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Jill Stein

A request for comment has been made on the page for Jill Stein after a number of edits were rolled back without discussion. A careful and concise list of the major elements censored has been made and the question is: should some or all of this censored material be restored? Thank you for your help maintaining Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality.

To give the simplest example: The following text (in green) has been repeatedly blocked from addition to the page because the page owner does not believe it represents her "true" opinion on vaccines, the page owner believes instead that she is using dog-whistle terms... :

In a short article discussing these tweets at Forbes, Emily Willingham described Stein's statements on vaccines as "using dog whistle terms and equivocations bound to appeal to the “antivaccine” constituency".[1] In a later interview, at the Green Party convention, Stein stated that she did not believe that vaccines caused autism, and compared the media frenzy around the question to the birther issue which had been used against Barack Obama in 2008.[2]

Existing text on the page is in black, what I'm trying to include is in dark green. (I've added the fact that the smear quote is from a short article, because the editor is giving this polemical citation undue weight by citing all of Emily Willingham's credentials for a 100-word squib on a tweetstorm on the web version of a finance magazine...)

If you would like to come and remind the page owner that pages on Wikipedia are not owned, your help will be much appreciated!! (actually there appears to be a team of 3 working together, all of whom voted against the addition of the dark green text above to counterbalance the "dog whistle" takedown... with primary and secondary source material (see video in reference with commentary from Cenk Ugyur, who spoke at the DNC Convention, so is seemingly a credible source.)

  1. ^ Willingham, Emily. "Jill Stein Sort Of Answers The Autism-Vaccine Question And No One Is Happy". Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  2. ^ "Green Candidate Jill Stein Isn't Anti-Vaccine". Young Turks. Retrieved 2016-08-13.

Request for Comment (Jill Stein page)

SashiRolls (talk) 23:37, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Page has clearly been overrun by partisans with an agenda. More eyes needed, urgently. 174.19.224.236 (talk) 21:15, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I agree with the above users that there is a neutrality problem, but I would like to try to briefly offer a more neutral and comprehensive guide to the ongoing dispute. Though I have also been involved on the talk page (also as a logged in user--which one is not too much of a secret but I'd rather not state it explicitly for obvious reasons), I take issue with the rhetoric and proposals of both sides.
The status quo article--particularly the sections on the 2016 campaign and her political positions--contains numerous Stein quotes chosen by Wikipedia editors from primary sources which portray her in an unflattering light. Likewise, it contains numerous facts, such as her performance in a single poll in which a dead gorilla was farcically included as an option, which likewise seem chosen to mock her candidacy, going beyond simply stating her obviously slim chances and crossing the line into ridicule. Examples:
  1. diff1
  2. diff2
These edits are defended on the grounds that they rely heavily on verbatim quotes (and therefore free of bias) and they concern issues relevant to the page. Concerns about misuse of primary sources are dismissed, usually without attempting to ground disputes about due weight in the coverage of reliable secondary sources.
  • These issues have been discussed exhaustively on the talk page, with little movement toward consensus.
  • See also: An RFC, which was unproductive due to (in my view) a flawed presentation of the issues at hand. Valid points by both sides were left unaddressed as ongoing ad hominem argumentation spilled over into the rest of the talk page, which has become quite unwieldy.
  • There have also been inconclusive (and now dormant) discussions at:
There are apparently related disputes at the article for Stein's running mate, involving some of the same users. 71.13.175.226 (talk) 16:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Please log in. If you have been involved as a registered editor, other editors need to be able to see all your contributions. --NeilN talk to me 16:48, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
My username is the reverse of miTeguh. I recently had someone else change my password for me so that I couldn't log on, in an attempt to take a wikibreak. Accordingly, I aim to disengage from this dispute now. 71.13.175.226 (talk) 17:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
There is no need to describe Wittingham's piece as "short". It's not particularly short. The problem with your proposed edit on the vaccines is that it's your (or Cenk Uygur's) interpretation of the statement and it does not add much to a section which already contains her clarified positions on vaccines. I spoke in favor of using the quotes from the interview instead. That you think Cenk Uygur is a reliable source says all we need about you SashiRolls. Just for some context, this is the same user who spent considerable time going against consensus fighting to get laudatory statements from Venezuelan state propaganda (Telesur) included in an article on Stein's VP candidate. The user has no sense for reliable sources and spends most of his time pushing inaccurate, confusing and misleading edits that all have a pro-Stein bias. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:42, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

An attempt to have the above user blocked from the site has failed, even though I offered to agree to accept a block myself in exchange, so others could work peacefully. His latest questionable action was to announce that he had he removed a section that consensus was calling for while, in fact, only removing the section title. People looking at the diff could mistakenly believe that he had removed the on 3rd party chances sections as he says he did in the edit summary, and as consensus has suggested is necessary. See Duverger's, Delete the 3rd party Chances Section,[1], and Doesn't seem neutral. I am taking the step of deleting the section to follow up on 6-8 users belief that it does not belong, even though I fully expect that I will be berated violently for doing so by [User:Snooganssnoogans|Snooganssnoogans] who seems to be hoping the "systemic bias" tag will remain as long as possible... SashiRolls (talk) 10:28, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much to all who have worked on the page trying to challenge this user's behavior. I have been singled out for the user's worst abuse, but still no official action has been taken. SashiRolls (talk) 10:28, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

WT:SOCIOLOGY#Racism in South Korea

Christian140 has raised some valid concerns at WT:SOCIOLOGY#Racism in South Korea that are relevant to this noticeboard. Since that project is not super-duper active, I wanted to call attention to it here as well since Christian's recent post indicates that he/she's about ready to give up and I think more input from uninvolved editors is needed. I'm going to try to take a closer look later, but I don't have any background knowledge on the article in question (Racism in South Korea). —PermStrump(talk) 17:52, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Family Home Entertainment

Weeks ago, Trivialist unfairly destroyed the Family Home Entertainment (or FHE for short) page and redirected it to the Artisan Entertainment page (here) just because he thinks that FHE was a former name of the company, so I reverted it a few days ago but he and the others kept adding the redirect back (here, here, here, here, and here). I tried to revert the FHE page back to the way it was several times, and I even threatened them for adding the redirect back. But then they blocked me and I tried so hard to remind anyone on my talk page that FHE was the name of the KIDS AND FAMILY SUBSIDIARY of Artisan, not just one of the parent company's former names. It's just that FHE became a LABEL of the parent company after the latter was incorporated as International Video Entertainment in 1986. (I even said this on the article's talk page.) Can you please remove the page's redirect to the Artisan page and add all of its content back? 68.2.123.163 (talk) 00:02, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Just because they are not precisely the same thing does not mean they need separate pages. See WP:NOPAGE. Rhoark (talk) 22:06, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
I don't care, FHE has its own history from the early 1980s to 2005. Now nobody sees its page anymore because it's butchered. 68.2.123.163 (talk) 22:57, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
FHE's history is adequately covered in Artisan_Entertainment#1980s, and can be expanded in that section if necessary. As noted above, there's no compelling reason to create a separate page for it. OhNoitsJamie Talk 16:03, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Donald Trump's false campaign statements

You are invited to participate in Talk:Donald Trump#RfC: Donald Trump's false campaign statements. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Jill Stein

Editors are invited to review Talk:Jill Stein#RfC: Should the article discuss a crowd-funded YouTube documentary or include a quotation from Chris Hedges stating that "the Democratic Party is one of the engines for ... proto-fascism," or include similar content?. Neutralitytalk 19:36, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Bad sources (tabloids and low-level journalism) used in articles about religion statistics

This issue was originally posted here but the discussion has been abruptly closed because it was in the "wrong venue". It is primarily an issue of source unreliability, however it could also be viewed as a problem of "point of view", so this could be the right place for such an issue.

Articles such as:

Are in a horrible state as they appear to have become platforms of propaganda for a certain religious ideology who sees inflated statistical data as its strength and weapon. However, the main problem is that those articles (or major parts of them) are constructed on unreliable sources such as tabloids and low-level journalism (which by definition is not academic, and by Wikipedia standards should not be used as a source here), for example articles from The Guardian or The Economist, and ostensively biased agencies such as the "World Christian Encyclopedia". I have also discovered that the user who has recently revised those articles or the Christianity-related sections of those articles has made an unfair use of some sources (and in this case I refer to the few good quality ones, academico books, that apparently (deceptively) are referenced), reporting information that those sources do not contain.

I ask for help from administrators and other editors in dealing with this issue, to purge those articles from the aforementioned bad quality sources.--151.68.153.125 (talk) 21:51, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

  • The bad quality sources are mostly proxies for other sources. Instead of simply discarding the improperly sourced content, they should be examined for the actual sources of information, and those should be cited instead if they are reliable. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:19, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
  • This appears to be really an issue for WP:RSN. In any case, the policy in question is WP:NEWSORG. Opinion columns in newspapers (including The Guardian) are akin to primary sources because they are not vetted by the editorial board. But The Economist is a news magazine where all articles are vetted. It is an internationally reputed news magazine, and it can be regarded as a reliable source, below only peer-reviewed scholarly articles. If no peer-reviewed sources are available for the material in question, The Economist can certainly be used. Does this answer the question? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:50, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
    • It does. Thank you. I have polished one of the articles (growth of religion), which nonetheless remains in a horrible state, as I have surely missed some of the unsubstantiated claims and bad sources it contains. Besides this, it is also written in bad language, containing a lot of grammatical and spelling errors (the last editor, that who inserted all these bad sources, tabloids, blogs, etc., claims to be an Arab and that English is not his mother tongue). I already added tags of unreliability in the past days, but they were promptly removed by the user in question.--151.36.36.57 (talk) 20:32, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
    • My edits have been immediately reverted by someone claiming that I am another user who incidentally criticized the contributions of the user who has constructed those articles, and were banned. I am not that user. Apparently there's more interest in disputes among users than in the content of articles.--151.36.36.57 (talk) 20:48, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
I took a look at the edit [2]. I would say it was too big of a deletion to go without a contest. Since it has been reverted, you need to follow WP:BRD, i.e., discuss the issues on the article talk page.
Here I will limit myself to the general policy issues. Saying that an opinion column is like a "primary source" doesn't mean that it is unreliable. Rather it means that the reliability depends on the author or the source of the information. And, in our text, it will be have to be attributed with an in-text attribution. (For example, statistics from PEW Research have been attributed, and PEW is globally accepted as a reliable source of statistics. So, that reference is perfectly fine.) Secondly, WP:NEWSORG also tells you that regular news reports are reliable. But they are only reliable for "news", not for opinions.
I have watch listed the page now. So, if you initiate a discussion, I can come and help if anything remains contentious. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:25, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. I just started the discussion.--151.36.36.57 (talk) 21:51, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
The purpose of news media is to tell us what happened today and if what happened today is worth adding to an article then news media are our only source. One of the disputed passages is "Studies show that, in terms of percentage and world wide spread, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world," which is sourced to a VOA news section for people learning English.[3] Certainly it is a reliable source, but I would be more likely to choose a prestigious news source. The VOA gets its info from Pew, which might be a better source, and the article should say "According to a Pew Research study," not "studies show." TFD (talk) 09:19, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Growing crime problem on Walmart

Hello, Wikipedians! I hope editors experienced in WP:NPOV issues can look at a conversation on the Walmart Talk page. To summarize: An editor recently added a subsection to the article called Growing crime problem based on a report from Bloomberg. I made an edit request asking editors to include two sentences about Walmart's efforts to curb crimes, citing the aforementioned Bloomberg story and another one. Two editors have weighed in, Sammy1339 and Meters. I would not want to attempt to summarize their opinions, as both editors have clearly stated their viewpoints already. However, as the discussion is at a standstill, it seems more input is needed. Thanks, JLD at Walmart (talk) 17:32, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Scare quotes at War in Donbass

At War in Donbass, RGloucester and Iryna Harpy are insisting ([4],[5]) that we keep scare quotes around the term humanitarian convoy, editorially implying, in wikipedia's voice, that usage of the term is absurd or misleading. The term is already attributed to Russia in writing: "what Russia called a humanitarian convoy".

RGloucester maintains at Talk:War in Donbass that "It is a direct quote FROM THE SOURCE" (caps in the original), and that removing the quotes would render us guilty of WP:OR. However, none of the five sources used in this paragraph ([6],[7],[8],[9],[10]) directly quote Russian officials when using this term - the sources are paraphrasing - and it is therefore false to suggest that quotation marks are necessary to denote exact Russian language from any of these sources. It is furthermore unclear why quotation marks are necessary in this specific instance, when the construction of the sentence clearly indicates this phrase originates with Russia.

I am not sure if there may be a language proficiency problem in terms of identifying sarcasm, or a POV problem in terms of thinking that scare quotes are justified, but more eyes would be appreciated. Obviously if scare quotes were permitted around any phrase appearing in a newspaper, POV-pushers would have a field day all across the encyclopedia, and maintain in every case "It is a direct quote FROM THE SOURCE." -Darouet (talk) 13:29, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

'Scare quotes' are also used where the label/name is disputed. Which is certainly the case with Russia labelling it a 'humanitarian convoy'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:43, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Noting that "Russia describes it as a humanitarian convoy" conveys that this is their position, but not necessarily that of others. I appreciate that you recognize this is scare quoting, but disagree that this is appropriate at wikipedia, especially in the context of a dispute. -Darouet (talk) 14:21, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Your use of the term "scare quotes" is POV. Using quotation marks around a term that isn't what its linguistic label implies it is isn't "scary". The only people who think that the "humanitarian convoys" are actually humanitarian convoys are Russian media announcers. When the rest of the world doubts it, then use of quotation marks around the words "humanitarian convoy" is appropriate. --Taivo (talk) 17:34, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
You don't understand what scare quotes are, and by stating that we should use quotation marks to imply editorial doubt of Russia's term, are advocating that we use them. According to you, using scare quotes is necessary, but describing them as such is not neutral. That is typical nationalist nonsense and has no place in Wikipedia. -Darouet (talk) 16:58, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Refusal to quote newly added source

The filer has withdrawn the issue. Kautilya3 (talk) 17:42, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In order to check that a source had been represented fairly and to determine how to neutrally present material, I asked an editor to quote the relevant material from a newly cited book or to supply a link so that I could read it myself. He refused to do either. Do I have recourse to any action or is my only resort to make a general request to other editors to look up the material for me?     ←   ZScarpia   19:09, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

