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United States government

Is the official position of the United States government on a controversial legal-political issue "fringe"? THF (talk) 03:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Depends on what reliable sources say about the matter. Is the waterboarding thing again? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It shouldn't matter what the topic is. Either the legal and political positions of the US government are fringe views in articles about legal and political topics, or they are not. THF (talk) 03:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Clarification. The controversial legal-political issue is whether waterboarding is torture or not. THF knows that there is no clear position of the US Government on this issue (because I already made him aware of this on the Waterboarding Talk Page) so how can we classify it as fringe or not fringe when in fact there is not a clear position from the USG. AGF it seems to me a bit disingenuous to bring this matter to this board in the way framed by THF.--LexCorp (talk) 03:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That's not a clarification, because that's not what I asked. Please don't muddy the discussion and put words in my mouth. Again, it shouldn't matter what the topic is. My question applies to all controversial legal-political issues, including international law, capital punishment, and whether Zionism is racism. I want a definitive consensus from Misplaced Pages on its NPOV policy whether the position of the US government on controversial legal-political issues is fringe or not. THF (talk) 04:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that THF's post is not a useful way of addressing this matter. However, if the US government declared that there was no link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, that the earth was flat, or that creationism was the correct explanation of the origins of life, that wouldn't alter the fringiness of these positions. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Those are all scientific questions, and thus entirely irrelevant to the question I asked, which specifically limited it to legal-political questions. Please don't muddy the discussion. THF (talk) 04:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

True because the USG is no expert RS on those issues and neither it is on torture. AS a funny aside Bush commented when he was still president of the USA that in its opinion Intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in science classrooms. Thank god he is no expert on either education, evolution, ID or science.--LexCorp (talk) 04:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Look, I don't really know if it's fringe or not. But shouldn't this question be answered by what reliable sources related to the relevant field say about a topic? For example, if I wanted to know about the face on Mars, I'd look to sources in the field of astronomy. In this case, yes, NASA would be a great source to help determine what's fringe and what's not. What's the relevant field for torture? Medical? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The field is controversial legal-political issues, such as international law, Zionism, capital punishment, etc. That's why I specifically limited my question to legal-political issues. It has nothing to do with evolution or the Face on Mars. THF (talk) 04:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

No. The legal-political issues are a posteriori consideration. In a murder the first person in the scene is a doctor to certify the death, then all the legal apparatus takes over. In this case the experts are those that can determine the extent of suffering experienced by the subject being waterboarded. Thus Doctors and psychologists. It is up to the legal-political experts to determine if torture is legal or not. Not whether waterboarding is torture or not.--LexCorp (talk) 04:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

To cut to the chase... yes, a Governmental agency can express support for a view that is considered fringe without changing the "fringiness" of the view. For example, Holocaust denial is still considered a fringe view, despite the support of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the government of Iran. Governmental support simply makes the fringe view more notable, not less fringe. Blueboar (talk) 04:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not asking about Iran, though, which certainly holds fringe views. I'm asking about the United States. THF (talk) 04:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

My point is that it is possible for any government or governmental agency to hold fringe views. Whether whether a specific government actually holds a fringe view, or whether any particular view is actually fringe or not is a different matter. Blueboar (talk) 04:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

{EC} Blueboar, I disagree or at least I think situation is more complex. I think it depends on which agency is making the statement and whether that agency has a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking. NASA and NIH are excellent sources for astronomy and health respectively. For this particular issue, I don't think there's a similar agency that would be relevent or respected. Regarding Ahmadinejad, you are correct, but only because Ahmadinejad is not a reliable source on history or politics. Also, I would caution editors to keep in mind that we don't simply look to one source to determine fringe. We're supposed to examine multiple sources. That said, with certain topics like ID or AGW, they're all pretty much in agreement so examining multipe sources isn't much of an issue. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

No... the fringiness of a view point is determined by how many people accept the view, not by who holds the view. Granted, the more reliable the view holder is, the more likely it is that lots of people will accept it, but that is not guarenteed. Blueboar (talk) 05:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

United States government redux

Two editors have changed the subject above, so let me repeat the question so it doesn't get hijacked: On controversial legal-political questions of international law, capital punishment, Zionism, whether an organization is "terrorist", etc., is the position of the United States government fringe, or, by definition, is it a serious position that, even if in some defined minority, deserves to be accounted for? In other words, is it ever appropriate for Misplaced Pages to take an NPOV position in an article that states that the US government is wrong? (Please note that this is not asking about scientific questions such as stem cells or evolution; solely about legal-political issues.) THF (talk) 04:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Asking a question that broad, and the answer is simple. It depends. I think it's pretty disingenuous of you to pose a question here without the context of where an answers may or may not be used. Ravensfire (talk) 04:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, first, I don't think it depends: I think the US position on legal-political questions is inherently notable, even if it stands alone against the rest of the world, and even if I disagree with it because of the simple fact that the US is, at least for another couple of decades, the most powerful country in the world.

Second, how will I use it? I will use it for NPOV purposes in over 100 different articles that treat the US position as definitively incorrect -- unless the Misplaced Pages consensus is that the position of the US government is or can be a fringe position such that it need not be accounted for within the Misplaced Pages definition of "neutral point of view," in which case I will use that assessment in an article I'm writing about anti-American bias on Misplaced Pages, and simply leave the project as indefensibly biased and unwilling to adhere to its NPOV policy. THF (talk) 04:38, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) The policy positions of the US Government (by definition) cannot be fringe - fringe implies something that is outside of conventionally established norms, and since the government (in any nation) is one of the entities that defines norms, it cannot represent a fringe position. In international, it might occasionally be possible to claim that the US has a minority position, but in most cases you'd actually have to say something more like the US has a unique position in the international community, because (given current understandings of state sovereignty) there are very few situations in which it could be assumed that the US and other nations are even trying to establish a common norm. on capital punishment, for instance, you can say the US is unique within the western industrialized nations as having a system of capital punishment, but you couldn't say it was in the minority about capital punishment because you cannot sat that the opinions and attitudes of other western nations have any bearing within sovereign US borders. --Ludwigs2 04:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)"s the position of the United States government fringe ?" Can't say, unless you tell us what the position is.

"Can a position of the United States government be fringe ?" Of course; although in most cases it would be notable fringe (the two are not incompatible)

I don't think anyone can say much more if you insist on asking the question only in the abstract. Abecedare (talk) 04:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not an expert here, but regarding legal-political issues only, I would say no. From a medical perspective, if the National Institutes of Health has issued any statements, I would say that this particular agency can be used. Same thing for NASA with astronomy. But I'm not aware of any similar agency within the US government with a reputation for accuracy fact-checking the way that NASA and NIH does. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

THC, I think there needs to be more discussion before even attempting a vote. Can you please self-revert the vote below or close it? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

No reason we can't have a vote and discussion simultaneously. People can change their !vote, or wait until they see their concerns addressed. Keeping the vote open permits editors to state their position now without having to monitor the page. THF (talk) 05:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

break 0

This vote IMHO is idiotic and not the function of this noticeboard. I move to close this discussion or demand a much narrower enquiry by THF.--LexCorp (talk) 04:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

If you wish to know whether a particular topic is fringe or mainstream (especially outside of the fields of science and pseudo-science), you may ask for advice on this noticeboard. Seems like the right place to me. Where do you propose I bring this issue? I've notified WP:VPP, WT:NPOV, WP:NPOVN, and WT:Fringe_theories about the existence of the discussion. THF (talk) 05:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

"Particular topic" being the operative word. Your statement below is so broad as to be rendered useless. No matter how the vote goes the result is meaningless and not useful for anyone seeking clarification from this noticeboard.--LexCorp (talk) 05:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The following question was asked: "Do apples ever deserve a labeling-exemption according to the meat regulations?" - Answer: "No. Apples aren't meat."

