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Bias in the Rupert Sheldrake article
As it stands now, the Rupert Sheldrake page contains numerous examples of incomplete information in violation of neutral POV. To keep things simple, I'm drawing your attention to just one such example.
Sheldrake conducted an experiment to either verify or falsify the claim of a dog owner that her dog was aware, in the absence of any sensory cues, when she was returning home. Sheldrake concluded on the basis of this experiment that the dog successfully demonstrated knowledge of when its owner was returning home. Another researcher, Richard Wiseman, attempted to refute Sheldrake's conclusion by repeating the experiment, and he then published a paper in which he denied any evidence of a telepathic link between the dog and its owner. In a subsequent interview, however, Wiseman conceded that his own experiment generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's experiment and that he was simply interpreting the data differently. But the Sheldrake page leaves out this crucial piece of information, giving the reader the impression that Wiseman actually refuted Sheldrake. When I corrected the article, my edit was reverted by TheRedPenOfDoom and then by Barney the barney barney. After a false start, in which I mistakenly cited the wrong source, I made three edits:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=next&oldid=578929059
- https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=next&oldid=579545760
- https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=next&oldid=579642942
The changes in the second and third edits reflect the fact that I was trying to arrive at consensus on the talk page. That discussion, including the link to the Wiseman interview, is located here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Illegitimate_reversals
Despite my attempt to arrive at consensus, Barney reverted my edit and launched an edit warring complaint against me. That complaint is located here:
Barney alleged that I was "deliberately misrepresenting the opinions of a living person, in this case a distinguished professor Richard Wiseman, that make Wiseman look like he is endorsing pseudoscience." Barney's claim is blatantly false, as demonstrated by the edit he reverted: "In a subsequent interview, Wiseman stated that his experiment generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's and that more experiments were needed to definitively overturn Sheldrake's conclusion that Jaytee had a psychic link with its owner." Though clearly I was not claiming that Wiseman endorsed Sheldrake's view, I received a warning by Bbb23 that even a single edit on this page could result in me being blocked.
Rather than work with me to achieve consensus, TRPoD and Barney are reverting my edits without any attempt to resolve the bias in the current version. According to NPOV editors "should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another." Please ensure that editors seeking to provide complete information on the Sheldrake page will be supported by Misplaced Pages administrators, not threatened or told to go edit some other page. Alfonzo Green (talk) 20:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
- Alfonzo Green (talk · contribs) is on a warning for trying to insert potentially libelous material misattributing the views of Richard Wiseman into the Rupert Sheldrake article having not gained consensus on the talk page. Editors are also reminded of WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE and the WP:ARB/PS. I suggest via WP:BOOMERANG that Alfonzo Green takes a voluntary break from editing this before a sensible admin enforces the inevitable, AGAIN. WP:CONSENSUS is WP:NOTAVOTE. ping Vzaak (talk · contribs), TheRedPenOfDoom (talk · contribs), QTxVi4bEMRbrNqOorWBV (talk · contribs) Barney the barney barney (talk) 22:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
- Barney claims I tried to "insert potentially libelous material misattributing the views of Richard Wiseman." Why persist in making a claim already proven false? Again, according to my edit, Wiseman stated that his experiment generated the same data as Sheldrake's. Is Barney so confused that he thinks replicating another researcher's data constitutes endorsement of the that researcher's interpretation of the data? And what about the second part of the edit, in which I note that Wiseman advocated more experiments specifically so as to overturn Sheldrake's conclusion? Barney's claim is simply nonsensical. I bring this up because I want administration to understand that this is not a dispute between two reasoning people. This is a dispute between one person seeking reasonable consensus and another person who will say anything, no matter how absurd, in order to block it. This applies to every single point Barney makes. His reference to WP:FRINGE makes no sense given the fact that this is an article about Rupert Sheldrake and his views. Regardless of how fringe those views may be, we must present them - - and responses to them - - in an unbiased way. To include a supposed refutation of one of his views without noting that the supposed refuter later backed off from his claim is obviously biased. Equally obvious is the fact that WP:UNDUE would apply only if an editor attempted to include Sheldrake's conclusion about Jaytee in an article about psychology or dogs. Barney has been told this repeatedly on the talk pages yet continues asserting the same point, demonstrating that his concern is not reasonable consensus but keeping the Sheldrake article as anti-Sheldrake as possible. WP:ARB/PS is a request for arbitration in cases having to do with pseudoscience. Sheldrake has indeed been accused of pseudoscience. He has also been praised as a cutting edge theorist. The fact that Sheldrake engages in repeatable experiments that could potentially falsify his hypotheses demonstrates he is in fact practicing science. Repeating the Jaytee experiment demonstrates that Wiseman regards Sheldrake's work as legitimate, if flawed. By citing WP:BOOMERANG Barney demonstrates an inability to recognize his own error, specifically his bogus edit warring complaint against me, which is now boomeranging against him. He points out that consensus is not a vote, yet it's precisely because the anti-Sheldrake clique constitutes a majority of editors on the Sheldrake page that they've been able to intimidate other would-be editors and dominate the page. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
The are two torpedoes here, either one of which would sink this boat.
The first torpedo is that the interview in question is not from a reliable source. It is a self-published blog which promotes energy healing, talking with spirits, alien contact, the whole bit. It has been accused of deleting portions of an interview which didn't fit with the agenda of the website, and is known for sandbagging guests. It is about the farthest thing from a reliable source that one could get. That quickly settles the matter, and there is no need to read further.
But for the curious, the second torpedo is that Wiseman completely rejects Sheldrake's post hoc analysis of Wiseman's data in service of support for dog-Homo telepathy, as stated in Wiseman's response paper (RS=Rupert Sheldrake, Jaytee=telepathic dog, PS=the dog's owner Pam Smart),
In short, we strongly disagree with the arguments presented in RS’s commentary. We believe that our experiments were properly designed and that the results did not support the notion that Jaytee could psychically detect when PS was returning home. Moreover, we are not convinced otherwise by RS’s reanalysis of our data and reserve judgment about his own experiments until they are published in a peer reviewed journal.
Moreover, in the very same interview in question, Wiseman rejects Sheldrake's experimental methods, saying "I'm not that impressed with the data that Rupert's collected", "I think there are some methodological problems with it", "don't look to me quite as methodology rigorous as you would need", "things need to be done with a little bit more rigor and in this instance, that hasn't happened".