We would need to know who the editor and what the source is to make an informed decision.--67.68.161.51 (talk) 01:31, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
See the Jenny Tonge article.
The associated talkpage thread is this one.
The dispute concerns the sentence which currently begins: "On 1 February 2010 The Palestine Telegraph, of which Tonge was a patron, published an article which made false claims[23][24][25] that an Israel Defence Forces emergency aid hospital in Haiti (deployed in the aftermath the 2010 Haiti earthquake) was secretly harvesting organs ... ."
In particular, the dispute is over whether the article can state as a fact that the claims were false. Policy-wise, the problem is that such a statement needs to be properly sourced (and then, by looking at other reliable sources, shown to be neutral).
A difficulty in this situation is that, short of one side managing to expose the other as having lied, it cannot be absolutely known whether the claims have any truth or not. Therefore, genuinely reliable sources would have to restrict themselves to expressing opinions or reporting what various commentators have said, not making statements of fact about things they could not be sure about. On the other hand, sources can say with certainty that the claims were not substatiated, but that is a different matter.
Nonetheless, source number 25 (Pogrund, Benjamin (2014-07-10). Drawing Fire: Investigating the Accusations of Apartheid in Israel. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 185. ISBN 9781442226845) has been cited and a claim made that it supports the wording desired.
I asked the editor citing the source to quote the text being cited, as can be seen from my comment of 23:00, 27 August 2016.
The editor who added the citation refused to quote the source, as can be seen from the comment left at 02:20, 28 August 2016.
    ←   ZScarpia   03:05, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
What's this tendentious nonsense? The sources were in the article, along with the relevant quote taken from them, from the moment I inserted them. The Ynet source says "...exploiting the horrible tragedy that has befallen Haiti to recycle false claims that IDF soldiers engage in organ trafficking....". The editor who posted this tendentious request has already acknowledged this, on the talk page of the article, to wit, quoting him: " As far as the YNet article goes, I see that, at the bottom, it does say that the AfriSynergy Productions video referred to by Lendman "recycle(s) false claims that IDF soldiers engage in organ trafficking." [11]. The quote from Drawing Fire is also in the article, it says " [Tonge] gave credence to ugly, baseless rumors". In summary: the sources and quotes were in the article from the get go, no one refused to supply them, and they support exactly the text in the article. Furthermore, the editor who posted this request has already acknowledged this to be true. Epson Salts (talk) 14:55, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
And so it starts!
Please note that, my current purpose in coming here was to specifically ask if I had recourse to any action because of Epson Salts's refusal to quote sufficient text from the third source in order to check that it actually justified the claims being made for it (which refusal can be read on the talkpage). The text he has quoted here was given in his edit summary when he added the cited source. What he has supplied is not sufficient to do the job of verification. In particular, it does not supply details of which incident is being referred to (of which there are several possibilities). Even, if in fact, it refers to the incident under consideration, it raises questions about the source's reliability on the incident; the author states that Tonge gave credence to rumours, when, if what she said is examined, it is clear that she herself didn't believe them at all.
Epson Salts claims that I acknowledged various things. That claim is untrue and is evidence, I think, of Epson Salts's poor ability at construing English, which I have noticed elsewhere in Wikipedia.
When it comes to the second source, from YNet, I did comment that, down at the bottom, it states that "the AfriSynergy Productions video referred to by Lendman recycle(s) false claims that IDF soldiers engage in organ trafficking." However, at that point, the YNet article is referring to the AfriSynergy video, not directly to Stephen Lendman's article in The Palestine Telegraph (in quoting the YNet article above, Epson Salts frames his quote in such a way that it makes it appear that it is a statement about Lendman's article, not the video). So, if what the YNet article says is true: "Baseless rumours" were spread about the IDF in the past; these were 'recycled' by the AfriSynergy video; the AfriSynergy video was referred to by AL Manar TV; whose report was referred to, among other things, in Lendman's Palestine Telegraph article. The YNet article doesn't explicitly state that Lendman's claims were 'false' and to read it that way, as Epson Salts has done, requires interpretation to be performed. In discussing, Lendman's article, which the YNet article does extensively before the final note about the AfriSynergy video, it does not make any direct statement about the falsity of its contents itself; what it does do is it quotes what others have said. Therefore what the YNet article is good for is for providing commentators' opinions about Lendman's article; what it is not great for, because doing so requires interpretation of its contents, is being used as justification as a statement of fact that Lendman's claims were false.
Epson Salts's use of the first source, from The Jerusalem Post, as justification for stating that Lendman's claims are false stems from the article's title: "'Haiti organ harvesting claims false'". There are two problems there, though Epson Salts refuses to aknowledge them: firstly, nothing in the body of the article supports the statement made in the title; secondly, the title is in the form of a quotation, though the source of the quotation is not supplied. Therefore, again, the source is not stating in its own voice that Lendman's claims are false, so can't be used as justification in Wikipedia for stating that as a fact; and, in this case, the source of the quotation isn't supplied, so the article can't even be cited to justify stating that a particular person made that claim.
So: after prodding, Epson Salts has supplied three sources, two of which don't properly do the job they're being used for and a third which he has refused to supply enough detail about to determine whether that is the case.
Epson Salts is obviously determined that it should be stated as a fact that Lendman's claims are false, when to a neutral observer, it would be obvious, given what has been written, that hasn't been proved one way or the other. No proof substantiating their truth has been provided; but neither has proof been provided that they are not true. Probably, except for a number of factors, the claims would simply be dismissed. Firstly, Israel and Israelis have a bit of a history for organ harvesting surreptitiously and trafficking. Secondly, the head of a body whose purpose is to stop organ traffiking has said that Israel is at the top of the tree where implication in that activity is concerned. Also, it doesn't help Israel's case that one of its religious leaders made statements saying that the compulsory harvesting of organs from non-Jews for providing transplants on Jews was, in theory, good.
In seeking to have Wikipedia make the statement of fact he wants, Epson Salts has a number of barriers to get past. Firstly, he needs to provide reliable sources which state what he wants. He seems to think he's done that, but I think that it's a bit dubious that he has. Obviously, if the third source unequivocally states that Lendman's claims were false, that would satisfy the requirement, but, given what I've seen of Epson Salts's language and reasoning abilities (please pardon me for making personal comments about him on this noticeboard, you'll notice that he didn't disdain to do that about me on the article talkpage, even after being asked to stop), I would prefer to actually see enough of what the source says before making my own mind up on that score. It doesn't seem to have occurred to Epson Salts that there's a second barrier to pass: Neutrality. Of course, it's not enough to show that one source you've managed to scour up on the Web says what you want to say, you have to neutrally present what all reliable sources say.
Epson Salts has called me tendentious. Who is more likely to be the tendentious one: the one who is trying to state that something which is difficult to prove either way is false, or the one who is trying to have the question of truth or falsity left open?
Here is a posting on Lendman's blog which bears the same title as the article he wrote for The Palestine Telegraph (which appears unavailable). Mostly, Lendman reports on what others have written or said. The only claims really attributable to Lendman himself appear right at the bottom in the last paragraph: "Apparently, the publicity about providing humanitarian aid is cover for this illicit operation, another crime against humanity among Israel's growing list, matched and exceeded by its Washington benefactor with generations more practice" Note, though, that the paragraph begins with the qualifier "apparently."
    ←   ZScarpia   22:07, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
In order to reach a solution, I'm prepared to accept the Jenny Tonge article stating that the Palestine Telegraph article contained "unsubstantiated claims."     ←   ZScarpia   22:24, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Your tendentiousness knows no boundaries. Again : I never "refused" to give you the quote s- I put them in the article when I first added the sources, as anyone can ascertain by looking at the edit history. There are 3 sources that clearly support the statement that the Pal Telegraph article made false claims, so that's what the article will say. If you prefer to use the formulation "baseless rumors", based on the Drawing Fire source, I'd be ok with that, too. Epson Salts (talk) 00:00, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
You do seem to like spraying round accusations of tendentious editing don't you? Frankly, I'm not interested in your opinions about me and I doubt anybody else is either. As far as supplying quotes go, how about quoting, say, the paragraph containing, or three or four sentences surrounding, the part you're using? And then we'll take it from there. If it's shown that you've represented Drawing Fire fairly, you can add a statement to the effect that the book's author said that Tonge gave credence to baseless rumours if you like. But then, I would quote Tonge to show that, in fact, she didn't do that.
Editors reading this noticeboard, perhaps you could give your opinion on whether the first two sources verify what is claimed? My explanation of why I think they don't is contained in the long comment I left above.
    ←   ZScarpia   01:21, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
I gave you a link to all three sources, and I gave you the quotes that support the text they are used for. That's all that is required (In fact, is more than required - all that's required is the name of the source, not even a link, you could take the time to find the source and read it). More than one editor has reverted you on that page, yet you persist. You falsely accused me of "refusing" to give you the quote, falsely claimed the source doesn't support the text even after acknowledging that it does on the Talk page. If that is not tendentiousness, I don't know what is. Epson Salts (talk) 01:40, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
For Drawing Fire, you supplied this Google Books link. Now, perhaps for other editors, it allows them to read excerpts from the book, but, for me, it just supplies a link to somewhere the book can be purchased. Do you really think I would put myself and other people to all this trouble if I could access the book myself, short of putting in a request to the British Library and paying a fee?
For someone who didn't refuse to provide a larger quotation from the book (and I did ask you to "quote the whole text from p.185 of "Drawing Fire" which you're using as the basis of your claims") it certainly seems strange that you haven't so far done so.
    ←   ZScarpia   13:52, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
What you write above is simply not true.. For Drawinfg Fire, I provided, in the article in addition to the link above the following quote "...she gave credence to ugly, baseless rumors". ANyone can ascertain that by looking at the edit history, here: [12]. You have repated about half a dozen times the falsehood that you requested a quote and I refused to give it to you. This is tendentious. Epson Salts (talk) 14:01, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
This requires reformulation.WP:TLDR will mean there will be no third party input. Just as a general consideration, it is obvious that the whole page, not this one issue, is a gross violation of WP:DUE and WP:BLP. I know that it is generally believed to be of interest to students of criminology to examine with forensic depth the opinions of anyone who shows sympathy for Palestinians, but surely dedicating 90% of a page on Tonge's various remarks on the I/P issues is wildly excessive. I say this having had to struggle to get even a short mention of Pavel Florensky's record on anti-Semitism ontop his arfticle. That was a brief several lines. Here we have an indictment worthy of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.Nishidani (talk) 14:11, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Guys, I've just noticed and tried the "Search Inside" box on Drawing Fire's Google Books page. Through that I've managed to access the relevant page and confirmed that Pogrund did write what Epson Salts claimed and that he was referring to the incident in Haiti. Now there is just the neutrality issue to deal with. As a result I'm prepared, for the moment at least, to go with the article using "baseless" rumours or claims. I'd like to point out the logic of the situation, though: because no (at least public) investigation was carried out, nobody who was not directly involved can actually know for sure whether in fact the suspicions were 'baseless' or not.     ←   ZScarpia   14:14, 30 August 2016 (UTC)



If anyone with the power to impose discretionary sanctions wants me to demonstrate that what E.M.Gregory wrote is a pile of shite, I'll do so (not gladly, but I will do so).     ←   ZScarpia   17:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


TL;DR. To ZScarpia: I don't know what you want here. The discussion here should be on the talkpage. And problems with user conduct aren't dealt here - you need to go to the drama boards. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:37, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Kingsindian, at the point where I created the request here, what this was about was providing verification for stating as a fact that Lendman's article on The Palestine Telegraph made false claims (that is, rather than stating that any number of people had said that the claims made were, in effect, false). Eventually, Epson Salts provided three sources. The first two, for reasons I explain above, didn't really do the job they were being used for. Epson Salts provided a link to Google Books and a very short quote for the third. Usually on Google Books, a button is displayed which allows you to view the contents of books. For me, in this case, it didn't, which gave me the problem of verifying that what Epson Salts was claiming was true (and after his claims about the first two sources, my faith in that wasn't very high). Therefore I asked Epson Salts to either supply a larger quote or provide a link to somewhere on the Web where I could read the appropriate text myself. He did neither and, from his "we're finished here" comment, it appeared that he was not going to do so either. Therefore, I came here to find out if I had recourse to any action in the event of an editor not providing sufficient of the contents of a newly cited source to determine if it actually did what was being claimed. You'll notice that in my initial comment, I didn't mention Epson Salts or mention a particular article, all I did was ask a question about my options. An IP editor then asked for specific details about which article and second party editor was involved. Personally, I didn't think that was necessary, but I supplied the details requested. This request then began spiralling when Epson Salts himself appeared. Just to make clear, my reason for appearing here was to find out what my options are, not to report a user conduct issue. As you'll see, the issue did start with a talkpage discussion.
Since starting the request here, I discovered a way of reading the text on GoogleBooks, which means that I no longer need anyone else to quote it for me and that I could confirm for myself that Pogrund did write what Epson Salts claimed and that he was referring to the incident in Haiti. This means that one good source has been provided which says something along the lines that Epson Salts wanted to state, albeit the author states that Tonge "gave credence" to the claims, when other sources disprove that. Of course, the provision of one source does not mean that what is stated is neutral, but I have made some changes to the article which hopefully Epson Salts will accept. If so, then the issue is resolved for the moment.
    ←   ZScarpia   17:20, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • To attempt to address the actual question: we require citations so that information is able to be verified... But we do not require that the information must be easily verifiable, or even verifiable by everyone... there may be situations when you will not be able to verify the information yourself. When this occurs, you need to contact others who can access the source on your behalf. Blueboar (talk) 18:59, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
If a citation had been newly added and the editor adding it refused to quote sufficient text from the source to determine whether the claims being made for it were justified or not, would the position be the same?     ←   ZScarpia   19:41, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
Again with the false claim that I refused to give you the quote? I'm starting to rethink my position regarding reporting you at WP:AE. Epson Salts (talk) 22:51, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
It's a hypothetical question: it's not about you. As far as reporting me to AE goes, it's tedious reading your threats: put up or shut up.     ←   ZScarpia   11:08, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Jill Stein, again.

Should Jill Stein be allowed to have a Political positions page as the rest of the candidates do, and if so, is there currently undue weight given to her "political positions" (many of which originally written by editors opposed to them) on her biography page? This is the question for which a request for comment has been opened here. As stated before by other editors, this page urgently needs "more eyes". SashiRolls (talk) 18:34, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi @SashiRolls: my impression, after reading through over half of the "political positions" section of her bio, is that it's not unduly hostile to her. There are a few places where the tone, or sentence construction, could be tweaked (e.g. her stance on housing not including specific policy recommendations could be written more neutrally), but I don't view the sections I read as terrible. Furthermore, I would agree with some editors on the talk page that her political positions are probably best kept in her bio, and not spun into a new article. -Darouet (talk) 15:10, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Is mentioning "Han Chinese" in an article Han Taiwanese a violation of NPOV

A edit of mine has been reverted multiple times by User:Lysimachi who says that it violates WP:NPOV. There was a previous Dispute resolution case on this Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_141#Talk:Han_Taiwanese.23Lead_sentence_WikiLink but the status is unresolved. According to User:Lysimachi, saying that "Han Taiwanese" are ethnically "Han Chinese" violates WP:UNDUE (Diff). The term "Han Chinese" is used in multiple sources and I don't see why we should not mention it at all in this article. The term "Chinese" is an ethnic term and differentiates the Taiwanese of Han Chinese descent from those of Aboriginal descent. I'm struggling to understand where is the NPOV violation here. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 18:57, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

RFC Notice: Inclusion of vehicle use in crimes as part of vehicle articles

A RFC posted at Project Automobiles is discussing two similar article edits:

Springee (talk) 19:43, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport

Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I just removed an unsourced section about conspiracy theories, but another section that attempts to collate such conspiracy theories remains. I feel as though this whole discussion is basically a coatrack especially because the most reliable sources basically conclude that no one in government knew anything about the use of this airport as a drug trafficking drop point. Help on this article would be greatly appreciated.

jps (talk) 11:02, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

United Kingdom European Union referendum, 2016 (Sources which claim that Referendum not legally-binding may be questionable; pro-Remain bias)

The claim that the results of the Referendum of the United Kingdom on the Membership of the United Kingdom in the European Union (2016), are "not legally binding", is tainted, or, is put into doubt by the fact that it was NEVER actually widely made (and was certainly never made on THIS article, here, on Wikipedia, and cited) BEFORE the (provisional) final results were announced and confirmed by the national chief Returning Officer from the Electoral Commission, in Manchester, based in one of the premises of Manchester City Council, sometime on June the 24th..

One of the last "clean" versions of the article, and the last version dated June the 23rd..

When a ""non-binding" claim" source (conveniently dated June the 24th., AFTER the all-UK national provisional final results) started to get specifically reinstated, on the same date.

This question is in fact not first raised by me, but by Peter Lilley MP (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Conservative), who said (Hansard: House of Commons; 5 September 2016; Volume 614), by his speech in the debate (regarding the e-Petition Number 131215; relating to EU referendum rules ),

"The final argument I want to deal with is that the referendum was only advisory. I debated daily with remainers—sometimes three times a day—but not once did a remain opponent say to the audience, “Oh by the way, this referendum is just advisory. If you give us the wrong advice we will ignore the result and remain in the EU anyway or perhaps call another referendum or vote against application of article 50 and the referendum result until we get the right result.” Did any Opposition Member say that to an audience and can they give me chapter and verse of them saying that they would treat the result as advisory and ignore it if they did not like it? Not one of them did. Now they are pretending that the whole thing was advisory. I forget which hon. Member said that was made clear during the debate.

"On the contrary, the then Foreign Secretary, who introduced the Referendum Bill, said that it was giving the decision to the British people. When launching the campaign, the Prime Minister said:

""This is a straight democratic decision—staying in or leaving—and no Government can ignore that. Having a second renegotiation followed by a second referendum is not on the ballot paper. For a Prime Minister to ignore the express will of the British people to leave the EU would be not just wrong, but undemocratic."—(Official Report, 22 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 24.)