The following question was asked: "Does the position of the United States government on legal-political issues constitute a fringe-theory?" - Answer: "No. Governments make policies, not theories."

Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 05:49, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, then you agree with me: I take the position that it violates NPOV to say that the US government is wrong on a political/legal question in an article, while others say that it is okay because the US position is "fringe." THF (talk) 06:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly - I only agree on the "because"-part. You can still cite sources that say the U.S. is wrong, but you cannot say the U.S. is wrong because of WP:FRINGE. It simply doesn't make sense.

I would also disagree with limiting this question to the United States. Governments in general do not deal with theories. Even the above-cited IR Iran does not "theorize". It makes policies and laws, and some of its leaders might sometimes - quite frankly - "rant," but that still does not constitute a "theory."

Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 06:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, certainly I have no objection to the sentence "RS X says the US is wrong" or even "The international community largely disagrees with the United States' position." I do object to the hypothetical phrasing "Capital punishment is a violation of human rights. ... The United States takes the position that capital punishment does not violate human rights." with editors justifying it on the grounds that most nations oppose capital punishment, and the US view is FRINGE. THF (talk) 06:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Well... now we're getting into the hairy details. The above example does not say "the U.S. is wrong". As long as two two sentences can be referenced, it's a different issue. You might understand or hear that it says (somewhere between the lines) that "the U.S. is wrong" -- but it doesn't say that. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 06:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree with you. The hypothetical article is adopting a point of view that the US point of view is incorrect. That would seem to me to violate the requirement that the article adopt a neutral point of view. Are you taking the position that that sentence complies with NPOV? If so, why? THF (talk) 06:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hold on... I can now see where you're coming from: Are you looking for an intro to the first part of the sentence along the lines of "According to XYZ, capital punishment is a violation of human rights."... ? In that case, you'd have a point. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 06:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Thank you for your patience, and I apologize if I was unclear at any point. THF (talk) 15:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

break 1

The Four Deuces writes: The fact that the US government holds a position has no bearing on whether or not it is WP:Fringe. That does severe damage to the NPOV policy. Then a concerted band of editors can take a page on a legal or political topic and edit it to say that the US is wrong on issue X -- and then hide behind WP:FRINGE. Since WP:FRINGE applies only to "non-significant opinions", I'm hard-pressed to see how the view of the US on a controversial political or legal question could ever be "non-significant." THF (talk) 06:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, I would widen these concerns to include any government. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 06:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

!vote

For purposes of WP:NPOV, the position of the United States government on a legal-political issue can never be considered "fringe" per WP:FRINGE.

Support

1. . Per my argument above. THF (talk) 04:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
2. Not "never" but in very few circumstances could the official position of the US government be "fringe". It might be mistaken, but not fringe. Why are we discussing this? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC) Changing !vote. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• comment We don't really know why. The OP framed the question as a generality and has not directed us to a specific article or discussion. That's part of the reason I'm opposing. Simonm223 (talk) 14:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Let's draw a line under it. Shows how pointless discussion in the abstract is. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. The fact that the US government holds a position has no bearing on whether or not it is WP:Fringe. The Four Deuces (talk) 05:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
2. Being a government does not automatically take it out of the potential range of WP:Fringe. Exceptional claims require exceptional sources and this cuts all ways. This is not to be assumed as support for any specific statement of the US government as a fringe one (or a non-fringe one) as the question put to the noticeboard was exceptionally vague.Simonm223 (talk) 13:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
3. Ridiculous. What determines whether something is fringe is what third-party reliable sources say about the subject. Third party reliable sources can be influenced by the reputation of the entity making the statement and move some idea that would otherwise be fringe into the mainstream. Likewise, third-party reliable sources can decide that in spite of the reputation of the entity, the proposal made by the entity is outrageously out-of-the-ordinary and fringe. Case-by-case is the only way to measure this. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
4. Factual claims that are generally considered fringe do not magically become non-fringe just because a relevant US government agency believes in them. This is true in general, and it is even more true if one of the following reasons or a similar one should apply: (1) The US government agency advances a fringe theory for political reasons such as protecting agents of the US government against prosecution for crimes they are asked to commit. (2) The agency's support of the fringe theory leads to strong internal turbulences, such as resignations of leading officers. (3) Under a subsequent government the agency withdraws the original claim or acts as if it had been withdrawn. Hans Adler 19:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Reject legitimacy of vote

• Misplaced Pages is not a democracy. We should discuss things first and attempt to reach a consensus. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 05:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree. Furthermore I would say that in the way the vote is presented it deviates substantially from the functions of this noticeboard and thus I ask all editors not to participate in it and also ask THF to remove it voluntarily.--LexCorp (talk) 05:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• As above. In particular, the attempt to create a "general rule" does not belong here. Specific scenarios should be discussed. The OP went out of his way to hide, then dismiss the specific scenario that prompted his post here. Ravensfire (talk) 14:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• While I disagree with this way of using the noticeboard, I think this discussion may have instructional value later on as an example of how a dispute should not be handled. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• The proposition seems to misunderstand what we mean by fringe here. WP:FRINGE is a content guideline which tells us that we should not cover topics if they are not covered by independent, reliable sources. It is thus much the same as the WP:NOTABILITY guideline. The main difference seems to be that coverage by debunking sources is considered to be adequate for this purpose even though, by their nature, they tend to undermine the topic rather than endorse it. An example may help - see Indiana Pi Bill. This merits coverage, not because it was a government matter, but because it has been covered by independent sources such as mathematical journals. They tend to ridicule the proposed law but that's ok. There will be other governmental matters which it would not be appropriate to cover such as the minutiae of bureaucratic regulations which have not been covered outside of those regulations. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

All of these comments fail to AGF. I'm asking for a general rule about NPOV because I don't want to have the same debate dozens of times on dozens of pages, and I think correct application of NPOV is consistent with that general rule. If you disagree with that general rule, just state that you disagree with the general rule rather than personally attacking me. I'm not asking for "democracy", I'm asking for consensus. If the consensus is that the general rule is not consistent with NPOV, that's very useful for me to know, so I can stop making the argument here, and start making the argument outside of Misplaced Pages that its NPOV policy is a sham. THF (talk) 16:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Your comment also fails to AGF of those posting those comments. Several people (including me) have said that we should not have a general rule as your asking and explained why. Your motives have been questioned because of how you brought the question without disclosing the context and actively trying to avoid that context being disclosed. But, if you'd prefer to simply ABF so you can ignore dissenting opinions, go right ahead. Ravensfire (talk) 16:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Changing !vote to this heading. Without going into AGF issues, it hasn't been useful to discuss this in the abstract. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
• Also changing !vote for the reasons outlined above. Notwithstanding this, if it were a valid topic of discussion I would still oppose it because of the reasons I originally stated. Simonm223 (talk) 19:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Motion