Alfonzo is strongly editorializing in saying that Wiseman conceded or that experiments are needed to overturn, much less "definitively overturn" this claim of a psychic dog. Sheldrake's experiments are not viewed highly by Wiseman, nor by the scientific community for that matter. vzaak (talk) 23:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
- Also note that I previously alerted Alfonzo to the non-reliable-source issue, and he responded to me before posting to this noticeboard, so there was no need for others here to sink their time into this. (His response in that link continues the conspiratorial thinking throughout, calling Wiseman "disingenuous", "conceding", etc.) vzaak (talk) 23:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
- Alfonzo Green is correct that I am making no efforts to come to a consensus that would in anyway misrepresent Wiseman's comments in a way that "concedes" he sees any potential psychic phenomena in these experiments. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- Alfonzo seems to be correct, that Wiseman has conceded *something*: namely, that Wiseman's *own* experiments of 1995 do not manage by themselves to overturn Sheldrake's claims. In Wiseman's original ~1995 paper, that was claimed. It is absolutely positively true that Wiseman *still* holds the position that no telepathy happened in any of the 1994/1995 trials (either by Sheldrake or by Wiseman), but he now points to methodological concerns as the reason, which is different from his stance in the 1990s. Methinks the current language Alfonzo is suggesting on the talkpage is totally fair. (Barney's original reverts were correct though -- the original language that Alfonzo used *could* have been misinterpreted, and thus constituted a possible BLP violation.) The problem on the talkpage at the moment is the one vzaak points out: I'm not convinced we have a *source* for the revised-neutral-language, that Wiseman has in fact changed the reasons underlying his current position (the position itself is unchanged and the current language so notes). Alfonzo: suggest you withdraw this noticeboard alert, please, and return to the talkpage for another week. Progress is slow, but we are making progress there. Thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- Alfonzo Green is correct that I am making no efforts to come to a consensus that would in anyway misrepresent Wiseman's comments in a way that "concedes" he sees any potential psychic phenomena in these experiments. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- The source of the Wiseman material is an interview, both in audio and transcript form. The words are Wiseman's own. In effect the source is Wiseman himself. Skeptiko is just a vehicle by which Wiseman chose to concede that, contrary to the impression he gave in his published paper, he did not refute Sheldrake but generated the same data and chose to interpret that data differently. That said, in a good faith effort to achieve consensus, I replaced "conceded" with "stated," as the attempted edit above reveals. Pointing out that Wiseman sought to "definitively overturn" Sheldrake's claim was also a concession to editors who asserted that I was misrepresenting Wiseman as somehow endorsing Sheldrake. As to Wiseman's statements cited by Vzaak, none of them directly challenge my edit. How does whining about Sheldrake's methodology change the basic fact that Wiseman replicated Sheldrake's data and then turned around and claimed to have refuted his claim? Our job is to report the dispute between Sheldrake and Wiseman, not intervene in the dispute by portraying it in a way that's favorable to one side. Again, consult NPOV. The reference to "conspiratorial thinking" appears to be an attempt to smear me by association with conspiracy theorists. Aside from the fact that this is completely out of the blue, guilt by association is a well known logical fallacy akin to ad hominem. Alfonzo Green (talk) 22:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- That's not what I'm reading in the interview. Never mind Skeptiko's dubious reputation as a source: what Wiseman says is that he and Sheldrake subsequent to the first trials ran tests separately, and got divergent results. And then he says that be cannot utterly reject Sheldrake's positive results because of a lack of information about the experimental setup. This strikes me as a very odd response, because my reaction (and I think most students of experimental technique would agree with me) is that Sheldrake's trials lack authority because of irreproducibility. If only he can get positive results, then it stands to reason that he is (consciously or not) doing something to queer the test. But at any rate Wiseman's response is not as strong an endorsement as you're trying to get into the article; he doesn't say that more trials are needed to "overturn" Sheldrake's conclusions. What he says in fact is that, well, maybe there's something there, he cannot be utterly sure there isn't, but that the trials done thus far aren't rigorous enough. Mangoe (talk) 23:36, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- Mangoe, please see the ca.2000 Wiseman paper vzaak provides, which I quote below, where Wiseman says the data-patterns match (which I'm taking as almost-but-not-quite-reproducibility... Wiseman only did 4 trials after all). Agree that we should not make Wiseman sound like he thinks the Sheldrake-trials are now valid... in fact, he still does not think that. (We have also argued the 'something there' quote on the talkpage to death... Alfonzo leans to your reading, that 'something there' but TRPoD has convinced me via other Wiseman context-snippets that Wiseman means 'something there' which is totally different.) HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
- Wiseman sets up the flaws with the experiment: "Well, yeah, I mean, I suspect it’s quite problematic because it depends how the data is collected," he goes into the flaws with the experiment. He comes out with "I think as is so much of 's work, it’s very easy to look at it and go, yeah, a priori, that looks like there’s a cased something there, but things need to be done with a little bit more rigor and in this instance, that hasn’t happened." His position is completely: "I see nothing in this experiment that convinces me as scientific evidence. If he wants to do another experiment with more scientifically rigorous conditions, I will look at that as well, but he hasn't. " Presenting it as anything else cherrypicking out-of-context statements to push a POV. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:46, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- That's not what I'm reading in the interview. Never mind Skeptiko's dubious reputation as a source: what Wiseman says is that he and Sheldrake subsequent to the first trials ran tests separately, and got divergent results. And then he says that be cannot utterly reject Sheldrake's positive results because of a lack of information about the experimental setup. This strikes me as a very odd response, because my reaction (and I think most students of experimental technique would agree with me) is that Sheldrake's trials lack authority because of irreproducibility. If only he can get positive results, then it stands to reason that he is (consciously or not) doing something to queer the test. But at any rate Wiseman's response is not as strong an endorsement as you're trying to get into the article; he doesn't say that more trials are needed to "overturn" Sheldrake's conclusions. What he says in fact is that, well, maybe there's something there, he cannot be utterly sure there isn't, but that the trials done thus far aren't rigorous enough. Mangoe (talk) 23:36, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- I responded to these points earlier. For anyone who really wants to delve into the matter, reading Wiseman's response paper is essential, as it clears up some apparent confusions in the timeline by this user. The user is making all sorts of inappropriate inferences from primary sources, weaving a narrative that Wiseman is being disingenuous; this is charitably called conspiratorial thinking. vzaak (talk) 23:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- Ah. The confusing part was that this is a ca.2000 paper by Wiseman... I did not realize that Wiseman had ever responded publically to Sheldrake's ca.1999 re-analysis claims. So yes, Alfonzo, you (and myself until just now) are both confused about when Wiseman admitted the patterns matched -- methinks the ca.2007 skeptico interview is at fault for our misunderstanding, rather than any conspiracy-theories about Wiseman that either myself or Alfonzo are prone to hold.
- Here is the relevant quote from Wiseman's ca.2000 paper that Vzaak links to: "...he had re-analysed our videotapes of Jaytee and found the same pattern in our first three experiments . We do not believe that RS’s re-analysis of our data provides compelling evidence for the notion that Jaytee could psychically detect when PS was returning home. First, it appears that RS's observed patterns could easily arise if ...."
- So we now *do* have a source (and can ignore skeptico which does not add much methinks), at minimum per WP:ABOUTSELF plus prolly from where-ever Wiseman mailed this paper for publication, which shows that Wiseman agreed in ~2000 that the patterns matched, just disagreed that this was compelling, due to methodological concerns. Alfonzo, that is what you were after, right? I think this is it. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
- I responded to these points earlier. For anyone who really wants to delve into the matter, reading Wiseman's response paper is essential, as it clears up some apparent confusions in the timeline by this user. The user is making all sorts of inappropriate inferences from primary sources, weaving a narrative that Wiseman is being disingenuous; this is charitably called conspiratorial thinking. vzaak (talk) 23:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
This is not complicated, people. Wiseman repeated Sheldrake's experiment and got the same results, but he chose to interpret the data differently. As he states, "the patterning in my studies are the same as the patterning in Rupert’s studies. That’s not up for grabs. That’s fine. It’s how it’s interpreted." He goes on to say that he didn't run enough trials to determine if the dog "was picking up something" but that "Rupert has that sort of data" and that "by looking at his data... there may well be something going on." He concludes that more experiments are needed to settle the issue. As he says, "I would sort of tick the 'more experiments needed' box, under slightly more rigorous conditions."
The complete text is here: http://www.skeptiko.com/11-dr-richard-wiseman-on-rupert-sheldrakes-dogsthatknow/. Instead of accusing me of cherry picking quotes, an easily refutable charge, why not work with me in trying to get the material right so it can be added to the article? Why simply revert my edit and refuse to work with me unless you want to keep the Sheldrake page slanted against Sheldrake? Keep in mind that the source here is not Skeptiko but Wiseman by way of Skeptiko. It's better than Wiseman's paper because it's more recent and more informative. Nowhere in that paper (which is already cited in the article) did Wiseman fess up to the fact that he actually did replicate Sheldrake's data, instead merely noting that Sheldrake claimed to have "found the same pattern." Only in the interview does he admit to the embarrassing truth.
