Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view

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Wikipedia:Neutrality

How about renaming this page to Wikipedia:Neutrality (which already links here) and extending it with badly needed aspects on issues of relative coverage other than just the issue of POV pushing, which this policy page traditionally gives far too much attention? I think most non-neutrality in articles is due not to a POV mindset, but to a rather innocuous ignorance on many different aspects of article writing and layout.

Also, I'd welcome something on the imo hugely problematic POV issue of criticism sections. I dorftrottel I talk I 05:18, November 25, 2007

Nevermind. I dorftrottel I talk I 05:27, November 25, 2007

tags

1. — message used to warn of problems
2. — tags only a single section as disputed
3. — message used to mark articles that may be biased. ( may be used for short)
4. Template:POV-title — when the article's title is questionable
5. — when only one sentence is questionable
6. — When an article or section fails to abide by multiple Wikipedia content policies

   Undue Weight?

   Howdy. Having a bit of a disagreement on what is UNDUE over at Circumcision. The latest addition to summary a source from University of Chicago is in contention. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Garycompugeek (talk) 19:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

   American (i.e. the United States, and not Anglo-American) POV

   In the first paragraph of a recent featured article, Oil shale, you (roughly) read "Oil shales are located around the world, including the US." I read on to see if the US is particularly important as a resource. It isn't. For that reason I believe it is a NPOV violation and should be deleted from the article. It is probably caused by the common tone in the U.S. national surveys and reports that are--quite naturally--U.S. focused, but still a main part of the world's scientific literature.

   The average English Wikipedia reader, who may or may not be a native English speaker, is not necessarily from the U.S., or particularly interested in where the U.S. stands re every subject. --Farzaneh (talk) 21:23, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

   What the article does not say is that the US has tried to treat its oil shale reserves as a potential back-up in the event that it has no access to Middle East oil, and has spent gazillions of dollars to develop oil shale technology that has been exported worldwide, in the hope of becoming a number-one fossilfuel producer worldwide/energy independent. Some of the largest reserves in the world are in the US. All highly relevant to people around the world who want to know about oil shale.LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 04:55, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

   "Criticism of foo" articles

   It's possible that I'm being overly literal in interpretation of the policy, but is an article that exclusively contains criticism of a topic capable of meeting the expectations on neutrality? For example, the criticism of Bill O'Reilly article is substantially longer than the Bill O'Reilly article. At what point is the "criticism" article just an excuse to only cover one side of a topic conveniently outside of an otherwise neutral main? A more carefully chosen article title, such as Michael Moore controversies, would give the expectation of a neutral coverage, whereas a "criticisms" article invites one-sided coverage. Somedumbyankee (talk) 04:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

   If the subject matter of an article is a verifiable and noteworthy source of polarization, critique or dispute within a given society, subculture or institution, and writing about it is otherwise consistent with WP policy, then the motives for maintaining the content may not really be important.

   It's definitely an "edge case" scenario, but the mere existence of an article that is primarily or even exclusively devoted to "criticism" does not by itself constitute a violation of neutrality. As for determining when the line has been crossed, that's a matter of case-by-case discernment, no? dr.ef.tymac (talk) 06:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

   I guess it's partially a question of whether an individual article is neutral or whether Wikipedia's treatment as a whole of the subject is neutral. All of the "criticism of foo" articles I've read show a clear bias against "foo", and the name of the article more or less condones that bias because "it's about criticism." Just glancing through , many of them are thinly disguised WP:SOAP, even if it is well-sourced. Naming disputes on these articles are common. This one is currently is in "move-pong" mode. This one is basically a WP:POVFORK.

   I cannot see any case where a "Criticism of" article could not be recast as a "Controversies" article, a title that does not imply negative coverage. Somedumbyankee (talk) 15:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

   Perhaps. Those articles you linked to (especially the latter one) do seem to cross the line. Appropriately, the latter one is flagged as needing attention and may even merit removal or merging.

