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Should the article 2019–2021 Persian Gulf crisis exist?

This article has a number of problems. It strikes me as a violation of our policies on WP:OR. The content is not the main issue, though there are significant WP:PROSELINE issues. But the article's existence takes many separate incidents, almost all of which already have independent Wikipedia page, and amalgamates them into one big crisis that doesn't seem to exist in reliable sources. This is a type of synthesis/original research.

The article was originally split off from Iran–United States relations due to size, but it has just become a dumping ground for every little thing that happens in the Gulf or between the US and Iran, violating our WP:NOTNEWS policy as well. The article's content is already adequately covered at the many linked articles on specific incidents (May 2019 Gulf of Oman incident, June 2019 Gulf of Oman incident, 2019 Iranian shoot-down of American drone, 2019 K-1 Air Base attack, Attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, July 2021 Gulf of Oman incident, Assassination of Qasem Soleimani and several others). The article's content is also covered at Iran–United States relations, Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, Iran–Israel proxy conflict, Iranian intervention in Iraq (2014–present), Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, and several others. This article's existence is redundant. Its content is either better covered elsewhere or too trivial for inclusion at all.

I'm not convinced that this noticeboard is the right place to bring this up, but I couldn't think of a better place; if there is one, please let me know and I'll move it there. Starting an AfD would be the next step, but I wanted to discuss the issue in broader context first before going straight to deletion. —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:10, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

According to the BBC there is/was(?) a crisis Iran and the crisis in the Gulf explained so it wouldn't seem to be OR on the face of it, at least originally. So the issue then would appear to be the scope, the original material that was split out must as well have had a scope at the time. If the article now contains material outside the scope (a "dumping ground") then maybe the simplest thing is to trim it. I haven't looked in detail but even if all those individual articles cover specific events in more detail, the "parent" article may still be good as overview depending on what sourcing is available. Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

• I found this, let's say, news feed some months ago and tried to raise some similar sort of awareness (like here). At the time, there were also attempts aimed at updating the title to 2022, which I strongly believed was not in accordance with WP:OR. I am still unable to find reliable sources showing the GNG criteria, those which directly say there is a crisis out there which specificly belongs to the modern history of the PG. Needless to say that Persian Gulf had been stormy throughout its history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhhossein (talk • contribs) 11:43, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Ganesha811:, are you willing to keep up with discussion? --Mhhossein ^talk 10:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean? —Ganesha811 (talk) 11:30, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• Note: given the lack of response here (except for Selfstudier and Mhhossein - thank you!) I have nominated the article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2019–2021 Persian Gulf crisis. —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:15, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Eyes needed on 2021-2022 inflation surge

Could editors please have a look at that page, and in particular the recent edits referenced in these talk page threads: here and here. An editor has reinstated some dubious content. SPECIFICO talk 17:17, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Singularity (system theory)

• Singularity (system theory) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article is a pretty severe mess of OR. It seems to have been translated from dewiki in 2016, with very little substantive change since then. It reads like a personal essay with unclear scope/topic, attempting to bring loosely related ideas under the same umbrella. I can't really access most of these sources (some are in German, too), and I'm not sure what should be done here...AFD? Can anything be salvaged. Some eyes would be welcome. Thanks! 35.139.154.158 (talk) 05:46, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, the article is a mess.... AFD could be a option here, or possibly splitting up some of the topics into there own articles. I would like to lend a hand once we agree on what is to be done. Melancholyhelper (talk) 13:58, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I prefer improvement to deletion. The content is fine; it's not featured-level (or Good-level) of course, but it covers a notable topic, has a very basic outline of the subject, and cited good sources. DFlhb (talk) 09:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Sámi Parliament of Norway election results

I have been working on the articles relating to the Sámi Parliament of Norway for about a year, and have struggled to find results for elections from 19899, 1993 and 1997 (which are on the Norwegian Wikipedia but are not complete).

I contacted the Parliament themselves, who are willing to send me physical, undigitised "booklets" from their library which contain them. I have sent back some questions about how they've been published, but how can I ensure that these do not violate the original research policy? JackWilfred (talk) 14:43, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

If the books are available in a library, then everyone else has access to them, too, even if they also have to e-mail the parliament or travel to Norway. They may be WP:PRIMARY, but using primary sources is acceptable for statements of fact, so I think you're probably clear. (See also WP:OFFLINE.) pburka (talk) 14:49, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. JackWilfred (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Possible OR on Lavender Oil

An editor removed the following statement, saying it wasn't found in the source:

If ingested, lavender oil is poisonous in amounts as small as 5 millilitres (0.18 imp fl oz; 0.17 US fl oz) due to its constituents linalyl acetate and linalool.

It was restored, and so I looked into the source and found the editor who removed it was correct, and reverted the restoration. It's now being contested.

the 5ml statement was in fact not referring to lavender oil. It's mentioned in the second paragraph of this article, and says "the risk depending on the oil used; the onset of toxicity can be rapid, and small quantities (as little as 5 mL) can cause life-threatening toxicity in children.3" My bolding. The study cited in that article's paragraph, regarding the 5ml statement in particular, did not study lavender oil. A brief back-and-forth happened, before I brought it to the Talk Page here.

There is no dispute about lavender oil's toxicity, only the "5ml" statement, which is not referring to lavender oil.

The Talk Page discussion is not going anywhere, so I thought I'd bring it here. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 17:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• The two sources currnetly cited state for all essential oils they discuss (which include lavender oil), that 5ml is enough to be seriously toxic. So where's the OR? The OR is, rather, your reinterpretation of the source: you are in effect saying that the authors should not have generalized, but have written something different based on your reading of the underlying literature. Bon courage (talk) 18:13, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  I read it as essential oils can be toxic as low as 5ml, with the additional knowledge provided by paragraph 2, which states "depending on the oil," to which someone might wonder "which oil?" to which they can see the study cited, which lists those oils, and lavender is not one of them. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 18:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with this reading. It's incorrect to infer from "5mL of some essential oils are toxic" that "5mL of lavender oil is toxic". pburka (talk) 19:28, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Category:Continuous pitch instruments has been nominated for discussion

Category:Continuous pitch instruments has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:44, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

List of sovereign states

Page: List of sovereign states (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
This article is a list of places that meet the criteria of sovereign state as defined by Wikipedia editors. Predictably, the editors cannot agree on the criteria or which states fit it, other than UN member states. So there are to date 15 pages of archived discussions.

To me, this is clear original research and the article should be deleted. Does anyone have any other views?

TFD (talk) 15:13, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah should either be a recognized criterion (e.g. UN recognized), or else deleted. Can't have Wikipedia editors deciding what a sovereign State is! Bon courage (talk) 15:16, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

There is a recognized criterion, and both the 'deciding what a sovereign state is' criteria and reliable sources about that criteria are external, not decided by Wikipedia editors. CMD (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I'd agree with CMD, but would also note that the article is 21 years old, very high-profile, and involves several of Wikipedia's most intractable nationalist editing disputes. In context, 15 pages of archives is remarkably little, and certainly not evidence of OR. Kahastok talk 15:29, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

There are actually two recognized competing criteria, as noted in the article, the constitutive theory of statehood and the declarative theory of statehood. The article synthesizes the two, in violation of Synthesis of published material, which is explained in detail in List of sovereign states#Criteria for inclusion.

But even if there was a source for the criterion for inclusion, there's still synthesis because Wikipedia editors are applying the criterion to the facts and presenting their own conclusions. Synthesis of published material says, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source."

TFD (talk) 17:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Which sovereign states in the list are identified as such by way of a synthesis as described? Selfstudier (talk) 18:21, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Vatican City, Palestine, Cook Islands, Niue, Kosovo, Abkhazia, Artsakh, Donetsk, Luhansk, Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Somaliland, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Taiwan. But names continue to be added and removed from the list as consensus changes about the criteria and which places meet it. TFD (talk) 20:46, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

The reason this isn't synthesis is because of the words to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. The sourcing requirement for the list is that sources must be available that reach the conclusion that a state legally exists. As such, sources are available in all these cases with the possible exceptions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and that's because of the very recent events surrounding this pair. Kahastok talk 21:09, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

The first two are non member observer states at the UN and are sovereign states in the sense that they have substantial (leaving aside any definition of "substantial") recognition from other UN member states per the constitutive theory (although for both one can also make the case that they satisfy the declarative theory). So in those two cases, where is the synthesis? Selfstudier (talk) 21:11, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• Let's include only UN member states (including former UN members that currently exist like Taiwan). This is the only simple and clear criterion for inclusion. Otherwise, there will be disputes to infinity. Nothing precludes from creating another separate list of entities whose statehood is disputable. Let's keep apples and oranges separately. My very best wishes (talk) 20:49, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

They are already listed at Member states of the United Nations#Current members. TFD (talk) 20:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

You are right. Then, I guess the List of sovereign states is just a typical supplementary list to page Sovereign state. Based on that, this list is OK right now, and one can use any (declarative or constitutive) criteria for inclusion. The problem: some of the items clearly do not satisfy any of these criteria, but a couple of contributors strenuously argue for inclusion like here [1]. My very best wishes (talk) 21:17, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• • Except, your definition isn't neutral, is it? You're basically saying that every country in the world is wrong when they recognise the Vatican, that most countries are wrong when they recognise Palestine, that most countries are wrong when they recognise Kosovo and so on. Meanwhile, your standard requires that we resurrect Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Kahastok talk 21:09, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Note that My very best wishes' post above was modified after I wrote mine. Kahastok talk 21:50, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

No, that is not what I am saying. Unlike you, I do not have a standard for what is or is not a sovereign state. I am not questioning all the non-UN member states that are listed, just saying that there is no neutral method for determining what states belong.

Take for example, Cook Islands and Niue, which are the subject of their own discussion page, Talk:List of sovereign states/Cook Islands and Niue. New Zealand asked the UN to remove them from their list of non-self-governing territories on the basis they were associated states, which are sovereign states that delegate their foreign relations to other states. But under New Zealand law, they are not independent.

The Vatican also frequently comes up in discussion. They do not have a "permanent population" which is required under the declarative definition, so instead we use the constitutive theory, which is based on international recognition. But North Cyprus fails the constitutive theory, so we include it because it meets the declarative definition.

TFD (talk) 22:17, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• Just to be constructive, what criteria for inclusion do you guys suggest? I can see two options. #1. Include only UN members, or #2. Include any item that is unquestionably consistent either with constitutive theory of statehood or with the declarative theory of statehood. Both options seem to be OK, #2 is probably preferred. My very best wishes (talk) 22:30, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• My recommendation is to always defer to independent reliable sources: if we can find quality sources describing a state as sovereign, then it is. e.g., Law, Power, and the Sovereign State says "In 1929 even the pope succeeded in becoming a sovereign leader when the Holy See gained sovereign status as the Vatican state", therefore the Vatican is a sovereign state. No reliable sources? Not sovereign! Conflicting sources? Report the dispute. pburka (talk) 22:45, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Vatican City is fine. My very best wishes (talk) 22:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

You were arguing for only UN Member States in the paragraph above, now you are not. This is the problem with trying to impose a criteria based on personal opinions about particular political entities. CMD (talk) 23:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the subject, but simply looking at the page, and the Table says: "UN General Assembly observer state under the designation of "Holy See"; member of three UN specialized agencies". It says "state", and it is clearly recognized by UN. Assuming this is well-sourced (see link Pburka just above), then what could be objections? It passes by any criterion, #1 and #2. There is nothing subjective here. My very best wishes (talk) 01:09, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

We have a whole page dedicated to the potential objections. However, as you note the page works well by having criteria that limit editor subjectivity, which is precisely the advantage of the current setup. CMD (talk) 01:19, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

My point was that the current inclusion criteria require too much editorial judgment. The inclusion criteria should be based exclusively on what reliable sources say. pburka (talk) 01:39, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

They are. CMD (talk) 15:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

If that were true the page wouldn't need a "Criteria for inclusion" section. pburka (talk) 16:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Lists have criteria for inclusion, that's not unusual, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists refers "the precise inclusion criteria for the list should be spelled out in the lead section" Selfstudier (talk) 16:42, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Spelled out in the lead section! If the criteria are so complex that they require five paragraphs and a separate section, it's going to be a perpetual source of conflicts and a peril for original research. If you wish to avoid OR, you need much simpler criteria for inclusion, like those I suggested, e.g.: "This is a list of entities identified as sovereign states in independent reliable sources". pburka (talk) 17:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

The list has been remarkably stable. The idea that a "This is a list of entities identified as sovereign states in independent reliable sources" criteria is going to somehow cause less disputes is ridiculous. CMD (talk) 01:21, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Policy does not make an exception for original research and synthesis if it is done really well. ~~~~ TFD (talk) 09:15, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

One objection is that the article says, "Debate exists on the degree to which recognition should be included as a criterion of statehood." UN membership is not actually a criterion for being a sovereign state, it just so happens that all UN member states today are sovereign states. Belarus and Ukraine were UN members while they were still part of the USSR, while India and the Philippines were admitted before they achieved independence.

Whether or not the Vatican is a sovereign state, the article violates the criteria it proclaims in order to include it. My argument however is not about whether it should be included but whether articles should be based on editors' original research. I am not arguing to substitute that original research with my own. TFD (talk) 09:41, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

The Vatican City is an exceptional case of a non-UN member since its territory is not claimed by Italy, which completely surrounds it and is infinitely bigger. If Italy wanted to, it could annex Vatican City easily, but it chooses not to. Jargo Nautilus (talk) 17:12, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

• Switzerland only joined the UN in 2002. I'm pretty sure they were a sovereign state before that though. John (talk) 16:05, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  Observer state since the beginning of the UN, I think. Selfstudier (talk) 16:13, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  Correct. Like Palestine has been since 1974 (or 1988, or 2012). This sort of dispute is fundamental to writing encyclopedia articles. Each article is about an idea (let's say bats) and then about examples of that idea (pipistrelles, fruit bats, vampire bats and so on). If the real world has differences about the definition of an idea, our article should reflect those differences. Nationality and nationhood are very delicate issues and have to be handled delicately. "Sovereignty" is always relative and contingent, like most things. So, no, we can't just go by UN membership. Taiwan, Palestine, and pre-2002 Switzerland all have (or had) certain characteristics of a nation state without having full membership of the UN. John (talk) 16:28, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

• I would argue against the deletion of the article "List of sovereign states" on the charge that the "United Nations list of sovereign states" is not the official list on what is and isn't a country. It is simply the opinion of the United Nations. Whichever way you spin it, lists like these will always be biased, even if you are consulting the "world government" that is the United Nations. Jargo Nautilus (talk) 17:04, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  That's an argument in favor of deletion! If we can't have a list of sovereign states which doesn't reflect biases of Wikipedia editors, then we shouldn't have such a list at all. pburka (talk) 17:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  My point is that replacing the existing list with the UN list is not an improvement upon the existing list. Also, we need a list like this anyway, because it's useful. The "List of states with limited recognition" list virtually serves the same function. When you combine "United Nations list..." and "List of limited recogntion...", you get "List of sovereign states". Arguably, you could delete the main list and devolve the responsibilities down into these two lists. Jargo Nautilus (talk) 17:25, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  Not a bad idea. Just convert this into Lists of sovereign states and include links to the more specific lists. pburka (talk) 18:11, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I oppose the deletion of the list, it is not original research, every entry on the list is supported by a source. It would be asinine for Wikipedia not to have a list of soveriegn states.XavierGreen (talk) 23:49, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Color#"Shades_of"_articles

Linking to a discussion page with a quasi-RFC about organization of our lists of color — specifically regarding mass undiscussed changes in 2020 by the user ThunderBrine (talk · contribs), where they reorganized all the color articles based only on hue in HSL and HSV. There are concerns about WP:OR and WP:RGW in ThunderBrine's changes. A new scheme was proposed where colors are organized into several "Shades of" lists which are sorted by hue, and a number of niche lists such as Olive (color). –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 07:35, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Filper Research Beta

• Filper Research Beta (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Appears to be someone's unpublished notes: [2]. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:26, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Is the following paragraph SYNTH?