I move to archive the discussions related to these matters of "US Government positions" as inappropriate for the noticeboard. I am trying to assume good faith but think that specific questions on specific articles are better than these generalized debates. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Where should I raise a general question of policy application then--especially when, I, in good faith, believe that the proper application of the NPOV policy in a category of articles requires a certain uniformity? This isn't a specific question on a specific article, because it's a problem in dozens of articles. If that's WT:NPOV or VPP, I'm happy to move everything there, but the introduction to this board says that this board is the place to discuss it. THF (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The Village Pump is the appropriate location for gradiose discussions. This noticeboard is supposed to be far more mundane. Think about it: if your conversation indicated a consensus that was not articulated in our policies/guidelines, we would have to think about how or whether to add or modify our policies and guidelines. That's manifestly not the purpose of this board. This board is supposed to deal with problems in the encyclopedia as they relate to policy, not questions of policy themselves. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

From the header "a particular topic is fringe or mainstream". You didn't ask about a particular topic, you asked a general question. Asking "Is the view of the US Government on whether waterboarding is torture considered fringe?" would have been perfectly appropriate. Ravensfire (talk) 16:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for trying to redraft my question, but that is not the question I asked or the question I wanted answered. If there's a consensus that, notwithstanding the plain text of the heading of this board, I should discuss this at VPP instead, I'll move this to WP:VPP at some point. If that consensus exists, then someone needs to change the language at the top of the page to avoid confusion instead of jumping down the throat of someone who in good faith thought that language meant what it said. THF (talk) 17:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

"Particular topic" is pretty plain language to me. That said, some rejoinder such as, "This is not the place to discuss what characteristics generally constitute a fringe theory, as that matter is set by the consensus outlined in the Misplaced Pages Fringe Theory guideline." might be appropriate. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree and agree. I would also add something to point them to the correct spot, whether that's VPP or talk for NPOV/fringe. Ravensfire (talk) 17:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I second ScienceApologist's move to archive... I cannot even tell what all this is really about without specifics, what's the point? Things need to be taken on a case-by-case basis, not a blanket rule of thumb composed in the dark. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how this is in the dark. It's a straightforward application of NPOV and FRINGE, a logical corollary to the existing rules. If you think that it's not a logical corollary, simply state that you disagree with the statement, and we'll know that there's not a consensus for it. THF (talk) 17:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I just mean it reminds me asking for a blank check. "Do you agree in principle with what I'm about to say? I just can't tell you exactly what it is yet." Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not asking for a blank check. I'm asking for people to agree (or disagree) that the position I've taken is a basic corollary of existing rules, and trying to understand the consensus of what NPOV means; I honestly can't understand why what I've proposed is remotely controversial for anyone who supports the basic principle of NPOV. It would seem to me that most would agree "The United States violates international law" is a violation of NPOV, but that proposition can be found throughout the project, and I don't see why it would be productive for me to raise the NPOV violation in several dozen different places if it can be resolved in a single place. THF (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Blank statements are one thing. "Violation of a law" is a judgment that is usually made by a prosecutor, a judge, or a jury. Misplaced Pages isn't supposed to make judgments, but we report the opinions of people. However, facts such as "The Union Army detained Confederate troops as prisoners of war. The Supreme Court ruled on a number of occasions that such imprisonment was a violation of habeus corpus." seem to me to be perfectly legitimate. The implication might be that the US Government broke the law (in that case the Constitution), but the facts of the matter are really all that is stated. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

comments

There was a time when US held many views that were considered fringe... Fringe views like the idea that all men are created equal, the superiority of democratic government, or that people should have a right to free speach and the freedom of religion. It also held veiws that were fairly mainstream such as the idea that you needed slavery to make a plantation ecconomy work. Fringe does not mean right or wrong... it simply is a function of how wide spread acceptance of the view is. Any government can hold fringe views, as long as the view held is rejected by the world as a whole. That much is self-evident. Blueboar (talk) 05:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess this is this is the problem once you decide you try to define a catagory called "fringe" and then constantly debate if it is about popularity or merit. "Too obvious to be wrong" ideas are often not tested leading to great stagnation. See any of my recent rants. Christians were at one time non-existent, then fringe by most criteria, then mainstream by many crieteria for centuries ( would the ideas of a Theocracy be considered fringe if it set the law of the land?) and noware considered fringe my many. Political correctness, is that fringe or mainstream? People try to inflict good intentions everywhere they go often leading to arguments that amount to , " you must be because I don't like what you are saying." If you stick with prominence and make wording reflect range of judgements about reliability, you may be able to remove the notion of fringe. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 12:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The stance of the US government may be a factor in deciding whether a view is fringe or mainstream - may even be a significant factor on some issues - but it cannot be an ultimate and infallible authority. If, for example, the US government and US legislature took a position which ever other government and legal authority in the world opposed, then this would still be a fringe position. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Well said, Gandalf61. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Simonm223 (talk) 15:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

If that's your position, then express opposition to my proposal. But I thoroughly disagree with Gandalf's last sentence as a misapplication of NPOV. (NB that nothing in my proposal requires the US to be "ultimate and infallible," merely sufficiently notable prominent that its viewpoint is not FRINGE.) THF (talk) 16:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You don't mean "notable". You mean "prominent". Misplaced Pages:Notability vs. prominence. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

My vote is WP:UCS. Sure, the US are a superpower, and most of the time they take a position, that position will be relevant simply because they have a big enough stick to make sure it is relevant. But that isn't an a priori truth or something, that's just what considering the question at hand will turn up most of the time.

Why are we being asked to consider this in such abstract terms? Just cut to the chase and outline the actual dispute behind this. --dab (𒁳) 15:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Because it's a general problem in dozens of articles, and I think it's most appropriately resolved in a single discussion about what FRINGE and NPOV mean. THF (talk) 16:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

This does not appear to be a fruitful discussion, probably because it's not clear where the position of the united states government is considered fringe. Sometimes that's because people misunderstand the purpose of this noticeboard, and other times it's because the goal is to use this board as a "gotchya, see what they said!" noticeboard. Given that we have to assume the first, we'll need to see this in context. Where is the position of the US government being treated as fringy? Hipocrite (talk) 16:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

In dozens and dozens of articles relating to Guantanamo, international law, and/or US foreign policy, including BLPs, International Criminal Court, Preventive war, and waterboarding, and likely dozens of others that I haven't found yet. But again, I don't want the debate to be tied up in case-by-case contextual analysis: my entire argument is that correct application of NPOV must treat US governmental positions as per se prominent enough not to be fringe in articles about legal/political subjects. I think this is an entirely sensible view of NPOV, and I don't want to have to have the argument over and over again as I try to clean up NPOV problems in the encyclopedia: I'd like a consensus on whether this argument is legitimate, or whether I shouldn't waste my time thinking that NPOV means what it says. THF (talk) 16:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Changing my !vote in response to this but my logic remains the same. Fringe policy is about science/pseudoscience, not about political positions. Ahmedinejad's statements on the Holocaust are "prominent enough" to be mentioned in political articles but Holocaust denial remains fringe. He's not a pseudohistorian but has adopted an element of pseudohistory as part of his political position. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your position. If, as a matter of US policy, the US takes position X, is it ever appropriate for a Misplaced Pages page on a controversial legal or political topic to say (explicitly or implicitly) "Position X is wrong"? THF (talk) 17:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:NPOV, it is not our job to say "Position X is wrong". We report what sources say. That extends to what you call "implicit" stances, but there will always be people who read a stance into what is actually perfectly neutral text. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that assessment. There are articles, however, where the US position is expressed as being wrong, and editors who justify that violation of NPOV on the grounds that the US position is fringe. THF (talk) 17:23, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