   Nevertheless, replacing the terms "Criticism of" with "Controversies" seems like the kind of subtle distinction unlikely to dissuade people who are inclined to POV push. If the article content remains unbalanced and poorly referenced, a re-title offers little or no correction. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 17:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

   Fake images in aviation accident articles

   I have started a thread on WT:NOR about fake images which involves both NPOV and NOR. Opinions are welcome. Thanks, Crum375 (talk) 12:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

   Moved to Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research/Archive_35#Fake_images_in_aviation_accident_articles --Enric Naval (talk) 03:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

   Undue Weight Criteria

   Concerns about Undue Weight have been raised in the article about trophy taking during World war II. American mutilation of Japanese war dead A free downloadable scholarly paper on the topic is available here. Now despite the topic being well known at the time, see for example Life Magazine Picture of the week May 22, 1944, it "appears" that many authors of WWII literature either don't know about it, or consider it unimportant, or prefer not to mention it for other reasons, such as for the protection of veterans image.

   Another example of possibly similar downplaying is another uncomfortable topic: rape:

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   An estimated 10,000 Japanese women were eventually raped by American troops during the Okinawa campaign. H-Net review of The GI War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific during World War II. According to Peter Schrijvers, rape was "a general practice against Japanese women".H-Net review of The GI War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia and the Pacific during World War II According to a New York Times article from June 1, 2000 regarding the 1998 discovery of the corpses of 3 U.S. rapists killed by Okinawan villagers after repeated rape-visits by the group: "rape was so prevalent that most Okinawans over age 65 either know or have heard of a woman who was raped in the aftermath of the war." "3 Dead Marines and a Secret of Wartime Okinawa" New York Times, June 1, 2000

   Okinawan historian Oshiro Masayasu (former director of the Okinawa Prefectural Historical Archives) writes based on several years of research:

   Soon after the US marines landed, all the women of a village on Motobu Peninsula fell into the hands of American soldiers. At the time, there were only women, children and old people in the village, as all the young men had been mobilized for the war. Soon after landing, the marines "mopped up" the entire village, but found no signs of Japanese forces. Taking advantage of the situation, they started "hunting for women" in broad daylight and those who were hiding in the village or nearby air raid shelters were dragged out one after another.

   Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II By Yuki Tanaka, Toshiyuki Tanaka, page 111

   ---

   Especially the New York times article is interesting for trying to understand why so little is mentioned of such massive raping in "war books for western consumption".

   An even better example is the fate of the book on the suppression of the book on U.S. troops rape in Europe. (Publisher book summary available here) It is a disgusting topic, and it is understandable that "greatest generation" authors such as Stephen Ambrose seem to have chosen to ignore it completely.

   But.... It raises an interesting question. Since it is a topic that most writers seem to choose to ignore for whatever reason, does it mean "Undue Weight" to write about it, and how should "Undue Weight" policy be interpreted in relation to such topics?

   I may be stretching it with this comparison, but nevertheless. Imagine Germany had won World War II. Perhaps not much would have been written in scholarly literature about the Holocaust in the U.S., for example due to political and economic pressure not to antagonize the German superpower. How would "undue weight" then apply to the Holocaust article?

   Or take this example: American troops 'murdered Japanese PoWs'. There are a number of works from the last decades or so that have started facing up to this topic. But if you look at the full body of literature written since 1945 they probably are a distinct minority, with the others either blissfully unaware or deliberately avoiding the sensitive topic. Does that mean writing about it on Wiki can be considered Undue Weight?

