Ray Saintonge wrote:
"Many people regard ..." carries a strong POV wallop It applies the logical fallacy that if a significant majority consider something to be true, then it must in fact be true.
No it doesn't. If something is true, then it is true. If in fact a great many people say and think a certain way, then the statement needs to be made.
A statement founded on public opinion should be subject to verification just as much as anything else.
Sorry, but polls do not exist for everything. Some things are just plain common sense because they are views so widely held. For example, the statement that OBL is a terrorist or that Al-Queda is a terrorist organization.
Of course more info is needed! Refining that we could say that they are both widely regarded as terrorist in the West and by nearly all national governments in the Arab world. That is attributing a POV to its adherents. It is also in line with NPOV.
Taking that out would be expressing the minority POV that they are not terrorist.
Oh and some things are so widely held that there is no real need to be wishy-washy about it. For example that the 9/11 attacks were terrorist acts. However, as I stated on that talk page the word 'terrorist' should be taken out of that title for other reasons (not common as shorter title and not needed for disambiguation).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
"Many people regard ..." carries a strong POV wallop It applies the
logical fallacy that if a significant majority consider something to
be
true, then it must in fact be true.
No it doesn't. If something is true, then it is true. If in fact a great many people say and think a certain way, then the statement needs to be made.
It isn't the truth of it that I am questioning. I am questioning that the "statement needs to be made". Consider whether you would like to see the statement "Some people consider that his teeth are crooked" in (say) the article on George Bush even if the truth of that statement could be positively established. I guess that you would take it out, which (if I'm right) shows that the mere truth of a statement is not really your criterion for including it. You must have an additional reason. Not referring specificially to yourself, I suggest that the main reason that people include statements like "Some people believe that X is a terrorist" is that they WANT to attach that label to that person and not because they have a disinterested intention to report a fact. They should instead devote more effort to reporting hard data about X ("X has been responsible for many attacks on civilians, including ... and ..."), then readers who like labels like "terrorism" will have no trouble attaching them. I think this shows respect for the intelligence of the reader.
Zero.
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zero 0000 wrote:
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
"Many people regard ..." carries a strong POV wallop It applies the
logical fallacy that if a significant majority consider something to
be
true, then it must in fact be true.
No it doesn't. If something is true, then it is true. If in fact a great many people say and think a certain way, then the statement needs to be made.
It isn't the truth of it that I am questioning. I am questioning that the "statement needs to be made". Consider whether you would like to see the statement "Some people consider that his teeth are crooked" in (say) the article on George Bush even if the truth of that statement could be positively established. I guess that you would take it out, which (if I'm right) shows that the mere truth of a statement is not really your criterion for including it. You must have an additional reason. Not referring specificially to yourself, I suggest that the main reason that people include statements like "Some people believe that X is a terrorist" is that they WANT to attach that label to that person and not because they have a disinterested intention to report a fact. They should instead devote more effort to reporting hard data about X ("X has been responsible for many attacks on civilians, including ... and ..."), then readers who like labels like "terrorism" will have no trouble attaching them. I think this shows respect for the intelligence of the reader.
In this case, I think the statement does need to be made. OBL is widely referred to as "terrorist" or "terrorist mastermind". If it were particularly notorious and commonly discussed that GWB had crooked teeth, or if perhaps he were widely referred to as "the man with the crooked teeth", we should of course report that fact as well. But as far as I know, that's not the case, so we don't.
If a label is very widely attached to something, we ought to report that the label is very widely attached, and if possible discuss at least briefly who commonly attaches it. Otherwise, we're very conspicuously omitting a well-known and relevant fact. In the case of OBL, the label is relevant to a number of worldwide conflicts, and especially relevant to US politics, both domestic and as regards foreign relations. In short, OBL may or may not be a terrorist, but it is a fact that he is called such by nearly all governments in the world, and by public opinion in the West, and that fact is one that ought to be reported, as it is both relevant and has important consequences.
-Mark
Maveric149 (Daniel Mayer) wrote in part:
Of course more info is needed! Refining that we could say that they are both widely regarded as terrorist in the West and by nearly all national governments in the Arab world. That is attributing a POV to its adherents. It is also in line with NPOV.
Taking that out would be expressing the minority POV that they are not terrorist.
You've said this a couple times now, but I must disagree strongly.
/Failing/ to state X is *not* equivalent to /denying/ X!!!
So you and Ec may disagree over whether the statement "Many people consider Osama Bin Laden to be a terrorist.", in the absence of additional facts, is sufficiently NPOV; but his position (to remove it in the absence of such facts) does not advocate the opposite POV.
-- Toby
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
Maveric149 (Daniel Mayer) wrote in part:
Of course more info is needed! Refining that we could say that they are both widely regarded as terrorist in the West and by nearly all national governments in the Arab world. That is attributing a POV to its adherents. It is also in line with NPOV.