{{fact}} - who has stated the US position is fringe? Links plz. Hipocrite (talk) 17:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

(e.c.) THF, if there are particular articles that contain something like, "The US position on matter X is Y. That position is wrong." then please report them here or at NPOVN. We will work to neutralize and properly handle those statements in particular. Trying to outline a general rule is not going to help matters. We're all on the same side here. It very well may be that the positions of the US Government that you seem to think are being deprecated here at Misplaced Pages are being treated improperly. We're here to help with that. However, you have to admit that painting with the ridiculously enormous brush that you did leaves plenty of room for weirdness. For example, the official position of National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has been shown at times to be in direct conflict with the vast majority of the reliable and scientific sources on a subject. In your universe where the US Government's position is never fringe, that leaves us in a weird position indeed. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I entirely agree that the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is an embarrassment to the US, and is largely FRINGE. You will note, as I have repeatedly stated, that my proposal is solely about legal/political issues, and explicitly excluded the US's scientific views, so I wish people would stop muddying the discussion with the latter.

There are hundreds of places where the USA's views are treated as incorrect. There are dozens of articles that state affirmatively without qualification that the US violated international law, and I find new ones every day. THF (talk) 15:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you must admit that it is often difficult to decide exactly when an issue starts being legal/political. Certainly, many of the statements made by NCCAM have legal/policy implications. For example, there are policy statements made by NCCAM demarcating which alternative medicine practitioners are more legit than others (chiropractors good, psychic healers bad, for example). These muddy waters are going to be around all the time.

Please do provide specific examples where the USA views are treated as "incorrect". For example, we are working now on preventative war. If you find examples that unequivocally state things such as "The US violated international law" bring them to NPOVN. Those are statements which must be attributed since law is generally something that is interpreted. We don't even say things like, "Ron Karenga violated the law." Instead we say things like, "Ron Karenga served time in prison on a conviction for false imprisonment and assault." The same standards should be applied across the board and you do not need a fiat from this noticeboard to fix problems like this. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

In reviewing your example links, it appears that the US is not treated as a fringe, but rather as a minority position. Remember, fringe positions are ignored while minority positions are given weight in relation to their prominance. For example, in preventative war - "In the modern era, advocates of Preventative war tend to be from the political fringes ... western neo-conservatives such as George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld" Hipocrite (talk) 16:49, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Personally this whole exchange strikes me as quite bizarre. I just don't see how governmental rhetoric constitutes a "theory", as opposed to a rank act of self-justification. Mangoe (talk) 17:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hipocrite... where in the world did you get the idea that "fringe positions are ignored"... they too are given due weight in accordance with their prominance. Yes, sometimes they are ignored, but at other times they are acknowledged and discussed. Whether to discuss a specific fringe theory in a particular article and, if so, how much weight to give it is a complex decision that can not be summed up with an all encompassing: "Fringe positions are ignored". That simply isn't true.

I have to agree with those who say that this discussion needs to shift... the issue isn't whether the US can hold a fringe theory (it can)... but whether specific position X that it holds actually is fringe. After we dertermine that, we can move on to the secondary questions: assuming the position is fringe, is it notable enough to discuss in specific article Y... and if so how. Blueboar (talk) 19:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

THF: If there are any articles saying "X is wrong" (where X is some position or statement), then those articles are horribly written. If there are articles saying "X is Y" (where Y is generally considered to be wrong), then that might be OK (depending on X and Y). For example (I know you like to keep it as general as possible, but I think my point is hard to illustrate otherwise): If some article says "Waterboarding is wrong", then that's bad writing. If some article says "Waterboarding is torture", then that's an entirely different issue. Most people considered Y ("torture") to be wrong, but there's a world of difference between saying "X is wrong" and "X is Y". Now, while the word "fringe" can mean many things, in the context of Misplaced Pages it means "ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study" (per WP:FRINGE). With this meaning it is entirely feasible for the US government to hold a position that is fringe. Gabbe (talk) 08:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

this has gone far beyond what is appropriate for this noticeboard. My opinion is that THF is wrong in his approach to this. It is misguided to discuss items of policy or politics as "fringe, yes or no" in the first place. "fringe" is properly applied to academic or pseudo-academic hypotheses, not to government positions. And no, this cannot be treated on a once-and-for-all basis, there is no way around the case-by-case approach. --dab (𒁳) 09:59, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You're right. It's not so much a question of whether it's fringe, as it is whether it is WP:UNDUE. And a more appropriate noticeboard for that would be WP:NPOVN. Gabbe (talk) 10:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• It is intensely aggravating to see this noticeboard being abused to hash out the waterboarding debate. Yet again. Haven't we been through this enough with the monomania of BryanFromPalatine (talk · contribs) and his extensive collection of odd socks? Misplaced Pages is not the venue for this kind of crap, nor is it what this noticeboard is used to address. Consensus is clear on waterboarding and has been for many years, IMO with good reason. Perhaps we need some kind of version of WP:PEREN for articlespace. Moreschi (talk) 19:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• True, this seems to have gotten out of hand for for such a simple answer. The definition of "fringe" is: Those members of a group or political party holding extreme views. Zaereth (talk) 19:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Belated comment

I think it is fair to assume THF is asking this question out of good faith, rather than trying to push a given POV; from my experience with him, although I disagree with many of his opinions, his primary failing is approaching conflicts thinking as a lawyer, rather than as an average, rational, yet prudent person. (Not to bad-mouth lawyers: my brother & brother-in-law are lawyers.) The problem which is being overlooked is that the US government is hardly a monolithic institution which holds one, consistent opinion on any given topic. Not only does the US government change its stance on issues between administrations, different officials of a given administration will often have different opinions on a given issue. (And then there is the matter whether members of the legislative or judicial branch speak for the US government: does Dennis Kucinich represent the US government's opinion with as much authority as James G. Watt?) The best approach to this matter is to identify with as much detail as possible who in the US government holds the opinion. Otherwise, we will find the US government being used to endorse such fringe positions as Eugenics (which was supported in the 1930s) or the extermination of Native Americans. Does this offer a solution for all involved? -- llywrch (talk) 23:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

Just discovered that this article is getting attention again, I just had to change an edit which used Bovon's original claim about a name, ignoring the fact that he later changed his mind and retracted it. If anyone else is interested in the subject I'd appreciate more eyes. Dougweller (talk) 10:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

This thing is being used as a WP:FORK of Talpiot Tomb. Frankly I think the documentary should be merged into the other article. Mangoe (talk) 13:08, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

And also Jesus Family Tomb. Something of a little walled garden of credulous acceptance. Moreschi (talk) 18:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Bernard Leeman and User:Ntsukunyane Mphanya