There's no ambiguity here and no reason for further discussion. Alfonzo Green (talk) 00:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- Are you proposing to add something like 'Wiseman conceded that "there may well be something going on"' based on this interview? That would cause readers to think that Wiseman is agreeing that Sheldrake's data gives evidence to show that the dog has psychic powers, and that would be a complete misinterpretation of what Wiseman actually said. In the two paragraphs preceding that off-the-cuff comment, Wiseman outlines how a dog may pick up patterns that give clues about when the owner will return, and a likely interpretation of Wiseman's comment is that the data shows the dog is doing something non-random, but that non-randomness may be due to uninvestigated issues that could have provided clues to the dog. WP:REDFLAG applies to claims made in an article, and if someone suggests a dog has psychic abilities, very good sources would be needed to support the claim—in that context, it is not satisfactory to pick a few words spoken by Wiseman (possibly from politeness) and present them as a suggestion that Wiseman thinks the dog may have strange powers. Johnuniq (talk) 09:11, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- My last proposed edit makes no mention of the "something going on" line. "In a subsequent interview, Wiseman stated that his experiment generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's and that more experiments were needed to definitively overturn Sheldrake's conclusion that Jaytee had a psychic link with its owner." Your comment is irrelevant to my complaint, as are all the comments below. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- I think it's fair to say that Wiseman doesn't think that the evidence that Jaytee was psychic is convincing. The onus really is on Sheldrake to prove that dogs are psychic, get the results published in a peer reviewed journal (not Rivista di Biologia, or his own book, and for his work to become generally accepted and allow others to positively build on his work). Jaytee is almost certainly dead now, but according to Sheldrake's surveys, such dogs should be easy to find. In the meantime, Sheldrake's ideas of "morphic resonance" do not provide a credible mechanism that is consistent with scientific theories or other evidence. Steven Rose has previously accused Sheldrake of being "so committed to his hypothesis that it is very hard to envisage the circumstances in which he would accept its disconfirmation". Barney the barney barney (talk) 09:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- Sheldrake's morphic fields would mean they are not only easy to find, but getting easier to find and getting better at knowing when their owners are coming home to be giving more and more conclusive results! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:51, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- I think it's fair to say that Wiseman doesn't think that the evidence that Jaytee was psychic is convincing. The onus really is on Sheldrake to prove that dogs are psychic, get the results published in a peer reviewed journal (not Rivista di Biologia, or his own book, and for his work to become generally accepted and allow others to positively build on his work). Jaytee is almost certainly dead now, but according to Sheldrake's surveys, such dogs should be easy to find. In the meantime, Sheldrake's ideas of "morphic resonance" do not provide a credible mechanism that is consistent with scientific theories or other evidence. Steven Rose has previously accused Sheldrake of being "so committed to his hypothesis that it is very hard to envisage the circumstances in which he would accept its disconfirmation". Barney the barney barney (talk) 09:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- Alfonzo, Wiseman's response paper contradicts much of what you've stated here. On the Sheldrake talk page you said Wiseman was disingenuous in the paper. However if you read the paper without that assumption, you'll see it is consistent with the interview. You have built a narrative around this claim of Wiseman being disingenuous. vzaak (talk) 14:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- I was just looking at FTN. Alfonzo, in response to Barney the barney barney you say: "Sheldrake draws hostility from materialist ideologues because he's skeptical of the idea that causation is limited to contact mechanics. Once we recognize the possibility of action at a distance, already well established in physics, we no longer need to rely on genes to carry a blueprint from parent to progeny. Organisms might be able to connect both across generations and across space without material intermediary. What Barney represents is a fear of science, a fear that scientific investigation will reveal that his pre-scientific prejudices will be proven wrong."
- It looks to me that this ties into the narrative you've built for Wiseman. vzaak (talk) 15:29, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- I think we need to draw the distinction between the statements "there is proof that Jaytee was not psychic" and "there is no indication that Jaytee was psychic" - the two are different, and the first one is actually extremely difficult to prove since, you know, he could have been psychic but sometimes didn't bother to go to the door to indicate this. Barney the barney barney (talk) 15:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- I wish that dog had been called Barney, or Roxy even. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 15:43, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- I think we need to draw the distinction between the statements "there is proof that Jaytee was not psychic" and "there is no indication that Jaytee was psychic" - the two are different, and the first one is actually extremely difficult to prove since, you know, he could have been psychic but sometimes didn't bother to go to the door to indicate this. Barney the barney barney (talk) 15:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Please stop adding irrelevant commentary to my complaint and let the administrator do his/her job. If you want to make general points about Sheldrake and Wiseman, you can do so on the talk page under Illegitimate reversals. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- Huh? It is very relevant to show that the claim of "Bias in the Rupert Sheldrake article" is not correct. At Misplaced Pages, editors are expected to engage in the discussions that occur by thinking about points raised and responding to them. Johnuniq (talk) 22:22, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
- Alfonzo should have said 'repetitive' rather than irrelevant. Pretty much the exact same points seen above, that are being re-made here at the noticeboard, are all from people already very-actively-participating over at the talkpage, and are repeats of exactly what they said over there. This noticeboard discussion should wait for different people to comment, which is hard when it is filled to the brim. Not that I'm free of sin. :-) Stone, meet glass house. Johnuniq and Mangoe, please advise, is this new&improved phrasing fair to both Wiseman, and also to Sheldrake, without BLP violations on either side of the conflict:
((existing sentences go here... see below)) Subsequently in 1999, Wiseman stated that his re-analyzed 1995 trials generated the same pattern of data as Sheldrake's. However, pointing to methodological concerns, Wiseman still maintained his original conclusion, that additional experiments (performed more rigorously to eliminate artefacts) are absolutely required, and that current data (even when re-analyzed) still provides no conclusive evidence to support claims that any telepathy-like behavior exists/existed. Wiseman also went on to say that he reserves judgment about Sheldrake's experiments, until such time as they are published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Wiseman et al independently conducted an experimental study with Jaytee, a purportedly telepathic dog mentioned in the book, and concluded that the evidence gathered did not support telepathy. They also proposed possible alternative explanations for Sheldrake's positive conclusions, and questioned whether laypeople had the ability to conduct experiments without inadvertently introducing artefacts and bias due to inexperience with rigorous experimental design.
- My interpretation of the connotations in the current mainspace sentences are (methinks) what any reader would interpret: Wiseman, a *real* scientist, did a *real* experiment (elide "only 4 trials") on the 'purportedly' (WP:EDITORIALIZING) telepathic dog. Wiseman concluded (elide in 1995) that the evidence did not support telepathy. (Elide any mention of Wiseman's changed stance, of the patterns matching, and of the methodological flaws being bidirectional.) Finally, Wiseman said Sheldrake's trials (imply *only*) were flawed, because Sheldrake is not rigorous, and Sheldrake is a layman-not-a-scientist.
- To remove the bias in these sentences, we have to point out that Wiseman's trials had the same pattern as Sheldrake's trials (methinks we can skip who pointed out that fact to whom). Next, we have to say that after 1999/2000, Wiseman now "reserves judgement" on Sheldrake's trials (methinks we can skip that this is a change from Wiseman's earlier position that Wiseman's 4 trials proved Sheldrake was a charlatan). Finally, wikipedia should not pick winners and losers, whether than means amongst WP:BLPs, or amongst conflicting WP:RSes. The sentence that implies Sheldrake is a layman, and Sheldrake's experiments *alone* suffered from experimental artefacts, is very misleading. HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Alfonzo Green, your complaint contradicts bare facts in the interview and in the response paper. It was pointed out to you that Wiseman says that he and Sheldrake were "addressing two different questions" and "testing two different claims". You responded by saying that "Wiseman appears to be trying to fudge the issue with his statement that he and Sheldrake were testing different claims". You were also directed to the response paper which is at odds with your conclusions. Your response was that Wiseman was disingenuous in the paper. In both the interview and in the paper, you dismiss statements which run counter to your narrative by claiming that Wiseman is not being truthful. This is absurd. vzaak (talk) 00:44, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
- Vzaak, are you putting my comment of 01:07 immediately above in the same bucket, as contradicting what sources say, or in any way misrepresenting either side of this in-real-life conflict between two scientists? Do you think that mainspace, as currently written, has zero bias whatsoever, with no connotations that could conceivably, in any way, be interpreted as anything but neutral? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:11, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
WP:EXHAUST This is a problem not only here but on the Sheldrake talk page where certain editors are blocking consensus by contributing excessive, repetitive or pointless commentary. Alfonzo Green (talk) 20:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
- well, i think we can all agree that there have been walls of meaningless text generated and that progress on the article is minimal. we probably disagree who is the responsible party(s) for discussions going round and round in circles. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:12, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
A meta-comment on the form of the data
Even disregarding the disagreement over what Wiseman said and meant, there is a big WP:UNDUE problem here; the disagreement only exacerbates it. What all of this talking and talking and talking comes down to is trying to squeeze in the claim that one researcher may have said something that could be interpreted as saying that Sheldrake's ideas may not be entirely unfounded. This is way too weak to justify inclusion. If a bunch of people, working independently, manage to come up with definite results ratifying Sheldrake's claims, and those studies are accepted by others, then there will be something to go on. But this is trying to make a building out of a bolt lying in the grass; even if Wiseman intended the positive interpretation being attributed to him (which is very doubtful), he wouldn't represent anything more than a very preliminary hint at ratification. This isn't even up to the level of a an in vitro drug study, which we do not accept as notable. Mangoe (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
- As it stands now the commentary on Dogs That Know implies that Wiseman refuted Sheldrake. In fact Wiseman replicated Sheldrake's results and merely interpreted those results differently. This MUST be included or the commentary is biased. The disputed edit says NOTHING about Wiseman supporting Sheldrake's ideas. Alfonzo Green (talk) 21:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
- He did NOT "replicate results" . Wiseman, in the interview you keep clinging to, clearly states that they did their experiments differently. When you do scientific experiments differently, you are not replicating the results. Period.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:03, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- I agree that results were not replicated, however, I hesitate to mention this ... but ... did TRPOD just mention ... scientific experiments? Surely not. I always believed that Shelly stopped doing science in the eighties. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 04:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- Comment. This meta-issue, as Mangoe knows very well methinks, is the crux of all the NPOV difficulties at the Sheldrake BLP, including whether or not Sheldrake can be called a biologist slash scientist (which the bulk of the sources say -- across all five decades), and of course whether Wiseman's completely well-sourced quote that "the patterns match" can be excluded somehow. This is a tactical strategy known as WP:IDONTLIKEIT, also recently dubbed "the long grass of extreme sceptism" by an uninvolved editor who briefly visited the Sheldrake talkpage before immediately vacating the area.