Taking that out would be expressing the minority POV that they are not terrorist.
You've said this a couple times now, but I must disagree strongly.
/Failing/ to state X is *not* equivalent to /denying/ X!!!
So you and Ec may disagree over whether the statement "Many people consider Osama Bin Laden to be a terrorist.", in the absence of additional facts, is sufficiently NPOV; but his position (to remove it in the absence of such facts) does not advocate the opposite POV.
A lie of omission is still a lie. So to take out the word 'terrorist' from [[Osama Bin Laden]] is dishonest and gives the impression that Wikipedia is saying that, in direct opposition to what most of the western world thinks, that OBL is not a terrorist. And when I say that something will not be tolerated, I mean that that behavior will be countered and negated. So in this case the correct NPOV sentence about what many in the West feel is going to be continuously put back into that article one way or the other.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Maveric149 (Daniel Mayer) wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Maveric149 wrote:
Taking that out would be expressing the minority POV that they are not terrorist.
You've said this a couple times now, but I must disagree strongly. /Failing/ to state X is *not* equivalent to /denying/ X!!!
A lie of omission is still a lie.
I'm sorry, mav, but you've completely lost me here.
I've heard of deceiving people by leaving things out, but that's definitely not what happens in an NPOV dispute when somebody removes a "Many people think ..." statement. This is deliberately a choice to refuse to state an opinion. And in this NPOV dispute, the person taking Ec's position is even open to including a more carefully worded, documented statement.
The only deception would be if we described Osama Bin Laden in such a way that people might get the impression that many people /don't/ think that he's a terrorist. Then by failing to point out that this is wrong, we deceive. That's definitely not the situation that Ec was talking about.
If instead we take the position, as you seem to advocate, that failing to mention an important fact about somebody is a "lie of omission", then NPOV is an unworkable policy. Disputants with no documentation or evidence on either side will have nothing to do but revert each other over and over; it will be impossible to settle on any sort of compromise. Instead, Wikipedia should take the position that we include information only when it well established, and disputants that want to include text must back that up. Silence from Wikipedia must always indicate ''incompleteness'' (and Wikipedia is always incomplete), never denial.
It's also insufficient to cry "common sense" and say that everybody ''knows'' that OBL is widely considered a terrorist. In this case, I don't know it until you add "in the west", and Ec may not know it in any case. OK, so we're wrong! But this is where NPOV comes in and says "If people don't agree on the claim, then state the reasons instead." Common knowledge cannot replace NPOV when it's not, in fact, common.
-- Toby
On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Daniel Mayer wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
"Many people regard ..." carries a strong POV wallop It applies the logical fallacy that if a significant majority consider something to be true, then it must in fact be true.
No it doesn't. If something is true, then it is true. If in fact a great many people say and think a certain way, then the statement needs to be made.
My thinking about this issue revolves around the utility of this statement.
Saying that 9/11 was considered by many people as a terrorist act is a useful statement, because it then leads to explaining the various responses: visible signs of patriotism in the US, a number of public shows of support for not only the US but for the Fire Department and Police Departments of New York City, passage of the US PATRIOT act.
Saying that Usama ben Laden is considered by many people as a terrorist doesn't offer anything more than a possible widespread opinion -- unless it is linked to the fact that he is currently hiding in Pakistan or Afghanistan from the US government, who are looking for him for that very reason.
A statement founded on public opinion should be subject to verification just as much as anything else.
Sorry, but polls do not exist for everything. Some things are just plain common sense because they are views so widely held. For example, the statement that OBL is a terrorist or that Al-Queda is a terrorist organization.
Of course more info is needed! Refining that we could say that they are both widely regarded as terrorist in the West and by nearly all national governments in the Arab world. That is attributing a POV to its adherents. It is also in line with NPOV.
Having written more than once words to the efect "it is widely believed that", my excuse is that I can prove this statement, but in the press to get _something_ into Wikipedia, I'll use those 5 words, or a variation on them. However, I also try to qualify those words with something like: "a significant minority, however thinks Y because" or "an eloquent minority dissents". There are people who think Usama ben Laden is a freedom fighter, & I think their reaons are worth noting -- although I may not agree with them.
[snip]
Oh and some things are so widely held that there is no real need to be wishy-washy about it. For example that the 9/11 attacks were terrorist acts. However, as I stated on that talk page the word 'terrorist' should be taken out of that title for other reasons (not common as shorter title and not needed for disambiguation).
It is nice that on Wikipedia we are allowed to call a spade a spade. However, some people misunderstand statements like this, & think we are talking about African Americans, when we are alluding to Tacitus' desire to use lofty language. That is where we get into nasty conflicts.
Geoff