   I would be very much interested in knowing how Undue Weight policy relates to "suppressed" topics, perhaps the policy needs finetuning?--Stor stark7 ^Speak 03:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   I've considered a similar problem with Burmyanmar, where the change in name to Myanmar has been alleged to be part of an ongoing campaign of revisionism. What happens when all official documents reflect a history that the outside world knows to be false? Do we report the "official" history along with the "real" history? Frankly, I'm not qualified to make that decision. We have to rely on historians for history the same way we rely on scientists for science. Mainstream history has an opinion on these events, and since we are simply gathering information and not passing judgment on it, we must report what mainstream history has to say. Victor's justice is a longstanding problem for history, and wikipedia cannot fix it. We can only report that some historians have suspected that mainstream accounts are tainted by that problem, and let people make their own decisions on what to believe. Somedumbyankee (talk) 03:24, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   Intesting, but isn't my question here not so much about contradicting statements from different scholars, but more about about some sources saying something that other sources says little or nothing at all about. I.e. not one opinion against another, but more a recently developed "new opinion" versus a possible larger accumulated body of "no opinion"?--Stor stark7 ^Speak 03:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   This topic is discussed in scholarly books on the experiances of Allied servicement in the Pacific published over the last 20 years: it's just not accorded much space, presumably as the relevant professional historians consider it not to have been all that commonplace. There seem to be only two scholarly papers on this topic which in turn heavily draw on the handful of pages in professional historians investigations of combat experiances in the Pacific War. It's not correct to state that historians have only started to write about the killings of Japanese POWs in the last decade - this has been discussed in histories for several decades, and was even included in the Australian official histories of the war which were written during the 1950s and 60s. Again, given that few Japanese ever tried to surrender prior to August 1945 (which is proven in countless histories of the war and attributed to the Japanese military's attitude towards surrender), it's not a major part of the war. Nick Dowling (talk) 07:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   I presume you are here referring to the topic of mutilation of the dead and not the topic of mass rapes, or the policy of killing surrendering Japanese.

   I think we should make it very clear that we represent two very different standpoints on the mutilation issue here. Ever since I started that article you seem to have been very antagonistic against it. And you have also made a number of very strange claims, such as ""In 1984 Japanese soldiers remains were repatriated from the Mariana Islands. Roughly 60 percent were missing their skulls" (cited, but there's no context given for this - why were the bodies being returned 40 years after the war? How many bodies were returned? Was this an example of the Japanese military custom of returning a body part to Japan rather than the whole body?). My question here is, which alleged Japanese custom are you referring to exactly? A scholar doesnt seem to be aware of any such "practice "[1]Also: "Everything I've read suggests the opposite: on the only occasions during the Pacific War when US troops encountered Japanese civilians (mainly on Saipan and Okinawa) the civilians were treated fairly well. The US occupation troops in Japan after the war also generally behaved well, and seem to have actually behaved better than the troops on occupation duties in Western Europe." This doesn't sound very convincing considering the rapes, which you later acknowledged. As to the "topic discussions" in literature that you refer to, and do some presuming about: My position is that snippets of information here and there, and the conclusions the individual authors draw based on their limited horizon, are woefully inferior to the conclusions drawn by scholars in peer reviewed journals who draw on all that information and much much more, to paint a complete and comprehensive picture. Given that we only know of 2 such articles, but that means little since we are hardly topic experts and how many on topic scholarly journals do we actually need?

   As to the common practice of killing surrendering Japanese i wish to strongly challenge both your assumptions. It may have been mentioned here and there in the past, but certainly not that it was common practice, such as here[[2]. You state the following: "Again, given that few Japanese ever tried to surrender prior to August 1945 (which is proven in countless histories of the war and attributed to the Japanese military's attitude towards surrender), it's not a major part of the war." I guess this comes from your exhaustive experience with the literature. May I direct you to some sources collected here:

   Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#The_Pacific "Dower states that in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds."[36] According to Aldrich it was common practice for US troops not to take prisoners.[42] This analysis is supported by British historian Niall Fergusson,[43] who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U. S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese."[44]"Fergusson suggests that "it was not only the fear of disciplinary action or of dishonor that deterred German and Japanese soldiers from surrendering. More important for most soldiers was the perception that prisoners would be killed by the enemy anyway, and so one might as well fight on. U. S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in U.S. POW compounds to two important factors, a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were "animals" or "subhuman'" and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs.[48] The latter reason is supported by Fergusson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians [sic] — as Untermenschen."[49]" It would seem that a very important factor for Japanese reluctance to surrender to the Allied troops was their tendency to get massacred if they were dumb enough to try it. Hell, there is even colour movie footage of massacres and mutilations[3]. Lets quote Harrison: Hoyt (1986: 391) argues that what he calls the ‘unthinking’ practice of taking home bones as souvenirs was exploited so effectively by Japanese government propaganda that it contributed to a preference for death over surrender and occupation, shown, for example, in the mass civilian suicides on Saipan and Okinawa after the Allied landings." I do believe all these topics deserve much attention, and statements such as "it's not a major part of the war" only reflect a very biased literature selection. To return to your first sentence "This topic is discussed in scholarly books on the experiances of Allied servicement in the Pacific published over the last 20 years: it's just not accorded much space, presumably as the relevant professional historians consider it not to have been all that commonplace." I think we only need look at the topic of rapes in Europe to get some nuance on that.[4].[[5]

   "'Lilly reveals a different side to the myth of the wholesome GI of World War II. This is a well-researched and courageous attempt to throw some light on an ugly underbelly that has remained unexamined for far too long. His harrowing descriptions of numerous rapes from official records make Taken By Force an uncomfortable read. Nevertheless, this is an important book, and one that deserves a far wider readership than just those with a scholarly interest.' - Lucy Popescu, Tribune"

   How much space has this topic been given in the past? What conclusion can we draw from the silence by other authors? That it was unimportant, that someone is lying through their teeth, or that certain historians have had an ugly tendency to underplay or ignore certain aspects of war?--Stor stark7 ^Speak 15:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   What is the point of a neutral point of view?

   Is this political correctness? It extends to discussions as well as articles right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.4.239 (talk) 02:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

   Terrible sentence?

   Anyone agree that the following is a terrible sentence?

   • "Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization."

   -qp10qp (talk) 10:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

   "radiate" isn't really lent to facts, opinions or stances.

   Headings

   What excatly is the policy of NPOV in headings?

   My question comes about how band articles have History sections that a divided in ways such as: ===Mainstream success: 1992–1994===. First, isn't the heading somewhat ambiguous? What is the section talking about, the span of years, or mainstream success? Second, wouldn't it be POV if you had to mention both? I mean mainstream success is subjective, and then, there are no papers that can be cited where a historian has published that the years from 1992-1994 is the Mainstream success era for the smashing pumpkins. Where as History sections such as in United States can have the the Gilded age era because historians have written published work in peer-reviewed journals, the Mainstream success era DO NOT have historians that have written published work in peer-reviewed journals, where we have another problem, wp:or. Yet we have another problem, wp:notability, since it can't be cited, it can't be included. Years are objective, why Mainstream success, and other unnecessary discriptors, mind you, are subjective.68.148.164.166 (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

   I haven't seen the article your example is taken from (if it's from an actual Wiki article), so I can't decide how appropriate the heading is for the content of the section in question. The heading in your example is not ambiguous. It conveys quite clearly that the section is about the history of the band between 1992 and 1994, and that the band enjoyed mainstream success during that period.

   The purpose of headings is to allow the reader to get a quick idea of the content of different sections, and to help provide the reader a mental map of the article. It is not intended to provide details. A heading like "Mainstream success: 1992–1994" contains some degree of vagueness and subjectivity, but that's not necessarily a problem. Most people have similar ideas about what mainstream success is, but they don't have the same threshold-criteria for when a band has achieved mainstream success. It would be counter-productive to try to redefine "mainstream success" in terms of clear-cut criteria, as such a definition would correspond less well with how people actually understand the words.

   Presumably, if a band achieved "mainstream success" during a certain period, the article section will contain details of their achievements, e.g. sales of recordings & concert tickets, chart rankings, awards, etc. It is perfect acceptable to leave it to the readers to get such details from reading the text, and not just the heading, of the section.

   --71.162.249.44 (talk) 11:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)