an enquiry in which we travel into the fringes of the long grass of extreme sceptism |
---|
|
- At the end of the day, I fully agree with TRPoD that we should phrase our language carefully, because "replicate" is flat out incorrect, and some other Wiseman quotes about "something going on" need care because they too could easily mislead the reader into thinking Wiseman meant something he actually did not. We need to mirror the sources correctly and say what Wiseman actually said and actually meant. But, that includes the undeniable fact that Wiseman now agrees with Sheldrake that "the patterns match" ... and excluding *that* factoid, but not Wiseman's earlier 1996-ish stance, is utterly non-neutral.
- This article is specifically about Sheldrake, the BLP, and must neutrally describe him, mirroring the bulk of the sources, most which say biologist-or-scientist, and a very few (but all perfectly reliable!) which say not-a-scientist. For the bio-detail-portions, WP:FRINGE has zero applicability. Right now mainspace does not mirror sources, it picks winners and losers. Because of the merge-decision, this same article is *also* about Sheldrake's scientific-theories, pseudoscientific-concepts, and philosophical-slash-religious-ideas. WP:FRINGE applies solely and only to the center category, never to Sheldrake's religion, never to Sheldrake's philosophizing (even when he philosophizes about the process of scientific funding & discoveries), and Nevah Evah to downplaying Sheldrake's several decades of scientific work. Right now, the article is non-neutral. Until this fundamental disagreement, about whether NPOV-means-mirror-the-sources-pillar-two can be somehow trumped by "NPOV"-means-exclude-sources-we-dislike-because-wp-fringe, the article and the article-talkpage will remain basket-cases, tempers will continue to run high, and noticeboards will repeatedly be filled with Sheldrake-alerts.
- TLDR: mirror the facts and the weights found in reliable sources -- quit trying to cherrypick the *really* reliable and *really* weighty facts-n-sources, excluding is non-neutral. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- and in mirroring Wiseman's comments about the psychic dog, anything other than ZERO WEIGHT to the suggestion that Wiseman believes experiments have shown it exists or the possibility that it exists is too much. Wiseman didnt spend 6 pages saying that Sheldrake had blatantly misrepresented Wiseman's work because Wiseman has any belief that there is evidence of psychic dogs. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:18, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
- Absolutely. We violently agree. Wiseman has firmly held to the same conclusion: no evidence of any psychic phenomena. And we must make sure the language we use conveys that position. But in Wiseman's own words, the statistical patterns did match (which -- yes -- is not the same as replication). Right now, mainspace does not convey this, nor clearly convey that Wiseman's current stance on Sheldrake's 1994/1995 experiments is 'reserve judgment until such time as they are published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal'. Those are the portions being omitted, which methinks are most crucial. Do you disagree? Additionally, methinks that the layman-rigorous-thing suffers from editorializing, and could use a rewrite by David for clarity; unless Wiseman really *did* call Sheldrake a "non-rigorous... layman" in which case we need to *quote* Wiseman saying that, not imply it by connotation from our own prose. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
- the "pattern" on my clothing may match the "pattern" on your clothing but to assign any type of meaning to that is ridiculous because I am wearing a plaid shirt to imitate Elmer Fudd hunting and you are wearing a plaid kilt because you are a member of Clan Campbell. The grasping at one passing phrase when ALL OF THE REST OF THE WISEMAN INTERVIEW AND ALL OTHER PUBLISHED WISEMAN COMMENTARY is to refute the Sheldrake experiment. It is the EPITOME of NPOV violation to place such UNDUE emphasis on that phrase out of context. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:24, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
- You misunderstand WP:UNDUE. It is *never* a license to delete Reliably-Sourced-material. Evah. You are correct that the Wiseman-quotes regarding "something going on" are too likely to mislead the readership, to be in the wikipedia article... but only because other equally-valid Wiseman quotes exist, which fully provide Wiseman's position on the matter. Misplaced Pages defines NPOV as reflecting what the sources say, without undue weight; you are zeroing out certain parts of certain sources. That is POV.
- Wiseman in fact no longer believes he has refuted the 200 Sheldrake trials, with the 4 Wiseman trials. But just because Wiseman did not refute Sheldrake, does not therefore mean Sheldrake wins; all it means is that Sheldrake does not outright unmistakably lose. Wiseman still has very valid methodological concerns; Wiseman still 100% says neither the Sheldrake nor the Wiseman experiments lend any evidence whatsoever in favor of telepathy, and Misplaced Pages must make it crystal clear to the reader that this is the case: Wiseman says absolutely zero evidence for telepathy exists, in 1995 and 1999 and 2007 and still today in 2013 (pending far-more-rigorous-proof ... and we also have a perfectly-Reliably-Sourced quote from Wiseman on *that* subject). But the bare fact is, when Sheldrake published that the 1995 patterns matched, and then later Wiseman in his published reply confirmed the 1995 patterns matched, at that very moment, the factoid surpassed WP:SELFPUB to attain WP:NOTEWORTHY status, and thus it belongs in wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:26, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- the "pattern" on my clothing may match the "pattern" on your clothing but to assign any type of meaning to that is ridiculous because I am wearing a plaid shirt to imitate Elmer Fudd hunting and you are wearing a plaid kilt because you are a member of Clan Campbell. The grasping at one passing phrase when ALL OF THE REST OF THE WISEMAN INTERVIEW AND ALL OTHER PUBLISHED WISEMAN COMMENTARY is to refute the Sheldrake experiment. It is the EPITOME of NPOV violation to place such UNDUE emphasis on that phrase out of context. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:24, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
- Absolutely. We violently agree. Wiseman has firmly held to the same conclusion: no evidence of any psychic phenomena. And we must make sure the language we use conveys that position. But in Wiseman's own words, the statistical patterns did match (which -- yes -- is not the same as replication). Right now, mainspace does not convey this, nor clearly convey that Wiseman's current stance on Sheldrake's 1994/1995 experiments is 'reserve judgment until such time as they are published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal'. Those are the portions being omitted, which methinks are most crucial. Do you disagree? Additionally, methinks that the layman-rigorous-thing suffers from editorializing, and could use a rewrite by David for clarity; unless Wiseman really *did* call Sheldrake a "non-rigorous... layman" in which case we need to *quote* Wiseman saying that, not imply it by connotation from our own prose. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
- and in mirroring Wiseman's comments about the psychic dog, anything other than ZERO WEIGHT to the suggestion that Wiseman believes experiments have shown it exists or the possibility that it exists is too much. Wiseman didnt spend 6 pages saying that Sheldrake had blatantly misrepresented Wiseman's work because Wiseman has any belief that there is evidence of psychic dogs. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:18, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Showing multiple PoVs in lists
Lists have limited room and scope for long explanations. The question that arises is: For a "List of revolutions" (example) that includes items with each cited to reliable and scholarly sources who designate them as "revolutions", must we note within the list for individual cases where another authority has said that that s/he does not consider that event to truly be a revolution, or is it adequate that the wikilinked full articles on each listed "revolution" deal with any dissenting viewpoints? If we cannot trust readers to go to the full article to read about any differences among scholars, may we simply note that differing views exist and leave each explanation for the full article on that uprising to describe, or must we give a longer explanation in the note for each item on the list page? As readers generally use lists of wikilinked articles as tables of contents to get to the full articles, so I'm seeking uninvolved input as to what level of detail/granularity must be on the list pages themselves. Thank you. • Astynax 03:45, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
- I would only create a list article for a clearly defined set, for example, a list of states in the U.S., a list of planets, a list of elements. Otherwise the list is inherently POV. In some cases however you can source a list, for example, the "Top ten revolutions from the CNN documentary "Top 10 Revolutions of all Time."" In that case there is no OR or POV in the article because it accurately reflects what CNN said without endorsing it. TFD (talk) 09:01, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
- So, lists must be cited to a single source? I'm unsure how that would work, as that seems to give undue weight and reinforce PoV (i.e., for CNN's PoV in your example), rather than eliminating PoV. What if CNN included the Tate-LaBianca murders and similar events in their list of "Top ten revolutions" and a significant number of scholars disagree with CNN's characterization of revolutions; should that not be noted? Even for planets, there are still varying criteria used between astrophysicists and a significant number still disagree with the IAU perspective that Pluto should be classed as a "dwarf planet" instead of a planet. Is our List of Roman emperors inherently PoV because it is sourced to multiple reliable sources and includes some (such as Geta and Gordian II) whom many scholars do not regard as full emperors, while omitting others (such as Tetricus) whom other scholars regard and list as emperors? • Astynax 18:59, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
- The list is POV but the article need not be. For example, the Communist Manifesto is a POV book, but an article explaining what it says need not be. You could also use a source that says, most scholars consider the following to be the most important revolutions. After the list, you could explain how they determined that.