Hi. I have been trying to add this paragraph on the history of the race and intelligence controversy article:

Most recently, genome-wide association studies have succeeded in finding statistically significant correlations between some genetic loci and traits like educational attainment. These correlations may reflect causal effects, or they may reflect population structure due to assortative mating. Once one corrects for population substructure by using within family polygenic scores the data is virtually absent of signs of natural selection. Moreover, since more than 70% of genome-wide association studies are done using samples of European ancestry, polygenic scores for educational attainment are not good predictors of the potential of individuals of different ancestry. Research attempting to use European ancestry derived polygenic scores to different populations has yielded highly inconsistent results, and is confounded by problems such as linkage disequilibrium. There is evidence that polygenic score expressivity, specifically for general cognitive ability and educational attainment, is lower in populations that were historically and are currently disadvantaged.

But I keep being told in the talk page [3] that it is synthesis for inconsistent and, honestly, false, reasons.

They say that I make claims not explicitly in the articles, but I do not, and no one has pointed to a claim I have made that is not in the articles.

They also say that the articles are not about Race and Intelligence, but as far as I can tell that is not part of the criterion to determine whether something is synthesis or not. Moreover, I have provided direct quotes from each of the articles showing there is an explicit discussion of race and intelligence (or ancestry and cognitive ability, which are just synonyms).

I am relatively new to the site, so any help clarifying why exactly this is synthesis with quotes from the policy page as well as a specific example from my contribution would be appreciated. 98.153.62.223 (talk) 02:12, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

This is not quite an accurate summary of the discussion. I will direct interested parties to Talk:History of the race and intelligence controversy#Reversion. The claim is that only two of the cited sources are germane to the topic of the article, and that these may not be DUE on their own merits. The rest have been cobbled together by the IP to make a claim about race and intelligence that is not present in the sources. Furthermore, ancestry is not a synonym for race, but I'm not sure that needs to be litigated here. Generalrelative (talk) 02:28, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

What is the claim about race and intelligence not present in the sources? Could you please lay it out explicitly and in quotation marks for us? I am actually a geneticist and I can tell you we do not speak about race in the field, we speak about ancestral populations, it is formal technical term that gives a rigourous definition of the slippery modern day parlance "race" 98.153.62.223 (talk) 02:34, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

The claim you are making by adding this material is an implicit one: that these statements have to do with the history of the race and intelligence controversy, which is the topic of the article. That controversy, as the article details in excruciating detail, surrounds the now fringe claim that group-level differences in intelligence exist between racial groups. By including discussion of these sources in an article about a topic not covered in the sources, you are including an original synthesis, i.e. constructing an implicit claim by cobbling sources together. This has been explained to you a number of times on the talk page, and MrOllie explained it well: One way to tell that synthesis is occurring is that the citations are not about the same thing.

On the subject of "race" versus "ancestry", see the discussion of the David Reich snafu in one of your own sources: [4] (p. 424): Why the uproar? Despite stating that race and ancestry were distinct concepts... Or see this piece by Ewan Birney et al. with an entire section on how Human population structure is not race: Some ‘human biodiversity’ proponents concede that traditional notions of race are refuted by genetic data, but argue that the complex patterns of ancestry we do find should in effect be regarded as an updated form of ‘race’. However, for geneticists, other biologists and anthropologists who study this complexity, ‘race’ is simply not a useful or accurate term, given its clear and long-established implication of natural subdivisions. Repurposing it to describe human ancestry and genetic structure in general is misleading and disingenuous. The term ‘population’ is used in many contexts within the modern scientific literature to refer to groups of individuals, but it is not merely a more socially acceptable euphemism for race. (emphasis added) [5]. 03:02, 8 October 2022 (UTC) Generalrelative (talk) 03:02, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Commenting as an uninvolved editor, Generalrelative is correct that the paragraph is original synthesis. When included in an article about race, the statement "Moreover, since more than 70% of genome-wide association studies are done using samples of European ancestry, polygenic scores for educational attainment are not good predictors of the potential of individuals of different ancestry" also implies that racial categories are genetically meaningful. There is a broad consensus that race is a social construct, see Race_(human_categorization)#Defining_race. These repeated attempts to promote a WP:FRINGE genetic interpretation of race are disruptive. Tristan albatross (talk) 03:11, 8 October 2022 (UTC) Striking WP:BLOCKEVASION. Generalrelative (talk) 22:52, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Tristan albatross, that is a different point. That claim came from this quote from the article: Given that greater than 70% of GWAS participants are of European descent (Need and Goldstein 2009; Popejoy and Fullerton 2016; N. A. Rosenberg et al. 2010), the implications of this problem of portability are that PGS for EA and IQ are more likely to misidentify the outcomes of individuals of non-European ancestry who were historically and are currently disadvantaged in American classrooms. If you wish to say my contribution is fringe, you can open a different section to discuss it, this is about whether it is synthesis or not. This quote, this article, are clearly about race and intelligence, and the claim matches perfectly with the source. It is therefore not synthesis by any stretch of the imagination. 98.153.62.223 (talk) 03:25, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

By adding this paragraph to the History of the race and intelligence controversy article, you are promoting the WP:FRINGE claim that the term "individuals of non-European ancestry" refers to one or more racial groups, without citing any sources which say that. This has been explained to you by many other users, yet you refuse to WP:GETTHEPOINT. Tristan albatross (talk) 03:37, 8 October 2022 (UTC) Striking WP:BLOCKEVASION. Generalrelative (talk) 22:52, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Tristan albatross: Actually you are the only one who has made this claim so far. Ironically you seem to be admitting that the article IS about race and IQ, which ultimately undermines Generalrelative's and MrOllie's already very dubious case for synthesis. 72.17.88.210 (talk) 03:42, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone besides IP 72.17.88.210 understand what this comment is trying to argue? Generalrelative (talk) 14:38, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

The IP does not seem to understand WP:NOR and exhibits WP:IDHT when other editors explain it. For example, see [6], where they are arguing that an article that discusses educational attainment but does not mention the word intelligence is still really about intelligence, because intelligence and educational attainment are correlated. NightHeron (talk) 09:58, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

References

Unverifiable WP:NEO

• Apostasy in Islam (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• GenoV84 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Santasa99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Clearcut case of disruptive reverting, with editor refusing to recognize our core policies: WP:BURDEN and WP:OR. My removal of unverifiable explicit terminology, "Islamic death penalty", which is employed within the context of two sentences (also in at least one other article), is reverted twice 1, 2, with explanation which is irrelevant to the problem. Terminology (construct which in my view sounds almost racialized), employed in very excessive and unnecessary way in the context of those two sentences, if used without validation in RS is, then, blatant WP:NEO based on original research. Parallel to my edits I asked editor in TP (1, 2, 3) to offer exact quotation from RS with page number(s), where the specific terminology is utilized, so that I can validate existence of such peculiar construct, however, they failed and only supplied numerous references and more original research as an explanation and justification. They also removed my warning template from their user TP with condescending edit summary, claimed that I am accusing them of edit warring when they did, and refused to revert themselves when asked.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 23:18, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Accusing other editors of disruptive editing simply because they disagree with your edits is a self-evident case of WP:BADFAITH, and you know it very well, so stop doing that. I didn't revert my own edit for the following, simple reasons:

1. The discussion is still open and other editors can join it, if they want to do so;
2. I have provided the evidence that you desperately asked for on the Talk page and you refuse to read the aforementioned sources, while accusing me of disruption, racism, and other ridiculous stuff with repeated hostile aggressiveness which nobody else on this website ever told me in the last 6 years..... never.
3. For the time being, there's no WP:CONSENSUS to apply the changes that you proposed;
4. Multiple academic, secondary, reliable references already cited in the article, which have been undisputed for several months, cannot be qualified as original research as you claim, for obvious reasons (see WP:RS and WP:VERIFY);
5. You keep bothering me by posting several warnings on my Talk page while the discussion is still open.... there's no need to say that this kind of behavior doesn't help at all;
6. If I were you, I would have asked for a third opinion about the ongoing discussion, instead of continuously bothering me on my Talk page with your warnings, insults, and accusations of all kinds of ridiculous stuff, as you did both here and on the Talk page for everyone to see. GenoV84 (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

   Please quotes and page number(s). Please tone down your arguments expression, and I am not sure why are you deleting your TP, you can't remove all the blocks and warnings from your talk page because they are archived in History for scrutiny. ౪ Santa ౪^99° 00:32, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

• This is not the proper venue for this discussion. If there is a question about the policy or how to implement it, please ask without reference to another editor’s motivations or actions.

If the issue is the actions of another editor, the place to raise that is WP:AN (the Administrator’s Noticeboard). Thank you both. Blueboar (talk) 01:03, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Should someone move discussion as it is - is there a way to move it? ౪ Santa ౪^99° 01:53, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I see that a discussion has been opened at WP:AN… so no need to formally close or “move” anything… just let the discussion here die (ie don’t respond to further posts). Blueboar (talk) 12:52, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Are these self-sourced edits to Bernard Lonergan OR?

[7] Doug Weller talk 17:53, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Toutatis

Julienor94 has recently rewritten the article about the Celtic god Toutatis to make him a 'Ligurian god'. They base this entirely on their own (mis)interpretation of one ancient text. I provided several modern, reliable, academic sources from experts in Celtic studies and linguistics, who all call Toutatis a Celtic god. There is no academic debate over this. Experts note that his name is linguistically Celtic, and he is named in inscriptions from various parts of Celtic Europe. My version can be seen here.

The editor has been asked by myself and Escape Orbit to show us any modern academic sources that call Toutatis a 'Ligurian god', but they have not done so. The discussion can be found here. ~Asarlaí 18:51, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Here is the problem :

1 - The only text mentioning Teutates is Lucan's account. In this account Lucan writes very explicitly that Teutates is a Ligurian god. There is no possible interpretation. I put the text with the reference in the page.

2 - There is no ancient text that speaks of a Celtic god. If not which one?

3 - There is no archaeological evidence of a Celtic god if not where?

4 - Celtic is not a defined language, it was a multitude of dialects. Moreover, there is no trace left because the Celts could neither read nor write. We cannot therefore study this language and even less a pseudo Celtic proto language. Thus it is impossible to say that Teutates would come from the Celtic language.

5 - The writings on wikipedia take turns constantly and downright base myths that never existed on the Celts.

6 - when asking for proof User:Asarlaí dodges by quoting contemporary individuals who would have said this or that according to who knows what. Individuals who call themselves scholars but who have nothing serious.--Julienor94 (talk) 19:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Every one of your points is wrong. I've shown you how they're wrong on the talkpage, and if you look up the references here you'll also see how they're wrong. But my post above was just a notice for other editors, the discussion should be continued on the talkpage. ~Asarlaí 20:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Read WP:RS and WP:OR. (1) ancient writers used "Ligurian" as both an ethnic and geographical description (4) ancient Celtic speakers could write their own languages with Old Italic, Greek, and Latin scripts. (3) Toutatis is also attested on an inscription from Britain (Marti Toutati; CIL VII 84), where no Ligure is known to have lived. cf. Euskirchen, Marion (Bonn) (2006), "Teutates", Brill’s New Pauly, Brill, doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1205840. Alcaios (talk) 07:42, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

State collapse and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/State collapse

The article on state collapse strikes me as having serious WP:SYNTH/personal essay problems: a lot of cobbled-together news stories from various points/countries, including random or dated commentary/speculation. Has very little in the way of academic sources explaining the idea as a unified concept. It’s at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/State collapse, where I think it’s a WP:TNT case. However, if kept, it certainly needs cleanup to remove the synth. More eyes welcome at both the article and the AfD. Neutrality^talk 19:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Differentiation of Serbs and Montenegrins in Albania

• Serbo-Montenegrins in Albania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Serbs in Albania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Montenegrins in Albania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

More eyes on these pages would be appreciated; the latter two are both recently-created stub-forks of the Serbo-Montenegrin article. Cited sources are inconclusive as to whether there is differentiation between these groups, and I was unable to find an obvious answer from additional Scholar searches. Sources cited at Montenegrins in Albania and Serbo-Montenegrins in Albania seem to suggest that these terms have historically been used interchangeably; the record on "Serbs" is less clear. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Periodization of the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia and related articles about individual battles

• 2001 insurgency in Macedonia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Vaksince Attack (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Vaksince offensive (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Operation MH-2 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Gajre ambush (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Lisec ambush (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Ambush near Tanuševci (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Vejce ambush (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I'd appreciate more eyes on Talk:2001_insurgency_in_Macedonia#Proposed_merge_of_Vaksince_Attack_into_2001_insurgency_in_Macedonia, where we are discussing a proposal to merge some articles about individual battles to broader articles about the conflict. The discussion has uncovered additional similarly small-scoped articles, and raised the possibility that we are dealing with walled gardens of partisan portrayals of various battles on either side of the conflict. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:51, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Trump bio — Iran mistakenly shot down airliner

In the section Talk:Donald_Trump#Airliner_shot_down there is

An item about an airliner in the section Iran violates Wikipedia policy WP:NOR. It is the second part of the following sentence.

Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes against two U.S. airbases in Iraq and mistakenly shooting down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 after takeoff from Tehran airport.^[399][396]

The cite that is about the airliner is the first one.

399. Fassihi, Farnaz (January 10, 2020). "Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner". The New York Times. Retrieved October 4, 2021.

The airliner part of the sentence violates WP:NOR, which states in its first paragraph,"To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article..." The given source is not directly related to the topic of the article, which is Trump.

I can add here that the given source does not even mention Trump.

In response, one editor User:SPECIFICO said it was a misinterpretation of NOR and another User:Zaathras said it was a misapplication of policy, both without explanation. I would like the opinions of editors here. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:48, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

That is original research. The source mentions Trump, but not in relevant context: there's an infobox about "More on U.S. Armed Forces", which also mentions Biden. The source would be suitable for neither Trump nor Biden bio, with the exception of that one paragraph about policy changes. I'm also wondering how it would even be possible to retaliate "mistakenly"... Politrukki (talk) 21:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your well thought out response. Bob K31416 (talk) 21:24, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Homophobia and people of color -- original research or synth?

This is the second paragraph in the lead at Homophobia in ethnic minority communities:

Different regions of the world and different nations have unique conceptions of which groups are considered ethnic minorities. In many Western nations where people of color (POC) are seen as ethnic minorities, homophobia that is not usually associated with the nation's dominant culture may arise as a result of that ethnic community's norms.

This is very vaguely written, so it's hard to tell exactly what it's trying to convey, but my interpretation is that it means that communities of color may be more likely to be homophobic than the white majorities in Western countries, based on the following sections in the main article detailing how non-white people are uniquely homophobic.

My problem with this is that there doesn't appear to be a single citation in the article that supports this extreme overgeneralization. Further compounding the difficulty of verifying the sources is that many of the citations lack page numbers, especially in the Black community section.

While there are individual minority cultures that are often described as uniquely homophobic, consider that I have also posted several examples of sources that contradict this view where it occurs. Those examples can be found at this talk page discussion. These sources suggest that the idea that black people (for example) are uniquely homophobic is inaccurate and basically an unhelpful racial stereotype that is projected on to black Americans by the white majority. So it's a contentious idea -- but none of these sources are currently in the article.

All outstanding claims need outstanding evidence. I'm not seeing anywhere in the main body of that article where a citation says that communities of color in general may be uniquely homophobic in white societies, or that white societies are generally not homophobic. It seems to be an original research synthesis based on the citations pertaining to many different ethnic groups in the US and UK.

In other words, because there are citations for every major minority group in the US and UK detailing instances of homophobia within those groups, however contentious some may be, the author has assumed from this compendium of citations that minorities are just plain homophobic relative to white culture. To me that's a huge violation of WP:OR and SYNTH, and it should be removed in absence of a citation that explicitly says communities of color may be uniquely homophobic in supposedly non-homophobic western societies. - 2603:8080:2C00:1E00:891:D96:5E15:4083 (talk) 11:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The vague and problematic language are enough to justify removal. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:34, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Trump bio — Iran mistakenly shot down airliner II

Would it be OR to add the following to the end of the second paragraph of the section Iran of the Donald Trump article?