I left a note at WP:BLPN about Ntsukunyane Mphanya's BLP violations on Motsoko Pheko and an IP has suggested that NM is actually BL (who has an account here I believe). Which would be impersonation. Dougweller (talk) 11:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Why is this posted to FTN instead of ANI? Looie496 (talk) 18:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Because there have been two threads about this. I'm hoping NM will reply (but he seems to edit only sporadically). I'm not sure it's the right time to take it to ANI. Maybe I'm wrong. Dougweller (talk) 18:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I still don't see what this has to do with fringe theories, but let me add for the benefit of other readers that presumably the reason you bring up the issue of impersonation is that "Ntsukunyane Mphanya" is the name of a real person, a south African politician. Looie496 (talk) 19:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Looie: Ntsukunyane Mphanya was up on this board recently for spamming Leeman's cranky theories concerning Ethiopian Judaism and the Bible all over the place. From memory the two men do have an IRL connection. I would be surprised if this actually is impersonation: I think we have a comrade-in-arms who is on the warpath without Leeman's active connivance, though possibly Leeman read our COI policy and thought he'd better create an alias. It doesn't really matter either way, disruption is blockable as disruption no matter who is behind it. Moreschi (talk) 19:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Accepting it doesn't really matter either way, you can see from the contributions an interest in UK as well as African topics. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Spiritism

It appears that Spiritism has been taken over by excessively credulous authors. Mangoe (talk) 16:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually this is much worse than I thought, and frankly it's such a mess that I don't know where to begin. There seems to be a severe train wreck between the credulity and the confusion of spiritism and spiritualism, helped out (apparently) by the fact that this is a largely French development, but in French the word for it is not "spiritisme" per se. Even if you don't read French, you can look at Spiritisme (Allan Kardec) and Spiritualisme moderne anglo-saxon in the French Misplaced Pages and see that they conflate together for our Spiritism article. If you can read French (which I do well enough to get this far) and look at Spiritisme you can see that it begins approximately as follows:

The word 'spiritism' was defined for the first time by Allan Kardec in the introduction to The Spirits' Book published 18 April 1857. Spiritism is a doctrine founded on the existence, manifestations, and teachings of spirits, most often of incorporeal human spirits. The the word applies more broadly to animist or other practices which intend to communicate with these spirits by various means, including trance states or objects such as seance tables. In our day, spiritism designates both the modern English Spiritualism initiated by the Fox sisters in 1848, and the spiritistic doctrines of Allan Kardec defined in 1857 as 'a moral philosophy and a science'.

(My emphasis) I don't know the literature that well but I think the confusion between these three senses doesn't obtain in English; therefore "spiritism" should be reserved for the Kardecian system. Rooting out all the stuff that isn't directly related should help relieve this mess of the POV fork. I'm half inclined simply to translate the French wiki article on the Kardec system and throw everything else away. Is there someone else with adequate/superior-to-my French who could look this over? Mangoe (talk) 18:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

What to do with biased Reliable Sources?

Sometimes minority viewpoints are widespread, beyond total FRINGE, but disregarded and laughed at by (all) Reliable Sources. To give a hypothetical example, 500 years ago Catholisism was the dominant viewpoint in Western Europe. Then Luther came, protesting against it. Suppose for the sake of argument, that all Reliable Sources at that time were representing the dominant viewpoint, and if they ever did represent some of Luther's viewpoints, they did so in a distorted fashion. Would wikipedia, had it existed in the year 1517, be allowed to quote Luther directly from his own Ninety-Five Theses, or should[REDACTED] only quote the theses as quoted by the Catholic Church in their Reliable Sources literature?
My own gut feeling is: that is makes most sense to quote directly from the source, from the moment that Reliable Sources have treated the criticism as Notable. If trustworthy primary sources exist (for Luther's theses), this should provide a more honest and neutral and factual representation of the conflict than when solely quoting from Reliable Secondary/Tertiary Sources. (In the past however I have had strong disagreement with wiki-editors who shared a certain bias with the Reliable Sources, and then claimed that the viewpoint of the Reliable Sources was the Neutral Viewpoint that[REDACTED] should take.) Xiutwel-0002 (talk) 11:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to give this some thought but I like the basic notion of considering some hypothetical examples. While less emotional perhaps, you do get the hypothesis-contrary-to-fact issues and when people can take the "high ground" in hypotheticals they will (" I would never push a POV " etc and I think the Bible mentions this too LOL) I guess first you have to remember that the object is to document what various groups think, not try to inflict a POV based on merit or who you think will be "right" in the future ( crystal balling also applied to notability, a fringe cult or mainstream religion is hard to tell early on). Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox or a way to educate people to think right although often you have to question the prominence of a scientific viewpoint compared to the overall relecant communities in some cases( all publications have some kind of bias if they admit it of not ). Reliability however often encounters the argument, "gee, that can't be right" as a reaction to merit of an unederlying fact ( "the earth is flar") rather than "what does this person state." Neutrality means reflecting prominence within a topic-so you could have articles on abortion, right to life, and pro-choice with different POV prominences within each topic evem though they more or less talk about the same thing. Or, maybe consider notable but obscure religious gropus that themselves may have a mainstream and less notable finges ( a few peope split off and made up some stuff that only they have published). Sometimess with religions it isn't clear if intellectual independence criteria are applied reasonably- that is, you may expect all research groups funded by NIH to be intellectually indpednent while thinking that all Christians are simply parroting the same things when reality may be quite different. This isn't just religion, you see this often in business ( various stock analyses have been pointed to by others) but the dichotomy most often encountered at wiki is that between science and religion. The problem with only citing original primary sources is that it leads to original research, synthesis, and cherry picking to create a new POV. In short, you can end up making stuff up that is not noted elsewhere and can't be reviewed here for merit. How is that for a non-answer talking around some point that may or may not be related to what you originally posted? Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 12:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

It is a terrific non-answer to my taste, LOL. But having overcome its initial horror ;) let's seperate crystall-balling from fairly representing the minority view. We must assume that a minority view's proponent can fairly represent its own view. Indeed, they are the foremost expert around regarding what their own view is. So, would not Luther's manuscripts be the most adequate source for wikipedia, instead of the Reliable Sources which would cherry-pick and distort his views, given half the chance? Even if there is no political motivation for a RS to distort a minority view, the distortion is inevitable because the minority view likely does not fully comprehend the minority view? Or is the problem that we then lack any objective criterium on which part of Luther's Theses would be most important to cite? Xiutwel-0002 (talk) 15:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The answer to your question is: In 1517 Misplaced Pages (assuming it had the same policies and guidelines) would have treated Luthor as Fringe. We would not have included any mention of Luthor or his ideas. By 1520 that would have changed slightly... Luthor's idea would probably still have been labeled as Fringe, but... by then, the 1500s equivalent of reliable sources would have started to take notice of Luthor and discuss his ideas, the topic would be deemed notable fringe... notable enough for us to discuss in a limited way, and possibly devote an article to. By the 1530s we would have considered his ideas a significant minority view, and there would be no doubt as to the appropriateness of fully discussing it.