- If editors develop their own list, then it is really what they consider most important or their original research.
- Of course there can be disputes over finite lists. That is easily resolved for example by listing the 8 planets and for 9 saying that it was considered a planet and is usually called one but was reclassified by astronomers.
- Note also that a student may be asked to list the planets, an astronomy book may have a chapter about each one. But a student would not be asked to list the ten most important revolutions without providing an explanation of how he picked the list.
- TFD (talk) 22:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
- There is definitely a need for articles that provide a list... perhaps especially where some of the member of the list are disputed. I disagree that lists have limited room for long explanations: just say "American Revolution (disputed)". Finally, while I agree with TFD that editors should *not* create their own lists of planets/politicians/hairstyles/revolutions... but if we have a Reliably Sourced statement that somebody has called some particular historical event a revolution-with-a-capital-R (as opposed to the lowercase metaphors like "fashion revolutions" or even the banal "smartphone revolution"), barring churnalism and COI and SPIP difficulties, that historical event belongs in the List of Revolutions.
- If you have a lot of trouble, with respected historians staying silent, and journalists tossing around the revolution-this-and-revolution-that jargon, then perhaps it makes sense to create a table-format list, with a column for the primary name, alternative names, historians that say 'revolution' (disputed in parens), then finally journalists and others that say 'revolution' (disputed in parens). "American Revolution, aka War Of Independence, (disputed ), (disputed)." Ideally, though, I would prefer to read the Comparison of Revolutions, where the table also lists the KIA, the MIA, the peak KIA/year, the peak MIA/year, and other details reflecting the real-world impact; nobody was killed, but one journalist calls it a "Revolution"? No readers will be confused. Millions died, ten historians call it a revolution, fifty journalists likewise, two journalists say nope? Again, no readers will be confused. Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Mark Costello (Oklahoma politician)
A persistent IP editor is making repeated changes at Mark Costello (Oklahoma politician) that may not comply with WP:NPOV and WP:V. Additional editors' opinions would be appreciated. --Arxiloxos (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
- In my opinion, there was no "may not" about it. All you can really do is keep an eye on it and revert. Might be annoying, but you're in the right. No easy way to deal with a dynamic IP except let them get bored. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:56, November 20, 2013 (UTC)
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
This article is a POV disaster zone. Among the issues are:
- Links to heavily biased (and often lying) articles which add no information to the article, like "The GOP's Insane Obamacare Boycott."
- Weasel words, and otherwise heavily POV language (e.g. using unattributed opinion editorials to declare attributed claims "myths").
- Misattributed and misrepresented claims represented as fact (e.g. links to FactCheck.org articles which make unsupported claims about what has been said or reported by other sources).
- Reversions of edits including the fact that the PPACA individual mandate was upheld as constitutional only as a tax.
- And many other serious issues (e.g. opinionated, one-sided depiction of the cause of the government shutdown), where all fixes are being blanket-reverted.
Several users, including Prototime and Dr. Fleischman are reverting all attempts to resolve these issues. The talk page contains more details. TBSchemer (talk) 21:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
- Seems to me that you need to try to resolve any issues on the article's Talk page before coming here. Have you? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:49, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
- The issues are unresolvable. The above-mentioned users are ganging up to protect POV language and sources they like, and refusing to let anyone change it. TBSchemer (talk) 02:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Unfortunately those who want to defend government programs and trash those who oppose them seem to have a strong presence on Misplaced Pages, despite the fact it is mostly younger 20 something guys who dominate wikipedia who will end up paying for much of that big government. But now that organized special interests have gotten smart enough not to use Anon IPs that track back to their offices, it's harder to prove anything. Good luck! User:Carolmooredc talk 04:35, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- The issues are unresolvable. The above-mentioned users are ganging up to protect POV language and sources they like, and refusing to let anyone change it. TBSchemer (talk) 02:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
"Prussian royal family" box in various articles about living people
There is no such place as Prussia any more and all royal titles in Germany were abolished in 1919. Nevertheless there are quite a few English WP articles with a box "Prussian royal family", see for instance Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, which lists living members of a non-existent royal family in a non-existent place. The box calls this person "HI&RH The Prince", that is an abbreviation for "His Imperial and Royal Highness" and that is false, he is not, all such titles have been abolished for nearly a hundred years. Some foolish people may still call him that, but that is a mere caprice with no more validity than if I were to call my cat that, and more to the point for WP, it is not sourced. This box links to a list of other "Royal Highnesses" who are no such thing, it is misleading and deceptive and none of it is sourced. If you look at the article on this man on the German WP , there is no such box of phoney Royal Highnesses, that is because in Germany they are very well aware that such things do not exist in their country any more. There are a lot of similar boxes with "Royal Highnesses" who are not any such thing any more from former German monarchies such as Bavaria, Hanover, so on and so on, but this one seems particularly silly as there is not even such a place as Prussia any more, never mind Kings and Queens and Princes of it. I removed the box from two articles and it was put straight back in again, I have tagged the articles for accuracy and neutrality, I would welcome advice and comments. Thanks, Smeat75 (talk) 04:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Hello again Smeat75... are the people which call Georg the "Prince of Prussia" getting published in wikiReliable Sources? These seem WP:RS to my glance. (Maybe?) Fortunately or unfortunately, there is no requirement that the sources be "reliable" in the sense of being logical, factual, or representative of objective reality. Certainly, the article should absolutely positively reflect the mainstream political-view, which is that A) Prussia is no longer an internationally-recognized country de jure except as a historical entity, B) the landmass which formerly was de jure Prussian territory currently both de jure and de facto belongs to *other* countries which *do* actually get international recognition, C) the current countries running the show on former Prussian territory have no recognized royal families, and finally D) Prussian royal-bloodlines are no longer (( is this really true? )) recognized by historians and/or heraldry experts as valid. Here, not sure if this is an academic peer-reviewed research paper, or just a blog, specifically says "Pretender". Maybe also. Pic. Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- "Pretender" would be OK, that is the correct term, or "House of Hohenzollern" but not "royal family" and not with those "HRH" and "HI&RH" prefixes, it is just plain false, all such titles were abolished nearly 100 years ago.The German WP article on the person English WP calls Franz, Duke of Bavaria but they call Franz von Bayern says with reference to his "royal title" ""Der Titel „Herzog von Bayern, Franken und in Schwaben, Pfalzgraf bei Rhein“ wird noch traditionell verwendet, entspricht jedoch nicht dem amtlichen Namen. Das dem Namen vorangestellte Prädikat „Königliche Hoheit (K.H.)“ bzw. „Seine Königliche Hoheit (S.K.H.)“ wird ebenfalls noch im gesellschaftlichen Umfeld verwendet, ist jedoch ebenso eine reine Höflichkeitsform ohne rechtliche Relevanz" which more or less means "people call him "Your Royal Highness" to his face sometimes just to be nice, but it doesn't mean anything" and that is the situation with all former German royal and noble titles, they were abolished, they do not exist, it is exactly the same as if I said "I think it would be nice if people called me 'Your Royal Highness Mickey the Mouse'"' and some people were silly enough to do that, WP should not be misleading readers into thinking that these abolished royal titles have any validity at all, they do not.Smeat75 (talk) 05:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Clarification - calling him "Prince of Prussia" is not what I am objecting to, it is that box with "Prussian royal family" that has to go. In Germany when the royal titles were abolished, they were and are still are allowed to legally change their names to "Joe Princeofsomewherethatdoesn'tevenexistanymore". So "Prince of Prussia" is actually his legal last name, but it does not carry a prefix such as "HI&RH" or "HRH", those were abolished, and there is no such thing as a "Prussian royal family" today.Smeat75 (talk) 05:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Surely this is a BLP issue? Dougweller (talk) 06:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- OK, thanks, I will raise it there.Smeat75 (talk) 06:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Done already. And these article titles should be their names and not suggest they are actually royalty, eg "Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Prinz von Preußen" not "Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia". Dougweller (talk) 06:33, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- OK, thanks, I will raise it there.Smeat75 (talk) 06:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Surely this is a BLP issue? Dougweller (talk) 06:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Clarification - calling him "Prince of Prussia" is not what I am objecting to, it is that box with "Prussian royal family" that has to go. In Germany when the royal titles were abolished, they were and are still are allowed to legally change their names to "Joe Princeofsomewherethatdoesn'tevenexistanymore". So "Prince of Prussia" is actually his legal last name, but it does not carry a prefix such as "HI&RH" or "HRH", those were abolished, and there is no such thing as a "Prussian royal family" today.Smeat75 (talk) 05:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- "Pretender" would be OK, that is the correct term, or "House of Hohenzollern" but not "royal family" and not with those "HRH" and "HI&RH" prefixes, it is just plain false, all such titles were abolished nearly 100 years ago.The German WP article on the person English WP calls Franz, Duke of Bavaria but they call Franz von Bayern says with reference to his "royal title" ""Der Titel „Herzog von Bayern, Franken und in Schwaben, Pfalzgraf bei Rhein“ wird noch traditionell verwendet, entspricht jedoch nicht dem amtlichen Namen. Das dem Namen vorangestellte Prädikat „Königliche Hoheit (K.H.)“ bzw. „Seine Königliche Hoheit (S.K.H.)“ wird ebenfalls noch im gesellschaftlichen Umfeld verwendet, ist jedoch ebenso eine reine Höflichkeitsform ohne rechtliche Relevanz" which more or less means "people call him "Your Royal Highness" to his face sometimes just to be nice, but it doesn't mean anything" and that is the situation with all former German royal and noble titles, they were abolished, they do not exist, it is exactly the same as if I said "I think it would be nice if people called me 'Your Royal Highness Mickey the Mouse'"' and some people were silly enough to do that, WP should not be misleading readers into thinking that these abolished royal titles have any validity at all, they do not.Smeat75 (talk) 05:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