Retired Canadian Maj. Gen. David Fraser said it was just a failure of Iran to manage their airspace after their air defense systems were put on high alert, following their attacks into Iraq.

References

The item is based on the following excerpt from the given source.

But many in Canada's political and military establishment see the events differently.

"This is a failure of Iranian military planning," says retired Maj. Gen. David Fraser, who led Canadian combat operations during the war in Afghanistan. Iranian military leaders "knew they were going to strike into Iraq, they were going to put their air defense systems on high alert, and they didn't coordinate with the civilian authorities. So that's just a failure of the Iranian command control structure to manage their airspace," he says.

I came here because I reached an impasse in the discussion of this OR issue with User:Cessaune near the end of the section Talk:Donald Trump#REBOOT. Bob K31416 (talk) 05:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Editors, please note that Bob K31416 is in this section arguing for the inclusion of material that does not make reference to the subject of the BLP (Donald Trump), when in the above section (Trump_bio_—_Iran_mistakenly_shot_down_airliner), the same user argued against inclusion of similar material because it did not reference the subject. WP:BATTLE, WP:GAMING, whichever want to characterize this as, it is unacceptable and disruptive. Zaathras (talk) 06:00, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is really inappropriate. Bob made many complaints about content he didn't think was policy compliant and we fixed every issue, but now he wants to tag on more that duplicates the mention of the accidental nature of the downing of the airliner. It is already covered, so this is unnecessary. It's not even about Trump, so it's OR. Please hat this thread. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:14, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don’t really see an original research issue (the source directly supports the text)… But I certainly have relevance questions. Why is the bio article on Trump even mentioning the plane shooting? Blueboar (talk) 23:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  The case for its inclusion is that Trump directly created the conditions in which the plane was mistakenly shot down, as the Iranian military was in a high state of alert after Trump threatened to blow up Iranian bases and stuff. Cessaune (talk) 23:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Found an apparent incorrect year given on List of fatal alligator attacks in the United States; how to address without violating OR?

Greetings, I was expanding List of fatal alligator attacks in the United States to add some documented fatal attacks that occurred prior to the start of 1970 (where the list began). The entry for a 2021 fatal attack in Louisiana states the following:

Although Louisiana, like Florida, has approximately 1.5 million alligators, this may have been the first fatal alligator attack in the state since 1774 during the Spanish colonial period before statehood.

However, as I dug up the details on this case, despite quite a range of recent news media (possibly inaccurately informed by Wikipedia itself) stating that 1774 was the preceding case, a couple books I found on GoogleBooks (and just a couple of more recent articles) list the same case as occurring in 1734. I'm reasonably sure 1734 is the actual correct date and someone/somewhen/somewhere messed up a number and it became an "established fact." A key reason for my thinking this is the deceased was the blacksmith at Fort St. Jean Baptiste, which per Wikipedia was founded around 1716 and abandoned after 1764. Also (while not definitive), it seems contradictory that a French coronary hearing on the death of a Frenchman at a French fort would occur during Spanish rule (1762-1801).

I don't want to just change the 1774 to 1734 in the passage quoted above, because that would be contradictory to the source its citing. What's the best way to point out the disparity in dates without it making the passage unduly bulky or adding OR? MatthewVanitas (talk) 08:23, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

RfC on Male expendability

There is now an active RfC on the Male expendability talk page about whether specific ideas should be listed in Wikipedia's voice or attributed. You are welcome to lend your voices to the discussion. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:10, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

White supremacy revisionism at Western world

At Western world on 19 November an established editor supported by administrators, rephrased the introductory paragraphs boldly. A few hours ago, after a few days I have been looking to reason with them at its talk page, an established administrator removed my entire discussion and blocking access to the talk page too. 113.172.88.157 (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

The revision you object to corresponds to reliable sources. You've posted several long rants on the talk page without providing any sources, much of which involved personal attacks on an editor and what appears to be a belabored tangent about John Wayne that makes me think you're confusing western world with western (genre). Rants like this are considered disruptive, and the admin was correct to remove them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:52, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Unsure how to comment your reply. I would stick to excuses for my personal attack but I noticed you are wrong in every way: the revision published by Rim sim lacks reliable sources, it is original synthesis. I attacked personally since editor coming from the porn topic managed to convert my fine revision into a racial matter touching on genetical factor of skin pigmentation: a thesis which is not the mainstream view.. outside the porn world (!) And all such I found outrageous.

The Occident came into existence while populations of white Europeans enslaved and massacred populations of other racial backgrounds, so doesn't mean it was envisioned in ethnical warfare (racism): it was indeed in economic warfare (colonialism) instead, as I explained in my "long rants on the talk page". Update: very dangerous left as it is since other editors are also building on it in the last week.113.172.88.157 (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Given latest inputs at both the page and the talk page I'm sure a more reliably sourced and compatible version of the introduction "graphical (map) paragraph", would be more or less as follows:

The Western world as derived on the basis of Samuel P. Huntington's 1996 Clash of Civilizations: in cyan are Latin American and Eastern European worlds which are either a part of the West or distinct civilizations intimately related to the West. From a Military perspective, a concept of Global North's firepower joined that of Western world following the first Cold War: considered Western countries lay across all land above Northern tropic, also NATO's geographical line of intervention as based on 1949's military treaty.

The concept of the Western part of the earth has its roots in the theological, methodological and emphatical division between the Western Catholicity of the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy of the Orthodox Church, until the Warsaw pact dissolved in 1991, the roots of which can be traced back to the Frankish Empire. Ideologies of the modern West are rooted in nineteenth century's Age of Revolutions and revolutional fervour, in early twentieth century's radical populism, dictatorships throughout the progressive formation of freely-marketed, liberal national economies. The West is also known for the adoption of gendered identities and antireligious sentiment with the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment that culminated in the abolishment of the Holy Inquisition leading to separation of church and state, and the establishment of secular states, as first emerged during the Roman empire". Ideal western men become breadwinners while western women become objectified, and different gender roles that emerge following war as a product of varying capabilities in fronting conflict reinforce this ideology with the unique perception of ex combatants. European freemasonry of the Enlightenment then undermined civil and ecclesiastical authority throughout the Western world to replace these "with uncontrolled gratification".

The transition from 1800s Industrialization to 1900s mass production, consumerism and computing revolution is trailed with a fundamental shift from physical to intellectual labor, permitting the 1960s-80s development of revolution in social roles and providing an irreligious but more woman-centered Western world after former male-dominancy. From an Economics perspective, the Western world (North America and Western Europe, countries of the North Atlantic) is at the forefront of Freedom, international economic competition and dynamism, and evolving into a multipolar world through the so-called revolutionary global "New economy" integrative of the Digital, of innovative Emerging and Space technologies regarded by many as comparable to an Industrial revolution of humankind, driving institutions as World Bank founded on the closing of the Age of Discovery of colonial imperialism. Nineteenth century's Anglo-Americans envisioned the Western United States, home to an array of diverse people in present-day, a new independent homeland for a white population fullfilling colonization of the western-most region of the Western world and North America.

Notice of discussion sent to four users involved. 113.172.88.157 (talk) 10:34, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

It's clear that you don't have consensus for your edits. You were blocked for being tiresome and making creepy comments about other editors. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 15:47, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Creepy commenting came following the lock. 113.172.88.157 (talk) 07:10, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Now locked out from page for 1 month, and following hyperbolic definitions such as "white ethnocracy state" implying Western world was envisioned in ethnical warfare (rather than in colonialism), while author's earliest own source is in reference to 'American West'; and as well noting XX century's nationalist laws. It's like if the Western world was not made by colonial empires but by national laws. Out for one month, it's good. The basis of (talk) 19:44, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

The point I want to make is in latest edit summaries, and mostly the latest elaborate: "The discriminatory immigration policies that once existed in the western countries were due to Ethnic nationalism, aimed to create ethnocracy states; this is the point clearly mentioned in the text with as many as 6 References. Denying this historical fact; and constantly reverting the article to absurd illogical text is special kind of vandalism.": do laws "aim at creating states", at all? I thought laws regulate existing processes, ratherly, and constitutional laws do instead. So I think it's in violation of wp:OR more than ever.

Concluding also, am I to think that before referenced US 1790 law (during the 1600s, and 1500s), black and indigenous people were granted any citizenship or right to immigration of sort? Contributions made by author Rim sim since 19 November converting my previous revision are not only against wp:OR then ('American West' is not Western world, and those references on ethnocentric national laws probably, never even mention an envisioned West or nearly such), but also Undue as section on Western world's emergence is replaced with unfeasible notions on classical world's western cultural roots and national laws of the Age of Enlightenment. The basis of (talk) 01:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

References

advice

Some advice for the OP: I think you may be attempting to deal with too much all at once. Break your objections down into small, bite sized bits. Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Sure, then:

• content reliability, I consider a prime rule
• support from the administration, for content unreliability

These two bits I challenged. 113.172.88.157 (talk) 07:05, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Environmental colonialism

Wikipedia is not a forum for your original thoughts for discussing matters unrelated to improving the encyclopedia, and this has nothing to do with the above discussion. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 11:03, 14 December 2022 (UTC) 12:10, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I stopped thinking about Western world and instead look into why it is regarded so controversial in the face of public opinion, and I stumbled just a few hours ago on "Environmental colonialism": the way in which colonial practices are linked as they impact the environment. I had realized the page is written from a North-South perspective, and think the information as written by Rim sim could better fill the North-South divide, now reading about this new subject I believe it is a broader misunderstanding coming from the concept of global warming maybe entrenched with that of nuclear annihilation but with certainty at least confused with Western world. This is one of the few digestible references, please have a look [8]. The basis of (talk) 07:56, 14 December 2022 (UTC) So to speak Environmental colonialism is really what we are left with of the gone XX century, given that "environment" is in a relationship with conquest of air and space helping the concept of the world working like a house, unlike XIX century and beyond, where it worked like a home, I suppose. The basis of (talk) 08:08, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

The issue with warfare (I am still in disbelief)

The primary issue is with the gross descriptivism of warfare, that indeed vastly contributed to the formation of Western domination (as of any other historic domination in the world). Version by Rim sim tells about a long history of ethnical warfare, when in fact the Western world is by all means and reliable sources formed in the economics of colonial warfare, the one against unprepared populations (they had no fire weapons); even following the ethnical warfare of the Christian political division by 1054 East-West schism (which still was by all means about the same above policy of christian colonial warfare), of which mention was unfeasibly removed instead. Note indeed how the earliest reference provided on 19 November by Rim sim is on history of Western warfare.

The Western world did not simply form in warfare as much as it did in christian political imperialism, and such is consolidated academic knowledge on the Western world, not a doubt. Thus please review. The basis of (talk) 07:40, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

(Part 1/2) The issue with the standpoint: scientific rather than encyclopedic

With last additions by Rim sim today 26 December, I think the scientific standpoint of rooting the causes that contributed to birth of the West is preferred over a more appropriate encyclopedic describing the birth itself. Part of the idea of a supremacy of the scientific white man. The basis of (talk) 17:07, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Please stop creating a new header every time you make a post. –LaundryPizza03 (d) 19:16, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Don't read just the titling headers of the sections: you seem to be unresponsive to my considerations and now know why. The basis of (talk) 06:17, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

It's interesting that you don't seem to grasp, Christian Imperialism born in 1054 East-West Schism is the beginning of the Western world, while 500 years later it emerged by the Discovery of America. Instead you suggest it emerged some 500-1000 years earlier (when the Roman empire subjugated the Hellenic? Or when antiquity collapsed? I can't understand) seemingly as in a "reformed" ancient Republic: then I think you confused "popular rule" (dictatorship, contenting present majorities) with "population's rule" (democracy), because ancient republicanism was not about rules instead was about ruling vast areas and unprecedentedly large numbers of people. Both Rome and Athens were centers of vast dominions during antiquity, and that's reason why they made the "republic", "from res-publica, public matters", but neither developed from Monotheism.

(Part 2/2) The issue with the proportions of humanity and civilizations: mantle as clothing

To better understand, I think of Western civilization (that for some reason redirects to Western culture): had Classical teachings not been exported during colonialism, would we understand that Western "european classicist" civilization (mimicking ancient ones) began by 1054's Christian Imperialism or by antiquity? The basis of (talk) 06:17, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Similarly, I think of the very large historical proportions of humanity as in nowadays "mantle" (or "coat") is equivalent with "clothing" but it doesn't apply the same way that "clothing" is equivalent with "mantle": one defines a general protection from the elements, the other one from cold environment. The proportions of civilizations then are considered beyond simple grasp similarly as those of human history: given there's an understanding of modernity that once was antiquity, it doesn't apply in the same way to understand that antiquity would've been modernity centuries later, indeed definitions of Ancient and Modern history were created only after both had unveiled. The basis of (talk) 09:18, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I can't understand what you are blabbering about, but you need to focus only on the issues with the article Western world and Rim sim's behavior. Wikipedia isn't a soapbox. Next time I will report you to WP:ANI. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 14:43, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, there does seem to be a problem with Rim sim over-quoting the references, but that is not an original research concern. I think the December 26 addition seeks to explain why the Americas and Europe are grouped as the Western world. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 14:53, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

For understanding: when thinking of putting clothes on, you never think of the outer layer first. The basis of (talk) 15:15, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

So you're saying that modern times were once ancient times, but ancient times did not become modern times? That is a contradiction within the framework of philosophical presentism, which explains why I am having trouble comprehending your argument. You have been reported to ANI. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:02, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You know sun and moon, together in the sky, right? Well I suggest this argument is like the Sun (ancient times) not expecting the Moon (middle-ages) to be Earth's (all post-ancient times) moon. The solar system is all "rooted" in the Sun, but that's about it: encyclopedic content doesn't take the Earth and the Moon as in having any specific role in the solar system. The basis of (talk) 06:51, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

List of Huns

This article is a listing of names of individuals, just to list a few:

• Albert the Bear (c. 1100 – 1170), the first Margrave of Brandenburg, Duke of Saxony; a grandson of Sophia of Hungary of the House of Árpád, believed to be a direct descendant of Attila
• Blanche of Anjou (1280 – 1310), Queen of Aragon, daughter of Mary of Hungary, of the Árpád, a direct descendant of Attila according to Hungarian tradition
• Fernando de la Cerda, son of Violant, daughter of Violant of Hungary, of the House of Árpád,[5] according to tradition, direct descendants of Attila
• Helena of Hungary (died 1091), Queen of Croatia, of the House of Árpád, believed to be a direct descendant of Attila[5][6]
• Henry II of Castile (1334 – 1379), a descendant of Violant of Hungary, of the House of Árpád,[15] believed to directly descend from Attila and/or the Huns
• Henry the Lion (1129/1131 – 1195), Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, son of Henry the Proud, a grandson of Sophia of Hungary of the House of Árpád, believed to be a direct descendant of Attila
• Henry the Proud (c. 1108 – 1139), Margrave of Tuscany and Duke of Spoleto, grandson of Sophia of Hungary of the House of Árpád, believed to be a direct descendant of Attila

I asked on the talk page for quotes concerning certain individuals and was told, "You will never get quotes for them."