"It was spelled out at the beginning of the referendum debate and again and again during it that this was a decisive choice for the British people. If we ignore that choice now and treat the British people with contempt, we will undermine their respect for democracy and prove how little faith we have in it."
Hansard transcripts
Recordings of proceedings in audio and video, or Audio-only
Recordings of proceedings (Audio-only)

David Lammy MP (Tottenham) (Labour) had indeed, on the same debate, cited the Briefing Paper issued by the House of Commons Library. He, however, erred, in that he either omitted by oversight, or he conveniently, for his own purpose, deliberately ignored and omitted the disclaimer, at the end of the document, which clearly states, at the end (Page 33 of 33 pages according to the Printers), that,

"Disclaimer - This information is provided to Members of Parliament in support of their parliamentary duties. It is a general briefing only and should not be relied on as a substitute for specific advice. The House of Commons or the author(s) shall not be liable for any errors or omissions, or for any loss or damage of any kind arising from its use, and may remove, vary or amend any information at any time without prior notice."
Bill documents — European Union Referendum Act 2015 (2015 c. 36)
European Union Referendum Bill 2015-16 (Briefing Paper) (Number 07212, 3 June 2015) (summary)
(in full) (.PDF)
(cached) (Google)

Essentially, the cited Brief Paper cannot be used or otherwise cited as an acceptable or reliable legal advice.

The article is otherwise generally written in a (rather strong) pro-Remain bias, especially the disproportionate use of pro-Remain publications (especially The Guardian and The Independent). -- 87.102.116.36 (talk) 00:19, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

This post is a rehash of these comments on the article talk page, which were removed by BethNaught on the grounds of WP:SOAPBOX. After they were re-added, I also removed them, citing much the same reason. See also these comments, which were made after the user was asked not to make such posts, and which allege me to be in the pay of either the Labour Party or one or more trade unions. I'd like to state for the record that neither of those claims is true.
According to our article about endorsements during the referendum campaign, only a handful of newspapers supported the Leave campaign. Of these, only The Telegraph and The Sunday Times would be regarded as reliable sources. There are far more sources regarded as reliable that supported the Remain campaign, so the odds are there are more likely to be a greater number of Remain-supporting newspapers used in any one article. Whether or not the referendum is legally binding is a topic that has been discussed in the media; the general consensus seems to be that it is not, though it is more than likely morally binding. The government could choose to ignore the result, but such a decision would probably be to its detriment. If the leave supporting newspapers choose not to report this story (i.e., that the referendum is not legally binding), or to advocate a different theory, then all we can do in the article is make note of that view.
I hate to be blunt, but this is just someone else with an axe to grind having a whine because they believe Wikipedia is ignoring the truth. Sadly this is an emotive topic that has exposed a great divide in the UK, with many on the winning side failing to be magnanimous in victory, and many on the losing side refusing to accept defeat. The rest of us wonder if the world's gone just that little bit crazy. This is Paul (talk) 18:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
This is all missing the point, no referendum in the UK can be binding as Parliament is sovereign, and no act of one parliament can bind another. This means that no matter what one parliament does, it can be undone by the next, meaning a referendum can be held in one parliament but ignored by the next, or the legislation repealed. the description can be seen here
Precisely. Here's an instance where parliament did that. This is Paul (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
The creator of this post appears to have breached WP:FORUMSHOP since they started an identical discussion thread here. Others have commented there. This is Paul (talk) 20:45, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

War of 1812 - Representing Both Results of view in the Infobox

The War of 1812 is (unfortunately) notorious for arguments about who won it. Canadians (who are aware of the war at least) generally say they won it, Americans say they won it or it was a stalemate. While more historians say it was a stalemate, a body of mainly British Historians tend to say it was a British victory, American Historians tend to say it was a stalemate, or a US victory. There are books written to support both views. People have been arguing about who won it for 100 years, and probably will for another 1000.

So on the War of 1812 page, after some discussion it was decided to include both viewpoints in the infobox, rather like the results in Battle_of_Ia_Drang, also a conflict where both sides think they won the conflict. Unfortunately, the Canadian/British centric result was later removed, leaving the US centric result only. I have attempted to put it back in via the talk page, and attempted to start a mediation to return the Canadian/British view so that IMHO the article meets NPOV...but with no luck. Most of the active Wikipedians on the page are from the US and support the US centric view that Canada/Britain didn't win the war, and that it was a stalemate.

In summary, it concerns me that we have a US centric historical viewpoint, argued by US historians and supported by US wikipedians on this page, with the removal of a Canadian/British viewpoint, mainly supported by British Historians. My suggestion would be to have it like the Battle of Ia Drang. This was a battle between Vietnamese forces and US forces, who both argue they won it from their own perspectives, and the infobox indicates the result is disputed. In the war of 1812's case, the result is disputed to indicate the two national opinions on either side of the border, and the difference of opinions between British Historians and US historians.

Lengthy discussion here. [[18]] Deathlibrarian (talk) 08:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The war was between the U.S. and the UK. Canada had not yet been formed although there were two colonies with Canada in their name. The view that the U.S. persued the war in order to annex Upper Canada, and that the Canadian militia defeated them, was a myth promoted by colonial officials in the 19th century that has remained in popular consciousness. However, modern historians of the war have rejected the annexation thesis and see other reasons the U.S. went to war including alleged impressment of American sailors and British arming of native Indians. All U.S. demands were met by the UK, some before the war began, although it had nothing to do with the war. Views of history are not divided according to the nationality of historians but according to what is generally accepted by historians and what is not. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." It does not mean balancing popular views in different countries. TFD (talk) 14:35, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
TFD. I'm sorry but I have to disagree, ... in this case, the views of history *are* divided according to the nationality of historians - I wouldn't be here debating this if it wasn't the case. Generally British Historians that have an opinion on the War of 1812 will say that Canadians/British won, US Historians (except for a few like Donald Hickey) will mostly say that it was a stalemate, or that in fact the US won (sometimes based on Naval victories), and Canadian Historians seem to be a bit more split, but probably with a lean to Canada winning, not so sure. You probably should read this, it discusses the split between nationality of Historians and their opinions of who won the war. Deathlibrarian (talk) 22:35, 14 September 2016 (UTC)http://www.essaysinhistory.com/content/dubious-victories-refighting-war-1812
Would you please provide a cite for your claim that "Canadians generally say they won it"? The article cites a survey (Boswell 2009) that indicates that 37% of Canadians believed this, less than a majority. --Noren (talk) 01:38, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Well this study says that 37% of Canadians think they won, 8% think the US won, and 14% think it was a tie. The rest didn't know. So certainly out of the people *that had an opinion*, the majority of Canadians think they won the war. If you translate that into a percentage of people that were aware of the war and offered an opinion, 62% of Canadians think they won the war, 13% think the US won, and 23% think it was a tie. https://acs-aec.ca/pdf/polls/12604640589505%20%282%29.pdf Additionally, they recently erected a statue showing them as the victors, so clearly someone in Canada thinks they won! :-)... http://i.cbc.ca/1.2203869.1382590258!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_300/coupland-monument-250.jpg Also, as per the article, a "February 2012 poll found that in a list of items that could be used to define Canadians' identity, the fact that Canada successfully repelled an American invasion in the War of 1812 places second (25%), only behind the fact that Canada has universal health care (53%)" Deathlibrarian (talk) 04:00, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Comment: Deathlibrarian, TFD: is there a link in the talk page archives where we can review a list of historians and their comments on the war's outcome? That would help to evaluate: right now on the talk page I don't see that presentation of sources. -Darouet (talk) 14:57, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

If you really want to know more I'd recommend the 2009 mediation. See for example [19] this proposal by Deathlibrarian, which includes a paragraph that begins: "In recent decades the view of the majority of American, British and Canadian historians has been that the war ended in stalemate, with the Treaty of Ghent closing a war that had become militarily inconclusive. "--Noren (talk) 01:21, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
Hi again Darouet, actually what Noren indicates there is incorrect and in fact, that should be changed on the page. American, British and Canadian historians do not all agree on the results of the war. This article below is probably a nice summary of historian's opinions, while it is a review of two opposing works, it also covers a range of views by historians, and generally shows the national patterns. It is also recent, so it takes into account some articles written after the bicentenary. "While British historians have shown a tendency to ignore the conflict, it is unfair to say they have forgotten the war altogether. Several British scholars have indeed studied their country’s second clash with the United States, and concluded that it was a triumphant one for John Bull. American historians, however, take umbrage at the suggestion that they “think” they won; the war, these scholars contend, can indeed be regarded as an American victory, at least in a limited sense. The explosion of literature for the war’s bicentennial has only exacerbated these trends, and two of the most recent works offer excellent examples of the ongoing fight over who can claim victory in the War of 1812." http://www.essaysinhistory.com/content/dubious-victories-refighting-war-1812 Deathlibrarian (talk) 04:00, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
DarouetJust a question, is it normal to put a NPOV tag on an article, while it is undergoing a bias investigation??? Deathlibrarian (talk) 09:41, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Race (human categorization)

Closing this discussion as its continuation would be a waste of time. The OP has made his case, and persuaded no one, despite the participation of many editors in the discussion. Please do not take this closure as my supporting the status quo, or disagreeing with the OP. Rather, this is just an acknowledgement that consensus has been reached (important quote from the policy: Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity), and is very unlikely to change in this forum at this time. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:17, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This article states in the first sentence that race in humans is a "social construct".

Race, as a social construct, is a group of people who share similar and distinct physical characteristics.

The same article states that this means that it is arbitrarily applied to humans for political reasons, and is not valid according to any standards of biology. While it is true that that appears to be a consensus view in American sociology, it drops off from a majority to minority to fringe view in American anthropology, American biology, international anthropology, and international biology. Numerous sources including surveys of experts have demonstrated this, contemporary scholars whatever their position agree there is no consensus. Many of these sources are on the talk page, I can reference them on request.

There is no question that some race classifications can be an arbitrary social construct (eg. one drop rule, Asians), but mixed views on whether other race classifications can be biologically valid (usually overall genetic or phenetic similarity or inferred shared ancestry). So we should put in both views ie. biological or social construct.

At the moment their appears to be a tagteam operating on the article to maintain the American sociology POV status quo: User:Maunus, User:EvergreenFir. Stonewalling tactics are apparent. Editors are told to "seek consensus". No amount of demonstration will be accepted. Biological race is "fringe" a priori. Multiple sources to the contrary are simply ignored. Several non regular editors have dropped by to question the POV.[20][21][22][23] This team is always around to revert and ignore.

Maunus has deployed a subject changing tactic of offering an entire article rewrite rather than admit one word change in the lead.[24] There is no hope of any agreement on his article rewrite, which is biased towards a view which was not even consensus in 90s American sociology, if he cannot change one word based on international surveys. This is a stonewalling tactic.

Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 15:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Among biologists, there is considerable skepticism as to whether race has any utility or meaning when describing human beings. Lynn Jorde and Stephen Wooding have a good review of this in Nature: "Genetic variation, classification and 'race'" (vol. 36, no. 11, p. 528, 2004). Forty years of genetic research have demonstrated that humans are highly homogeneous genetically when compared to other species: we have less population substructure because all human contemporary human populations dispersed from small, mixed populations in Africa 100-200kya. While there is some utility in referring to classically defined "races" when making decisions about medical risk, this is problematic since these categories have very poor predictive power compared to genotyping.
The talk page is daunting for someone not already deeply involved, but my impression is twofold. First, the article's "biological classification" could be more clearly written, and updated to include some of the endless data produced on human variation in the last ten years.
Second, I do not believe Tiny Dancer 48 that your suggestions are meant to or can result in improving the "biological classification" section of Race (human categorization). I do not see you coming to the talk page with specific, concrete examples from recent literature on human genetic diversity. Your earliest contributions to the talk page [25][26] are scientifically confused (e.g. confounding descriptions of allelic differences between human populations with DNA base pair similarities between humans and chimpanzees) and politically confusing (e.g. reference to Marxists buying wikipedia to peddle their anti-racist agenda). -Darouet (talk) 17:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
"Your earliest contributions to the talk page [27][28] are scientifically confused (e.g. confounding descriptions of allelic differences between human populations with DNA base pair similarities between humans and chimpanzees)"
When you say "allelic differences" versus "DNA base pair similarities", you're just trying to use big words for the same thing right? My comment referred to "genetic variation". Is there some relevant difference here or just semantics? My reference is Update to Long and Kittles's "Human Genetic Diversity and the Nonexistence of Biological Races":
"Earlier in this decade, Rick Kittles and I took an unusually critical look at FST (Long and Kittles 2003). We analyzed a unique data set composed of short tandem repeat (STR) allele frequencies for eight loci genotyped in both humans and chimpanzees (Deka et al. 1995). These data made it possible to see how FST played out when no one could dispute taxonomic and genetic significance. The answer surprised us. FST was pretty close to the canonical 0.15 shown so many times for human populations. In our analysis, FST was 0.12 for humans, but for humans and chimpanzees together, FST rose only to 0.18."
What's yours?
Is this "this guy is stupid at science" point you're trying to make exactly relevant? Surely it's an issue of sources for whether race can be biological. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:26, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
No, I am not using two different "big words" to describe the same thing. You wrote to SMcCandlish that "humans and chimps share most of their genetic variation" in reply to his comment about population haplogroup frequencies, and implied that his comment was so stupid, you could hardly bring yourself to read further. Despite your incredulity SMcC is correct: modern geneticists are interested in population substructure, and to the extent they write about "race," it's to compare modern scientific findings with anachronistic concepts. Your invocation of base pair similarity between chimps and humans when describing similarities or differences in population allele frequencies suggests you're confusing SNPs and alleles.
The source you cite above doesn't help your cause, since Long and Kittles are definitive that "race" is a poor metric of human relatedness and genetic diversity:
"Now, with more genetic data and more populations sampled, we are able to revisit the race problem with greater accuracy. Recently, my colleagues and I have tested the usefulness of race as a way to describe genetic differences among populations by contrasting the results of racial classification with those from generalized hierarchical models (Long et al. 2009). Race fails!"
Human genetic diversity is a fascinating topic, but "race" is not a measure by which modern biologists study it. -Darouet (talk) 19:00, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
You simply assert that "population substructure" is different from "race" (which is from the past). It isn't. I'm not confusing anything. SMcCandlish attempted the "single gene" gambit. Race is based on overall similarity. Long and Kittles reference a debunked African diversity measure, which doesn't impugn a similarity based concept even if it existed. All of this is irrelevant. You have one source matching your POV. I have many which don't. So there is no consensus. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:13, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
"The entire idea of "the Three Races" is genetically ignorant. The underlying truth is really haplogroups and their interrelation." SMcCandlish
I think the problem here is that haplogroups aren't race, they're, uh, haplogroups. SMcCandlish's personal definition of race isn't really something we need to discuss. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:19, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
"Haplogroups," allele frequencies, etc are how geneticists describe populations today - they don't use the term race. All the sources you list describe the end of the use of race in biology and anthropology. In every case, the quotes are either highly ambivalent, or describing an antithesis against which their article argues. -Darouet (talk) 15:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Can you provide sources showing that geneticists today describe populations by haplogroups? That's a purely academic exercise for the purposes of this thread, given all the sources I've provided demonstrating the continued use of the race concept. But still, I'm curious. Haplogroup = race now. Sources?
My sources are not ambivalent. That's a gratuitous lie. And those that argue from a "social construct" POV still accept they do not have a consensus. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
About a third of your sources dont actually espouse the view you claim they espouse but unequivocally support Darouets point -namely that geneticists today do not work with races but with populations, haplogroups and other much more finegrained ways to describe and analyze human genetic variation, the other third are outdated by several decades, and the last third are handpicked quotes from a small flock of "race realist" scholars connected to the alt-right.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:11, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Nah, you're just making stuff up. Race is "not fine grained" but "population" is. Explain the difference to us? Go through my sources and say which ones fit into your "dismissal" categories. Strkalj? Leroi? This is becoming ridiculous. You just have this cheap dishonest rhetoric rather than an honest appraisal of sources. "Out of date far right sources". It's a lie. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 16:16, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Taking note that it says "Race as a social construct" rather than "Race is a social construct" I don't see a problem. Other significant views on race are represented in the same paragraph. Given that the most common usage of the word tends to be in the sense that is a social construct, and race as a biological concept is not particularly informative or predictive, I don't see a problem with the current weighting overall. It does seem odd that the concept of haplogroup is treated mainly in a U.S.-centric subsection. Rhoark (talk) 17:21, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

You're simply asserting how common views are. This is exactly the problem. Whether race can be biological is a question for biologists. Surveys say a majority think it is. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Okay, the article doesn't say it can't be biological. As for what most people or sources are talking about when they say, "race" - that is not biological. All significant views are represented fairly, proportionately, and without bias in the article. Rhoark (talk) 17:41, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes it does, right in the first sentence. "Social construct" is defined in the article as biologically invalid. Your assertions about "most people", whoever they are, are made up, unreferenced, and of no value. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:47, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, when discussing "race as a social construct" it is not biological. When discussing race as a biological property, which the article does also do, then its biological. As for what I think is the more common use is quite relevant, because I'm an editor contributing my say to the consensus about WP:DUE weight. That's what this noticeboard is for. Rhoark (talk) 18:37, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
It would help a lot if you could explain why you think that, with references. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

