorgescu (talk

) 02:51, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

https://www.salon.com/2009/09/16/beck_skousen/ Here's one that discusses Glenn Beck's advocacy for the beliefs of a fringe group of the faith that was disavowed and warned by LDS church leaders. The group was at one point run by Mark's Uncle Cleon, and the article includes discussion of Mark advocating some of the group's beliefs with Beck. Also, I have received notice that tgeorgescu is specifically removing some of my content on this very discussion right now. As he is directly involved in it and one of the parties in question, this is unacceptable and must stop. It also further demonstrates the user's bad faith in this discussion. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 03:14, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Let me rehearse:

1. You accused us of breaking
   WP:RULES
   without evidence;
2. You cried libel without evidence;
3. You stated I objectively and indisputably proved that it does violate multiple rules without evidence;
4. You called us So you are fools, and also outright liars, if you attempt to dispute that without evidence;
5. You called
   guilt by association isn't evidence: I mean, he could be wrong, but he still is a devout LDS Church member). tgeorgescu (talk
   ) 03:23, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Your entire rehearsal there is a blatant lie that is easily verifiable through looking at the history of this post, the talk page, and my personal talk page. I presented evidence that the disputed section violated Wiki rules, including NPOV and Due Weight. You used the word "libelous" to refer to a specific sentence, and when I repeated your use of the word in that context, you falsely accused me of crying libel without evidence. I correctly showed that the violation of the rule had objectively been proven, as multiple users outside of the tag-team of you and VGeno84 concurred with. You stated that you were not a fool due to you lying, so I flipped your words after presenting the evidence of that. I then accurately stated that Mark Skousen was involved with fringe groups of the religion. I presented an article where he openly advocates for the beliefs of once such fringe group that his Uncle headed, and which verifies it as a fringe group, as it was disavowed and warned by LDS Church leaders. I also correctly stated that you were editing my responses on this very discussion here, as the notice for you doing it is displayed on my talk page. You initially sent multiple accusations of me being a paid employee of the LDS church and posted it in multiple different locations, while I was busy typing up the very section on the talk page that you told me to create in the first place. You did it again after I completed that section on the talk page. You have been personally attacking me from the start and lying repeatedly, and the evidence is there for all to see. You keep spamming my personal talk page with multiple different warnings regarding my responses to you in this very discussion as well. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 03:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

WP:RS about Mark Skousen being someone involved with fringe groups of the religion; we don't care about his uncle, nor about Glenn Beck. Let me put it this way: many Catholics have false beliefs, but as long as they are not outright heretical, the Pope has no business chastising their false beliefs. tgeorgescu (talk

) 03:36, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

It was already provided. The article provides evidence of him advocating for beliefs of the group disavowed and warned by the LDS Church, which is evidence of his involvement with the group. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 03:39, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

You don't get the point when you're told. According to

WP:ANI. You denied that he is a devout Mormon, you have to provide evidence for it. No compromise is possible. tgeorgescu (talk

) 03:45, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

You don't even attempt to make valid points, and resort to threats and intimidation. I stated that he was involved with fringe groups, and provided clear evidence of it when you asked for it. So cease your threats and intimidation attempts, you are currently being reported for it. 2601:681:300:13F:848A:7DF8:A2C8:E34 (talk) 03:53, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

You have been reported for stating that Mark Skousen isn't a faithful Mormon without providing evidence for your claim, repeatedly. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:04, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

TGeorgescu has continued to openly lie and attempt to move the goalposts after the fact on the reporting threads. I made the claim a single time, not repeatedly, and all uses of it from then on were quotations of that original one. Tgeorgescu has also repeatedly lied about what was actually requested and provided, and has moved the goalposts back and forth several times. Yet more indisputable evidence for both admins and other editors here tgeorgescu's violations and hijacking of this thread. 04:58, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Your source does not even verify that Mark is a Mormon (faithful or otherwise), let alone that he would belong to any of the groups mentioned in the article. And it certainly does not verify the claim that Mark was chastised by the LDS Church. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:00, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

To put it bluntly, this is all the information about Mark from this source:

In March, with the new book available, Beck invited Skousen's nephew Mark onto his Fox show, where the two men discussed splitting up the United States. (Mark would later say that between commercials, Beck told him that a friend had sent him "Leap" and that the book "changed his life.")

— Alexander Zaitchik, Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 07:00, 25 July 2021 (UTC)