Said editor(user:Giray Altay) has chosen not to provide information proving listed individuals are "Huns". Attempting to make the issue personal, "why do you want to delete those entries so much? "

Clearly a number of the individuals listed are not Huns and can not be proven to be Huns. --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:02, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Just delete them and any other suspect. If we list every ruler who had Hungarian ancestors somewhere o. Their family tree, we'd have to list nearly every noble in history.

or better yet, delete the whole page. 73.142.216.166 (talk) 21:09, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Am mostly convinced Huns were of the region of Moscow and Finland. Given that Finland is often today considered of partly Danish (Germanic) partly Hun (Eastern) origin [9], editing attempts as shown end in tracing pre-Modern Era genealogy origins: unreferenced list rather shows a blurry collective heritage of the Huns, as for the ancient Germanic and Roman peoples, a collective genealogical belonging. It's very sick and stupid, as it does confuse ancient warrior nomadic peoples with today immigration western issues. I agree something's wrong about the whole page then. I remember from my student times, Huns wore fur coats. The basis of (talk) 13:32, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

"Criticism of CORP" articles

A week ago, I boldly moved Criticism of Apple Inc. to Practices of Apple Inc., and listed my justifications here. Here were my main reasons:

• guidelines (specifically the last paragraph of WP:POVFORK)
• perceived common sense (it's hard to talk about criticisms of Apple's environmental impact, without talking about Apple's environmental practices more generally, for example)

My undiscussed move was motivated by my general opposition to "Criticism of [CORP]"-style articles. That opposition wasn't grounded in POV concerns, but in my belief that most such articles become unreadable dump-alls which few editors are interested in maintaining, which tend to have pervasive dueness and tone issues, and which have a fuzzy scope for inclusion.

User:Flibbertigibbets has argued that the scope of the new "Practices" article is still pretty fuzzy and subjective, since it's hard to know which topics are relevant, therefore posing a fundamental WP:OR issue. That makes sense to me.

Posting it here to hear others' thoughts. DFlhb (talk) 01:09, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Again DFlhb (talk) did some great work on the article compared to where it started as a laundry list lambasting on any conceivable point. "Corporate Practices" are a fuzzy type of subject; an approach (which might or might not be correct) would either be to expand the main apple article, or break the topics into stand alone parts. (something easier to say on my part and harder to do - that is why I respect DFlhb for taking a bite on this particular apple!) Flibbertigibbets (talk) 03:09, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Public perception of Apple Inc.? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:36, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Problem is, that would be about a substantially different topic (customer loyalty, the "fanboy" phenomenon, reality distortion field, negative media opinion about lack of innovation early in Cook's tenure, etc.) Don't think it could reasonably include antitrust, or environment, for the same reason we don't include evaluations of policy or behavior in "Public image of" articles for Presidents.

My alternate proposal is to cover topics in separate articles (e.g. Environmental practices of, Alleged anticompetitive practices of, etc) use summary-style in Apple Inc., and remove the Practices article. It has a few benefits:

• it allows us to avoid having a catch-all article, which is a magnet for guideline violations and undue content
• the proposed articles have a much more properly delineated scope.
• importantly, each article would need to independently meet our more stringent WP:GNG, as opposed to needing to rely on the more ambiguous WP:DUE to know whether specific critisms or practices merit inclusion

If this alternate proposal receives positive feedback, I'll propose an addition to WP:CFORK recommending it for all corporations. DFlhb (talk) 04:06, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I think that this is a step in the right direction. I had missed the village pump discussion, but I would gladly support further changes of this nature. My initial concern was that it would be a problem if it was just a move without a corresponding cleanup, but it seems like this is being addressed. I do think there should be discussion about the title, though I'm not necessarily opposed to it. I think WP:SUMMARY is relevant here as well. If you look at the main article for Apple Inc., there's a section for "Corporate affairs" and a section for "Corporate practices". This article only claims to expand upon the latter, but it's hard to tell where the dividing line is between the respective scopes of the two sections. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:59, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

IMO, "affairs" is better named "corporate governance" (internal), though culture, finances and taxes would then be out-of-bounds too. DFlhb (talk) 04:11, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I think corporate culture falls neatly within the scope of corporate governance. Finance should probably be its own section anyway in my opinion. But it doesn't really solve the issue of where "governance" ends and "practices" begins. I'm inclined to think that your suggestion of splitting into different topics may be appropriate and that corresponding sections should be made in the main article, but I'm not going to rule out keeping it all intact either. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

"Practices of Apple Inc." is an awkward choice IMO: incredibly broad/vague and, given what's actually covered (e.g. it's not an overview of employee benefits, policies about stock purchases, what kind of paper it uses in its offices, where it holds corporate meetings, what software it uses for time tracking, etc., but, well, criticism of "practices of Apple Inc."). If it were to actually cover "practices" it would be an even bigger "unreadable dump-all which few editors are interested in maintaining" with even bigger "pervasive dueness and tone issues" considering how much the text and title now differ. If this move had gone through a standard move discussion, I would've opposed. Only reason I'm not reverting the bold move now is because of the time that has passed (anyone could still undo, of course -- the time just gives me pause that regular editors of the article haven't done so). Also, unclear why this is at NORN. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:08, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Compound Media

Compound Media (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article about a controversial podcast network has large new sections of WP:ABOUTSELF and unsourced content. More eyes appreciated. Llll5032 (talk) 04:02, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Could probably just be pruned. For anything but the most basic facts about a company, we need to rely on independent sources for WP:WEIGHT. Anything about specific shows, schedules, announcements, etc. that isn't supported by independent reliable sources should just be cut. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:29, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

There IS a need for some secondary and/or independent sources on the page, but the section that Llll5032 is referring to DOES have sources (see SHOW TTILE column within table under SHOWS), those being from the network itself. The table is only a lineup of Compound Media's shows, which I feel is as basic as it gets. However, I do question the emphasis on labeling this network as "controversial", as that's a subjective label, and has nothing to do with this topic at hand. From what I understand from within Wikipedia:Criticism, pages must remain neutral, which this article does adhere to. There are millions of pages that cover taboo and risqué topics and, that said, are one's individual viewpoints on a topic not a moot point when discussing citations? What is your take, Rhododendrites? UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 09:43, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Note: I went ahead and sourced most of the issue at hand. I found a lot more than I listed, but didn't want to Wikipedia:Citation overkill unless suggested by others. UnorthodoxyAC (talk)

We typically want to see sources that do two things: verify the claims being made, and justify inclusion of the material in the article. Sources tied to the shows/network themselves can do the former, but not the latter. It looks like most (not quite all) of the sources in that big table are in the former category. We need independent reliable sources, in other words. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:19, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, and much appreciated! UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 22:27, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Rhododendrites. Are you suggesting that we now remove the sections of content that lack independent reliable sourcing? Or do you suggest a different approach? In my opinion the pruned content could be re-included later if encyclopedic summaries can be made using independent reliable sources, reflecting those independent sources' descriptions and emphases. Llll5032 (talk) 01:37, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Much of this was address with my most recent edit. As aforementioned, I've already added several outside/3rd party resources. You've already label it as: {{Only primary sources}}

which was valid, and may still be. Several new refs and external links have been added, although I feel it's getting very close to Wikipedia:Citation overkill. The new links all provide accurate insight into the information at hand so, personally, I don't see any removal as constructive, especially when considering what Wikipedia is intended to be. UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 02:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

UnorthodoxyAC, you may be misunderstanding how Wikipedia defines reliable sources. Many of the sources you added are self-published sources, which are largely not acceptable as sources, and we can Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people. Llll5032 (talk) 02:22, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Quite the contrary (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources). Sources are not deemed unreliable until discussed in its given talk page. Nothing newly cited is from blogs, and as Rhododendrites stated, "We typically want to see sources that do two things: verify the claims being made, and justify inclusion of the material in the article". Sources such as The New Yorker, DBPedia, Macmillan Publishers, which I've added, apply to the latter "justification". These are secondary/tertiary sources that reflect the given primary sourcing. Are your suggestions in good faith? UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 02:37, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The New Yorker is independent and reliable (per WP:RSP) and what it says can be faithfully represented, but a Macmillan author description is WP:ABOUTSELF (not independent, so it can be used to verify but not for weight), and DBPedia is not a reliable source. For other editors here: Does that assessment sound correct? Llll5032 (talk) 02:46, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

We also have politician Girish Mahajan via Alchetron, and the MacMillan article IS for verification to the "weight". The DBPedia reference you provided refers to Pantheon, not DBPedia, and as it's not listed under Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources, it's reliable until deemed otherwise via the aforementioned given talk page. I feel that Rhododendrites's explanation is clear, and reflects the recent weight/verify fixes that address this issue. I do question good faith here after reading through Llll5032's talk page, as this conflict looks to be habitual and persistent, and I ask other editors to take that into consideration. I don't like circumlocution, as I've made my case and it's not constructive, so I ask, as Llll5032 has, for more "eyes". UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 03:09, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Rhododendrites' constructive replies. Regarding the aspersions by UnorthodoxyAC above, I have no problem with editors reading through my talk page; notably, a recently indeffed editor who also made large edits to Compound Media-related articles made similar unjustified aspersions about me there, and in related disputes made unjustified statements about Magnolia677, Hirolovesswords, and Bishonen. So this subject area is contentious and may need more watching. Llll5032 (talk) 04:08, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I saw those, and I assure you that I'm not taking that route. They made a few good points, but unfairly targeted you individually, as opposed to addressing a much larger issue to the entire community. UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 04:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The references are not independent of the shows themselves and/or are not reliable as Wikipedia defines it. There are a couple I'm not sure about (The Comic's Comic, The Interrobang) but nearly all of them are database entries, official sites, sites run by people associated with the show, or otherwise not what we're looking for. The New Yorker is a good one, of course, but doesn't actually say anything about the show except that Shane Gillis hosted it. Maybe good enough, but it's the best case of the bunch. I haven't searched for sources on these shows, but certainly some of them, like The Anthony Cumia Show, has received press coverage such that we shouldn't need to rely on Roku Guide and the official site. Alechetron and DBPedia are based in part on Wikipedia, which makes them unreliable from the start. TV listings and databases will never satisfy the WP:WEIGHT element of sourcing, and only sometimes WP:V (depending on the database). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Ok, that's clear and reasonable, but is the current secondary/tertiary label not appropriate after ridding these sources, as opposed to a non-sourced article that would be subject to removal? UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 03:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

...also, I'm working on removing/replacing these issues, so I ask for a bit of time to do so. Are the current labels warranted in the meantime? UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 03:17, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I think we need a citation to an independent reliable source in each of the filled cells of the "Shows" chart, rather than using a separate column for references (per WP:NOTDATABASE), and the summaries should be how the independent sources describe the shows (per WP:INDY). Does anyone have a different view? Llll5032 (talk) 18:13, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I disagree, as this is page is not being handled in the same manner as other streaming media platforms (see Seeso, Shift, Kangaroo, HBO Now and CNN+ (both exclusively single refs with no 3rd party), DC Universe (similar table with single sourced refs), Hitchhike TV, Acorn DVD, Hoopla (single/unreliable sourced), Vice News (almost exclusively primary sourced), Virgin TV, etc... the list goes on and on). As Wikipedia is intended to be a neutral online encyclopedia, I don't feel that targeting individual outlets, while leaving others alone, provides that service, but rather what clearly seems to be an individual's dislike for the "controversial podcast network". Other examples of this can be seen in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/members. We have a situation with the Compound Media page where every other sentence is now past the point Wikipedia:Citation overkill, seeing a single user continuing to deem reliable sources such as Medium and Reason, unfit. Other pages of this genre are not overcited (see examples above), and I feel that this should be treated the same.

I ask that this case be closed, at least until other pages of this genre are addressed in the same manner. UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Noting in case it is not clear: UnorthodoxyAC is the editor who has added the disputed content. Llll5032 (talk) 23:09, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

...and you are the one who reported it. I feel that it is very clear, and all pages should be treated equally and without "point-of-view" interference (see Wikipedia:Guide to addressing bias). If the issues you are stating are an issue, then either every page with these issues should be addressed in this compulsory manner, or it should be left alone like the rest. Why is this individual page, along with others of similar viewpoints, important to you whilst ignoring others? Does that represent Wikipedia's intent and purpose? This is why I'm bringing up what seems to be an unbalanced editing pattern.

I ask that others comment on this, as this is circumlocutive in absence of other's input. UnorthodoxyAC (talk) 23:27, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Norodom Ekcharin

This article would benefit from some more eyes - there seems to be disagreement about whether this person is a prince or the latest Anna Anderson. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:35, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Is this edit to Jechonia OR?

[Special:Contributions/72.49.181.242] Doug Weller talk 16:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Seems fine; that encyclopedia was written by scholars, and had an editorian board. DFlhb (talk) 14:24, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb I see my problem. I thought large chunks were unsourced, but in fact it's all copied from the source so is copyvio. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Do note its publication date; it's in the public domain, and is being attributed as required. Unless we're looking at different edits? DFlhb (talk) 15:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb tagged by User: Diannaa as pd, but I was relying on the copyright date.[10] sp I’m confused. Doug Weller talk 18:41, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm assuming the copyright date doesn't include the encyclopedic entries, and just refers to the website itself (logos, links). It says on its front page that all entries are pd.[11]

I've verified that for this page[12], the text matches the scanned picture, and that the scan matches the Archive.org[13] scan of the early 20th century (pd) edition. One academic database[14] confirms its date of publication is pre-1927.

The website is WP:UBO,[15], but it's probably best to directly cite the expired book, even if the website is where the text was copied from. DFlhb (talk) 19:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb I see, thanks for the clarification. I’ll admit I don’t like it when large swathes are copied, especially with no date for when they are written or the authors. Doug Weller talk 21:21, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@DFlhb I can't find a date for this - it's either late 19th c. or early 20th. And some of the wording seems unencyclopedic, eg "s sad experience". And how does "(Benjamin of Tudela, "Itinerary," ed. Asher, i. 66)" help the reader? Or the references to "Buder"? Doug Weller talk 10:36, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Yoshiko Kawashima

At Talk:Yoshiko Kawashima#Gendering, there is a discussion about pronoun use in the article that may raise original research issues based on available sources. Assistance with finding and reviewing sources would be appreciated. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 17:42, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: mass rape and rape as a weapon of war

I'd welcome further contributions to the ongoing discussions on Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. While one deals with NPOV and DUE, the other concerns OR, and the issue is: do we have enough independent and reliable sources to state with wikivoice in the lead that Sexual violence in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been committed by Armed Forces of Russia, including the use of mass rape as a weapon of war? Sources on mass rape are detailed in the Overall scale section, and sources on rape as a weapon of war are in the Claims of intent section; more RS on the talk page. This thread war originally and mistakenly posted on WP:RSN here Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:37, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

And now you’re just WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Multiple users disagree with you on article talk page. users disagree with you at WP:RSN. Multiple users disagreed with you at WP:NPOV. So in continuing your WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT you’ve now brought it over here. Volunteer Marek 17:06, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

"Multiple users" are you and My very best wishes. Let's hear other voices please. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:00, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

And User:Adoring nanny and User:GizzyCatBella. Did you just “happen” to forget them? Like I said. FORUMSHOPPING. IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Followed by more FORUMSHOPPING and refusal to WP:DROPTHESTICK. This is why you’ve been banned from two other wikis and why everytime this stuff has wound up at ANI you end up almost getting a topic ban [16]. That “almost” is unlikely to keep repeating endlessly. Volunteer Marek 03:45, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: As you well know, this isn't a forum for raising behavioral problems, so focus on the content.

@Gitz6666: Generally speaking, it's inadvisable to cross-post once a discussion has commenced on another board. In some cases you may post a notice leading editors to another discussion, but it should be clear that you're not looking to split the discussion. François Robere (talk) 17:22, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek, actually GizzyCatBella didn't say anything about the issue being discussed here. I don't doubt she agrees with you, but how do you know, do you take it for granted? The only comments she made were about having a section on sexual violence by Ukrainian forces (now under discussion at NPOVN). Re forum shopping, as far as I understand it, I did not raise the same issue on several noticeboards: I closed the discussion at RSN and moved it here because, as MVBW pointed out, the issue is not whether the sources are reliable, but rather whether the sources support certain claims. The discussion at NPOVN is on a different subject. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:16, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Again, not true [17] Volunteer Marek 02:08, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Since this all appears to be from a UN a report, wouldn't it be better to have an article about the report? TFD (talk) 08:31, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces Yeah, not a bad idea. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:03, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

@Gitz6666 Do you want to create a new article about the report? - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:27, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

..or expand this --> Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:59, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

No. We don't have any sources about the 27 September 2022 report and I doubt it's notable. The report is not notable, but is reliable, and is probably one of the best source we have about what's happening in Ukraine. With regard to the scale of sexual violence, it says: OHCHR cannot yet draw conclusions regarding the scale of CRSV perpetrated since February (para. 54). We also have an update released on 02 December 2022. With regard to sexual violence, it says

Since 24 February 2022, HRMMU has documented 86 cases of CRSV against women, men, and girls, including rape, gang rape, forced nudity and forced public stripping, sexual torture and sexual abuse. The cases occurred in different regions of Ukraine and in a penitentiary facility in the Russian Federation. The majority of these violations were perpetrated by members of Russian armed forces or law enforcement authorities. In 53 cases, sexual violence was used as part of torture and ill-treatment in the context of detention. Ukrainian law enforcement authorities are reportedly investigating 43 cases of sexual violence.