For note, Tiny Dancer was originally engaging in significant WP:OR by listing a ton of old primary sources which talk about race as biological (e.g., Darwin, Dawkin, Mayr). AFAIK, the stance that race is biological (as opposed to being based on biological characteristics) is not widely held. The American Medical Association, for example, says race is a cultural construct in their manual of style ([29]). I admit being INVOLVED here, but frankly I think this user is trying quite hard to push their POV and has dismissed the current definition, Wikipedia, and its edits as "cultural Marxists" and dismissed the American Anthropological Association as "a stacked leftist executive board with no membership voting". Since they just got off their block for edit warring, they came here to further push the issue. I'm curious what uninvolved others think, but am skeptical of Tiny Dancer's motives here. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:55, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not trying to push my POV. My POV is that some systems of race are valid biological concepts, and others are arbitrary social constructs. I'm happy to include the view (very common among American sociologists) that race is only social. You are trying to push your POV. In addition to those "old primary sources" (from top biologists up to 2014), we have American and international surveys from Strkalj, Cartmill, Lieberman, any number of secondary statements that your POV is not consensus, ie. Anemone, Goodman, Tishkoff. Your link above doesn't carry much weight. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 18:07, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Can you link some of these sources, or at least point out where they're linked (beyond "on the talk page")? Fyddlestix (talk) 18:26, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Tiny Dancer, I'm not the one using conspiracy theorist terms like "cultural Marxist" or dismissing an entire professional academic organization. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
So your argument is "my opponent once used the term cultural Marxist"? That suffices to dismiss all of my sources and for you to edit in an unsupported view? Why are you even saying this? I didn't dismiss the 1998 AAA executive board (not the organization), I said it wasn't the only authority. People add much more weight to that source than it deserves, such as American sociologists. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 19:38, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
My point is that you have a strong POV and, in my view, you're pushing it hard. Others here should know that context. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
I do have a POV, and so do you. But you're the only one pushing your POV in the face of sources. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 20:02, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Strkalj, The Status of the Race Concept in Contemporary Biological Anthropology: A Review, 2007

ABSTRACT The race concept dominated the study of human biological variation for centuries. Prior to, and especially after, the Second World War, a number of anthropologists questioned the scientific value of the concept, initiating a debate over ‘the existence of human races’. Research suggests that the debate has still not been resolved, as significant differences exist among anthropologists from different countries and regions of the world. In some places the concept of race seems to be falling out of favour (e.g., the USA and Western Europe), while in others it is generally accepted (e.g., China and Eastern Europe). The reasons for these differences are many and complex. They are of a scientific, ideological and professional nature. Furthermore, it would appear that chance, especially in smaller countries, plays a significant role in the attitudes of biological anthropologists towards the race concept.
Text from "Biological definitions" section
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


Biological definitions

"There is a widespread feeling that the word "race" indicates something undesirable and that it should be left out of all discussions. This leads to such statements as "there are no human races." Those who subscribe to this opinion are obviously ignorant of modern biology." Ernst Mayr

The race concept arose in the context of Linnaen taxonomy, which was based on phenotypic resemblance, to describe intraspecific lineages defined genealogically, or by descent.

Kant: "What is a race? The word is not to be found in any systematic description of nature [Linnaen taxonomy], so presumably the thing itself is nowhere to be found in nature. The concept which this expression designates is, however, surely well established in the reason of every observer of nature who supposes a self-peculiar feature in different animals produced from interbreeding, that is to say, a union of cause that does not lie in the concept of its species but was certainly placed originally in the lineal stem stock of the species itself. The fact that the word race does not appear in the description of nature (but instead, in its place, the word variety) cannot keep an observer of nature from finding it necessary from the viewpoint of natural history." (On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy)

Darwin: "Grant all races of man descended from one race; grant that all structure of each race of man were perfectly known – grant that a perfect table of descent of each race was perfectly known – grant all this, & then do you not think that most would prefer as the best classification, a genealogical one, even if it did occasionally put one race not quite so near to another, as it would have stood, if allocated by structure alone. Generally, we may safely presume, that the resemblance of races & their pedigrees would go together." (Darwin, letter 204)

However, descent based phylogenetics was subsumed in the 20th century due to concerns that it was possible for organisms with different descent to be genetically more similar, rendering descent based classification less informative.

Mayr: "In phylogeny, where thousands and millions of generations are involved, thousands and millions of occasions for a change in gene frequencies owing to mutation, recombination, and selection, it is no longer legitimate to express relationship in terms of genealogy. The amount of genotypic similarity now becomes the dominant consideration for a biologist … When a biologist speaks of phylogenetic relationship, he means relationship in gene content rather than cladistic genealogy."

Modern biological definitions of race thus tend to use overall genetic similarity as the criterion:

Hulse (1962): “Races are breeding populations which can be readily distinguished from one another on genetic grounds alone. They are not types, as are a few of the so-called races within the European population, such as Nordics and Alpines. It is the breeding population into which one was born which determines one’s race, not one’s personal characteristics.”

Dobzhansky (1970): “A race is a Mendelian population, not a single genotype; it consists of individuals who differ genetically among themselves … This is not to deny that a racial classification should ideally take cognizance of all genetically variable traits, oligogenic as well as polygenic."

Hartl and Clark (1997): "In population genetics, a race is a group of organisms in a species that are genetically more similar to each other than they are to the members of other such groups. Populations that have undergone some degree of genetic differentiation as measured by, for example, Fst, therefore qualify as races."

Dawkins (2004): "But that doesn’t mean that race is of “virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.” This is Edwards’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance."

Leroi (2005): "Populations that share by descent a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else."

Coyne (2014). “To a biologist, races are simply genetically differentiated populations, and human populations are genetically differentiated. Although it’s a subjective exercise to say how many races there are, human genetic differentiation seems to cluster largely by continent, as you’d expect if that differentiation evolved in allopatry (geographic isolation).”

Yudell, M., Roberts, D., DeSalle, R., & Tishkoff, S. (2016). Taking race out of human genetics

"In the wake of the sequencing of the human genome in the early 2000s, genome pioneers and social scientists alike called for an end to the use of race as a variable in genetic research (1, 2). Unfortunately, by some measures, the use of race as a biological category has increased in the postgenomic age"

Cartmill 1998

"In summary, the role played by racial taxonomy in the study of modern human variation has apparently changed little or not at all over the course of the past 30 years. In the 1990s, as in the 1960s, most researchers studying human variation do not make use of the concept of race in gather- ing and analyzing their data; however, a consistently large minority continue to do so."

Anemone 2011 (Referenced for first sentence!)

"Another anthropologist who is a staunch opponent of the concept of biological race is not nearly as optimistic as Lieberman concerning the demise of the race concept in anthropology. Alan Goodman (1997b:222) ..."

The race concept in six regions: variation without consensus. 2004 Lieberman L1, Kaszycka KA, Martinez Fuentes AJ, Yablonsky L, Kirk RC, Strkalj G, Wang Q, Sun L.

Abstract. Race, once the central concept in physical anthropology worldwide, now varies in the degree of support it receives in different regions. We present the currently available information on the status of the concept in the United States, the Spanish language areas, Poland, Europe, Russia, and China. Rejection of race ranges from high to low with the highest rejection occurring among anthropologists in the United States (and Canada). Rejection of race is moderate in Europe, sizeable in Poland and Cuba, and lowest in Russia and China. A discussion on the scientific and contextual reasons influencing these variations is presented. The tension between scientific evidence and social influences varies from region to region. The methods used in the studies reported here included questionnaires and content analysis. Response rates to questionnaires were often around 50 percent (with exception of the Polish studies). We discuss reasons for the low rates. Although a uniform method of data gathering is desirable, it may not suit scientists working in different traditions of theory and research. We conclude that it is once again timely to discuss the race concept in international meetings where all scientific and political changes occurring throughout the world in recent past decades are taken into account.

Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 18:42, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

You are welcome to contribute these views by Mayr and Dobzhansky about biological populations on page Race (biology). Darwin - no, that was before development of modern population genetics. My very best wishes (talk) 20:54, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point of the thread. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 12:04, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, I would actually support some your edits (such as that), but judging from these discussions, you seem to be incapable of reaching WP:Consensus with others on these issues. My very best wishes (talk) 17:00, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that a contrary tactic is to go through all of the other guy's edits and pick one so you can say "this edit is stupid, this guy is stupid", rather than actually address the issue under discussion, usually because they can't address it, so resort to cheap tactics. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
No one except you said "this guy is stupid". To the contrary, I agree with you on certain subject issues, however no one will help you if you are not capable of working collaboratively with others in this environment. My very best wishes (talk) 17:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
"Well, I would actually support some your edits (such as that)"
If you read the OP this entire issue is about changing the first sentence to reflect academic opinion. Some such as the guy below want to divert the discussion to whether I'm competent to discuss genetics. I'm sure I am, but this dispute is simply to identify the academic position and edit the first sentence accordingly. The rest will follow. It's quite bizarre I'm being accused of "not collaborating" when editors here can't address a simple and relevant article improvement question, and launch all manner of dubious personal attacks against me. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 10:34, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
But of course this edit (which I support) must be supplemented by other changes to satisfy participants who want to tell that race can be either a social or a biological concept, which is true. Overall, this paragraph was not bad at all, as some participants above explained. My very best wishes (talk) 03:05, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Closure request

I move that we close this thread. When this discussion began I had no prior interaction with Tiny Dancer, but it has become apparent they are totally uninterested in the science of human genetics. This whole discussion is a monumental waste of time and looks like a WP:TROJAN horse for far-right politics. -Darouet (talk) 17:11, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Ridiculous ad hominem tactics and a failure to discuss the sources. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 18:12, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reverts on Category:Violence against men

Category:Violence against men.

Someone else deal with them, please.

jps (talk) 20:20, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Changed the heading to something less...strange. Arkon (talk) 20:23, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Agreed - let's stick to something neutral -- samtar talk or stalk 20:25, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
(Redacted) jps (talk) 20:27, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
I'd really rather not take this to AN/I, but if you can't constrain yourself from casting aspersions about myself and others, I'm not seeing much choice at this point. Arkon (talk) 20:29, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Aspersions removed. The WordsmithTalk to me 20:38, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
I wouldn't take him to ANI yet, but it looks like this is heading in that direction, with the incivility and casting aspersions. I think that we can all agree that Arkon's version makes more sense. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:40, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Something should be done. jps reverted me with the edit-summary "Revert alt right POV-pusher" This follows an earlier threat (or personal attack if we're being generous) against me which multiple editors cautioned him not to repeat, prior to his last block. James J. Lambden (talk) 20:53, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
I don't think that's enough to take him to ANI, though. The last personal attack was fairly mild. It's a bit uncivil, but not quite worthy of ANI. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:58, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Incivility aside it's not a valid revert rationale. It's disruptive editing in an article under discretionary sanctions. I don't particularly care whether he's blocked or warned or not but I would like the disruptive editing to stop. James J. Lambden (talk) 21:03, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Honestly, if there are 10 rather unfriendly comments before there is some agreement about the section heading, this might be hard to handle at WP:NPOVN. Can you (all, or at least most) try to turn down the screw one or two turns, and try actively to write text not only in good faith, but also with an eye on how they might be perceived by a person already not in the most benevolent state of mind? Thanks! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:28, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Well that was quick. This follows this conversation where the user tried to remove the cat from the Domestic Violence article. My final response was to take it up with the cat if you don't think it should explicitly include domestic violence. Of course I didn't mean unilaterally change the language; I meant to gain consensus there, but I suppose I could have been more clear in that given their block log. TimothyJosephWood 22:06, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

RfC

Please comment here: Category talk:Violence against men#Which version is better?. jps (talk) 18:17, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Potential undue weight and other NPOV violations in John A. McDougall article's lead

There is currently an ongoing dispute in the talkpage of the John A. McDougall article about a particular claim therein, specifically about whether the McDougall Plan is a "fad diet" (among other claims) and—more importantly—whether the source cited to support that claims are adequate. The claims, from the lead, are as follows:

McDougall's diet—The McDougall Plan—has been categorized as a fad diet that carries some disadvantages, such as a boring food choice and the risk of feeling hungry.

The claims are again stated in John A. McDougall § McDougall Plan criticism as follows:

McDougall's namesake diet, The McDougall Plan, has been categorized as a fad diet with possible disadvantages including a boring food choice, flatulence, and the risk of feeling hungry.

This issue is relevant to WP:NPOV because the claims and their accompanying source (assuming it's upheld) are, in my opinion, being given undue weight to achieve a false balance by being included in the lead. Moreover, I would question whether the claim is itself consistent with WP:NPOV, particularly WP:ASSERT and WP:WikiVoice, given how it is being stated as an unqualified fact despite it clearly being the opinions of the authors of the source. At the very least, these claims and accompanying source should be removed from the article lead and qualified as being the opinions of the authors, assuming the claims and source are even upheld. This is my opinion, at least, and I invite further input on this matter.

For the record, I have also submitted reports on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard and Biographies of Living Persons Noticeboard, which can be found here and here, respectively. Alexbrn has also submitted a report to the Fringe Theories Noticeboard, which can be found here. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 21:24, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to discuss the same issue at four different noticeboards? Surely that's just going to spread the discussion all over the place and make it more difficult to achieve a consensus. Fyddlestix (talk) 21:32, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Yeah...no idea what possessed op to make multiple simultaneous posts. Happy to have the conversation, if we can figure out where exactly we're having it. TimothyJosephWood 21:41, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
I assumed the conversation would be had on the talkpage, where it belongs. I see no reason to split up the discussion across these four three noticeboards, either, but I assumed editors would simply check the original talkpage discussion and join in there while limiting replies at the noticeboard posts to specific inquiries and disputes about those specific claims. Like I said immediately below, this seemed like the best course of action. If it wasn't, then I'll be sure to not do this again. If necessary, either I or an administrator can close some or all of the noticeboard posts. Their function was really to alert editors and not to initiate separate discussions, anyway, so I'd be fine with that. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 22:00, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, right now there already appears to be no consensus, though some of the other editors would like to believe so. Since this issue is complicated and related to multiple Wikipedia policies, I decided that I might as well request input from a broad range of editors to establish consensus. I couldn't find any policy or guideline prohibiting or discouraging requests on multiple noticeboards about the same issue, so I saw no reason not to do so. I'd rather this issue be resolved, and consensus be reached, quickly and without much controversy, so I have zero intention in trying to delay or impede either by submitting multiple noticeboard reports. If it's a bad idea to do so, then I'll be sure to not do so in the future. Sorry about that. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 22:00, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
  • WP:NPOV says represent all the views expressed in reliable sources in proportion to their preponderance. The source given, the sixth edition of an apparently broad and neutral source, is perfectly qualified to give an assessment that can be stated as fact. If there are other views given in equally reliable sources then they have to be balanced. But you can't talk about balance with just one source because (perhaps) you disagree with it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:13, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
This source may qualify as a reliable source in general, but what about being a reliable source for this particular claim? Like it states at the WP:RSN: Many sources are reliable for statement "X," but unreliable for statement "Y". Moreover, this claim appears to be a minority view because I cannot find any other reliable sources, at least not of that type, which classifies the McDougall Plan as a "fad diet". Given that it's such a minority view, wouldn't that alone mean that it's inclusion in the lead is undue, if not simply not notable enough to even be included at all? I am concerned that the inclusion of this source is unbalanced because it treats the claim as an accepted fact despite being a relatively minor and obscure view of the authors, though perhaps I was mistaken on the applicability of that specific policy. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 22:33, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Minority among whom? Are the other sources equally qualified? Do they state anything that can be interpreted as contradicting this assessment? NPOV has to be interpreted as consensus among sources of equal quality. If a medical/health professional says one thing and a popular magazine says another, the professional source takes much higher priority. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:13, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
I consider it fair and not a disruptive stunt. I am glad the editor posted to this forum, which is where i saw it. FT/N is a noticeboard of it's own sort, very different from this one. Please, let's not call the editor's motivations to be a "disruptive stunt" unless you know that's their intention by some means (i don't know how you would know that). SageRad (talk) 20:46, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
  • we get these advocates for Diet X, who show up at our article about Diet X, and argue relentlessly that their favorite diet cannot - just cannot - be a fad diet even though it is well sourced. What they cannot see is that they are wasting everyone's time with their WP:ADVOCACY. The POV problem is with the OP, who is tendentiously (please read that link Nøkkenbuer) pounding on this dead horse. All the hallmarks. Look at this wall of text: Talk:John_A._McDougall#.22Fad_diet.22_claim_revisited and the forum shopping they have acknowledged. No support for their position, only opposition everywhere. There is a reason for that Nøkkenbuer -- look in the mirror, and open your ears. The POV problem here, is the one you are creating. Jytdog (talk) 04:31, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Is someone claiming that a diet named "The McDougall Plan" is not a fad diet? It's a diet, it's a fad. Neutral point of view does not mean that an article should adopt the stance of those promoting their diets. Johnuniq (talk) 05:03, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
    • I do not know if it is a fad diet. I suppose I could read about fad diets, read the plan and make a judgment. I could do similar analyses with the Kennedy assassination, 9/11 and the moon landing. But the policy is clear. we need reliable secondary sources that make the assessment and need to establish the weight of assessments in secondary sources to include them. The source saying it is a fad diet fails both. Why are we even writing about the diet if it has received only passing coverage if that in reliable sources? TFD (talk) 21:31, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

2016 Uri attack

In this article, Kautilya3 has added a irrelevant citation [1] which is not related to "2016 Uri Attack" [2]. Hence a request has been sent to author Kautilya3 for removal of text on article talk page [3] However, user has not taken WP:NOPV and WP:BALASP into consideration and has also made more insertion in discussed text[4].

