David Gerard wrote:
Nationalist POV pushing is becoming a real problem on Wikipedia. Particularly in cases where it appears semi-official, as with these cases and with User:Levzur on Georgia-related articles. I suspect a series of AC rulings as we go isn't really the best way to approach the problem. What can we do abouthis sort of thing? Gdansk/Danzig is just the tip of it.
The only thing we can do about it is what we've always done about it, and it's the best solution anyway:
DESCRIBE EACH SIDE'S POV
Say that according to _this_ group of nationalists, the situation is like this. Then say that according to _that_ group of nationalists, the situation is like that.
Here's an example, from a different controversy. Gay rights groups generally maintain that the homosexual population of the US and/or UK is at ten percent (10%). Conservatives say it's much lower: one or two percent (1% to 2%) for males, two or three percent (2% to 3%) for females.
So what should the Wikipedia article say? Should it endorse the side which is obviously right? No, because it's a disputed matter. Each side touts its own 'objective' scientific studies and asserts that they are being totally sincere about "just wanting to tell the truth" about the situation.
Enter the NPOV policy:
*According to the HRC, the US male homosexual percentage is 10% (or whatever their website or books say) *According to NARTH, the percentage is 1% to 2%.
We can also say:
*The general public is more sympathetic to HRC's views, and the higher figure is generally used by mainstream journalists. *Moreover, [[gay rights]] activists dismiss NARTH's research as hopelessly biased due to the groups perceived "anti-gay" prejudice.
I didn't check just now, but I think that's pretty much how the Wikipedia describes the topic now.
I think we should handle all Nationalist POV the same way: describe each POV, and possibly indicate how widely held it is.
Ed Poor
But it doesn't work that way. Take [[Gdansk]], for example. We TRY to keep "In German, ''Danzig''", mainly because as far as a lot of English speakers are concerned, it still IS Danzig, and because that was the name it was known to English speakers for years up till about 20 years ago. But the nationalists refuse to allow that -- at best, they'll throw in French spellings, spellings from three or four other obscure languages, or just delete the Danzig phrase altogether, as "Nazi". They come back over and over again, with different anon or sockpuppet accounts, and replace it on a weekly basis. They are unwilling to accept anything but THEIR POV.
RickK
"Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote: David Gerard wrote:
Nationalist POV pushing is becoming a real problem on Wikipedia. Particularly in cases where it appears semi-official, as with these cases and with User:Levzur on Georgia-related articles. I suspect a series of AC rulings as we go isn't really the best way to approach the problem. What can we do abouthis sort of thing? Gdansk/Danzig is just the tip of it.
The only thing we can do about it is what we've always done about it, and it's the best solution anyway:
DESCRIBE EACH SIDE'S POV
Say that according to _this_ group of nationalists, the situation is like this. Then say that according to _that_ group of nationalists, the situation is like that.
Here's an example, from a different controversy. Gay rights groups generally maintain that the homosexual population of the US and/or UK is at ten percent (10%). Conservatives say it's much lower: one or two percent (1% to 2%) for males, two or three percent (2% to 3%) for females.
So what should the Wikipedia article say? Should it endorse the side which is obviously right? No, because it's a disputed matter. Each side touts its own 'objective' scientific studies and asserts that they are being totally sincere about "just wanting to tell the truth" about the situation.
Enter the NPOV policy:
*According to the HRC, the US male homosexual percentage is 10% (or whatever their website or books say) *According to NARTH, the percentage is 1% to 2%.
We can also say:
*The general public is more sympathetic to HRC's views, and the higher figure is generally used by mainstream journalists. *Moreover, [[gay rights]] activists dismiss NARTH's research as hopelessly biased due to the groups perceived "anti-gay" prejudice.
I didn't check just now, but I think that's pretty much how the Wikipedia describes the topic now.
I think we should handle all Nationalist POV the same way: describe each POV, and possibly indicate how widely held it is.
Ed Poor _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
On 08/09/04 12:54, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
The only thing we can do about it is what we've always done about it, and it's the best solution anyway: DESCRIBE EACH SIDE'S POV
You're not listening to the description of the actual problem. We get floods of the idjits to the point where people stop bothering with the problematic article. We get reversion warriors operating behind AOL proxies. In the case of user:Levzur, we have what is apparently a paid operative to push a particular POV.
You are responding with apparent homilies; please show their application to e.g. a simple case like Gdansk/Danzig. Not just something that would suffice for the (hypothetical) reasonable, but something that would actually slow down the less reasonable.
It's one thing to come up with a theoretically optimal solution. It's quite another to come up with a solution that is so obvious and elegant as to actually slow down the flood of crap.
- d.
On Mon, 9 Aug 2004 05:54:21 -0700, Poor, Edmund W edmund.w.poor@abc.com wrote:
The only thing we can do about it is what we've always done about it, and it's the best solution anyway:
DESCRIBE EACH SIDE'S POV
Say that according to _this_ group of nationalists, the situation is like this. Then say that according to _that_ group of nationalists, the situation is like that.
Already done. Won't work. They go and remove the other side's POVs, or revert to the not-yet-NPOV-ed version.
See some of the articles' histories and you'll get what I mean. One example is [[Azerbaijanis]] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Azerbaijanis&action=history). Look at what 198.81.26.80 is doing.
roozbeh
--- Roozbeh Pournader roozbeh@gmail.com wrote:
Already done. Won't work. They go and remove the other side's POVs, or revert to the not-yet-NPOV-ed version.
pull in some admins, call for mediation, and keep yourself cool (a walk outside works wonders)
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
On Mon, 9 Aug 2004 16:03:33 -0700 (PDT), Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
pull in some admins,
already done. that's the reason I sent the original email.
call for mediation,
won't work since the guys won't talk, let alone participate in mediation.
and keep yourself cool (a walk outside works wonders)
already done. works for me, but not for wikipedia. ;-)
roozbeh