This is what we know about the extent of sexual violence in Ukraine. Is it "mass rape"? Is rape being used as a weapon of war? To answer the question, take a look at the citation clutter Volunteer Marek has added to the article - 10 news articles, most of them dating back to March-April, most of them reporting allegations, claims by named individuals, sometimes politicians, sometimes human rights activists, about "fears" or "threats" of systematic/weaponized rape - and tell me if we have enough independent reliable sources to support the statement about the use of mass rape as a weapon of war in the lead section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:14, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

This is one source. There are a dozen OTHER sources which discuss mass rape. Your argument appears to be “this one particular source that I myself picked unilaterally must have the precise wording you wish to add or it can’t go in even if a whole bunch of other reliable sources talk about it”. Not how it works. Volunteer Marek 02:11, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

This discussion risks being unproductive. Given the time it takes, it may not be worth it. Let's change the approach and try to make this discussion productive for the encyclopaedia. I have just published a section with all the information we have on the extent and nature of sexual violence in Ukraine [18]. I might have forgotten something: if so, please add it. When the section is stabilised, we can decide how to summarise its content for the lead. This is the right way to proceed according to MOS:LEAD: from the body to the lead, not vice versa. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:54, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes that was a constructive edit and thank you for that. Volunteer Marek 02:31, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

At least now one can read the whole set of sources and express an informed view on the open question of this thread: should we say with wikivoice that the use of mass rape as a weapon of war is taking place in Ukraine? Or should we rather say that Ukrainian officials and human rights organisations have warned that rape is occuring on a large scale and may be used by the Russian army as a weapon of war? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:30, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

My attempt to modify the lead section to make it compatible with MOS:LEAD was reverted [19], which is fair enough (here is the text I proposed for the lead). However, the problem remains: the statement with wikivoice (now in the lead) Armed Forces of Russia [have resorted to] the use of mass rape as a weapon of war is the product of a synthesis of various articles reporting the views of specific individuals (often Western politicians and Ukrainian officials), as is made clear by the ugly citation clutter added by Volunteer Marek. As such, this statement is an original research that should be removed despite the lack of consensus on a new lead section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:15, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Nature and Extent section is a WP:PROSELINE, it needs to be replaced with a proper section detailing the nature and extent or simply erased. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

OK, I've rephrased/edited the section to avoid WP:PROSELINE [20]. Honestly, however, WP:PROSELINE - which is an essay - is the last of our problems here. We have a piece of original research in the lead section and it contains a very serious accusation, made in wikivoice, about mass rape used as a weapon of war. Do you want to know what mass rape as a weapon of war looks like? Read this: [21] (para. 55-70). By trivializing the notion of weaponised rape, we make it even more invisible than it already is, we fail the mission of any encyclopaedia, which is to bring clarity and knowledge in place of prejudice and confusion, and we also breach non-negotiable policies (WP:V but also WP:NPOV) by combining together various sources on "allegations", "threats", "fears" of systematic and weaponised sexual violence in order to claim that sexual violence is already systematic and weaponised. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:08, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I can see that among the sources in the first sentence are indeed many that are not acceptable arbiters of whether war crimes are happening. And the first sentence has completely the wrong tone. Maybe strip it all down and use the UN (and ICC?) documents as a framework for rebuilding the article - first sentence leading with something like "The UN (insert agency here) and ICC have asserted that Russian troops have been using sexual violence as a weapon of war during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine"?

I think with your "By trivializing" sentence, you're suggesting there is a problem with agreeing what source is reliable? Well, whether we all like it or not, the UN and ICC are the ultimate authorities in the world on whether or not war crimes are happening, so those should be the uttermost sources for this article. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Which sources do you think are not reliable? And no, relying on the UN alone would only create another kind of bias and POV problem. The UN is most certainly not the "ultimate authority" on this issue, especially since its Human Rights Council includes and is dominated by countries like.... wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, Russia [22] (as well as, oh let's see, Pakistan, China, Cuba, Phillipines, Saudi Arabia ... I mean half of it is a veritable who's who list of "worst human rights abusers in modern world"). Of course that doesn't mean we CAN'T use it but no way do we treat it as authoritative or "ultimate". Volunteer Marek 00:39, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

There's a misunderstanding here. In the endless discussions on that talk page and the other talk pages in the Russo-Ukraine area, I am the "UN guy", so to speak; I systematically read OHCHR, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and propose these sources as the standard we should follow in reporting on war crimes. My interlocutors, however, find that The Daily Beat, Yahoo News and Kyiv Post are often a better choice to express what they feel we need to express in this area. Now, with regard to sexual violence in Ukraine, so far OHCHR, Amnesty and HRW have NEVER said or even suggested that systematic and weaponized rapes were occurring. The day they'll publish a report on rape as a weapon of war in Ukraine, I'll be the first one to report this content both in the body and in the lead. But my interlocutors can't wait to have mass rape as a weapon of war showcased in the lead section and have therefore combined various sources, a dozen or so quotes, to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Am I the only one who finds this way of doing things unacceptable? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:00, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The fact that rape has been systemic and has been used as a weapon of war by Russia has been said and reported by top scholars in the field, including Dara Kay Cohen [23] (author of [24] Rape During Civil War) and Mia Bloom.

The Daily Beast, Yahoo News are not used ANYWHERE in the article, so you're simply lying about what your supposed "interlocutors" are supposedly up to. Volunteer Marek 00:46, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Please, provide a source. If it's reliable, we may add it to the article. And why don't you write an article on the two top scholars in the field you just mentioned since none of them appears on en.wiki? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:52, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Here [25]. Now how about you strike your false assertion and the personal attacks (about "posses") above? Volunteer Marek 00:58, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

probably Mia Bloom is this Professor of Communication at Georgia State University... well, OK, "top scholar in the field" I honestly don't know... anyway, I'd like to read the paper where they argue that rape is used as a war weapon in Ukraine and add it to the sources, thanks. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:54, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

"Her studies specialize in ethnic conflict, rape in war, child soldiers, female terrorists, and terrorist communications.[3][4][5] Bloom was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations in 2003–2008.". Nice try though. Volunteer Marek 00:55, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

". Bloom is the editor for Stanford University Press’ new series on terrorism and political violence. She is regularly featured as an expert contributor on CNN, CNN International, MSNBC and Fox News for terrorism and national security issues. Bloom is a member of the UN terrorism research network (UNCTED) and a member of the radicalization expert advisory board for the Anti- Defamation League (ADL). Bloom holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University, an M.A. in Arab Studies from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a B.A. from McGill University in Russian, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies." Volunteer Marek 00:56, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Two sources of April 2022, great. The two authors have no detailed information about what is going on the ground and make hypotheses on the basis of the news reports that followed the re-taking of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions. The first piece is an op-ed based on the premise "I believe that the Ukraine conflict is an ethnic war", the second is an interview were the interviewed doesn't claim that rape is used as a weapon of war but says that this is likely to happen during genocides. Well, if the two authors are notable enough we may include their views in the article. Expressing their hypotheses in wikivoice as if they were established facts? No. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:28, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

John C. Box

I am looking at wikipedia articles for various members of the House of Representatives, and I found a very troubling section in the article at https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/John_C._Box . "To refute an allegation in a thesis published online, from my in person interviews with both my grandfather, Ivin N. Box, nephew of John C. Box, and John C. Box, Jr., my cousin, John C. Box was never a member of the KKK or any organization espousing like philosophies (Paul W. Box, great-grand nephew)."

I don't think there's any doubt as it being original research, but I'm not involved enough in wikipedia to handle being drawn into a possible edit war with the user in question, so I'm looking for help on that regard. Zhinz (talk) 16:20, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, definitely Original Research. More importantly, since the article does not mention anything about allegations that the subject was in the KKK, there is no need to include a refutation of the allegations.

I have removed the OR sentence. However, I also see that there has been no discussion attempted on the article talk page. If the OR is returned, try talking rather than edit warring. Explain why we can’t accept the contribution. Blueboar (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Rbl for ruble

Affects articles such as:

• Russian ruble
• Belarusian ruble
• And other articles which reference these currencies

Some time ago, TheCurrencyGuy added currency symbols to different pages, such as "Rbl" for the Russian ruble and the Belarusian ruble, as well as some non-currency-themed articles, such as Special:Diff/1110767772 for the Marshrutka. While the pages have been edited since TCG's introduction of currency symbols, the three linked pages still use TCG's choice of symbols, and there is potentially a lot more pages where TCG aligned the symbols with their preferences.

While TCG did supply a source for the BYN, they failed to give a source for "Rbl" with respect to the Russian ruble, and in any case, the source for the Belarusian ruble is a World Bank style guide, when a source from the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus would have been more definitive. Therefore, I would like input on whether the usage of "Rbl" for the two rubles should be deemed original research. Thank you. NotReallySoroka (talk) 08:16, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

First, you need to distinguish between currency signs (like ₽) and currency abbreviations. Afaics, "Rbl" is being used as an a abbreviation. When and where to use it is outside the remit of this notice board.

Second, if the World Bank Style Guide gives this (and many other) currency abbreviations, then it is not OR. Indeed it is a very high quality RS. It is the one explicitly preferred by {{infobox currency}}.

No case to answer, IMO. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:37, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: I apologize for mixing up signs and symbols. But then TCG seems to have failed to source their choice of abbreviation of "Rbl" for the Russian ruble, which could potentially be OS on their part.

I re-reviewed the World Bank style guide. While it does use "rubel" and "Rbl" for the Belarusian currency, the Guide uses "ruble" (not TCG's "rouble"), "kopek" (no "c"), and "rub". Therefore, I fail to understand why TCG chose Rbl for the Russian currency when the style guide they once used would argue for Rub. NotReallySoroka (talk) 02:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

No need to apologise, it is a common misunderstanding. Often the usages are indistinguishable in practice. Most currencies don't have a unique symbol.

As you know, the consensus resolution to the ruble/rouble dispute is that it is an WP:ENVAR issue and the rules for handling such issues are already clear. The form "rubel" is not used in any of the major dialects of English (UK, US, IN, AU), so is not appropriate for en.wiki.

TCG was using the abbreviations to try to sidestep that consensus because they couldn't bring themselves to write "ruble". Their choice of Rbl for the Russian rouble does appear to be OR (or just an error – but why not just use ₽?). What TCG did is never going to be a sensible starting assumption for any logical discussion. They did contribute a lot that was valuable but simply couldn't cope with real world ambiguity.

IMO, we should take the WBSG as authoritative for abbreviations since there can be no doubt but that they would have consulted widely to draw it up. As for transliterated names, we should rely on common practice in English language sources: that is a test that "rubel" fails.

Does that help to clarify the issue? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:25, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I read your comment and will reply at detail at a later time. Thanks a lot. NotReallySoroka (talk) 17:00, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: What I am getting as is that using Rbl for the Russian ruble could be original research, in part since WBSG uses "Rub" and "ruble" for the Russian currency. I am aware of how my RfC on r(o)uble went thanks to your reminder, and I respect its result and you analysis on how it relates to spelling the word "ruble" on-wiki. NotReallySoroka (talk) 01:01, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@NotReallySoroka: IMO calling it OR gives it a dignity it doesn't deserve, it was just part of TCG's one-man WP:RGW campaign. It is just wrong, as the citation affirms, and we don't need to make a big issue of it – just correct any instances of it that you find. I have already corrected Russian ruble. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:28, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: Alright, thank you :) NotReallySoroka (talk) 04:30, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Amhara genocide

The article Amhara genocide is in severe need of an overall cleanup for WP:SYNTHESIS. It's clear that there have been massacres of Amharas on long time scales and in the recent past, so under a name such as Persecution of Amharas or Massacres of Amharas, the article would definitely survive an AfD. However, overall the article presents a thesis, has a lot of editorialising, and the main thesis - a genocide as per the Rome statute or other well-accepted definitions - is extremely difficult to try to justify as a genocide from the sources, partly due to WP:OVERCITE, due to the abundant use of source that are advocacy sites for the human rights of Amharas (these shouldn't be excluded, but they should be attributed and used in appropriate balance with independent sources), due to the difficulty in making a judgment while respecting the extensive editing work that has gone into building the article, and also due to the multiple historical time periods (e.g. are these multiple genocides?).

There at least two highly active editors with very different editing profiles (one as the main author; one as an independent editor), and there have been improvements responding to some of my specific concerns.

I think that people who know nothing about the subject matter (prior to reading the article) but with significant Wikipedia experience could make significant contributions in improving the article, provided that they are willing to put in a sustained effort and help sort out which references are the most useful, and help explain WP:SYNTHESIS and related issues. I'm not convinced that a flyby tag of WP:OR would lead to significant improvement, since it might just sit there for years. A WP:RM might help, though the number of editors is small and the number of people likely to participate and !vote is small.

In any case, some attention to the article would be worth it. @Buidhe: might wish to comment on what's most likely to help the article. Boud (talk) 12:34, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I posted an RM, which should hopefully either lead to enough serious sources being provided for the main thesis, or to a name change that would not remove all aspects of synthesis, but at least the topic as a whole would no longer be synthesis. Boud (talk) 22:23, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

2022-2023 California floods

As of right now, Elijahandskip seems to want to keep the sentence that references this as the deadliest event of 2023. Besides this not being notable as we are only 4% into the year, no source is declaring this to be deadliest. His template of deadliest 2023 events is his excuse, but does that violate WP:OR? --69.127.228.206 (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. This seems arguably too soon in the year, as well as being generally lower compared to.other events, to be added. If say by April it is still the highest, then it makes sense. Masem (t) 21:41, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Masem: Just a question. Per the discussion starter’s own words, “The template itself is fine since it compares events as covered by sources.” Why would the template not be ok for the sentence? Per many sources indirectly, the floods are the deadliest event in 2023. No source directly states it, however, would it not be viable for someone to say Hurricane Ian killed more than the 2022-2023 California floods? No source directly states that Ian killed more than the floods, however, we know Ian killed 150+ and the floods killed 19. This is one of the circumstances where multiple sources indirectly state it, so in my mind, it should be included until it drops to #2. Elijahandskip (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

There's more than 90% of the year left, so it is quite possible that 50+ deadly weather events may occur, and in that light, the deaths from the flood would no longer be considered close to deadliest. It would be different if this was July or later, with <50% of year left; while there still could be multiple storms that are more deadly, the statistics work against that. In reality, we really should be waiting until mid December (or even after the new year) to be classifying events as the deadliest so that there's no way that the fact could be changed. Note this is different from cataloging all death-toll-having weather events on a list for 2023 which can be sorted by deaths, as events will not disappear off that. Masem (t) 01:10, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Clarification comment: The template which 69.127.228.206 mentions is Template:Deadliest meteorological events in 2023. Also for the record, I don’t “own” the template like 69.127.228.206 seems to be claiming. In fact, other editors have contributed to it and templates like it. I’m not sure why this user came straight to a noticeboard instead of starting a talk page discussion about it or continuing the ongoing discussion about it. Slightly suspicious about a potential WP:SOCK involved here. Myself and a few other WP Weather members have been dealing with two sock masters in the last 6 months (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Andrew5/Archive) who love to jump around from IP to IP. I have noticed now three unique IP editors [26][27][28] say almost duplicate things about that sentence. Anyway, I plan to open a SPI just incase since basically WP Weather is use to seeing multiple IP users saying the same thing = this specific sock master, who’s has been discovered to often jump to conclusions/escalate issues more than they should. United States Man, you should probably jump into this discussion. Elijahandskip (talk) 21:46, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't see any clear indication as to what the aforementioned template is citing for its fatality information, particularly due to the lack of links for most of its entries. I'm not immediately aware of sourcing requirements for navigation templates, but given how the template appears to be presenting novel information (dates, fatality counts) I would assume the sourcing requirements would be higher here, and it would be prudent to include that attribution. –TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 22:41, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

There are all mentioned in the Weather of 2023 timeline. It is probably a good idea to include references in the template itself, but trying to figure out where to add them I think is a question (for visual purposes and such, like where to place them). Elijahandskip (talk) 22:50, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• Note: Discussion can be disregarded here and continue back on the article’s talk page as the noticeboard was filed pre-maturely by a now blocked sock master. There was a nice and productive conversation there prior to this noticeboard being filed. Elijahandskip (talk) 20:48, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Prewrath Rapture

• Prewrath rapture (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Editor User:Doug Weller deleted an entire section of the article entitled "Timeline" with the reason being: No original research (also mentioned no secondary sources added). The below exchange is from the talk page of User:SanJuanCat

Doug, it appears you deleted the entire "Timeline" section from the article ...with a mention of "no secondary sources." I would argue that the Bible is the primary source and that the timelines that were added to the article are secondary sources. Following is Wikipedia's explanation of primary and secondary sources - with my additions/clarifications italicized in brackets:

"A secondary source [diagram of the timing of the end-times] is one that gives information about a primary source [the Bible]. In this source [diagram], the original information [Bible] is selected, modified and arranged in a suitable format. Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information."