Of course, in 1517 Misplaced Pages would probably not have had the same policies and guidelines we do today. Instead of WP:FRINGE we would have had WP:HERESY! Things do change over time. Blueboar (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Now, after I've stopped laughing at these wonderful examples (it is fun to speculate about Misplaced Pages in other times), unless Misplaced Pages was quite different then, Luther would still be quoted directly, using his own website as a ref, but he would be given less WEIGHT and definitely no UNDUE attention, while an abundance of Catholic scholars would be quoted. Newspapers reporting them would also be quoted, since no newspaper journalist would dare to disagree for fear of being burned at the stake. (They didn't have freedom of speech or a free press back then.) So, that being the case, Misplaced Pages probably wouldn't have even linked to Luther's website. Things really were quite different back then. Human rights didn't exist as hardly even a thought, torture was the normal way one dealt with undesirables, so it wasn't considered wrong by anyone, etc. Even being drawn and quartered was practiced for a long time. We really aren't that far removed in time from those ways of thinking, and among certain groups that is still the dominant way of thinking. The sooner democracy, freedom, tolerance, and NPOV become the dominant way of thinking, the better. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• (deindent) :) How the[REDACTED] rules would have been 500 years ago is anyone's guess. But how about applying the current[REDACTED] rules we've agreed upon, and then pretend that situation. Brangifer would like to quote Luther directly, while being careful not to give his views UNDUE attention and WEIGHT. Blueboar assumes that by 1520-1530 the notability would have increased. But the crux of my question is: would we quote him directly, or would we only quote the Catholic scolars which criticize him and quote their (cherry-picked) quotations? (No disrespect for 21-century Catholics intended) Xiutwel-0002 (talk) 19:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See: WP:OR#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Zaereth (talk) 19:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Yish... the only reason this argument exists is because a good number of editors have difficulty distinguishing between contexts. In 1517, an article on "The role of priests in spiritual life" would have focussed on the Catholic idea of the role of priests, and Luther's opinions would have been a minor addition (assuming they were notable enough to include at all). however, an article on "Luther's 95 theses" would have focused on Luther's 95 theses, as presented by Luther. the Catholic perspective would have entered into the article sufficiently to point out that this was not a commonly accepted viewpoint (and probably that anyone who believed it would burn in hell forever), but the article would not focus on the Catholic opinion of Luther's 95 theses. Please re-read Misplaced Pages:Fringe#Evaluating_claims; ScienceApologist (talk · contribs) and I (and others) spent some time haggling over this a few weeks ago, and the current version is clear on the matter. --Ludwigs2 19:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

YISH - 1. A strange form of the word 'yes'. Often used to show indifference. // 2. An exclamation of annoyance or irritation, often used like 'geez'.
I am not a native American speaker. I assume you are tired of hearing the same questions over and over?
The link from Zaereth was most helpful to me. So, when can we use primary sources? Minority views can often be found in books, but anyone can have a book printed. An editor will simply look whether publishing an opinion had a commercial value, not whether the opinion is valid or useful. So would books be reliable sources, if they are written by the minority proponents themselves? More interestingly, let's suppose that in the fictional example the Catholic scholars were contradicting each other, and Luther's side would find out and mention that in their writings, should[REDACTED] present that side of the debate, or should[REDACTED] wait till the ruling Catholics would write about such contradictions themselves? I would say that when 2 catholic statements are clearly irreconcilable, then why would we need an extra Reliable Source to point that out? Or, would relying on the primary source of the minority criticising the dominant ruling class be original research, and thus prone to error and would that discredit[REDACTED] as unreliable, amateuristic and so forth? Xiutwel-0002 (talk) 20:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If we took the original situation, we would be able to quote Luther, but we would have to avoid the temptation to interpret what he says ourselves (if we can claim that the experts cannot understand what Luther says correctly, why should we presume that we - more or less anonymous Wikipedians with no proved expertise - are likely to do any better?). The result might look somewhat like this: "In his 95 theses Luther has written 'X'. Theologian Y has argued that it implies Z, which is heretical according to the decisions of U.". It stays mostly the same way in the second situation: if the experts cannot see that "statements are clearly irreconcilable", then it's probably not that clear for us to decide. Thus the fact that Luther thinks those statements contradict each other would be considered to be simply a fact about Luther's views and would probably be included into the article about him (maybe with a note that the theologians in question see no contradiction, if we can get a source for that). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) I can't speak native American either (except for a couple of words in the Sioux language). I think you meant native English speaker but yeah, I get tired - not of this question, but of the squabbles it often leads to.

to answer your question, though: My view on this is that sources are there to verify statements written in wikipedia, not to prove them accurate. If the goal of an article is to describe a particular set of beliefs, you describe the beliefs and then you reference a source so that readers can see that your description follows from what the source says. Primary sources are perfectly acceptable for this purpose. The danger of primary sources lies mainly in the fact that primary sources are usually trying to assert something as true, and we need to be very clear that we are describing what they say without looking like we are advocating for their position (this is why secondary sources are preferred where available - they usually don't have that assertive edge). So for the hypothetical example, in an article about the 95 Theses we describe what (fringe theorist) Luther says, and if Luther references a debate in the greater realm of Catholic scholarship then we write about how Luther referenced that debate (which may entail describing the debate briefly to keep it from only presenting Luther's side). There would probably be no need to mention Luther at all in an article about the debate in the greater realm of Catholic scholarship (not unless Luther's opinion was a prominent and direct part of that debate). does that make sense? --Ludwigs2 20:38, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know much about Luther. I disagree with Ludwig on the idea that Misplaced Pages should not strive for accuracy. To verify information is to prove it accurate. Facts (verities) are provable, including the facts surrounding an opinion (point of view). Proving an opinion is impossible. All we can do is verify that it exists. Secondary sources usually provide expert interpretation of opinions. To demonstrate, here is an opinion from a primary source interpretated by a reliable secondary source:

Airplane technology rapidly increased after World War I. By 1936, dogfighting was thought to be a thing of the past, since aircraft were reaching top speeds of over 250 miles per hour. This was proved wrong during the Spanish civil war, as quoted by the U.S. Attaché in 1937, “The peacetime theory of the complete invulnerability of the modern type of bombardment airplane no longer holds. The increased speeds of both the bombardment and pursuit plane have worked in favor of the pursuit … The flying fortress died in Spain.”

I've used primary sources myself, such as the US Navy's flight instruction manual. However, I have a little expertize in the field and fully understand the information provided. We must be careful when interpreting primary sources to avoid misinterpretation and synthesis, which are both easy to stray into without even knowing it. Primary sources are also used quite often to insert information that isn't prominent, (see: WP:PROMINENCE). If info is notable it'll usually be found in multiple secondary sources. So the cop-out answer to your question is that it depends on many circumstances that must be determined on a case by case basis.

Also, there is a difference between native American and American Natives, and not just anybody can get a book published, (just try it). Zaereth (talk) 00:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course we should strive for accuracy. but the accuracy we should strive for is accuracy about what's presented by sources, not accuracy about what's true in the world. it's nice when the information presented in sources lines up nicely with conventional knowledge about the world (as is true of most technical manuals and scientific reports), but when we are reporting on opinions or ideas that go counter to conventional norms, then we need to present the ideas faithfully in the terms of the people who offer them and afterwards balance them with conventional viewpoints. we don't want to try to present a non-normal view through the lens of conventional knowledge, because that will only end up making the non-normal view look abnormal (will all the negative implications of that word), and that is not a desirable outcome. and sorry about the native american pun - I couldn't resist --Ludwigs2 01:24, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you are using "conventional" to mean "accepted by people in your immediate friend circle" or " things I just know are right." Scientific progress always comes by finding conventional wisdom or long held obvious beliefs to be wrong. Calling something conventional as you do above just makes it sound like a rationalized or intellectualized way of saying " the right POV." Indeed, conventiional I would think is reflet in source prominence- voodoo could be the conventional belief. You want to document norms and deviants, not say that the deviants are wrong. I would also point out that being able to look at some data set- reliable wiki sources, evidence at a crime scene, or data about anti-oxidants free of any conclusiosns too obvious to question is the first step in making scientific or other progress towards factual truths. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 12:32, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