It is requested to remove the article based on irrelevancy [5] and lack of balance WP:BALASP

Rugby9090 (talk) 15:24, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


References

  1. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2016_Uri_attack&diff=prev&oldid=740492421
  2. ^ http://poe.house.gov/2016/9/chairman-poe-introduces-the-pakistan-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-designation-act
  3. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2016_Uri_attack#Other_Nations
  4. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2016_Uri_attack&diff=prev&oldid=740506896
  5. ^ http://poe.house.gov/2016/9/chairman-poe-introduces-the-pakistan-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-designation-act

Move discussion at the Murder of JonBenét Ramsey article

Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Murder of JonBenét Ramsey#Requested move 20 September 2016. Among the concerns noted in the move discussion is whether or not WP:Undue weight is being given to a recent documentary. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:48, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mikemikev Tiny Dancer now blocked for antisemitic attacks

Tiny Dancer has been indefinitely blocked - immediately after a 48 hour block for personal attacks, he responded with ":::Bye for now US kike slave. Tiny Dancer 48 (talk) 18:59, 20 September 2016 (UTC)" and when reverted, "oh no I used an "ethnic slur" while kikes demonize and genocide whites." He was a sockpuppet of the banned editor User:MIkemikev. Doug Weller talk 15:22, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification Doug Weller. I guess my prediction was right on the money. -Darouet (talk) 15:56, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Please do something about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States

The way that this article is edited is extremely biased in its favor of one race over the other, and considering the fact that these are incredibly divisive subjects in the country as well as the fact that subjects when worded this way can sway the minds of people in one direction versus the other, politically, morally, among other ways, this is dangerous. I'm asking that something be done about this because even people in the Talk section of this page are incredibly racist, someone suggested that black people supposedly rape white people exactly 100 times more than the other way around, and were being extremely heated in their wording, and this is not only incorrect but reinforcing stereotypes that are at an all time high in scrutiny in the united states. Under the "see also" section was a link to a book by a conservative author titled "White Girl Bleed A Lot," which is an incredibly racist title and also the book is clearly stated under reception to have been largely biased and warped, and should not be something that is a springboard from a supposedly unbiased article. There is no doubt in my mind that the people editing these pages have ulterior motives. I beg that something be done about this, and articles like this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.83.33.129 (talk) 02:12, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Um, what? White Girl Bleed a Lot is not linked anywhere on that page. Rather, it is listed in Category:Race and crime in the United States, which it belongs in. And whatever racism might exist on the talk page is irrelevant to whether the article is NPOV - the rape statistic was a drive by comment from one anonymous editor, and it did not make it into the article in any form. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:20, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

So did you completely ignore everything else that I said? Yeah, it's not on the page because I removed it. I referenced the talk page so you could see what the motives are behind the people editing the main page, which I guess you chose not to acknowledge. Way to go. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.83.33.129 (talk) 15:10, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

You didn't mention that you removed it, you said it was there, and it was not, so I assumed you were mistaken, but apparently that was me. Fine. And I did not acknowledge the motives you think you found, because you didn't actually find anything. You found one racist comment, from one person, who didn't edit the article as far as I can tell. Let's go back to the reason you came here, "The way that this article is edited is extremely biased in its favor of one race over the other": Prove it. Point something out, something that's still in the article, that is biased. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Bret Hart

I have an issue with the lead of the article. Since I'm tired of arguing with the editors here and I'm not really an editor myself (don't really know how to handle disputes), I'm passing the ball to someone else who may want or may not want to alert some higher-ups. So, to sum it up, the intro says that "[Bret] Hart changed the perception of mainstream wrestling in the early 1990s by bringing technical in-ring performance to the fore". [no source]

It appeared really puffery to me, so I asked for clarification. An editor said that it was reported in an IGN article and that they had just reworded everything a little. Per WP:PEACOCK I said that the quote should have been reported as a quote and not as a fact (and proposed an edit that reflected the policy), yet the editors kept categorically rolled back everything. This was my revision: "according to IGN, Hart winning the WWF title in 1992 "changed the entire industry, re-setting the WWF back to the days of technical wizardry and reshaping all our notions of what a great wrestling match should actually look and feel like". [source: article, quoted ad litteram from what the editor claimed it was the source]

In the talk page, the argument eventually evolved into the claim that the bit in the lead was ultimately "a widespread opinion", according to editor that kept rolling everything back. Needless to say that I disagree with it, but there's this wall of two/three editors who simply believe that there's some kind of bias on my part. Is there something wrong and is it really preferable to keep the article like that or not?

151.35.36.60 (talk) 02:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

It does seem peacock-like to me and i think you're correct in my general estimation to bring it up here. SageRad (talk) 13:53, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Gamergate controversy draft article

Please participate at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gamergate draft. Rhoark (talk) 03:15, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Guys, this could really use some outside input. The RfC seems to be dominated by Gamergate hecklers. Sławomir
Biały 17:19, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
Uh, wasn't avoiding the 30/500 restriction the stated reason for putting the RfC in that location in the first place? Just delete the entire malformed RfC page and restart the discussion in article talk space. VQuakr (talk) 18:00, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

James Watson

The current stable version of the lead of James Watson describes certain controversial comments that led to Watson's resignation in 2007 thusly:

He was then appointed chancellor, serving until 2007[1] when he resigned his position after making controversial comments claiming a link between intelligence and geographical ancestry.[2][3][4][5][6]

Over the past months several editors (most recently myself) have attempted to change this wording to one which they argue more accurately represents third party coverage of Watson's comments (diffs: [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]). Suggestions have included:

  • ...after making controversial comments claiming a link between race and intelligence.
  • ...after making controversial comments about the intelligence of Africans and people of African descent.
  • Watson resigned this position and was widely shunned after making comments implying black people are less intelligent than others.

These changes have been reverted by others who argue that they imply Watson is racist, and that this violates WP:NPOV, WP:BLP and/or WP:ARBR&I. Numerous discussions on the talk page have failed to resolve the dispute, most recently Talk:James Watson#"Geographic ancestry" - is that like being descended from an atlas?, and I think a wider discussion amongst uninvolved editors is sorely needed.

The references below are a good summary of the sources on the issue, but a google search will turn up many more. Pinging @Zaostao, Carwil, Collect, Klortho, Landerman56, and Ianmacm:. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe Roe (talk • contribs)

References

  1. ^ "Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory James D. Watson". cshl.edu. 2013. Archived from the original on May 24, 2013. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
  2. ^ Crawford, Hayley. "Short Sharp Science:James Watson menaced by hoodies shouting 'racist!'". New Scientist. Retrieved 24 April 2014. ... he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really".
  3. ^ Watson, J.D. "James Watson: To question genetic intelligence is not racism", Independent, October 19, 2007. Retrieved October 24, 2007
  4. ^ Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. October 18, 2007. Statement by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees and President Bruce Stillman, PhD Regarding Dr. Watson’s Comments in The Sunday Times on October 14, 2007. Press release. Retrieved October 24, 2007. Archived September 10, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Wigglesworth, K.DNA pioneer quits after race comments, L.A. Times, October 26, 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2007
  6. ^ ""Nobel prize-winning biologist resigns."", CNN, October 25, 2007. Retrieved on October 25, 2007.
The claims which some seek do not have a WP:CONSENSUS and make claims which are not found in the reliable sources. It is not an NPOV issue as such. Collect (talk) 19:53, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Collect, you yourself have repeatedly invoked NPOV to revert changes and on the talk page: [40][41][42]. Of course there isn't yet a consensus, that is why I have brought this to the noticeboard.
I can understand your argument that overemphasizing Watson's comments on race may run afoul of NPOV and WP:BLP, but I really don't see how you can in good faith assert that the claim that he was talking about race is not supported by RSs. To quote just a few that are currently cited in support of the phrase in question (my emphasis):
  • "...until he resigned over the controversy surrounding his racist comments." [43]
  • "...uproar over racial comments he made recently." [44]
  • "...painful decision to retire in the aftermath of a racist statement he made" [45]
  • "Watson was promoting 'personal prejudices that are racist, vicious and unsupported by science.'" [46]
  • "Nobel prize-winning biologist resigns from his job after making racist remarks" [47]
  • "He also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically" [48]
Please, let's try an actually form a consensus here, rather than simply use the word to shut down discussion. Joe Roe (talk) 00:20, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
The point here is that this is the "Neutral Point of View" noticeboard, and your problem is that not only are issues raised other than that of NPOV, that you do not state the other issues clearly here, and that a genuine issue is that 'no reliable source makes the claim you wish to make. I suggest you set up an RfC rather than forumshop on only one of the issues involved. This is not "trying to shut down discussion" - it is that there is an ongoing discussion on the article talk page, that this board is not the venue for the discussion, that there is procedure of RfC which is preferable, that any discussion here would not settle the issues at hand, and that you appear not to have read WP:CONSENSUS. By the way, sine the most salient issue is whether the claim you wish to insert is backed up by a specific source, and is not of undue weight, that is likely the basis for the RfC which you should start. And please do not open discussions at each noticeboard on each issue - others will deem it confusing.
With regard to CNN - the quotes you most like are not part of body text of the article, but essentially "story highlights" written by a headline editor. The LA Times article does not ascribe words directly to Watson - but as what his "former protégé" says Watson said. (his former protege Charlotte Hunt-Grubbe wrote) So sorry - the fact is when the person has made other comments specifically disavowing the "quotes", it appears that using those words to define him is UNDUE from the beginning. Calling anyone a "racist" and wikilinking to Race and Intelligence is intrinsically a contentious claim as it is sought to be averred. Collect (talk) 11:49, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for posting this here on the NPOV noticeboard. It seems an important and disputed question of content in that article. It's important to be accurate and to not whitewash anything. From one CNN article:

Watson was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really." He also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

and from this CNN article "Nobel winner in 'racist' claim row":

The American professor's words have been roundly condemned as "racist," with fellow scientists dismissing his claims as "genetic nonsense." "He should recognize that statements of this sort have racist functions and are to be deeply, deeply regretted," said Professor Steven Rose of the British Open University.

There it does seem the use of the term "racist comments" is justified from these sources. SageRad (talk) 12:33, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

@Collect: Posting a dispute to a central noticeboard is not forum shopping. It is precisely why these noticeboards exist. Yes, there are other issues involved than NPOV, but based on your own comments I judged that to be the main one. What else should I have done? There isn't a "complex issues involving several policy areas" noticeboard. I considered an RfC, but thought I would try a more targeted venue first.
How can you possibly argue that the claim is not supported by RSes when I have provided six direct quotations that use exactly the same wording? You are splitting hairs by arguing they're in the 'wrong' part of the source: they are what the source says. I completely agree that it would be undue weight to define Watson as a racist. I have never suggested that. All I am saying is that we should describe Watson's comments straightforwardly, using the wording ("race") that nearly every RS on this topic uses, rather than an awkward euphemism ("geographic ancestry") that literally nobody else―not Watson, not any of our sources―employs.
P.S. I would appreciate a ping if you reply here, as I don't watch this noticeboard. Thanks. Joe Roe (talk) 17:53, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
This is not a "central noticeboard". It is directly only to discussions concerning WP:NPOV - which is a non-negotiable policy. The issues are discussed on the article talk page where I make the point that opinions must be cited and ascribed as such, and that making claims about living persons in Wikipedia's voice which are opinions per se is improper. Joe Roe Collect (talk) 19:50, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Right at the top of this page (in the navbox), the noticeboards are described as "Wikipedia's centralized discussion". But anyway, I agree, let's stick to the article talk page and not split the discussion. Joe Roe (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
In any case, it's very good that you posted this issue here, to get new eyes on the topic. That is how i knew about the issue and i am glad to be a part of the discussion. SageRad (talk) 20:46, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

New eyes are very much appreciated, but unfortunately posting to this noticeboard hasn't brought any besides your own! To that end, I've taken Collect's suggestion and started an RfC at Talk:James Watson#RfC on comments leading to Watson's resignation. Joe Roe (talk) 21:24, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Joseph Conrad

Banned user evading blocks. Nothing to see here. Guy (Help!) 15:49, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

At the moment, the article on Joseph Conrad says "Though he did not speak English fluently until he was in his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature". I can hardly imagine a clearer violation of NPOV than that. I tried to amend it to say that he was regarded as being a master prose stylist, which complies with NPOV and V. However, for reasons that have not been made clear, my edits have been undone, and the talk page discussion I started had been deleted, several times. I assume that no-one would argue that the current line is neutral. Thus, I hope someone will go and make the necessary changes. On the other hand, if you can think of a serious argument that this text does in fact comply with NPOV, I'd love to hear it. 82.132.240.93 (talk) 15:19, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

That seems neutral, as well as consistent with my recollection from English lit classes. It's not saying Conrad was bad at English. It's saying he used English in valid but non-standard ways that were considered interesting and stylish. Rhoark (talk) 19:11, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
I think you've misunderstood. Indeed it does not say Conrad was bad at English. It says "he was a master prose stylist". Are you really saying that you think that's neutral? If so, can you explain further how you come to that conclusion? 82.132.212.183 (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
There's a problem here that the IP hasn't mentioned. The page has been protected because of repeated attempts to make this change (5 times since the 16th) by the IP hopper Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Best known for IP making the same change, eg 5.151.178.168 (talk · contribs) (now blocked), 82.132.217.191 (talk · contribs) ditto, 82.132.239.50 (talk · contribs) (blocked by me), 82.132.236.91 (talk · contribs) (not blocked, just 1 edit) and now this one, which I won't bother to block at the moment.
There's been no attempt to discuss this on the talk page. My belief is that whatever we say needs reliable sourcing and probably attribution. Doug Weller talk 14:10, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
Seriously, WTAF? No attempt to discuss on talk? You deleted my attempt to discuss on talk! To pretend otherwise is just bizarre. Why do that? And your edit summary talks about me trying to "force this into the article". What, exactly, am I trying to force into the article? Perhaps if I explain again what I did in very, very simple terms, you might even grasp it:
  • "He was a master prose stylist" is not neutral!
  • "He was described as a matter prose stylist" is neutral!
  • I made the sentence neutral!
Why don't you want the article to be neutral? Why are you disrupting the encyclopaedia by deleting talk page discussions and then immaturely pretending they didn't even take place? 82.132.246.95 (talk) 19:53, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

The opinions of editors on this matter is not what's important to determining content -- it's what good reliable sources say about this matter that can be brought to support the content. Please find good reliable sources to describe Conrad's use of language and this is what we include. SageRad (talk) 15:48, 24 September 2016 (UTC

Who are you talking to? Me? Because I am trying to edit the article for exactly the reasons you say. I suspect that, like several other people, you haven't really understood the situation and you just think it's fun to act superior.82.132.246.95 (talk) 19:53, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

It's extremely possible that I'm missing something, but where is this user banned? Arkon (talk) 21:50, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

See above Best known for sock. I have re-archived this as unlikely to go futher. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:42, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
I am the user who filled this report. I am not and never have been banned. I have no idea why anyone would think I had been. I also have no idea why people like Doug Weller would like about me, deleting my attempts to resolve the situation on the talk page and then claiming I hadn't used the talk page. I am trying to correct blatantly obvious and blatantly unacceptable bias, and the response I am getting is completely mystifying. Why is an arbitrator so keen for the article on Joseph Conrad to violate core policies? It is completely bizarre. 82.132.227.248 (talk) 15:53, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GAR: Joachim Helbig

The community reassessment could use input on the neutrality of the article. The discussion is happening here: GAR: Joachim Helbig. Thank you. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Terrace Theatre (Minnesota)

Another editor had placed a notice on this page: Unbalanced scales.svg This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (September 2016)

Yesterday, I added information to the article per that editor's good suggestion, and noted so on the article's talk page. This morning, I deleted that notice. Being new to Wikipedia, I just want to be sure I have acted properly in this instance.