Do you agree or disagree that 1) the Bible is a primary source and 2) a diagram showing the chronological arrangement of the Bible's end-time events is a secondary source? ...and if you disagree with either 1) or 2), what is your position on either or both of those statements?

Thanks, Craig SanJuanCat (talk) 17:37, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, the diagrams were not reliably published sources. Just original research. Doug Weller talk 18:24, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But you mentioned two points in your edit: 1) original research and 2) no secondary sources added. Regarding #2, isn't the Bible the primary source and the diagrams the secondary source? SanJuanCat (talk) 20:33, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Secondary on Wikipedia is basically shorthand for reliably published secondary sources . Doug Weller talk 21:24, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So is it your position that all the "Timeline" information (that you deleted) was not reliably published secondary sources? SanJuanCat (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Most had no sources, did you see the tag? Doug Weller talk 21:55, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The tag was wrong. The information in "Timeline" cited a multitude of Bible verses, which is the primary source for this article. Did you not see all the cited Bible verses? SanJuanCat (talk) 22:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You still don't get it. Of course I saw the verses, I'd have to be blind to miss them. Virtually that whole section was someone's interpretation of the primary sources in a 2008 edit. We simply do not allow that. It violates Wikipedia:No original research. Doug Weller talk 09:26, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do you believe is Wikipedia's definition of "No original research"? ...and what is your source?

From the link you provided: "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources. To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented."

Since the Bible is the primary, reliable, published source, and the analysis/synthesis material from the "Timeline" information (which you deleted) serves to reach a conclusion that is stated by the Bible, and the specific Bible verses were cited, why would that "Timeline" information be considered original research?

Further, from the link you provided: "Rewriting source material in your own words while retaining the substance is not considered original research." This describes the information that you deleted from "Timeline."

Why do you believe it violates "no original research"? SanJuanCat (talk) 17:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

and the analysis/synthesis material from the "Timeline" information ... serves to reach a conclusion That's the OR part. No analysis , no synthesis, and no conclusions that are not directly stated in reliable secondary sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:40, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. It's not the analysis/synthesis that is inherently the problem, it's when the analysis/synthesis serves to reach a conclusion that is NOT stated by the sources. In this case, the analysis serves to reach a conclusion that IS stated by the sources. SanJuanCat (talk) 19:58, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

"Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information." SanJuanCat (talk) 20:00, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The Bible has no 'timeline' for 'prewrath rapture'. Any such 'timeline' is interpretation/evaluation. And since no source is cited for such interpretation, it is original research. That is how Wikipedia policy works. It isn't open to negotiation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:08, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The Bible most definitely has verbiage regarding the timing of the end-time events and many books have been written about how the Bible supports a prewrath rapture. Secondary sources such as diagrams give information about the primary source - the Bible. And further, "Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information." In those secondary sources, the Bible was cited.

What is your basis for saying "The Bible has no 'timeline' for 'prewrath rapture'"?

And what are you referring to when you say: "no source is cited for such interpretation, it is original research."? SanJuanCat (talk) 20:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

SanJuanCat… what you need to do is find a reliable secondary source that strings the verses together to form the timeline… and then you can attribute the timeline to that source. Is there such a source? Blueboar (talk) 20:46, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok, but just to clarify, the "Timeline" section in the article that was involved in the wholesale deletion was not my work and I didn't add it. However, in that article, editor(s) did string together verses in bullet point, narrative form to describe the schedule of the end times, citing book, chapter and verse for each verse. In addition, an editor(s) added two diagrams to the Timeline section to show the timeline in schematic form. Isn't that what Wikipedia defines as secondary sources?

Or are you saying secondary sources have to be published somewhere else before they can be added to Wikipedia. If that's the case, then there are many sources (books and associated websites and materials) that string together verses to form the timeline of events. Also, if that is the case, the diagrams that got deleted from the Timeline section were seemingly secondary sources published elsewhere ...shouldn't those be allowed in the article?

(As an aside, a book that I wrote and an associated website string verses together to form the timeline, but it sounds like I can't add my own work??)

Thank you SanJuanCat (talk) 21:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

The diagrams were original research, neither had any sources. Doug Weller talk 22:08, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

there are many sources (books and associated websites and materials). NB it's about secondary reliable sources, as described here: WP:reliable sources. –Austronesier (talk) 22:13, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

10-4 ...there are many reliable sources on this topic SanJuanCat (talk) 22:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Easily resolved ...I can add those and/or others back and cite sources SanJuanCat (talk) 22:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Zigmas Zinkevičius

On the article Zigmas Zinkevičius, Marcelus repeatedly adds statements ([29], [30]) such as Zinkevičius is known for his nationalist views, which often influence his scientific work, despite the source he used [31] not saying anything like that and not even mentioning the words 'nationalism', 'nationalist' or anything of the sort. In fact, the quote Marcelus references says (translated into English from Polish: However, it seems to me that the weakness of the work is the lack of objectivity, mixing ideology and scientific facts). This does not at all match what Marcelus portrays it as saying.

It's also relevant that Marcelus has dehumanized Zigmas Zinkevičius as a chauvinistic pig twice already: Zinkevičius is a chauvinistic pig and I won't pretend he isn't - on 11 August 2022 - and he was chauvinistic pig on 15 Jan. 2023. So, Marcelus clearly has a grudge against him and it seems like Marcelus is intentionally smearing Zigmas Zinkevičius, who was a very respectable academician that passed away five years ago.--Cukrakalnis (talk) 13:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@Cukrakalnis I reworded the section, also added opinion of Theodore R. Weeks. I also maintain my negative opinion of him, which is justified by his actions. Marcelus (talk) 14:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

There are no sources that call Zinkevičius anti-Polish or anti-Polonist, etc., so the section "Anti-Polonism" and the category "anti-Polish" has to go, because it's WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Cukrakalnis (talk) 15:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@Cukrakalnis how would you rename it then? I think that "Anti-Polonism" sums pretty well the content Marcelus (talk) 15:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Like Turaids already said here:

How many of the other sources actually explicitly call Zinkevičius views and actions "anti-Polish" and how much of that is your own personal intepretation and WP:SYNTH? Since you don't seem to be able to tell the difference it would be a good idea for you to provide quotes from the other sources as well.

The section's false name "Anti-Polonism" as well as the related category should be entirely removed. Most of the section Anti-Polonism should be removed, because the criticism by Boroch and Jundo-Kaliszewska is already in the Reception and legacy section, where Weeks' comments could be added. Also, the reliability of Jundo-Kaliszewska's works is also called into question by her numerous doubtful statements that contradict many already established WP:RS (e.g. she calls Vytautas Landsbergis and Virgilijus Čepaitis, "fringe nationalists" (Skrajni nacjonaliści, tacy jak Čepaitis czy Landsbergis..., denies the existence of simple speech, forced polonization, etc.), so most of the section should just be removed. Cukrakalnis (talk) 15:34, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

There is no reason to remove the whole section. It's based on reliable sources and shows important part of Zinkevičius biography. Also there is nothing controversial in calling Landsbergis "radical nationalist", his views are similiar to Zinkevičius. Marcelus (talk) 15:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

There are many reasons to remove that section (like I and Turaids already said), but this seems like a case of WP:ICANTHEARYOU, because you keep repeating your incorrect arguments ad nauseam.

Calling Vytautas Landsbergis (a recipient of numerous international awards, such as the Philippines' Gusi Peace Prize, among many others) a radical nationalist is a clear demonstration of a very distorted WP:POV. Cukrakalnis (talk) 16:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Even if the sources are reliable (which in the case of Jundo-Kaliszewska still seems to be under discussion), your application of them clearly is not. As I've tried to explain, the section suffers from systemic problems starting with its name and the very first sentences. My proposal would be to move the overlapping content from the Reception and legacy section to a separate subsection Criticism (to address your concern of "uncomfortable information being buried"), include the recently added opinion of Theodore R. Weeks and improve upon that, but discard most of the content in the Anti-Polonism section as duplicate and unimprovable. And the moment calling Landsbergis a "radical nationalist" stops being controversial is the moment it becomes a consensus. –Turaids (talk) 17:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@Turaids there is no reason to call Jundo-Kaliszewska as unreliable source, you didn't provide any (reviews of her work, opinions about her work etc.) all we got so far are @Cukrakalnis speculations. Unless you prove otherwise she should be considered as reliable source. Also there are three different reaserches that are on the same page as her: Theodore Weeks, Leonidas Donskis and Boroch. Please explaing to me how my "application of sources" is "unreliable".

As for Landsbergis I don't know how receiving several awards contradicts him being radical nationalists. Marcelus (talk) 17:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

If it's still unclear, please re-read what I wrote in the Landsbergis discussion page about you synthesizing published material. As for Jundo-Kaliszewska, Cukrakalnis raised a number reasonable objections about her that you haven't really addressed, but I've already spent enough time repeating myself, so I won't be wasting any more time in this discussion. I will just repeat myself for the very last time of the first thing I said when I joined the discussion: "Your conviction appears to be heavily clouded by your personal opinion of the subject of this article." –Turaids (talk) 18:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

My opinion is based on the knowledge about the subject of the article. And we weren't discussing on Landsbergis page, you probably mean Zinkevičius. Marcelus (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tendentious editing#Righting great wrongs. –Turaids (talk) 11:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Turaids If, however, the wrong that you want to address has already been sorted in the real world, and if you have the reliable sources to support it, then please do update the articles.; I don't know what's your point here is really Marcelus (talk) 12:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

You are the one openly admitting of adding things to the article with the intention of "proving" that "he was chauvinistic pig" (your words, not mine). –Turaids (talk) 12:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Turaids And? What exactly is wrong about it? Sources clearly describes him as nationalist politican, member of nationalist anti-Polish organisations, and that's what is in the article. And yes my intentions is to describe him as such, because without his biography is incomplete. There is literally nothing wrong about it, despite all your efforts to prove otherwise. Marcelus (talk) 12:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

You still not realizing that "nationalist" and "anti-Polonist" is not something that can just be thrown around interchangeably is what's wrong about it. –Turaids (talk) 13:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@Turaids please elaborate, what you mean by that Marcelus (talk) 14:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Scope of the "Anti-N sentiment" articles

There is a recent discussion in Talk:Anti-Russian_sentiment#Does_anti-war_demonstration_count_as_"anti-Russian_sentiment"? that affects other articles. Me and other participants expressed a wish to solicit a wider input as there's a desire to form a consensus on two topics that caused perennial debates in the past and would equally apply to other "anti-N sentiment" articles.

The questions about "Anti-N sentiment" articles that are being discussed boil down to:

1. whether combining prejudice with (possibly justifiable) sentiment in same article leads to synth. More specifically, there is a concern that equating anti-Russian sentiment and Russophobia, as well as equating anti-Jewish sentiment and anti-Semitism is WP:SYNTH.
2. whether inclusion of instances of vandalism, hate crimes, discrimination, notable expressions of sentiment etc reported in news sources, as well as quoting Hitler's views of Russia expressed in Mein Kampf, is an inappropriate use of WP:PRIMARY sources.

To put it into context, linking a few edits arising from the discussion:

• in Anti-Russian sentiment: [32], [33], [34]
• in Antisemitism in Canada: [35]

--PaulT2022 (talk) 01:16, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

This is a good question and definitely something that should be addressed broadly. Personally, I don't see a significant distinction between prejudice and negative sentiment, and it seems like the word "sentiment" was chosen simply to have a clearer title. I would say that trying to make distinctions between types of anti-Russian sentiment, for example, is a bigger OR concern than combining them. These articles also shouldn't just be a list of instances; Antisemitism in Canada suffers from severe WP:PROSELINE issues. They should be about the sentiment itself in a given context, and then major developments or changes can be listed in a history section or wherever appropriate. Events should be talked about broadly. Individual acts of hate don't need to be described, but the article should talk about how the invasion of Ukraine affected anti-Russian sentiment in a general sense. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:22, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Can you explain and motivate this statement a bit as I think the core issue is that myself and several readers did not find this intuitive: "Personally, I don't see a significant distinction between prejudice and negative sentiment". E.g. many do think that there are valid negative sentiments such as over the war. Are you saying that all negative sentiments are prejudice? I think the article scope would make a lot more sense if it was renamed to "Russophobia" but presently it is named "Anti-Russian sentiment". --C. lorenz (talk) 02:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

We don't get to decide whether negative sentiments are valid or justified. We just describe them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:11, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not following how that motivates equating prejudice with negative sentiment. This seems to be a similar judgement call as is behind the current version of the article. If we do not add such a judgement, it seems the article should treat mentions of the two as distinct both in article scope and content? C. lorenz (talk) 03:31, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

"Russophobia" is a propaganda term, "anti-Russian sentiment" is an objective sociological phenomenon. This is recognized, it's pretty simple to find outside sources about this, and as eds our job is to find consensus on that, recognizing WP:FRINGE and not falling prey to bothsides-ism. (Where the hell is our policy on propaganda?) AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for initiating the request, PaulT2022. Let me add or reformulate the first point a bit since I was pushing it the most. I hope one of the other participants can elaborate on the second a bit as I think there were a few versions of it.

My request for questions to answer are more specifically:

1a. Should one in anti-N articles assume that e.g. "Anti-Russian sentiments" and "Russophobia" are identical terms or does this constitute WP:SYNTH? For the purpose of article scope, term definition, sources, and statements. From what I have seen, "Russophobia" has a fairly consistent dictionary definition involving irrational motivations; while "anti-Russian sentiments" lacks a specific definition and some readers express interpreting it differently and have other expectations of the article.

1b. If the answer to the above point is a No, what is the definition and scope of an anti-X article?

1c. If the answer to the above point is a No, to what extent should an article cover a topic more broadly vs Russophobia specifically, provided sources exist?

1d. How should anti-X articles generally deal with slight changes in senses, as this may create some disconnect between content and heading titles, sources, or elaborating/examplifying sentences? Differences such as between negative sentiments more generally and instances of Russohobia; or between sentiments against a nation and sentiments against an ethnicity?

(I do not think anyone expressly wanted a resolution regarding anti-Jewish sentiment but it would be nice to set general guidelines as similar issues may be common. I also do not think there was an expressed concern about an article containing both 'prejudice' and 'justified' content but rather the lack thereof, balance, or nuance).