no, I'm meaning 'conventional' to mean 'according to the current state of knowledge in the relevant arena'. Even something as solidly 'factual' as gravity is merely a scientific theory that has developed over time, so that different eras have different scientific understandings of what it is. Right now the 'conventional' understanding has gravity as a characteristic of spaces - 100 years ago, conventional knowledge had gravity as a force (a characteristic of objects, not spaces), the current conventional knowledge may change in the future (re gravitons or string theory). With less-settled ideas you'll have more competition between theories: either you'll have one (currently) dominant theory and a bunch of well-defined alternates or you'll have a situation in which no theory is taken as 'conventional' knowledge universally. but still... --Ludwigs2 17:55, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. Sorry I misread you, for apparently we are in agreement. And no problem about the pun. I just thought I'd point that out, since it often comes up in my area. Zaereth (talk) 04:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I should also maybe state the issue with "documenting what people think" as it relates to being a valid objective rather than telling them what you just know is right. Consider the case of trying to study a topic, a reader who wants to do what you want to do in the wiki article needs to understand the various POV's to make a strategic determination or just look for more cases of people doing stupid things. If looking to write a proposal, you want to know your compettion of widely held beliefs that could impact your approach- consider stem cell research for example. Even in securities analysis you have two competing quantities- value or what it is worth compared to the current market price which is basically a popularity contest ( or as Graham says you have a weighting and a voting machine). If you want to buy low and sell high, you need to determine if the market price is lower than real value ( and therefore likely to go up or become irrelevant as you hold the bargain you bought and harvest the returns). So, you need to know "why is everyone stupid besides me" to be reasonably sure you are getting a bargain. Does that help reduce the temptation to push The Right POV in an encyclopedic article on a controversial issue? Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 15:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how any of these hypothetical situations have much to do with the primary role of an encyclopedia. In fact, "pushing the Right POV" (in plainly factual matters, at least) is a temptation that encyclopedias should not resist. Phiwum (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no right POV or wrong POV. How can anyone's opinion be wrong? There are only prominent opinions and not-so-prominent opinions. We give them the same weight as the plethora of reliable sources do.

Ludwig's example of gravity is good. We can give facts we know about gravity, the laws, without fear of bias. Unfortunately, that's not very much. Everything else is just theory, or, in other words, an opinion which is backed up with evidence, but which can not be proved with that evidence. Using prominence, we can determine that Newton's opinion is almost as important to understanding the subject as Einstein's opinion. Alternative theories, however, are just not as prominent yet, so don't get nearly as much weight. By balancing opinions we achieve neutrality. Zaereth (talk) 22:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It simply boggles my mind that you doubt whether opinions could be wrong. Of course they can. The earth is not flat, despite the fact that a few people think that it is. These folk have wrong opinions. In other matters, of course, it may be more difficult to show conclusively that a belief is mistaken, but it is nonetheless obvious that the "right" (best justified, but not necessarily correct) opinion is the one with the preponderance of evidence, that coheres with background knowledge and so on.

Of course, there are many areas in which I would not dare to declare one view better than another. But the fact is that there are other areas in which it is clear which view is best supported by contemporary knowledge and WP should not hesitate to make this fact apparent. Pretending that pseudoscientific nonsense is a gem awaiting discovery and polish is a disservice to our readers. Phiwum (talk) 14:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Everyone says that wnat to make things known until something comes up they don't happen to like. In this case, it would seem that the best or right POV would have the best coverage in reliable sources and then it is just a matter of prominence. At issue seems to be when your opinion of what has to be right differs from the source coverage among various communities. I think we probably agree on leading with the evidence, to the extent primary sources can be used to establish that which has been noted by others. But prominence just creates the question, "contemporary knowledge among whom?" and then you need to ask " how good is their evidence?" At this point, merit and popularity seem to conflate. Sure, you expect and oncologist to know more about cancer than Suzanne Sommers but her appearance on Oprah probably makes her more prominent among contemporary large communitiies. Leading with evidence and opinions from reliable sources should provide context- you don't need to push anything onto the reader. If you want to push then dig into the sources, don't inflict good intentions onto the reader is all I'm saying. Also note than singular and highly improbable events do occur and that history is simply not testable directly. However, the same observer who sees a UFO can have a bad hair day staring at a petri dish but presumably any observations in that setting wshould be reproducible if they are important. Conspiracies do happen too, and notable ones could be of interest for a variety of resaons if nothing other than understanding how humans behave in the wild. So, again, many of these articles I don't think cause us to differ on specific but talk here sounds a bit militant sometimes. Good intentions can be a bad problem. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, but this noticeboard seems to deteriorate into a general brainstorming on general principles. This discussion belongs on a project talkpage, such as Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories, and I hereby propose to move it there to reduce clutter on this noticeboard. Incidentially, I also resent the naive assumption that Roman Catholicism is "a position" and that there was no theological dispute prior to Luther. --dab (𒁳) 18:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Fringe theory ground rules

My experience as an ArbCom clerk leads me to agree with Seddon, this will almost certainly not be accepted. Dougweller (talk) 17:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

It appears it has not been. Simonm223 (talk) 13:15, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Great Pyramid of Giza

An article with few editors interested in it, but see . I'm not sure if I should have brought this here or the NOR board. Dougweller (talk) 08:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

All I can say is wow. "So much verifiable 'measurements in the stone' -based math seems to obviate the long-debated Egyptian pyramids 'tomb theory' -- at least for the 'Great' Pyramid of Giza. Upon what grounds does one deny such plain and straightforward basic 'math-in-stone'?" When do the aliens join in?

To be serious revert back however far your need too to return the article to some semblance of reality.

Here he changes a quote to something the ref does not say from 25000000 to 26000000.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

mensurology, eh? 524.1483 mm for the Royal Cubit? Seven digits accuracy, not bad at all for the Middle Bronze Age. --dab (𒁳) 17:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Pretty good even for the Middle Titanium Age, at that. Mangoe (talk) 18:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Aubrey de Grey

The subject of Aubrey de Grey has recently begun to edit his biography and related discussions from various IP addresses (including 212.183.140.4, 212.183.140.52, 81.155.164.81 and possibly also as new single-purpose account User:Marainein). de Grey appears to want to portray his idea that human beings will soon live forever (if they follow his genetic re-engineering strategy, including inserting mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus and lengthening telomeres in an unspecified fashion) as a concept generally accepted by the scientific community, when as far as I can tell, the only scientists agreeing seem to be on the board of his immortality organisation. I placed a notice at AN/I about the COI (after a COIN report went nowhere), but it wouldn't hurt for other editors to take a look at this and related articles.

de Grey's Methusaleh Foundation has established a notable prize, and de Grey edits his own journal, but does this make his speculations mainstream science? Are we truly to the point where declaring that humans will live forever is not WP:FRINGE?