Thank you. KIRTIS (talk) 10:53, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Malia Bouattia

The subject is a British student politician who identifies as black based on her Algerian (North African) heritage. Whatever we might make of her racial identification in the United States, there is precedent in Britain for classifying North Africans as black.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people#Northern_Africa and black British; the latter page notes "[t]he term "black" has historically had a number of applications as a racial and political label, and may be used in a wider sociopolitical context to encompass a broader range of non-European ethnic minority populations in Britain. This is a controversial definition.[6] "Black British" is one of various self-designation entries used in official UK ethnicity classifications."

Moreover, Bouattia is classified as black in almost every reliable source in British media. See her wiki page and check out the sources in the lede. A minority have criticized her identity on the grounds that she is not sub-Saharan African, and these sources are covered in the article. In light of this, the best approach seems to be to describe her as Black British while covering the controversy about her racial identity.

Instead, some editors are insisting that all references to her being black (apart from the criticisms of her identity) be purged from the article. This is bias and, exasperated at the need to do periodic reversions on the page, I'm flagging it. Steeletrap (talk) 21:41, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

The discussion is not about NPOV, and is progressing on the article talk page where it belongs. I find a great many sources stating the people of Algerian ancestry are not generally called "black", just as Japanese and Chinese people are rarely called "black" and so on. This is a matter of sources, and not a matter of neutral wording, and is not a topic related to the purpose of this particular noticeboard. The "periodic reversions" admitted by the OP are edit war as admitted. Collect (talk) 21:50, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Algerians are mixed and consequently vary in appearance. Most look brown; but some would look black to Americans (others would look white). I have no doubt that many sources say they are not black. But this is all OR! What matters to us what reliable sources say about Bouattia: the vast majority say she's black.
Her racial identity is a matter of controversy; we shouldn't take sides in the controversy. Instead, we should reflect the majority-view in RS (that she is black) while also covering the significant minority view (that she isn't black since she's not of sub-Saharan ancestry). Why is this controversial? Steeletrap (talk) 22:07, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
If it's not an NPOV issue then what is it? I think it's relevant here. If not here. Where else do you go when you have such meta-issues on an article's content? SageRad (talk) 22:09, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Ebrie people

The lede of the Ebrié article says "Originally called the "Tchaman" or "Achan" (both of which mean "the chosen ones" in the Ebrié language), the name Ébrié was given to them by the neighboring Abouré people. In the Abouré language, Ébrié means "dirty" or "soiled," and was given to them after a military defeat."

Wouldn't it be better to move the page to the name which is not derogatory? I am seeing them referred to as "Achan" in at least one article about Abidjan that seems to be written by somebody local, so it's not an obsolete name.

However, I am not at all a subject expert or all that familiar with WP policies on page moves so I thought I would ask here. I propose moving the page to Achan annd giving the Tchaman alternate name, then further down (not in lede, maybe in history) saying oh and the neighboring Abouré gave them a rude name when they defeated them (be nice to know when) in year whatever. They called them Ébrié, which means "soiled"...Elinruby (talk) 07:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC) PS the name is spelled wrong in addition to being derogatory; there should be an accent aigu on the capital E. This does matter. Elinruby (talk) 07:55, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

RFC: On inclusion vs. exclusion of the viewpoint that the Aquatic Ape Theory is pseudoscience

Participation in the RfC at Talk:Aquatic ape hypothesis is requested. The RfC asks whether presented sources require that the article should include the viewpoint that the theory is a form of pseudoscience or whether this viewpoint can be excluded entirely from the article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:09, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Troy Southgate (far-right personality)

I came across this article via the edits of an IP editor (Special:Contributions/94.60.196.117) inserting neo-Nazi publications into articles. The article is in need of a cleaning up and could use some RS. I cleaned up the lead, but it was a drop in the bucket due to the amount of neo-Nazi fancruft.

In addition, Jonathan Bowden is part of the same far-right cluster, where Southgate was used as as source: diff. More eyes on this article would be appreciated. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:10, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Luftwaffe.cz (fan site) used as source

I would appreciate another set of eyes on the article where an editor restored removed material stating that the web site is suitable to use as a source. Please see: Talk:Günther_Seeger#Recent edit. The material reinstated is not NPOV from my reading of things. Thank you. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:20, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Anita Krajnc

Wikipedia is presenting her as a saint. Its one thing to present the evidence, it is another to promote on a page with hash tags. Also, unrelated information is posted about the farmer- I disagree with the fine being posted. I don't understand how that adds to her case (or improves it). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.7.14.241 (talk) 23:24, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article is about the case, not about Krajnc. The farmer is the person who brought the case. The case is about his livestock and his business practices (and how Krajnc interacted with them). His past convictions regarding his business practices with his livestock are relevant, and have been mentioned by an independent reliable source as such. MPS1992 (talk) 00:37, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons" - if it is about the case only, as you have stated, then you must remove from Anita Krajnc Case's talk the box that says it is part of a biographies of living persons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.253.130.36 (talk) 04:33, 26 September 2016 (UTC) What a crock of Sh**. If it was strictly about her case it would be a boring article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.84.127.159 (talk) 01:17, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

The article is a representation of reliable sources. It is requested that specific changes be suggested or the tag may be allowed to be removed. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 03:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Anita is in the news again! http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/woman-already-on-trial-for-giving-water-to-pigs-arrested-after-pig-truck-rollover-1.3791972 Make sure to include she has been arrested again for obstruction of a police officer. Thanks, since I can't add it myself. Get rid of farmer fine too — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.253.131.44 (talk) 06:32, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

The sourced mention of the arrest has now been added to the article as requested. MPS1992 (talk) 21:10, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Morgellons Disease

I'd like to draw attention to this page, as it appears to have attracted some deletionist/revertionist editors, one who has stated he wanted to delete the page and put it under the heading of delusional parasitosis, when there has only been one study by the CDC with a small sample size and they only used that term once in their report. Now I am being told that the only large scale scientific study is not even MEDRS, according to Jytdog

And the present wikipedia article, as it stands is not a good understanding of what morgellons is, and does not even reflect in tone or attitude articles such as this published in Newsweek. (of which there are many I have linked in the Talk:Morgellons page)

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/12/morgellons-skin-disease-485638.html

This article has been labelled as a fringe topic, even while it has received a lot of relatively unbiased mainstream media coverage.

The raging antonyms of advocacy seem to have run amok here, and this page does not seem to me to effectively communicate much in the way of a NPOV which provides much useful information to the users of wikipedia.

Probrooks (talk) 08:48, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

The CDC had a small sample size because it is a non-existant disease claimed by a small number of either deluded, under the influence or plain cranks. Personally I dont think it should be merged completely because while it is completely made up rubbish, it is notable rubbish which has been covered by reliable secondary sources, the CDC was forced to investigate just in case there was something in it (the result being, no there wasnt). Being labelled fringe does not mean it has not had significant coverage, it just means it does not reflect the mainstream thought on the subject. Which in this case is: The people who think they have something called Morgellon's dont. They either have nothing, or something else. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
The article as it is doesn't even reflect mainstream thought on the subject (which I find more openminded and more neutral in tone than the present article). I am certainly open to being a non-existant disease, and being a delusionary disease, but I can't see how people can so blithely make their mind up, when how can they really know? One small scientific study? But also, anyone can see photos of these people's sores, the strange pictures of these fibres and also take note many people are simply reporting they FEEL sick.
Probrooks (talk) 09:03, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
The article follows good sources and says this is a delusional disease. Wikipedia isn't going to be hinting "oooh, but just maybe there's something to this" - which would be an extraordinary claim - without extraordinarily strong sourcing in support. Alexbrn (talk) 09:18, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, but wikipedia can say that after the CDC study, they could not find a conclusive cause, didn't find out what the fibres actually were and still call it an unexplained dermopathy. That's just called reporting the facts. There does not need to be any statement "but just maybe there's something to this" as the CDC report does not use that kind of language, but makes it very clear much is still unknown.
Probrooks (talk) 09:49, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Three things.
1) here is what I actually wrote. As I noted there, I don't intend to actually try to do the merge, and even if I did, it would be done through a merger proposal, not unilaterally.
2) for the zillionth time, the article does not cite the CDC report to support any WP:Biomedical information. Instead, there are five literature review articles - strong sources - that are cited: PMID 24005827, PMID 22250620, PMID 19878403, PMID 19822895, and PMID 19681520.
3) Newsweek is not a MEDRS source; i cannot fathom why Pobrooks is mentioning it here after they have been told many times that we use MEDRS sources to support biomedical content. Ignoring the strong sources that others bring and demanding content be added based on weak sources, is itself a violation of NPOV and a hallmark of WP:TENDENTIOUS behavior. Jytdog (talk) 16:40, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
The first paper is an evaluation of delusional infestation. No mention of Morgellons.There is no text on this page. Why should it be quoted here?
The second paper is about dermatological infestations., no mention of Morgellons.
The third source says “As an example, we discuss a 55-year-old woman who complained of Morgellons disease and was treated as if she had DP.” This is the only paper with the hypothesis that Morgellons is delusional parasitosis.
The fourth source is a paper about delusional infestation, with no mention of Morgellons.
The fifth paper is for nurses and is about how nurses can care for people with morgellons.
And these five papers are being used to support the heading Medical description? and the diagnosis that morgellons is Delusional Paratosis?
I cannot see how anybody could consider these sources “strong” or reliable.
The CDC study is the only half decent scientific study on Morgellons and even that study was did not firmly state that Morgellons is delusional paratosis.
WP:MEDRS is a guideline for content, I am mentioning the newsweek article to point out mainstream consensus on this matter, which is not trying to tell people Morgellons is delusional paratosis as you are so insistent that it is must be.
Surely the CDC study is a position statement from national or international expert body, which WP:MEDRS says is an IDEAL source?
Please explain why on earth you can possibly believe the CDC study is not WP:MEDRS?

Probrooks (talk) 01:28, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Where do we start...Let's go through those papers: 1) This paper is explicitly about Morgellons - you clearly didn't read it; 2) This paper is explicitly about Morgellons - you clearly didn't read it; 3) Yes, you actually read this one it seems! (or at least you read the abstract); 4) This paper is explicitly about Morgellons, a word that is used in the text about 100 times - you clearly didn't read it; 5) This one does equivocate on the cause of Morgellons, but that part of the article is terrible. Specifically, it presents a false equivalence between high-quality published research claiming Morgellons to be delusional parasitosis, and several opinion pieces by chronic lyme disease quacks. It should probably be removed from the article. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:21, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, I read the abstracts, and am not able to find decent links to the meat of these primary sources. Yes, I made a mistake about 4 not mentioning morgellons, it was mentioned once in the abstract. As I am not able to read these papers or your average wikipedia user is not able to, how useful are they anyway?
It seems to me the CDC web site is more user friendly and actually based on real science.
http://www.cdc.gov/unexplaineddermopathy/index.html
I do also want to point out that other scientific studies have been carried out on Morgellons, which contrast to the CDC position, most mainstream articles about Morgellons mention this research.
http://www.thecehf.org/morgellons-disease-research.html
WP:MEDRS states "Although significant-minority views are welcome in Wikipedia, such views must be presented in the context of their acceptance by experts in the field. Additionally, the views of tiny minorities need not be reported. Finally, make readers aware of controversies that are stated in reliable sources. A well-referenced article will point to specific journal articles or specific theories proposed by specific researchers."
Probrooks (talk) 03:58, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia's reliable source guideline, there is no requirement that a source be freely available online. Now, it's certainly difficult to have a conversation about a source that one person can't read, though how I accessed them is nothing special - I got them through my library. Regarding the CDC, let's see what it says:

This comprehensive study of an unexplained apparent dermopathy demonstrated no infectious cause and no evidence of an environmental link. There was no indication that it would be helpful to perform additional testing for infectious diseases as a potential cause. Future efforts should focus on helping patients reduce their symptoms through careful attention to treatment of co-existing medical, including psychiatric conditions, that might be contributing to their symptoms.

It sounds like they've pretty much in line with the other sources, just less assertive. The PLOS one paper is more of the same, but in much greater detail. I would summarize it as (not for the article, just this discussion), "CDC researchers have not jumped on the delusional infestation diagnosis, but they have also rejected apparently everything else". Now, regarding the "other scientific studies" is there any particular one you'd like to discuss, that comes to a different conclusion? Someguy1221 (talk) 04:28, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Someguy, thanks for your input. If you review the Morgellons talk page, you will see that for this fringe-y condition, people show up and advocate making changes to content based on weak sources (primary sources in the scientific literature or the popular press); one of the reasons why MEDRS insists on literature reviews published in good journals or statements by major medical/scientific bodies like the CDC itself (not the PLoS paper which is a primary source) -- is exactly so we don't get into "duelling primary sources" content disputes with advocates; it goes no where fast. MEDRS sources are where we find "accepted knowledge" about biomedical information; there is a hierarchy in the literature about health. you are free to do as you want of course, but asking Pobrooks, who is refusing to deal with the five MEDRS sources - or any MEDRS sources - to bring some primary source is going down an unproductive path..... Jytdog (talk) 05:32, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I was just looking at some of the papers at the link Pobrooks provided. All primary sources, all written by the same group, and half in predatory journals with no editorial standards. Looking into the PI for this group, the NIH actually put out a report accusing him of scientific misconduct (that also cost him a job), and Morgellons isn't the only fringe disease he publishes on. Yeah, nothing to see there. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:15, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
oh wow didn't know that. I reckon you mean Stricker and this and this - NYT level of bad. wow. and he went from there to lead ILADS per this. From the fire into the fringe, and deeper into it yet with this morgellons stuff now. oy. Jytdog (talk) 09:11, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and nonneutral caption of Satellite image of Russian MoD

Some group of authors keep changing caption to the satellite image in the article presented by Russian MoD making it nonneutral and biased [49][50][51][52][53] ignoring reliable sources. Before I posted a message here I conscientiously called those authors on the article talk page to follow WP:NPOV [54][55][56][57]. Other conserned WP authors should pay attention to this in order to work out the overall consensus. Discussion is here: Talk:Malaysia Airlines Flight 17#Should this image be added to the article?--Александр Мотин (talk) 15:26, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

"Neutral" means, if anything, that the text represents reliable sources. Which in this case it does. What Aleksandr is complaining about is that the sources don't say what he wants them to say. Inserting a caption which does not represent the sources is what is non-neutral, not the other way around.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:42, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
While you and Александр Мотин have contested the image caption, declaring the images are either real or faked, the situation is not so simple, as pointed out in this interview appearing in Der Spiegel, and in a statement published by the chief editor of Spiegel Online. I would at least attribute the term "faked" to the report, as newspapers do, or more properly refer to the images as contested. Jeffrey Lewis, once of the researchers involved in developing the software, states that there are multiple reasons the photographs may appear doctored, with intentional fabrication one of the reasons. Jens Kriese, in his interview with Der Spiegel, points out the obvious fact that any image making its way from a satellite to the public will undergo multiple rounds of processing. -Darouet (talk) 14:47, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
This seems to be resolved because the image was removed. My very best wishes (talk) 01:27, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
I think the image still exists. -Darouet (talk) 02:04, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

POV fork: Malia Obama (celebrity)

Randomly came across this article and I believe it's a POV fork of Malia Obama which currently redirects to Family_of_Barack_Obama#Malia_and_Sasha_Obama. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