We can discuss each of these questions separately, so please feel free to share your thoughts on any or all of them. Thank you, --C. lorenz (talk) 02:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I instigated the discussion, so I'll join here. There is a recognized problem with the anti-Russian sentiment article due to the conflation with "Russophobia" as Putin's propaganda device, and it seems to be agreed that this article needs more monitoring from the community. But the particular concern I have with this type of topic in general is that it attracts eds adding every anti-N incident they come across in the paper, often using WP:SYNTH to justify the addition. This goes against WP:NOT, and is against WP:DUE. The article anti-Japanese sentiment is a good example of what these articles should strive for, I think, as it explains the who, where why and how and doesn't simply list events. So my request is that an explicit clarification come from WP that anti-N sentiment articles are to be about sentiment, ideally sourced from third-party intelligent analyses of the topic, and that lazily adding events from newspaper articles should be discouraged. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:21, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on what you mean by using WP:SYNTH to justify the addition? Usually SYNTH refers to using multiple sources to 'invent' meaning not supported by either alone. Do you mean that using sources that describe individual incidents to support a statement that the incidents took place is a SYNTH?

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think the core dispute is really about how much detail something like this edit has. I think most editors would agree that encyclopedic coverage requires summarising it without excessive details as much as possible while staying true to the sources. But rather that the statements of sentiment/hate expressions that have a cause (and are conceivably "valid", "justifiable" etc) are a SYNTH and should be removed from articles entirely - Does anti-war demonstration count as "anti-Russian sentiment"?, as you put it yourself.

I do agree with WP:NOT and, especially, WP:PROSELINE, I'm talking solely about sourcing here - are news reports about incidents reliable sources to say that the incidents took place or not. PaulT2022 (talk) 15:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Sure, a newspaper story saying an incident took place is probably an RS that it took place. I'm saying single disjoint sentences reporting news reports about incidents (1) have no place in an article about sentiment (as I've said before, it's not list of anti-Russian incidents, and collections of incidents without proper third-party analysis should not be in the scope of an article on a sociological phenomenon), (2) a news report simply stating there was an incident is often WP:SYNTH because effectively the ed himself is making the assertion that it is relevant to the sociological phenomenon of anti-X sentiment, (3) this fails WP:NOT and WP:DUE, (4) it's lazy and disengaged editing, (5) if allowed to happen it can eventually bury all the article's serious analysis under a mountain of what's effectively trivia. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The sources describe the events as hate-motivated vandalism or hate crimes. Do you maintain that they are not reliable to state so in the article? Or that articles should not mention presence of such events in principle because the sources don't call them "incidents of anti-N sentiment" explicitly? (I don't disagree that writing with disjointed sentences is not ideal, that's not the point of the discussion.) PaulT2022 (talk) 16:38, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

A journalist, editor, quoted onlooker or police detective is not qualified, no. (We've resolved this a long time ago in Moral panic: nothing gets added to the article just because some journalist or article writer uses the phrase, it has to meet the criteria laid out by sociologists like Stanley Cohen.) But more importantly, reporting incidents is completely tangential to the topic.

Consider this: what value is added to the article by adding incidents reported in newspapers? How does "a thing happened" help us learn about its origin, its social construction, and its narratives? "A thing happened" is not worthy of inclusion in an anti-Russian sentiment article, it should go in a list of anti-Russian incidents article. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:49, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I apologize, let me try to clarify my synth concern as best I can. An editor adding a simple news report about an incident is trying to make the case that there is anti-N sentiment. That is WP:SYNTH. The article should report research and commentary on anti-N sentiment that makes the case for the editor, of which there should be a lot available. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

• With regard to 1st question, no. anti-Russian sentiment and Russophobia are the same, as well as anti-Jewish sentiment and anti-Semitism are the same. With regard to 2nd question, it depends. If RS call specific incidents anti-national sentiment or if they are clearly anti-national sentiment (e.g. vandalizing graves of people that belong to certain ethnic groups, etc.), then of course such incidents can be included. My very best wishes (talk) 04:09, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
• With regard to specific diffs by OP, two first edits (by Turaids) look like improvements (this is proper refocusing of content), but 3rd one (by AllGloryToTheHypnotoad) is not (this is just a removal of relevant due content on the subject). My very best wishes (talk) 04:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Popper's three worlds

I'm tempted to gut Popper's three worlds to a lede/summary; I'm not sure how much of this is salvageable, with zero inline references to support what appears to be long blocks of original research/commentary. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 19:22, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Article has zero inline references, yes. I'm ignorant of Popper, but this article as written doesn't even establish notability of the topic with its sources: though maybe we can assume Niiniluoto's article asserts notability? Failure to explicitly assert the notability of the topic makes this article fall under WP:CSD#A7. But still, suggest pinging Dominic Mayers, Maurice Carbonaro, Omnipaedista and Brianwhalley and asking them to clean up; alternately, call in WP:WPP, the Wikiproject Philosophy, to see if anyone there wants to give the article their attention; alternately, AfD the article and see if anyone there bothers to actually fix the article.

I wouldn't gut it on my own, though; some guy (Mayers?) may have spent 15 years working on this. And it may be a significant concept in Popper. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

In which case, 'some guy' should find somewhere else to host their essay. The lack of citations makes it utterly impossible to determine how much of it even relates to what Popper had to say on the subject, never mind secondary sources we'd need to establish notability. Stubbify it, and restrict any further bloat by insisting on clear citations. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:55, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The acceptable aggressive-deletionist approach is simply to CSD A7 it: a stub will fail to assert notability even more than this full article fails to, and so the next ed will speedy-A7 that stub anyway. If the CSD A7 is halted, you simply move to a full AfD.

The CYA "editors have more responsibility to content than that" approach is to flag the article to WikiProject Philosophy/RFC to see if a philosophy buff editor considers this a gem in the rough and worthy of rescue. Fantastic articles get rescued this way. And parenthetically, fantastic articles do exist today on WP that are written with little or no inlines (history articles on obscure topics, for example - by the hundreds). AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 23:07, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I think I've flagged it to WPP, we'll see if someone comes and checks it out. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

@AllGloryToTheHypnotoad: For the Template:Expert needed, tag, nobody will intervene if they don't have an on-page explanation and/or a link to this ORN discussion. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Dragon Ball Super: Broly

In the article Dragon Ball Super: Broly, a user is modifying the figure of $122.7 million (reported by The Numbers)[36] to $131.0 million (according to them, reported by Showtime Analytics). The problem is that, to support their claim, the user just cites this simple url (showtimeanalytics.com), explaining as well that subscription is required to verify said figure. I'm not going to discuss whether this is true or not, I simply require some input to resolve this, because this is poorly sourced and is against WP:OR and WP:VERIFIABILITY. Xexerss (talk) 05:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

By the way, the user made the same edits in Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. Xexerss (talk) 06:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Paywalled sites are permissible but I believe a specific link or some kind of explicit citation is required. Someone has to be able to (theoretically) verify the information by direct citation. In the case of conflicting sources, an RFC or dispute resolution may be needed. BTW, both you and this other editor (Scabab) should be warned about WP:EDITWAR and WP:3RR. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:05, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I understand. I'm aware about WP:EDITWAR and WP:3RR, that's why I asked for some input and waited some time before editing the articles. I also reported this user's practices at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Scabab and box office figures. Xexerss (talk) 19:49, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Concur with DIYeditor, the idea is that if a paywall exists statistically more than one wikipedian will have access to it. Thats why a specific link is so important, it won't matter to most editors but it will to other editors who can jump that wall. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

There is no specific link. Not for this movie not any other. It's all operated under some kind of tabs on the site. It's not like IMDb. Even there was, nobody could see it anywhere unless subscribed. Showtime Analytics aka Comscore is the the source for box office figures that secondary sites like The Numbers and Box Office Mojo take their information from though of course they're never fully correct and therefore are inaccurate. Scabab (talk) 23:09, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Stjepan Filipović

On the page Stjepan Filipović I have added that the person in question's statue was demolished by the Croatian government (which as an independent state seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991). These edits were undone by 93.138.142.6 and 78.0.52.196 (which I presume are the same person), on the grounds that "they were not cited" (reverting it back to simply stating that his statue was demolished in 1991, and nothing else). However, I do not feel that it is necessary to cite that in particular, as it is simply a fact of history that Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991, and therefore it follows that it was the same independent Croatian government which had done the act of demolishing the monument. I would like some input on whether this detail is right to keep in the page. 129.97.124.23 (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Everything that is likely to be challenged should be referenced, anything that has been challenged shouldn't be restored without an inline reference. This is covered by WP:BURDEN. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:09, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

• Here in the US, statues often get removed by authority of a local town or city government, and the national government is not involved. I assume this could be the case in Croatia as well. This is why we need a citation to say who authorized removal. Blueboar (talk) 22:32, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Having looked into it further it appears to also be false, those who destroyed the monument have never been identified and there are no reliable sources stating it was ordered by the Croatian government. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 00:03, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Chrissy Chlapecka birth date

I am involved in a dispute on Chrissy Chlapecka with User:Toddst1 over whether my sourcing for the subject's birth date is an improper use of original research and SYNTH. To source the subject being born on April 11, 2000, I provided this, one of multiple verified social media posts where the subject affirms their birthday, as well as this , one of several RS profiles of the subject documenting their age on a specific date. Toddst1 has removed this info several times (including while the article was in draft stages) on grounds of it being original research and SYNTH. My feeling is that this is overzealous, that Wikipedia guidelines are not set in stone and should be applied with editorial discretion and common sense, and that it is not original research or an improper synthesis to simply make a logical calculation that any rational person would. Can I get arbitration on this? Invisiboy42293 (talk) 19:43, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Verbatim from the first line of WP:SYNTH: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. And from WP:DOB Original research must not be used to extrapolate the date of birth. Toddst1 (talk) 20:33, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I would agree with Toddst1 here, although perhaps more for WP:BLP reasons than WP:OR reasons. Articles about living people are meant to be written conservatively and with regards to the persons privacy. If another source hasn't seen fit to include their full birthday then I think it's questionable that it should be included in full on wikipedia (where it's the top result on google and it usually lasts forever) Tristario (talk) 23:10, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

I just found this tweet where the subject directly says that she will be 21 on April 11, 2021. Would this be an adequate source/proof of it not being private information? Invisiboy42293 (talk) 21:35, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

WP:DOB says A verified social media account of an article subject saying about themselves something along the lines of "today is my 50th birthday" may fall under self-published sources for purposes of reporting a full date of birth. It may be usable if there is no reason to doubt it. So the policy would indicate that is usable. I think now whether to include it depends on your judgement on two other factors; Does she appear to be fine with people knowing her birthday? (Here I think the answer is, she does seem fine with that) And is she borderline notable or not? If someone is borderline notable you want to err on the side of not including their full birthday. From a brief search it does look like she's pretty notable, but you can make a judgement on whether you think she is borderline notable or not Tristario (talk) 00:14, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

First question, I found multiple social media posts where she proclaims her birthday and/or age, even one where she jokes about using Famous Birthdays to verify her age, so I'd assume she's fine with people knowing. As far as her notability, she's gotten international press coverage for over two years now so I'd say she's past borderline. If it's up to my judgement and DOB supports it, I'm gonna add it. Invisiboy42293 (talk) 01:46, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Yep, per WP:DOB that's good enough, right check mark and everything. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:36, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Interesting case of possible OR through an example not taken from sources on the subject.

Talk:Argument_from_authority#RFC:_"When_contact_changes_minds"_example Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:26, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

This seems to be an mistaken interpretation of a source at History of the compass

The source is a paper in "Studia Geophysica et Geodaetica" [37] I've discussed its use with the editor adding it at User talk:Stronzina#Further misrepresentation of a source, ie about the compass. where I've written "The conclusion is :The Fuson hypothesis about possible orientation of Maya and other ceremonial centers by (paleo)magnetic pole, using (a lodestone) compass cannot be simply rejected in the light of existing facts; it still provides an explanation for the “strange” alignments, where the other interpretation are not helpful. Our new measurements and computations from 2003−2005 support the hypothesis. More precise and more extensive information from geodesy (more reliable and detailed maps of the archaeological localities), from astronomy (the correlation between Mayan and our calendar), from archaeology (age of the structures, namely the absolute age), and namely better paleomagnetic/archaeomagnetic data are needed to finally reject or accept that Olmécs/Maya actually used the compass. If they knew and used a compass (well before Chinese), then one has to think about rewriting a part of history of Mesoamerica." So I still say you can't use this as proof of anything. Also, your quote is followed by "These example seems to prove the Olmécs primacy over the Chinese discovery of a compass by more than a millenium"." You can see their arguments there.

I believe that the conclusion contradicts his edit and that this is an interpretation, ie OR, but the editor seems to disagree and has reinserted at [38] where he adds in Wikivoice "A compass was known among the Pre-Olmec 4000 years ago, as the carving of magnetic statues precisely located the focus points of magnetic lines of force which could only be achieved by a compass." Doug Weller talk 10:55, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: There are two different hypotheses here. The first is that the Olmec and Maya were aware of magnetism and the magnetic compass. The second is that they used this knowledge to align buildings. This paper examines the second hypothesis and finds it consistent with the evidence but not conclusively demonstrated. However, Stronzina's edit concerns the first hypothesis. It is clear from Section 2 of the paper that the authors believe it. They cite earlier papers plus their own investigations and never question it. A main part of their reasoning is an earlier paper of Carlson that described experiments with an artifact that would work as a compass. I think you are right that there is no scientific consensus about all this, but maybe it is worth mentioning as an unproved hypothesis. Zero^talk 12:46, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Zero0000: Note: the PDF of the "ealier paper", Lodestone Compass: Chinese or Olmec Primacy? by Johnson B. Carlson, can be downloaded from his academia.edu web page. Paul H. (talk) 03:34, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Additional note: The PDF of "Pyramids and Ceremonial Centers in Mesoamerica and China: Were They Oriented Using a Magnetic Compass?" by Jaroslav Klokocník can be found on Researchgate (2007 paper). PDF of 2011 paper. Paul H. (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

The specific text added to the History of the compass article is certainly of questionable merit: A compass was known among the Pre-Olmec 4000 years ago, as the carving of magnetic statues precisely located the focus points of magnetic lines of force which could only be achieved by a compass. It is making a definite generalist assertion about the use of the compass, based on a paper which, using stronger evidence (i.e. an analysis of the orientation of a large number of buildings) makes it clear that the subject needs further research. It is seems reasonable to cite this later paper, noting the author's reservations, for the possible use of the compass in Mesoamerica at the times indicated, but it seems entirely undue to take a single paragraph about Malmström's 1976 hypothesis regarding statues as definitive evidence over the matter. We cite papers for their conclusions, not for passing commentary on earlier research. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:03, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I see two other problems. First, the addition (diff) contains "which could only be achieved by a compass" as the author's conclusive proof when the quoted text is equivalent to "we don't know how the alignment was done". That questions the reliability of the source. Second, the addition put new text in the WP:LEAD which should only be a summary of article content. Johnuniq (talk) 02:22, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Johnuniq:@AndyTheGrump: I don't support the actual text that was added, but both of you are wrong about it. That edit does not mention alignment of buildings and so a source saying that the alignment of buildings needs more study has no bearing (pun intended) on it. That edit refers only to whether the Olmec or Maya were aware of the magnetic compass, which is a different question. The journal article appears to accept that they were, and only says further study is needed with respect to building alignment. They give several earlier references for knowledge of magnetism, including an article in Science about a magnetic artefact that would work as a compass. I don't think we should state in Wikivoice that the Olmec/Maya knew the magnetic compass, but I don't see why we can't mention the existence of the theory. Zero^talk 04:07, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification but my use of "alignment" was not related to buildings. Instead, that word was my attempt at capturing the essence of the edit (A compass was known among the Pre-Olmec 4000 years ago, as the carving of magnetic statues precisely located the focus points of magnetic lines of force which could only be achieved by a compass.) At any rate, it looks like we all agree that a mention of the author's conclusion in the body of the article (not the lead) would be appropriate as an attributed opinion. You seem best equipped for that so please edit the article. Johnuniq (talk) 06:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. That sounds like a satisfactory outcome. Doug Weller talk 08:56, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Vikram Sampath

There is a discussion at the BLP Noticeboard about summarising existing literary criticism in the lead section of an author and WP:OR/WP:SYN that editors may want to weigh in on.[39] Morbidthoughts (talk) 10:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Global Language Monitor includes a lot of Original Research

I just deleted a big chunk of text on the page for Global Language Monitor. I mentioned in the change and in the talk page that it violates the rules for original research. However, I think that there is a more significant issue at hand. I suspect the page has lots of buzzwords and nonsense to increase their ranking in search engines. I believe that the whole page is a trap to increase the company's visibility on search engines.