Aubrey de Grey is just one of many fork-like articles on immortality speculation related to de Grey, including SENS Foundation, Rejuvenation (aging), Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, Methuselah Foundation and De Grey Technology Review debate, most of which are built around SENS website pages (and in some cases copied text) and not much else. A thorough clean-up is required. Any volunteers? Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I reinstated this question because, as wonderful as we may all think Jimbo Wales to be, he does not have the experience editing Misplaced Pages FRINGE articles that many here do. I think that there are bizarre sentences in this article and the biography runs a bit soapy for my tastes. The one critical source is enlightening indeed and probably needs to be given more WP:WEIGHT than it currently enjoys. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:58, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Pursuant to this, see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Rejuvenation Research and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Methuselah Foundation. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:44, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Is the American Aging Association related? Verbal chat 22:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Unfortunately, it is difficult to distinguish between legitimate biogerontology synergistic research institutes and cryonics fantasies. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a handy category: Category:Life_extension. is garden probably needs weeding. Verbal chat 22:51, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Michael Behe

This ID proponent's article seems to be having trouble with WP:RS and possible WP:BLP issues. Help required! Thanks, Verbal chat

It seems the article is being paired back quite far, and on grounds I'm not convinced about (though they might have some merit). Please also review the history and talk page. I'm sure there are some Intelligent Design veterans around here. Verbal chat

I think that best can be called a "hatchet job". Just about anything critical was removed or restated in a gentler tone. Ravensfire (talk) 00:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Been completely gutted. Washington Post, New Scientist, NSCE are "not reliable sources." The Fuck? Auntie E. (talk) 04:32, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah - and not even consistently done. Shrug - I've got my ideas on the source of this, just not sure exactly how the hachetman got pulled into this. Odd, WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE aren't mentioned, only WP:BLP. Hmmm, now why could that be ... Ravensfire (talk) 05:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

This one's been brought up on the BLP noticeboard as well, with claims that things like saying his ideas "are not accepted by mainstream scientists" is a BLP violation. At the moment, sourcing is being provided on the article's Talk page, but this one bears watching. — The Hand That Feeds You: 17:08, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

The True Furqan

This bizarre article has just received a massive and highly nonencyclopedic expansion by an SPA, Frank777w (talk · contribs). The changes have been reverted, but it's not clear how the story will develop, and more eyes might be useful. Looie496 (talk) 22:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that's one of the most massive examples of OR I'd ever seen. It also appears Frank777w (talk · contribs) is hell-bent for 3RR and beyond.... - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:49, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

External links at Ron Wyatt and Durupinar site

The main problem is at the Durupinar site article, a link farm of pro and con sites, I've started a talk page discussion on both articles mentioning WP:UNDUE. There's an IP Wyatt fan involved. Some comments on the talk page at least would be useful. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 08:54, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The folks at WP:ELN might be interested as well. Gabbe (talk) 09:48, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

What concerns me is that both articles seem to have a lot of references to anti-Wyatt, but still fringe sources like Answers in Genesis. Also there are two images near the bottom of the Durupinar article (a pic of several drogue stones and a pic of Fasold standing next to an alleged drogue stone) that seem to have been pulled from a website without proper licensing. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 19:04, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't find the first image, but the second seems to come from here - the first one may be from the same site, I haven't looked through it. Dougweller (talk) 19:53, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the other image I'm referring to. If you look at the captions for both images, you'll see that there are external links in both captions that go to external version of a large image that the images were cropped from. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 22:23, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Moses as the founder of democracy

At Moses as symbol in American history there appears to be a mixture of legitimate accounts of the important symbolic role Moses has played in struggles for freedom (Civil Rights movement, etc.), but also pseudo-historical claims that Moses and the 10 C's are the basis of democracy and human rights. I noticed this when the author of that article added a summary of it to the into of Ten Commandments, and, after I removed that, created a new section for it further down in the article. I haven't read the sources, but this has the appearance of recent domestic movements to rewrite US history to argue that America was founded as a Christian state. I don't have the background in history to argue this myself. kwami (talk) 08:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

well, I have seen people refer to early Hebrew governance (post exodus, pre judges) as a kind of democracy, but it's not a very significant idea in scholarly circles (it's not a refuted theory, really, just not something that's caught much interest). I can't imagine you could do much with the idea on[REDACTED] without a good bit of synthesis. I'll take a look. --Ludwigs2 08:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Ghost

There have been some recent problematic edits attempting to add unrelated commentary about the Committee for skeptical inquiry to this article. Please see Talk:Ghost#confused by a revert, review, and discuss. Thanks, Verbal chat 19:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Longevity traditions (recently Longevity Myths)

Longevity traditions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article needs some balance toward neutrality, and it's a bit more than I can handle. There's some unqualified creation science attributing the long ages of Adam et al. to the antediluvian "firmament". The other sections aren't much better.

NB: I did change the title from "Longevity myths" because of our section on the word "myth" as a word to avoid in the casual sense. If anyone disagrees, feel free to change it back. Auntie E. (talk) 19:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Viral causes of autism, CFS, etc.

A very determined cabal of editors with obvious and in one case admitted personal interests are promoting some slightly fringe ideas at a variety of related articles including chronic fatigue syndrome, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus and Whittemore Peterson Institute. The chronic fatigue syndrome "walled garden" (as an experienced editor described these articles to me) has been a notorious haven of activists for a particular view of disease causation (namely, that a virus is responsible for what they prefer to call "myalgic encephalopathy" or "X-associated neuroimmune disease"), and has witnessed some rather deprecable behaviour in the past.

To the best of my knowledge, no scientific study claiming viral aetiology of CFS has been confirmed. The latest virus claim (XMRV), published in Science last October, was contradicted by a PLoS ONE report in January. Several special-interest editors are now using Misplaced Pages as a soapbox to promote the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI), responsible for the Science report. They delete any information about the institute that they deem somehow negative, even if it's from the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. They remove accurate descriptions of the Institute's findings in favour of scientifically inaccurate summaries. They won't allow mention of the status of Ampligen, a drug rejected by the FDA and with which the founders have a long and intimate history. Additional, current issues:

• WPI was founded by individuals who believe a virus is the cause of CFS, for the purpose of researching CFS. Two early (reported) versions of the institute's name also made this clear. The CFS editors have deleted this information from the article in favour of the institute's own, relatively recent, claim that it's a research institute for CFS, autism, fibromyalgia, MS, gulf war syndrome and other "acquired" diseases with "neuro-immune" aetiologies. Of course, this characterisation is simply wrong, as none of these conditions is widely accepted as acquired, and with the exception of MS, "neuro-immune" involvement is not well established.
• WPI consists of one laboratory and two PhDs. Editors at the article won't allow any mention of the institute's size, for example as reported by The Guardian.
• The lead investigator for WPI, Judy Mikovits, is probably the only Institute director to have been hired from behind a bar in a yacht club. To the CFS editors, it's neither interesting nor noteworthy, even when reported by the New York Times, that Mikovits got the job through someone she was serving in a bar, so they delete.
• When another team published contradictory results, the lead investigator for WPI, in a reliable source, explicitly accused them of doctoring their experiments and of being part of an insurance company plot to discredit her institute. The special-interest editors say that mentioning this would be a BLP violation and that I am guilty of "fabrication".
• Harvey Whittemore, WPI's founder, has a close friendship with the Senate majority leader in the United States, as well as with another Senator, both of whom have earmarked federal money for his Institute/the University of Nevada Centre that will house it later this year. For whatever reason, the CFS editors wish to conceal these relationships.

Any aid in bringing the Whittemore Peterson Institute article (and others) to a more NPOV, whilst fairly and accurately emphasising the slightly out-of-the-mainstream stances of the institution's workers/founders would be greatly appreciated. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

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