VOSS Solutions needs rewrite
- Related discussions
- User_talk:Ronz#Inquiry_about_VOSS_Solutions_article
- Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_68#Editor_Johnmoor - the creator of the article
- Talk:Grammarly Grammarly NPOVN - an article created by the same editor that has been cleaned up
Basically, this article was created by a paid editor who has little or no understanding of what are proper sources and what deserves mention in encyclopedia articles. I've trimmed back the article a bit, but it's only a start. Could someone look it over, help improve it, make suggestions on how to best address problems like this given that there are many more from the same paid editor needing the same type of help. --Ronz (talk) 22:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Daily Mail
Currently has a discussion over how much to expand the "lawsuits section" with one editor opining that it is incumbent on Misplaced Pages to expose the "modus operandi" of that newspaper. I admit that my own opinion is that this is a matter of determining proper weight on a topic, and that it is not up to us to make sure that readers know how horrid the newspaper might be. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- Neither this noticeboard request nor the underlying RfC is phrased in a neutral manner. Both seem to be phrased as an attempt to discredit your opponent's viewpoint right off the bat. If you're interested in serious outside input, please make an effort to rephrase these in a more neutral fashion. MastCell 18:26, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- The notice uses the precise and exact language used by the other editor -- that you find it "not neutral" implies that you find his position "not neutral" -- Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- You've quoted two words from your opponent's post, and provided your own framing for them. That makes it very hard to evaluate whether you've accurately represented his viewpoint, or taken the words out of context. Your own viewpoint is presented in terms so vague as to be meaningless. Yes, you believe in neutrality and due weight, as we all do, but your post gives us no insight into the actual content under dispute, nor have you provided any links to relevant discussions. Your initial post is not constructed in such a way as to facilitate serious outside input. I've also taken the liberty of notifying the other editor in the dispute that you've posted here, in the hope that he can clarify his viewpoint. MastCell 22:10, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- Gawrsh! I quoted a bit more than "two words" (to give "the Mail's modus operandi full justice"_ and I suggest that before making aspersions on any editor, that you check out what the quote was. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:30, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- You've quoted two words from your opponent's post, and provided your own framing for them. That makes it very hard to evaluate whether you've accurately represented his viewpoint, or taken the words out of context. Your own viewpoint is presented in terms so vague as to be meaningless. Yes, you believe in neutrality and due weight, as we all do, but your post gives us no insight into the actual content under dispute, nor have you provided any links to relevant discussions. Your initial post is not constructed in such a way as to facilitate serious outside input. I've also taken the liberty of notifying the other editor in the dispute that you've posted here, in the hope that he can clarify his viewpoint. MastCell 22:10, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- The notice uses the precise and exact language used by the other editor -- that you find it "not neutral" implies that you find his position "not neutral" -- Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- Suggest an uninvolved admin close this and the RfC pending a more neutral framing of what seems to be a whole basket of problems at the article. I agree with MastCell that this and the RfC are unlikely to lead to progress, because of how they are framed. I would go further and say we are well into POINT territory here. --John (talk) 22:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- Drmies suggested I reword the RfC which I have done. Seeking to arbitrarily close a valid RfC is "not done" as far as I can tell. Cheers and have a nice holiday. Collect (talk) 23:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
- The effect of listing libel awards is that the paper appears to be unconcerned about accuracy. That is implicit original research. If the paper is acting unprofessionally, then the neutral approach would be to establish that through secondary sources that make that point, and explain how they compare with other papers. Unless that is provided, it is hard to justify the inclusion of these cases. TFD (talk) 04:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
- Especially since the "list" proffered includes one where a psychic was accused of not being a true psychic (which was hard to "prove" by court standards, even if many would consider a psychic on stage who repeats words uttered by "unrelated workers" a few minutes to be of interest, and might produce a different result in the courts of other nations, and one suit was about photos which were sold by a person who did not have right to them. Collect (talk) 23:28, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
RfC Notice: Living members of deposed royal families and the titles attributed to them on WP
I have opened an RfC on articles about living members of families whose ancestors were deposed as monarchs of various countries and the titles and "styles" attributed to these living people, often in a misleading way and inaccurate way in my opinion. Please join in the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Biographies "Use of royal "Titles and styles" and honorific prefixes in articles and templates referring to pretenders to abolished royal titles and their families"
Section Blanking Reason NPOV
Talk:Cholangiocarcinoma section Notable victims section is the talk section that refers to this dispute about the Cholangiocarcinoma article. A little bit of history about this article: It became a FA in 2008 with the version edited by user:MastCell being the FA that was used. Sometime after that various editors added the Notable Victims section to the article. Looking at article views, there was a spike in views on November 19, 2013. And at that time another name was added to the Notable Victims section. As it turned out, that person Peter Wintonick had died from the disease on November 18, 2013.-Which is what I probably accounts for the increase in article readers. A few days later another name was added. After that, User:Yobol blanked the entire Notable Victims section. I reversed the section blanking. User:Ronz came by and undid my reversal stating that there was a WP:NPOV (again) problem with my edit. I looked closely at the list, and deleted one name due to lack of information, and I also deleted the word, "legendary", which had been applied recently to the two newer entries, along-with the entry to the legendary Walter Payton, in an effort to apply NPOV to the list. Somehow I became mixed-up with this group of editors while I was trying to learn more information about why seaweed is added to cream. I met up with this trio of prolific editors-(over 72,000 by Ronz) on the article Raw milk , which I did not realize was a contentious topic and of interest to various factions. The edits from Ronz which have been personally aimed at my edits in several topics, have varying degrees of comprehensibility from very helpful to does not make any sense. The assertions of NPOV on my part--being one that is incomprehensible to me at this point. There is more that I could say about editing behaviors of Ronz {{https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive747#User:Ronz_behaviour}} and Yobol who have both been publicly criticized in the past by the founders of WP http://wikipediocracy.com/2013/09/02/on-the-moral-bankruptcy-of-wikipedias-anonymous-administration ,but for the purposes of this question I'll stick to the question of neutrality on the Talk:Cholangiocarcinoma article. Thank-you for any comments.24.0.133.234 (talk) 18:59, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
- I would like to note that Yobol is not mentioned in that blog post, except in the comments. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:07, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank-you for taking the time to read this and to examine the link and to add your notice24.0.133.234 (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
Political parties & infoboxes during election campaigns
I'm not sure if there is an easy answer to this but I opened at discussion at Talk:Delhi legislative assembly elections,_2013#Infobox criteria regarding the possibility of Misplaced Pages giving undue prominence to certain political parties during an election campaign. There are various criteria that could be used to select which parties appear in an infobox during the campaign but I have a gut feeling that it should be all or none: we're not supposed to take sides and, well, elections do sometimes produce unexpected outcomes. Would it not be best just to have a simple alphatbetically-ordered list of all the contesting parties in the box, at least until the results are announced? - Sitush (talk) 11:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- I think the infobox should show none of the parties because it is too small to show three or more without crowding the page. The body of the article contains all the needed information. Binksternet (talk) 12:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- The "all or nothing" principle looks good.