  • Definitely should be deleted: a bunch of semi-literate BS including "In addition to a student, Obama is occupationally a babysitter... She was reported dancing and causing a storm because of exposing her buttocks. She was also reported to smoking marijuana, raising the question of favoritism according to editorials." She is a child and entitled to protections afforded others in the periphery of various famous people. -Darouet (talk) 17:59, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Looking over their contributions it's almost impossible to tell if they are grossly incompetent or prank trolling Wikipedia. I am not usually involved in discussions regarding enforcement on those issues so I'll leave it to the judgement of others. -Darouet (talk) 19:01, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I took an extensive look at their history as well as the history of some other editors of the same topics. My vote is 'trolling undisclosed alt account'. BBBH has been aware of the issues surrounding this since 2008, its unlikely in 8 years they have neither matured or failed to grasp how wikipedia works. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:48, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Number inflation of Serbs

In the articles Serbs and Slavs, any total population figures lower than 12 million are removed. I warned and asked that the editors explain their edit according to WP:REVEXP, but the persistent edit war without edit summaries continue. I take that as silent crypto-nationalist WP:IDONTLIKEIT motivation and vandalism of sourced content, so to report it here. Judist (talk) 13:33, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Odd outdated/racist wording

Both our Tipu Sultan and Christianity in India articles (and probably others) include the following:

His skin had darkened to the swarthy complexion of negroes

I'm almost certain his is a quotation from a contemporary (eighteenth century) source, but it is not marked as such. The entire section in which the text is embedded (in both articles) is poorly written and very questionable. More eyes (better eyes than mine) would be good. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:35, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Our James Scurry article marks "complexion of negroes" as a quotation from the guy's memoirs, meaning that the other two articles that don't are probably engaged in OR based on very old, biased, dubious primary sources. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:40, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Hamas

The lead for the Hamas article currently includes this material: "Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated by Israel, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Jordan, and Japan as a terrorist organization. Others regard this classification as problematic, simplistic or reductive.[49][50][51][52][53]" However the "others" being referred to are cherry-picked academics found in Google Books. Given that the entirety of the paragraph (minus this exception) is focused on international positions, the inclusion of this remark misleadingly makes it seem as if these "others" were other countries, and this random "counterpoint" is non-neutral. There can be a separate section for academic views of Hamas. Drsmoo (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, the way it is phrased implies the critical points are other nations but if they are just random academics (even if authorities in the area), this is the wrong way to introduce them. Either that should be removed, or a statement that summarizes the general academic take on how the classification is taken (including those that support it) should be used, but even here, this then might be undue weight in the lede. --MASEM (t) 17:48, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Everything one objects to here is said to be sourced by 'cherrypicking', which, as often, here means, a careful survey of the relevant sources written by academic analysts of the Middle East who survey the available data. The whole section by the way is an abuse of WP:LEDE, since it is repetitively stuffed with a statement that could be synthesized in 2 sentences.

Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, Canada, the European Union, and Japan. Hamas has been outlawed in Jordan[1] Others regard this designation as problematic or simplistic.[2][3][4][5][6] Israel outlawed Hamas in 1989, followed by the United States in 1996 and Canada in 2002. The European Union defined Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades as a terrorist organization in 2001, and put Hamas in its list of terrorist organizations in 2003, but such designation was successfully challenged by Hamas in the courts in 2014 on technical grounds. The judgment was appealed. In 2016 an EU legal advisor recommended that Hamas be removed from the list due to procedural errors. The final decision is not thought likely to effect individual government lists.[7][8] An Egyptian court ruled Hamas was a terrorist organization in 2015. Japan froze Hamas assets according to its legislation on terrorist entities in 2006. Australia and the United Kingdom have designated the military wing of Hamas as a terrorist organization. The organization is also banned in Jordan. It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil.

(Discussion continues below after the list of references.)

References

  1. ^ Davis, Richard (2016-02-05). Hamas, Popular Support and War in the Middle East: Insurgency in the Holy Land. Routledge. ISBN 9781317402589. In 1999, King Abdullah of Jordan outlawed Hamas after accusing it of breaking a deal to restrict its activities to politics.
  2. ^ Glenn E.Robinson,'Hamas as Social Movement,' in Quintan Wiktorowicz (ed.) Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, Indiana University Press 2004 pp112-141 p.112.
  3. ^ Krista E. Wiegand, Bombs and Ballots: Governance by Islamist Terrorist and Guerrilla Groups. (2010) Routledge, 2016 p.124.
  4. ^ Tristan Dunning, pp.28-30.
  5. ^ Kirsten E. Schulze,The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Pearson Education, 2008 p.87.
  6. ^ Luke Peterson ,Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses, Routledge 2014 p.99.
  7. ^ "EU advised to drop Hamas and Tamil Tigers from terror list". BBC News. 2016-09-22. Retrieved 2016-09-22.
  8. ^ 'Hamas Should Be Taken Off Terror List, EU Legal Adviser Says ,' Haaretz 22 September 2016.


The sensible way per WP:LEDE and WP:NPOV to state this briefly is:

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, the EU, Japan, Egypt and Canada. It is banned in Jordan.It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. Many analysts view the designation as problematic, and Hamas successfully challenged in a court of law the EU classification in 2014.

All of the details should be in the main body of the text. The bias given to the big actors in Western societies, their judgements count is obvious. Nishidani (talk) 17:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
You're not responding to the points that were made. The addition of cherry-picked analysts who support your opinion as a "counterweight" to international positions about Hamas (which is what the paragraph is about) is Undue. The paragraph is detailing international positions. If we want to talk about academic positions, it should be in it's own section which details the academic consensus. Drsmoo (talk) 18:09, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Goodness grief. That is trivial. Nowhere is it stated in policy that a lead or the text it summarizes should privilege the political decisions made by governments (it's just politics) over what sober analysts of international affairs say. We even have in the sources above, a study that the EU decision was based on no formal government documentation, but on a presentation snipped from the internet. Governments act out of interest, or to pressure, or whatever. This section is a farce because in violation of NPOV, editors are persistently trying to pin the blame, and we don't do that. Nishidani (talk) 18:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Again you're not responding to the points that were brought up. I'll quote Masem, who I fully agree with "Either that should be removed, or a statement that summarizes the general academic take on how the classification is taken (including those that support it) should be used, but even here, this then might be undue weight in the lede." In other words, what you did was the definition of cherry-picking. Instead of reflecting the academic consensus, you added a bunch of cherry-picked opinions as a counterweight to the international decisions, in a paragraph that was solely about opinions of countries. You also phrased it in a way that made it seems as if these objections were from countries (the term you used was "others"). Not that it would be appropriate to explicitly cherry-pick academics as a counterpoint to international decisions in the lead either Drsmoo (talk) 21:57, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
To add to what Drsmoo has pointed out, the reason that countries' stances on Hamas is importance is that that creates official policy around how those countries deal with those groups, whereas the opinions of respected academics is simply opinions. I will agree that Nishidani's point that countries that have proactively stated they do not consider Hamas as a terrorist organization should be include to balance against those that do (particularly as this includes big players like Russia and China, per above sources); that's also a NPOV. But to that end, then for the lede, I would expect that academic analysis will be similarly split on whether it is a fair assessment or not. So the lede should include the country list that do classify them group this way and those that have stated they do not, and should omit the academic opinions on this decision (which is a point for expansion in the body). --MASEM (t) 22:13, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, point taken, but since we are dealing with an article on an organization, one should take care to see that political positions by great powers do not exhaust the lead description of its nature. Drsmoo's argument is that one should state the political angle and remove the analytic angle. Definitions in this kind of area tend to highlight the political, except when that is embarrassing. Al Nusra was deemed a terrorist organization, as was al Qaeda, by the US, but it still furnished arms to the former while its regional ally, Israel, has put neither on its designated terrorist lists, and actively helps the Islamic army groups, for a simple reason: they oppose Syria's Assad, and the fall of that dictatorship is in Israel's interests. Since the concept of 'terror organization' is supposed to use some form of objective criteria (as both the EU court and the Advocate General to the EU said the Hamas classification lacked, being based on a dossier of internet citations without institutional review), and nations are inconsistent, one has to be very careful in articles that aspire to NPOV not to give political spin the weight it has here while cancelling out a simple note that even Department of Defense Analysis /Rand Corporation experts like Glenn E. Robinson question its empirical value. Nearly all government policy comes from forward papers done by a coalition of bureaucratic/academic area specialists, and the distinction academic (wanker) and government experts breaks down. Finally, leads summarize the body of the article. The second suggestion you make is that the area specialist view point should be down in the body of the article, but no allusion should be made to it in the lead. That is obviously, from a technical point of view, anomalous. I can hardly shift an extensive series of citations down, in a section on 'Terrorist designation', point out the controversy, and not allude to this in the lead?
I should add that I have no interest in defending Hamas here. It engaged intensively in terrorist operations for a decade. I just think political judgements by interested powers, whoever they are, are not necessarily useful to understanding the nature of their designated enemies,(with notable exceptions, WW2 etc.)Nishidani (talk) 13:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
My read is that it was not neutral to compare the countries that have positively labeled Hamas as terrorists to academics that have expressed concern on that choice; it's apples to oranges. The lede needs to split the comparison up, something like "Hamas has been classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, (list...) , while other countries like Russia, China, (list...) have opted to not to categorize the group as such. The act of labeling Hamas as a terrorist organization is a point of debate in political and academic circles." It keeps the intent there, but it avoids what could be seen as a non-neutral comparison. --MASEM (t) 13:39, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
In short, the objection is to the placement of that passage in the lead. I think you are correct in your call. I think your mediation and the suggested compromise illuminating. I'm fine with your suggestion. Thanks.Nishidani (talk) 13:50, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Profiting from this advice, would this meet your criteria?

Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel (1989), the United States (1996), Canada (2002), the European Union (2001/2003), Japan (2006) Egypt (2015), and was outlawed in Jordan (1999). It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. Hamas appealed the EU blacklisting in 2008, and the European court found the earlier determination flawed. (2014). The European Council appealed the decision, and in 2016 its Advocate General advised that due to procedural errors, it should be dropped from the terror blacklist, unless proper and sufficient legal evidence to warrant its inclusion were forthcoming. Analysts have disputed the designation.

Note that I have removed the links to the countries that designated Hamas as terrorist. Two reasons. The countries that did not designate it thus had their links removed apparently, creating dissonance. I have regularized this also because it is overlinking to direct readers to countries which are recognized by all. Alternatively all countries could be linked.
I have also added 'unless proper and sufficient legal evidence to warrant its inclusion is provided' which only the EU press release contains, most other newspapers merely saying she advised it be dropped from the list, which is partial and ignores a key point. I.e. that her advice was conditional. Nishidani (talk) 16:43, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above demonstrates that some editors are engaged in advocating for Hamas despite their denial. It would be helpful to cite sources explaining why Hamas is considered "terrorist" like for instance in this BBC source "due to its long record of attacks and its refusal to renounce violence. Under the group's charter, Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel." or that point in NPR debate: "Hamas' central charter calls for the violent overthrow of Israel. Hamas continues to kill innocent civilians". Hamas supporters position also should be mentioned, something along lines "But to its supporters Hamas is seen as a legitimate resistance movement." I personally believe that Hamas is anti semitic organization, there are plenty sources about it, so supporting it seems strange. 2.53.39.50 (talk) 19:35, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
No, because the claim that "analysts have disputed the designation" is both incorrect and undue. I also agree with Masem that, as was said before, using analysts as a counterpoint to designations by countries would be apples to oranges and Undue. Drsmoo (talk) 19:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Hold on, Masem's suggestion in this comment here states that there is, in fact, a way of presenting academic debate on Hamas' designation without confusing academic and governmental designations. Nishidani's proposal above is consistent with Masem's suggestion, though I believe the text could be shortened.

Drsmoo, with no offense intended, your statement about apples and oranges appears confused and confusing. There is no universe in which published academic viewpoints are irrelevant to a wikipedia article: they are the bread and butter of reliable and neutral content. -Darouet (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Nope, the statement about Apples and Oranges is Masem's term (which you linked to), not mine. If you're going to start veering into personal statements calling someone "confused" you should take the time to read the actual statements. There also isn't an academic debate about Hamas being terrorists. Multiple sources state they are widely viewed as a terrorist group. What Nishidani did was cherry pick academics as an Undue counterweight for the policies of nations. No one has said academic viewpoints are irrelevant. In fact, both of us have said they should be in their own section. They're Undue when presented as a counterpoint to international policies. Drsmoo (talk) 21:20, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I'll let Masem elaborate if they like, but their proposal keeps some reference to academic opinion: "...The act of labeling Hamas as a terrorist organization is a point of debate in political and academic circles." Do you or do you not reject that proposal? -Darouet (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
He/she can elaborate, but the original statement was very straightforward. "My read is that it was not neutral to compare the countries that have positively labeled Hamas as terrorists to academics that have expressed concern on that choice; it's apples to oranges." You then, for some reason, personally attacked me over it, which was weird. Multiple sources state that Hamas are widely viewed as a terrorist organization. The political debate is already expressed in the paragraph. Contrarian academic views should be expressed, but not in relation to foreign policies. Drsmoo (talk) 22:02, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry about writing that your statement was confused and confusing. I was happy to see Nishidani and Masem appear to arrive at an agreement on how to improve the text, and surprised that you still rejected the idea of placing academic views in the lead. Part of that rejection involved / involves rejecting the text both Nishidani and Masem proposed (depending on your current view). I support the text Nishidani and Masem proposed. -Darouet (talk) 01:52, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
It's ok. Nishidani said that he agreed, but then ignored the call to split the comparison up, which was the whole point. I rejected Nishidani's proposal. It compares foreign policies to academic views and does so in a misleading way. The claim that "analysts have disputed", when Hamas is widely viewed as a terrorist organization would also be incorrect and undue. Drsmoo (talk) 07:18, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm having trouble understanding this hold.out. We disagreed. I took it to a neutral arbiter, a compromise along the lines he suggested was drafted. It contains all points, I believe, indicated, with the countries detached from the 'academic' viewpoint. WP:LEDE says you summarize the article, and in the body of the article, the 5 references I brought in will be cited to throw light on the question of the terrorist classification, and therefore it must be alluded to in the lead in a few words, along the lines I drafted, to respect policy. So, have we a compromise? Nishidani (talk) 12:39, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

UTC)