- On articles about elections in other countries, I have met editors who only wanted to list "major" candidates &c - where they had written their own definition of "major". I'm not comfortable with editors picking and choosing like that. bobrayner (talk) 13:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- I'd originally removed all mentions of parties and I also left a note on the talk page back in October. However, the box crept back in, Lihaas reverted my renewed attempt to remove the stuff and the practice is apparently also evident on other Indian election articles. At least here we can perhaps establish a consensus for the future. I'd prefer no mention but if we must mention then it should be all of them, not some. I'm not even sure that showing a multitude of parties after the election is a good thing, mainly because it can cause the infobox to swamp the top of the article - but that more an aesthetic issue rather than a POV issue. - Sitush (talk) 13:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- Why do we have to cram everything into an infobox anyway? bobrayner (talk) 13:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- I've no idea - dumbing down for the Facebook generation? - Sitush (talk) 11:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Cramming down is the main purpose of all infoboxes. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 04:55, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
- I've no idea - dumbing down for the Facebook generation? - Sitush (talk) 11:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Why do we have to cram everything into an infobox anyway? bobrayner (talk) 13:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- I'd originally removed all mentions of parties and I also left a note on the talk page back in October. However, the box crept back in, Lihaas reverted my renewed attempt to remove the stuff and the practice is apparently also evident on other Indian election articles. At least here we can perhaps establish a consensus for the future. I'd prefer no mention but if we must mention then it should be all of them, not some. I'm not even sure that showing a multitude of parties after the election is a good thing, mainly because it can cause the infobox to swamp the top of the article - but that more an aesthetic issue rather than a POV issue. - Sitush (talk) 13:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Swami Nithyananda
user name Acnaren has been consistently pushing POV, deleting referenced sources , engaging in revert wars on the article. The current article of nithyananda reads
The term godman is being deleted, But it is to be noted that other articles like Asaram Bapu use the same term, And there are many veteran editors who found nothing wrong with using the term. Also please note that the reference provided to national daily newspaper has been deleted and replaced with a self-published source.
The user seems to be using wikipedia as a promotional basis for nithyananda. All of the promotional text is unreferenced. He puts "Clean up needed" tags on referenced material. The article has already been cleaned up of most POV by Sean.Hoyland, But the POV pushing seems to continue unabated. Request Acnaren to discuss any further edits before making changes. The entire biography provides no references, But i have not raised a dispute about it so that the article can be neutral.
Lokayata91 (talk) 04:51, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- On the godman vs guru issue, as I said on my talk page 'I doubt that "godman" is a term familiar to most readers'. It can be sourced of course, but I would expect that it can only be sourced from Indian newspapers because it's a local colloquialism...'local' being misused by me to describe a gigantic country with 1 billion+ people. For example, the non-local source cited next to the term in the lead of the article does not use it. It uses 'guru' instead. I don't think it matters very much which term is used, both terms can be linked to Misplaced Pages articles and both terms can be sourced, possibly to different extents. Someone could survey a large-ish sample of sources to see which term is used most for this person, but it hardly seems worth it. The article could say something like 'variously described as x, y and z'. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Since surveys are impossible , i vote in favor of using both godman and guru in the article. Swami Nithyananda is a godman, guru, Mahamandelswar and founder of nithyananda dhyanapeetam! But the use of words like "spiritual guardian" and "Spiritual mystic" is promotional text, right?
Lokayata91 (talk) 05:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- I have genuinely never really understood what the word "spiritual" actually means in any context, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of word that should be used to describe someone without attribution in Misplaced Pages's neutral narrative voice. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:01, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Using "variously described as" looks so silly. You should then start every wikipedia BLP or any Biography for that matter with that phrase. I am changing that to say just "is". Btw Swami Nithyananda is not described as the Mahamandaleshwar of the Nirvani Akhada. Thats a title he has been given. Also if you see similar pages for https://en.wikipedia.org/Sri_sri_ravi_shankar and https://en.wikipedia.org/Jaggi_Vasudev you can see the term spiritual leader has been used. Spirituality is a commonly understood word. I don't know why that is self serving? The term godman is defined as a derogatory term. Using that as an introduction is outright malicious. I am suggesting changing the first line to this based on the other two biographies: 'Swami Nithyananda also known as Paramahamsa nithyananda is a spiritual leader, yogi and guru. He is the Mahamandaleshwar of the Nirvani Akhada and founder of Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam, a spiritual movement headquartered in Bidadi near Bengaluru, India' Acnaren (talk) 07:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Godman "outright malicious" ? It's a term used by many RS to describe the subject of the article, so dismissing it completely because you don't like it is not really an option available to you. Also, citing other Misplaced Pages articles as if they matter doesn't really help. The Swami Nithyananda article has to reflect the contents of reliable sources that discuss Swami Nithyananda according to our policies and guidelines. You can't tell what that should look like by looking at articles about other people, so no, you won't be changing the article to look like other articles because you don't have consensus or a policy based reason to do that. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:14, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Yet another SPI accusation against me..! Dude, Using SPI against me will not make me go away.
- Describing Nithyananda as Paramahamsa is against wikipedia policies as well. Who gave him the title paramahamsa? Where are the sources?
Lokayata91 (talk) 12:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Guidance on Badoo page Neutrality
Hi I'm asking for help evaluating the neutrality of the Badoo page. I have read the Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/FAQ and associated articles. I chose to edit the page in an effort to gain experience as an editor and have made best efforts to do so and act only in good faith. I view the page as being negatively biased as so have attempted to make the page neutral. I fully acknowledge that some of my early attempts were clumsy, but again they were made in good faith. On the basis of feedback on my suggested edits I feel that I vastly improved the content and sources used in the article. Rather than engaging on the content in order reach consensus, I feel that I have received personal accusations of bias, churnalism or soapboxing, flat rejections with little explanation or have simply had suggestions ignored. I don't feel this is fair. It is clear from comments made by several editors that they have personal views on Badoo and its founder and this is making improving the page extremely difficult.
Given the most recent posting on the Talk page I decided to turn to the broader community for advice, guidance and instruction. I am here to learn how to become a better editor rather than directly accuse anyone of being obstructive however I feel it would be very helpful to have an 'outside' perspective on the page. Other editors involved in the debate include: Unforgettableid (talk), Adrian J. Hunter(talk), 88.177.158.231 (talk). Some comments made by these editors have led me to have concerns regarding neutrality including:
- Revision as of 02:54, 25 November 2013 (edit) (undo) (thank)
- Unforgettableid (talk | contribs)
- (Lucspook, I'm undoing the 2nd of your 2 recent edits. There's no consensus for it. By citing questionable sources, you perhaps imply Badoo itself is useful. But I suspect those who dislike Badoo have refrained from voting. I've sent you This is your last warning. The next time you use Misplaced Pages for soapboxing, promotion or advertising, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. .)