I'm not sure why you're using the term holdout? I don't see the arbiter agreeing with you. You ignored what Masem proposed, which was the entire crux of the issue. You didn't detach the "academic view" from the policy views of countries. What you added was "Analysts have disputed the designation", so what is "the designation"? It's what was in the preceding sentence, ie, they aren't detached. In addition, what you included directly misrepresents the "academic viewpoint". Hamas is "widely viewed" (and that's a quote) as a terrorist organization. One can cherry pick fringe theories to support any view, but to write it as "analysts have disputed" is incorrect and misleading. It's also incorrect to use the view of any analysts, let alone cherry-picked ones, as a counterweight to the foreign policies of countries. Regarding your new statement, the Lede summarizes the Body. The idea of throwing cherry picked and misleading sources into the Lede and then later claiming that as justification for using those same cherry picked sources in the Body is ridiculous. Drsmoo (talk) 13:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
@Drsmoo: your statements on this topic remain "confused and confusing," as I noted previously. I repeatedly linked Masem's proposal, which Nishidani basically paraphrased, but you ignore Masem's proposal and instead site their initial and more ambiguous statement because you can interpret it as supporting your POV. This looks like classic WP:IDHT and it's a waste of everyone's time.
Nishidani, whatever Drsmoo's issue, I think your proposal is fine, but I think you should shorten it. Perhaps Masem can help you with that. My own suggestion would be to consider removing the dates. While they are informative, they may be too much for the lead. Furthermore, "Hamas appealed... were forthcoming" might also be shortened. -Darouet (talk) 18:53, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
You may be confused, but that has no bearing on policy. Nor on the fact that Nishidani's proposal is both factually incorrect (analysts do not dispute the Hamas characterization, Hamas is widely viewed as a terrorist organization) as well as ignoring Masem's proposal by directly using analyst theories as a rebuttal to the policies of nations Drsmoo (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Instead of a careful survey of relevant sources, you need one good source that whose author has conducted a careful survey of relevant authors and expressed and opinion on the degree of acceptance of that designation in reliable sources. Generally reliable sources would not refer to them as a terrorist organization, and use the term for groups whose sole or major activity is terrorism, like the Abu Nidal group or the Weather Underground. TFD (talk) 19:03, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
We have that. Multiple sources state that Hamas is "widely viewed as a terrorist organization." "Two years before Sheikh Madhi's sermon, the PA—for purposes of conducting Intifada 2—made a de facto alliance with Hamas, widely viewed even in the Palestinian community as a terrorist organization."[1] "Gaza itself remains under the control of a group that has been widely viewed as a terrorist organization."[2] "Overwhelmingly, however, Hamas is best known as a terrorist organization."[3] There are literally thousands of reliable sources that refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization. Which is why the cherry-picking is all the more ridiculous. Drsmoo (talk) 19:15, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Zelnick, Robert (2013-09-01). Israel's Unilateralism: Beyond Gaza. Hoover Press. ISBN 9780817947736.
  2. ^ QC, Kenneth Watkin OMM, CD (2016-05-03). Fighting at the Legal Boundaries: Controlling the Use of Force in Contemporary Conflict. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190457983.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ Korany, Bahgat (2011-10-01). The Changing Middle East: A New Look at Regional Dynamics. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 9781617973864.
I was thinking more in terms of books about terrorism referring to the opinions of terrorism experts. Your first source for example is talking about public perception. Your second source cites a book by Matthew Levitt and CFR. In his book, Levitt "debunks" the theory that because Hamas also carries out non-terrorist activity, it should not be called a terrorist group.[58] Levit is a fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The institute's board of advisers are Washington hawks: Henry Kissinger, Joe Lieberman, Richard Perle, Condoleezza Rice, James Woolsey and others. The CFR merely says, "The United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization."[59] I cannot read the full paragraph in your third source to understand the context, but note the author is not an expert on terrorism but on politics. TFD (talk) 13:29, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
You are referencing something that is already in the text and acknowledged by everyone, ignoring any helpful input on what I offered as a compromise. Darouet - I've pared the paragraph in the article as we have it from 206 down to 118 words, which is almost 50%. I could clip it even more, but taking out the dates elides important information, with minimal gain: Hamas or its military wing was defined by distinct countries at different times, by Israel during the First Intifada, by Canada and the EU with the outbreak of the Second Intifada just after 9/11 (as sources say) and Japan, under US pressure, didn't ban it: it froze Hamas accounts in that country just after the 2006 elections were democratically won by Hamas, (as the US and Israel worked to overthrow it in a coup d'état, if we can believe the Vanity Fair article). Since 2006, incidents of terrorism have been rare, given its past record, and in the following decade, the designation has been increasingly questioned by analysts. In any case, if you or anyone else thinks the diminished text still needs shortening, I'll try that again on request. Nishidani (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
By the way Drsmoo. Your Watkin source states earlier:

It has been noted that “(o)ne problem Israel has in common with other democracies is that it focuses narrowly on its foes’ use of terrorism and ignores the wider strategies. While most groups Israel faces, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, have carried out terrorist acts against civilians, they are also broader social and governing organizations. As a result, it is suggested Israel needs to take lessons from counterinsurgency “which addresses not only the military (or “kinetic” in American soldier parlance) dimensions but also the political, economic, and social ones as well.’ P.112

Treating Hamas only as a party that has engaged in terrorism has been counterproductive for Israel, since that designation occludes any other options, such as easing the economic stranglehold on Gaza, and adopting measures that would have a social and political impact on Palestinian consensus, to undermine Hamas. Nishidani (talk) 20:52, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
The current wording is fine when when presented in this context. "Hamas is widely viewed as a terrorist organization,[1][2][3] though some analysts regard this designation as problematic or simplistic.[4][5][6][7][8]" The issue is that in addition to not fully separating the ideas, the previous edit ignored the majority view. Hamas being widely viewed as a terrorist group is "acknowledged by everyone", in your words, and I agree. Drsmoo (talk) 22:00, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
It's true you can get refs for 'widely viewed' meaning a number of Western countries, . It's also 'widely not viewed as a terrorist organization' by the majority of countries, including impeccable democracies. That is why I phrased it as I have. Your formulation is not NPOV, because you are making heavy water out of 'widely viewed' (in the real world) an implicit contrast to 'but this is disputed by a handful of eggheads'. You haven't budged, I have. Nishidani (talk) 22:34, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

(Discussion continues below after the list of references.)

References

  1. ^ Zelnick, Robert (2013-09-01). Israel's Unilateralism: Beyond Gaza. Hoover Press. ISBN 9780817947736.
  2. ^ QC, Kenneth Watkin OMM, CD (2016-05-03). Fighting at the Legal Boundaries: Controlling the Use of Force in Contemporary Conflict. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190457983.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ Korany, Bahgat (2011-10-01). The Changing Middle East: A New Look at Regional Dynamics. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 9781617973864.
  4. ^ Glenn E.Robinson,'Hamas as Social Movement,' in Quintan Wiktorowicz (ed.) Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, Indiana University Press 2004 pp112-141 p.112.
  5. ^ Krista E. Wiegand, Bombs and Ballots: Governance by Islamist Terrorist and Guerrilla Groups. (2010) Routledge, 2016 p.124.
  6. ^ Tristan Dunning, pp.28-30.
  7. ^ Kirsten E. Schulze,The Arab-Israeli Conflict, Pearson Education, 2008 p.87.
  8. ^ Luke Peterson ,Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses, Routledge 2014 p.99.
Absolutely not. The sources say "Hamas is widely viewed" and "overwhelmingly viewed" and they're not referring to countries or "western countries". Your inferences are incorrect and not supported by the text. You completely ignored Masem's suggestion that we must include those who support the description of Hamas as terrorists. I've included refs for that, two from universities and one from a think tank. For every one academic who writes that Hamas aren't terrorists there are ten who write that they are. Drsmoo (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I want to reassert that for the purposes of the lede the complexity of how many people (not countries) view Hamas as a terrorist organization is far too difficult to cover, because exactly the splitting of hairs of which sources you pull from to support one majority or another. I think it is necessary to enumerate the major countries that have or have specifically not classified the group as a terrorist organization, but after that point, the debate in all other political and academic circles is so complex that its best say that it is a point of debate, and not try to quantify which is the prevailing view in the lede. The body has room to give more about things like how most western people in these circles would likely support this classification as such and most others would not. Keep in mind that this is the type of topic that can suffer from the Western /English-speaking language bias; it's very easy to pull in English sources which generally are Western and will lean towards supporting the classification. That's why at least in the lede, leave it as an open-ended point of debate, taking a middle-of-the-road stance. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree with that. Something simple like: "It is a point of debate in political and academic circles over whether or not to classify Hamas as a terrorist group." [1]Drsmoo (talk) 03:12, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Jackson, Richard; Smyth, Marie Breen; Gunning, Jeroen (2009-02-05). Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda. Routledge. ISBN 9781134050512.
Still not clear. Following Masem's clear indications, I reduced the contended point to 'Analysts have disputed the designation.'(There are a dozen sources on this by now, and per WP:LEDE the fact that there is a significant debate on it requires a note in the lead., summary style. I'll be in Germany for a few days, anyway. But will look in on Sunday if this can be wound up, or wound down. Nishidani (talk) 21:14, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
I regard the summary sentences proposed by Masem, Drsmoo and Nishidani as all more or less equivalent. -Darouet (talk) 21:23, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
There's nothing unclear about "It is a point of debate in political and academic circles over whether or not to classify Hamas as a terrorist group." As opposed to "Analysts have disputed the designation", which makes it seem as if all analysts are disagreeing with the designation of Hamas as a terrorist group.
Just to clarify, there are two meanings of the word disputed. One is a synonym of argued, the other is "to oppose". When used as a transitive verb, which is how your phrasing is using it, the grammatically correct and common interpretation of the phrase "Analysts have disputed the designation" would be that analysts in general think the designation is incorrect, which would be false. I used the exact same terminology as Masem, so I don't see any controversy here. Drsmoo (talk) 21:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Regardless of who originally wrote what, when, the above proposedNishidani's solution that includes It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. Many analysts view the designation as problematic, and Hamas successfully challenged in a court of law the EU classification in 2014. is obviously superior to the current wording. Countries that officially disagree with the "terrorist" designation deserve to be mentioned as much as those that classify Hamas as terrorists. I do basically agree with the statement that "others", referring to individual analysts rather than states, is problematic, but I also think that referring to these analysts is not a violation of NPOV -- deliberately leaving any mention of them out would be a more significant violation of NPOV. It is of course entirely irrelevant to NPOV that the lead should not include information not found in the body, which is why I don't like unique citations to external sources being invoked in the lead in general. Discussion of the wording of the lead based on what external sources say and which "others" are states and which are "cherry-picked analysts" is not a discussion we need to have. It should be noted that at least one of the states cited as classifying Hamas as a terrorist group in the lead is actually included thus in the body, but the attached footnote makes this attribution seem dubious, and the body actually uses the wording "designated the military wing of Hamas as a terrorist organization", which directly contradicts the current wording of the lead "Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated as a terrorist organization". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:33, 16 October 2016 (UTC) Edited 08:08, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
The current wording which is "obviously inferior" is Nishidani's version (and it includes countries that disagree with the terrorist designation).I'm glad you agree that the current version is not ideal, and that others referring to analysts rather than states is problematic, that's why I brought it to the noticeboard. I also agree that we should discuss analysts in the lede. Regarding the new proposal by Nishidani in this noticeboard, my disagreement is with the line "Analysts have disputed the designation", which is incorrect. Instead, it would be preferable to use the following:

Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel (1989), the United States (1996), Canada (2002), the European Union (2001/2003), Japan (2006) Egypt (2015), and was outlawed in Jordan (1999). It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. Hamas appealed the EU blacklisting in 2008, and the European court found the earlier determination flawed. (2014). The European Council appealed the decision, and in 2016 its Advocate General advised that due to procedural errors, it should be dropped from the terror blacklist, unless proper and sufficient legal evidence to warrant its inclusion were forthcoming. It is a point of debate in political and academic circles over whether or not to classify Hamas as a terrorist group."

Drsmoo (talk) 05:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@Drsmoo: I'm sorry, but the current version is identical to the one you quoted at the top of this thread, and Nishidani shortly thereafter appears to have suggested changing it to

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, the EU, Japan, Egypt and Canada. It is banned in Jordan.It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. Many analysts view the designation as problematic, and Hamas successfully challenged in a court of law the EU classification in 2014.

Am I missing something? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:09, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, the current version is Nishidani's edit. I quoted it to say that it needs to be changed. We've already moved past that suggestion you quoted. Drsmoo (talk) 06:37, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Very well. I don't care who wrote what, when. The problem you appear to have with the current wording is not one I agree with. The above-suggested edit is superior to the current wording. Original comment edited accordingly. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:08, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
If by the "above-suggested edit" you're referring to the one you initially quoted, it's no longer under consideration and both Nishidani and I have moved past it. Drsmoo (talk) 08:13, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't care. All I said is that it's obviously superior to what's there now, and I stand by that statement. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:42, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
A point to several of the above statements: the lede should not be where complex arguments (supported by sources) should be laid out. Noting that Hamas is called or not called a terrorist organizations by several countries (which is factually true and a simple statement) is good. Trying to explain the EU delisting is getting a bit too much in the weeds (I would leave it out until it's officially removed), and trying to explain the arguements from the politics and academics side is far too complex beyond noting it is a point of contention. That keeps the balance and gives your body the amount of space needed to spell out specifics. --MASEM (t) 03:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't see how that is compatible with WP:LEDE, summary style. There is no complexituy, surely, in simple words. WP:NPOV requires that we present this highly contentious issue with neutrality, meaning not just a list implying 'most civilized countries think Hamas' terrorist. What worries me most, however, is that I came here to work out a compromise. And Drsmoo hasn't budged. I appreciate Masem's suggestions, but they are, as I see it, all in Drsmoo's direction (the less about doubts on the terrorist clòassification the better). Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
When you say "the less about doubts on the terrorist classification the better", that's showing a POV here. We have to recognize that whether or not Hamas is a terrorist organization is clearly a long-standing subject of debate, and which is the "majority" view near impossible to determine given the systematic bias of English-based (read mostly Western) sources. "Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by (list), while (second list) have stated the group is not a terrorist organization, and Hamas has recently disputed the EU's classification as such in 2014. Whether or not to designate Hamas as as a terrorist organization is a point of debate by many political and academic analysts." That's neutral and reflects the world view, keeping in mind the systematic bias, while allowing the body of the article to get into the more lengthy specifics. --MASEM (t) 17:29, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I fully agree with Masem's suggestion. I also reject Nishidani's claim about me. There is nothing "unclear" about "It is a point of debate in political and academic circles over whether or not to classify Hamas as a terrorist group." Drsmoo (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
This has become pointless. We are all agreed on the new version, since I accept Masem's précis, Drsmoo's variation on my first proposal. In synthesis, to recap

(A=Nihshidani)Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel (1989), the United States (1996), Canada (2002), the European Union (2001/2003), Japan (2006) Egypt (2015), and was outlawed in Jordan (1999). It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. Hamas appealed the EU blacklisting in 2008, and the European court found the earlier determination flawed. (2014). The European Council appealed the decision, and in 2016 its Advocate General advised that due to procedural errors, it should be dropped from the terror blacklist, unless proper and sufficient legal evidence to warrant its inclusion were forthcoming. Analysts have disputed the designation.

(B=Drsmoo) Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel (1989), the United States (1996), Canada (2002), the European Union (2001/2003), Japan (2006) Egypt (2015), and was outlawed in Jordan (1999). It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. Hamas appealed the EU blacklisting in 2008, and the European court found the earlier determination flawed. (2014). The European Council appealed the decision, and in 2016 its Advocate General advised that due to procedural errors, it should be dropped from the terror blacklist, unless proper and sufficient legal evidence to warrant its inclusion were forthcoming. It is a point of debate in political and academic circles over whether or not to classify Hamas as a terrorist group.

(C= Masem's précis) Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by (list), while (second list) have stated the group is not a terrorist organization, and Hamas has recently disputed the EU's classification as such in 2014. Whether or not to designate Hamas as as a terrorist organization is a point of debate by many political and academic analysts.

So, the compromise is version B, which contains all Masem's points, satisfies Drsmoo, and is just an controversial tweaking of what I proposed. Okay? If Darout, Hijiri and TFD have no objections, of course. Nishidani (talk) 21:53, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
The issue with versions A and B is that literally 46% of version A and 40% of version B is comprised of details regarding the ongoing EU appeal. That is obviously undue. It's strange that you suddenly decided that "this has become pointless." Drsmoo (talk) 03:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
You endorsed it with your tweak above. Drsmoo (talk) 05:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC). I accept that. Now you are raising another objection. Masem agrees with you, 4 other editors adopt nuanced comments that differ with that viewpoint. Is this attrition to get what you want 100% or are you willing, as before, to make a gentlemanly compromise? The EU appeal is critical for Hamas's own perspective: it succeeded in a court challenge to the 'Western consensus' and that court judgement will, if acted on, affect the designation of 28 countries. Hamas's legal POV cannot obviously be ignored: if it is, we are saying the US to China axis are relevant, the subject itself has no political relevance, unlike them. I believe I have a rough consensus that the version you and I agreed on is not objected to. I'm patient. I'll wait and see if objections from others involved here arise.Nishidani (talk) 20:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
If we are going to list the EU's designation in the lead, we also need to note subsequent developments. I still believe those two sentences about the EU process could be shortened, but they definitely need to be there somehow. -Darouet (talk) 21:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
I have no objection to the EU appeal being mentioned. I object to it being 46% of the paragraph. Something like "The EU decision is currently being appealed" with further detail given in the body paragraphs. Something like:

Hamas, its military wing, together with several charities it runs, has been designated as a terrorist organization by Israel (1989), the United States (1996), Canada (2002), the European Union (2001/2003), Japan (2006) Egypt (2015), and was outlawed in Jordan (1999). The EU decision is currently under appeal. It is not regarded as a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, China, and Brazil. It is a point of debate in political and academic circles over whether or not to classify Hamas as a terrorist group. Drsmoo (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Nope. That is falsification of sources. The EU verdict is not currently under appeal. See why one has to give a minimum of attention to details of the kind you wish to erase, Drsmoo. After endless discussion you still haven't grasped the meaning of the passage you want eliminated, which says the EU challenged the court's 2014 verdict in favour of Hamas, and its legal advisor said in 2016, that the EU had to look to other options, since the court decision was correctly formulated.Nishidani (talk) 19:58, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Nope. That's the wording used by the EU court. I didn't say the verdict was under appeal, I said the decision was under appeal, and it is. The court has not yet issued its final ruling. Drsmoo (talk) 21:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
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