- I don't have time now for a detailed response, but I was opposed to your changes, just didn't have the time or energy to do anything about them then. Intervening edits were mostly either partial reverts of your edits (removing the more obvious puffery) or small fixes to wikilinks and the like. You keep comparing this article to Facebook, but Badoo has drawn vastly more criticism than Facebook, especially considering its lesser influence. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 13:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
- The Badoo staff is clever: first the whole "someone sent you a message", using a profile made of information illegally (and I know my consumer and privacy law) harvested on other social networks and then used on their website, and when you follow that link (I had to, because the concerned person recently started suffering from social isolation and could end up in depression) it creates a "profile" automatically. Hopefully, I only gave them fake info and a fake picture.
- This is where it gets really funny: you "can" delete a profile, but for that you need your password. To get your password, you need to request it first. When you request it, after going in the account deletion menu, they immediately flag your account as "suspicious" and block your IP from the entire website.
- I just tried it with junk email addresses and other Internet lines (= so different IPs) here, and am able to reproduce it. Same with proxies. It's not the cache nor the cookies (tried clearing the cache, using other browsers, other devices on the same fixed-IP line).
- Sadly Andrey Andreev is a moscowian in London (= shoddy relations with the russian mobs and the russian oligarchy living in London), so if you ever try to sue him, you'll end up with death threats and tinted windows cars parking in your street until you drop the case. --88.177.158.231 (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
Here is an example of a rejection that I don't really understand but I am in total fear of reverting or engaging further as I've been threatened with blocked from editing without further notice by Unforgettableid (talk).
https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Badoo&diff=583181114&oldid=583155688
I am also proposing to replace these two criticism sections:
With this Reception section:
- ===Reception===
- Growth
- Following Badoo’s launch, it grew rapidly gaining millions of monthly active users . In September 2011, The Economist published an article that explained how Badoo had a shot at becoming "one of Europe’s leading internet firms" and that Badoo seems to have discovered a large new market. .
- Badoo was officially launched in the USA on 23rd March 2012 with a campaign led by celebrity Nick Cannon. The launch was a three day project involving four fashion photograpers taking new online profile pictures for 1,000 New Yorkers. The 24 best pictures were chosen through a Facebook ‘likes’ campaign and used on billboards and taxi advertising to promote Badoo’s launch.
- Badoo is claimed to be the world’s fourth-largest social network with users spread across 180 countries. According to a Badoo press release reported by London Loves Business, it is growing by 125,000 new users a day. According to the article, in both Spain and Brazil, roughly one in eight people who use the internet are Badoo members.
- Spam & Fake Profiles
- Some of Badoo's early growth has been attributed to spamming and scamming. There have been user complaints stating that they were signed up without their consent and that Badoo sent spam emails to their entire address book without permission, telling them their friend "has left you a message.". Blogger Daniel Stuckey complains that "The site sends messages to all email addresses it can find through your accounts, with minimal consent, promising that a message from you awaited them at the other end". Rather than their friend leaving them an actual message Badoo sent a template email asking their contacts to join up as well.
- Other reported complaints from 2011 accuse Badoo of scraping their profile data from other social networks or dating services and creating fake profiles without their consent. Badoo responded to the complaints by asking users to send their details, via the website feedback page, so they could look into the problems. There have been no recorded complaints to the UK Data Protection Commissioner .
- Reviews
- Despite the high rating of Badoo's mobile applications, opinions of Badoo.com on TrustPilot, which are based on user reviews, rate the site as 'Very low', with a current score of 1.7 out of 10. Complaints included fake profiles, and spamming of email accounts of signed-up users. However opinion differs and many bloggers enjoy and recommend using the site . In a peer-reviewed study conducted and published by Cambridge University in 2009, it was given the lowest score for privacy amongst the 45 social networking sites examined at that time.
- Awards
-
- Badoo has received or been nominated for numerous awards including:
- Nominated for Best International Startup – Crunchies 2011 .
- Nominated for Best Social Network at the 5th Annual Mashable Awards 2011 .
- Nominated in the Social Networking & Collaboration category at the 2011.
- –]’s Start-Up 100 Awards .
- Nominated as Highly Recommended for the The Europas Hero Award at the European Tech Startup Awards 2011 .
- One of the Top Most Innovative Companies 2012 by FastCompany.
There is plenty more on this page that I believe could be written in a better and more neutral manner but I haven't got that far just improving the above has been so difficult.
As I have stated I'm relatively new to editing, starting this summer and took on the Badoo page as a first project. I may have misunderstood how the editing process works and am turning to the community for guidance on neutrality. I love wikipedia and hope to continue to make a positive contribution but this has been a very rough ride!
Lucspook (talk) 17:15, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
How many scientists and critics?
WP:WEASEL warns us about "statements dressed with authority", and that are numerically vague. For example, we could provide sources supporting both these statements:
- Scientists and critics have lent support to homeopathy.
- Scientists and critics have labelled homeopathy pseudoscience.
Do we infer that "a few have", or "some", or "the majority? How do we best resolve this? --Iantresman (talk) 13:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
- Preferably find a WP:RS that uses some relevant term. Otherwise say "Some" have "Opinion A" and list some. "Others" have "Opinion B" and list some. If listing, I think it's more NPOV to list those who agree first, hopefully giving some indication of what the views in queston are; with critics and criticisms listed second.Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
- Ian, in order to resolve it, you need to get hundreds, not just the current paltry amount. Consider the vast field that is Science, broadly construed and consider the tiny handful you guys have gathered together. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 01:52, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Request for comment
Due to no consensus on a previous discussion re: article naming involving WP:NPOV, there is a second discussion open about moving Australia national association football team to Australia men's national association football team. We are seeking outside input. Contributions to the discussion is much appreciated. Thank you. Hmlarson (talk) 01:35, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
RfC Notice: Liberty University inter-collegiate policy debate program
Interested editors are invited to respond to an RfC at Talk:Liberty University concerning the use of a blog WP:NEWSBLOG article as a source for criticism of Liberty University's inter-collegiate policy debate program. Roccodrift (talk) 03:27, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Bias in climate sections of certain cities
I came across an article that mention about how a particular city has a better climate that other cities. For example in the Las Palmas article it states Las Palmas enjoys the best climate in the world according to a study carried out by Thomas Whitmore at Syracuse University. My question is whether this is neutral point of view or not. I think it is not a neutral point of view for many factors but I am not 100% sure.
- It is based on the opinions of one author. What defines a good climate is highly subjective and varies person
- sources may be unreliable and are just meant for promoting travel to that place (not a tourist brochure)
My question is that is this an example of a bias in the climate section? I posted it on the article's respective talk page but there has not been any replies yet. Any comments would be welcome. Ssbbplayer (talk) 03:33, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
- "Social networking: A nightclub on your smartphone". The Economist. 19 September 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
{{cite news}}
: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=
(help) - "Social networking: A nightclub on your smartphone". The Economist. 19 September 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
{{cite news}}
: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=
(help) - Hernandez, Brian. "Social Network Badoo Offically Launches in US with Nick Cannon". Mashable. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
- Hobson, Sophie (30 April 2012). "Badoo: Can the world's fourth-largest social network break Britain?". Archived from the original on 2012-05-02.
- "Badoo.com sending spam to all my contacts on my behalf, asking them to logon to their site". productforums.google.com. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
- Stuckey, Daniel. "Badoo is an Enigma Wrapped in a Puzzle Wrapped in Spam". motherboard.vice.com. Retrieved July 2012.
{{cite web}}
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(help) - Reinikainen, Pauli. "Treffipalvelu varastaa profiilitiedot. Varo tätä sovellusta Facebookissa". Retrieved 21 January 2011.
- Pseudonymous user. "Badoo.com Complaint".
{{cite web}}
:|last=
has generic name (help) - "Search the ICO website". Retrieved 24 July 2013.
- "Trust Pilot Badoo Review". Trust Pilot.
- "Trust Pilot Badoo Review". Trust Pilot.
- "Badoo Review: waste of time or many conquests?". olped.org.
- Joseph, Bonneau (2009). ""The Privacy Jungle: On the Market for Privacy in Social Networks" (PDF). WEIS '09: Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security.
{{cite journal}}
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suggested) (help) - "Crunchies 2011". Retrieved 31 January 2011.
- Haberman, Stephanie. "The 5th Annual Mashable Awards 2011". Retrieved 21 November 2011.
- Yiannopoulos, Milo. "Start-Up 100: the final list by category". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 05 April 2011.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|accessdate=
(help) - Butcher, Mike. "PeerIndex Takes The Honours As The Europas Awards Drifts Eastward". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 18 November 2011.
- "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies". Fastcompay.