I strongly recommend that an administrator looks into this page as they are clearly violating multiple Wikipedia rules.--MexFin (talk) 13:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Regardless of whether it is WP:OR or not, the content you removed doesn't belong in the article, since we are supposed to be discussing a company, not the field they do research in. And I'd like to see more evidence that the company itself meets WP:NCORP. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:27, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I would concur that that was a mostly very large and needless chunk of text that was excised. The "Counting English words" subsection may be salvageable, as it did receive some coverage in sources. ValarianB (talk) 13:21, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

User keeps inserting a photo based on OR

Editor Synotia keeps adding a photo of the phone book and assignes ethnicity of the people listed there based on their names (WP:OR). Please explain to the user what WP:OR means. I tried. - GizzyCatBella🍁 17:48, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Do you know that Jews who converted to Christianity pretty much always changed their names? Leib, Pinchas, etc are all Jewish, Yiddish names. Why are you trying to wash that away? All sorts of unsavory motivations come up in my mind, but I'd rather not delve into that. Go on, find me a single Catholic named Efroim, i'll wait. Synotia (moan) 18:00, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

How on earth do you know that Efroim Krämer listed in that phone book wasn’t a Japanese American of the German decent who believed in Buddha? (And please stop with insinuations of me trying to wash something away or whatever you had in mind) - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

What are you trying to do? I cannot stop insinuations with someone that exhibits such ridiculous bad faith. Don't go around wondering why Israelis cannot stand you guys.

And here I found information on good old Efroim from Sanok on JewishGen. As written in the phone book as well, he had an egg business. His wife was called Rechel and he gave his son the extremely Catholic name Wolf. I looked for Krämers from Sanok on Yad Vashem, where I found out that Wolf survived the Shoah. I found a long reminiscent comment on this old guestbook indicating his homonym went to the Catholic country of Israel: The house of Ephraim Kramer became like an island of Kurenets [Belarus] in the midst of Tel Aviv (I am not sure if it is the same man) Synotia (moan) 18:34, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh, and have you seen that Salomon Krämer? I stumbled upon his son's Wikipedia page! Synotia (moan) 19:39, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Again, I wish you to "have fun" finding these people in the Yad Vashem database of Holocaust victims, I'm pretty sure they are there. How many Efroims and Izraels have you known in Poland? Where did they all go, I wonder? This feels so vile and foul to even question. I have no issues with you opposing the inclusion of the picture because you find it not too relevant, but questioning their Jewishness just feels so fucked up, I can't get over it. Synotia (moan) 18:04, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

@Synotia: please be aware of the WP:NPA, if keep your arguments tight and without unnecessary poking you're more likely to achieve consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:17, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

A talk page discussion is already open (Talk:History of the Jews in 20th-century Poland#February 2023). Please attempt to seek consensus there first. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:17, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Great Wall of China

Under another IP I left a request for content to be added to the page on the Great Wall of China because the page is locked. Another user snarkily (I assume this because they did not respond after I responded to them) replied, suggesting that my claims were unsubstantiated (despite the fact that there is an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to the topic I wanted to include). Because no one responded or acted upon my suggestions in the talk page, I would like to request that something be added in accordance to what I had written on the talk page, or provide a reason against its inclusion. 129.97.124.12 (talk) 20:25, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the editor's response was snarky, but your reply to them did come across that way to me which might be why they didn't engage again. Also, asking what your source is does not suggest that your claims are unsubstantiated.

As to your request, the Great Wall of China history section is a very condensed version of the more detailed article, History of the Great Wall of China which includes content about the 1933 defense of the Great Wall. Looking at the overall article about the history, the 1933 conflict doesn't appear so significant that it should be included in condensed version at Great Wall of China. There are many historical details about the Great Wall that are not included in the overcall article, but are documented in the history article. Schazjmd (talk) 20:33, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

AI images of real people

Similar to the above discussion on cartoon portraits, we now live in a time when basically anyone can tell a deep learning model like DALL-E or Midjourney to "give me a realistic picture of X". This is apparently the case with Sofie Dossi and File:DALL-E Sofie Dossi handstand.png. Have Wikipedia guidelines caught up to this issue? If not, we should, and very soon, otherwise every person, living or not, without a freely-licensed credible photograph might soon get an uncanny valley digital portrait that's technically copyright free but risks giving a distorted view of reality. --Animalparty! (talk) 06:31, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I think using AI art to represent real people should be a blockable offense. But then again, I'm strictly anti-AI art. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 08:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Honestly this is an even worse case than the cartoon portraits above, at least this particular example. There's nothing in that image to even suggest that it is of the Sophie Dossi, it is just a random woman in a contorted (I am familiar with what she is famous for, having watched AGT for years) gymnastic-like pose. Zaathras (talk) 14:39, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Presenting an AI-generated image as that of a real person is simple falsification, and thus entirely contrary to multiple existing Wikipedia policies. Revert immediately, and if anyone persists in doing this, report them so they can be blocked. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:06, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

The answer on AI images is really easy - they have unclear copyright status. While the YS Copyright office has stated thatbAI generated works cannot gain a new copyright, there remains the question of what works were used as part if the AI training, and if those are copyrighted, that makes the image a derivative, non-free work which can't be used on BLP. There are a few legal cases in progress that may clarify this more but for now AI art should be treated as non free. Masem (t) 17:26, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree that it's like the "cartoon portraits" section in that it's on NORN but not actually a NOR issue. If you found that image of Sofie Dossi generated by some random Flickr user and imported it here, it would still be inappropriate for use on Wikipedia. Similarly, it doesn't actually matter if the portraits in the section above were created by a Wikipedia user or found elsewhere; the reasons some of them shouldn't be used are because they inadequately depict the subject and/or take too many liberties not verifiable in reliable sources (reliable sources including actual photographs of the subject and/or detailed descriptions of the subject an artist could follow, like the folks do over at the dinosaurs wikiproject).

The discussion that needs to happen, if it hasn't already, is what to do with AI-generated images that verifiably do look like the subject, and AI images based on detailed descriptions from reliable sources when there are no extant images of the subject. Obviously an image like the one that started this shouldn't be used -- it looks nothing like the subject (straight hair, yada yada). Might as well put up a random image of a gymnast. Also like the "cartoon portraits" section, people are quick to draw bright lines with huge implications based on the worst possible example. What if we took scientific papers about dinosaurs, put them into an AI, and generated an image that followed those descriptions to a T? Why is that automatically worse (or, given we're here on NORN, somehow more of a WP:NOR problem than a user doing the same thing)? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Obviously the AI generated image of Rossi is crap and doesn't even really depict the subject and shouldn't be used, but a more pertinent hypothetical example would be if somebody created an AI generated photorealistic portrait of a well-known person, which would be difficult to distinguish from a real photograph. Given the current generative AI struggles with photorealistic faces, I don't think this will be an issue for the present, but I could easily see it becoming one in the near future. Obviously AI can more easily generate drawing style illustrations of people, but I would consider that covered by the "Cartoon art" discussion above. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:13, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Could we please stop using offensive language and insults to describe images on this forum. There's quite enough of it in the cartoon section above, let's not make it a feature of this page. -- Colin°^Talk 20:28, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

All this diatribe over "crap", fucking really? This is Wikipedia, not a kindergarten class. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Sirisha Bandla

Here's an AI drawing of a living person that's featured on their article. I'd be very interested to hear what people's thoughts are now. -- Veggies (talk) 17:20, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Having just used Google to look at lots of actual photographs of her, I can honestly say that I wouldn't be able to recognise that this is supposed to be a picture of her. I would be against using it on the article even if its copyright status were clear. Girth Summit _(blether) 17:36, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I recall seeing that one when perusing User:GerardM/100 Women - BBC, and decided to leave it as it seemed a bit of an edge case. Comparing it to the results of a google image search for "Sirisha Bandla" however shows little resemblance. Zaathras (talk) 18:02, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Just finding this discussion - I'm the user who wrote the article and added the image. Copyright questions aside, I'm now finding the resemblance less and less convincing, especially the lack of curly hair - something I noticed before uploading the image but which apparently was not enough to dissuade me. I was pretty eager. Part of my inspiration was a series of watercolors of billionaires (that used to be) used to illustrate several of those bios. I still think the idea of AI portraits is feasible, but this was clearly not the best implementation. Won't try again until (unless?) there are clearer guidelines. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 19:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

As Rhododendrites pointed out, there isn't a NOR issue. A respectful discussion of how to handle AI images belongs somewhere else. No possible consensus on the matter could be achieved here, as it lacks any really authority outside of the question of applying existing OR policy. There is a danger, like the cartoon discussion above, that users imagine this small corner of Wikipedia has any power to decide other things about AI or user created images, like a quality threshold, say. It doesn't. -- Colin°^Talk 20:30, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

In relation to copyright, the best and safest way is to simply follow real-world discussions. U.S. Copyright Office Says AI-Generated Images Do Not Qualify For Copyright Protection, so that's the way it will be, even if we don't like it or don't understand it. We do not say what is copyright protected and what is not, laws say that (and judges, in case of doubt). Cambalachero (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

That's not the full story. While the images that an AI may produce may not be eligible for a new copyright, the question of whether they are derivative works of the images used to seed the AI remains in question. Gettys Images as well as other artists are suing Stable Diffusion because they can prove that the AI was seeded with copyrighted images. Thus, until we know how those cases result to establish case law, we must presume that they are derivative works of possibly copyrighted images, and thus are non-free. Masem (t) 03:21, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Someone may want to tag this image (the one of Sirisha Bandla), then. It was made by Stable Diffusion. -- Veggies (talk) 03:31, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Trying to outsmart reliable sources is a kind of original research. You say the image may be a derivative work of images used to seed the AI... do you really think the Copyright Office had forgotten to consider that angle? Do you think that they don't know what is a derivative work, or get informed on the way those AI work before ruling this? Probably they considered that, even if there were copyrighted images seeding the AI, the impact of such copyrights may be De minimis if there's no actual similarity between any of those images and the final one. I know that I'm making an assumption here as well, but the assumption that reliable sources know what they do is the main pillar of verifiability itself.

By the way, see here. Three artists started a lawsuit over exactly this argument: that AI may be using copyrighted images as seeds and the resulting images would be copyright infringements. But anyone can make a lawsuit about anything, the judge is yet to consider the case and start it if he finds that there is enough merit to it to do so. Until then, going by the ruling of the Copyright Office seems safe enough. The article also warns that the main argument may be faulty, and let me cite:

“ This is not what happens at all, a trained model does not have copies of the training data, that would create an unwieldy behemoth of unfathomable size. What happens is the creation of clusters of representation of things, namely latent space. ” — Andrés Guadamuz, Cartoon Brew

User:Cambalachero: If you're going to dump a bunch of text, you need to sign your post. -- Veggies (talk) 15:06, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

The Copyright office decision nor additional coverage expressly consideref the training data of how an AI image was made. Only the produced work being a new copyright or not. Derivative work copyrights are a separate matter. It could be the case that they may not be (the de minimus argument), but we really should wait for case law on the current lawsuits to say if there are issues and possible derivative work aspects. Even before these lawsuits, it was clear many felt AI art was violating copyright, so we should be well aware of this as a red flag on AI images. --Masem (t) 15:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

• Sorry but the editor putting the details into the AI generated is choosing which details to supply and deciding on how well the output matches those inputs, I just don't see how that's not OR. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:35, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
• As others have said, AI generated images of specific people and things would be WP:OR, in that they could reflect hidden things in the prompt ("create an unflattering image of X") or the training set. When it comes to AI generated images on other pages, though, I would be opposed to removing them just for being AI-generated in strongest possible terms. The theoretical copyright concerns above are just that, theoretical; editors who are not lawyers should not be deploying legal arguments. If an unambiguous legal case shows that there are legal issues with AI-generated art, we should of course take it down; and if the foundation's lawyers, who are the people with the actual expertise employed to judge such risk, tell us that the risk is too high, then we should take them down. Otherwise they stay - allowing people to remove images with no clear copyright issues over vague and speculative concerns would have a chilling effect by effectively extending copyright to every random editor's pet theories. We should go by what the law requires, nothing more and nothing less. --Aquillion (talk) 05:15, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

OR/SYNTH dispute at Talk:LGB Alliance

At Talk:LGB Alliance there has been a long standing, and extensively discussed dispute (November 2022, November 2022, November 2021, August 2021, September 2021, September 2021, April 2021) over how many co-founders the organisation has.

According to recent statements by the organisation, there are two co-founders: Bev Jackson and Kate Harris. However multiple, independent reliable sources additionally list Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark, and Ann Sinnott as co-founders, but no single reliable source lists all of these people together as a set of co-founders.

With the sourcing that is available, is it synthesis to state The group was co-founded by Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark, and Ann Sinnott, with each name being sourced to one of the independent and secondary reliable sources about the organisation? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Recent statements by the organisation, and this Guardian article...  Tewdar  20:56, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, The Guardian does have a history of disagreeing with itself over how many co-founders there are for the organisation. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:59, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Just in case it is interpreted that "recent statements" represents some sort of change in position, I would like to clarify that these additions are consistent with the oldest statement from the org as to who the founders are, which to my knowledge is a Twitter thread from the organisation from November 8th 2019 which names the same two founders as Kate Harris and Bev Jackson, and lays out broadly the same history of formation as appears on the more recent additions to their site. Void if removed (talk) 14:45, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Also some sources describe these people as 'founding members' rather than founders, in case you think that makes a difference. All in previous discussions, I'm sure.  Tewdar  21:12, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Some salient points I would reiterate to condense my many many comments that are scattered all over these discussions:

- The about page and timeline are very clear, mentioning other names as early team members, not founders.

- The principal source for Malcolm Clark is a Pink News article he directly disputed himself on Twitter. One other source was changed after publication and no longer names him as a co-founder.

- One source for Ann Sinnott was changed after publication and no longer names her as a founder, but as a founding member.

- The five names that accrued over time on the wiki article have subsequently appeared in the same non-alphabetic order in other places, including Pink News, and I have raised the issue this may be WP:CIRCULAR. Void if removed (talk) 21:32, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

The first reply to Malcom Clark's tweet is someone pointing out that he is directly listed as a founding member on the day the group was incorporated. He claims he was a director, but this seems like a distinction without a difference. "Founding members" seems like fine phrasing to me, the members listed as working for the group when it was incorporated. That's how founders are usually listed via sourcing. This claim that because the two women involved had the idea for the group months earlier doesn't equate to the rest not being founding members when the group was actually and officially created as a registered body. Silverseren^C 21:36, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

The directors of a PLC are not the founders of an organisation, and not all orgs are PLCs. Past discussions are littered with counterexamples (like the GLF UK). Pointing at a tweet from the individual named in an article, saying "I’m not a founder", is a clear rebuttal, and a random account on twitter sifting through Companies House is neither here nor there. There's even followup in the same thread from Bev Jackson reinforcing that she and Kate Harris are the sole founders. There's even another denial from Malcolm Clark directed to Pink News Head of News Ryan Butcher (archive link because Ryan Butcher's account is deleted, so you can't see his acknowledgement of the error).

What I'd argue is that one supposedly reliable source (Pink News) is demonstrably unreliable on this matter as they have never corrected this. Void if removed (talk) 22:54, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Funny, three weeks ago The Times stated that Clark is a co-founder of the LGB Alliance. There's also The Independent who called Clark a Founder back in March 2022. And also Vice back in November 2021. These later two are sources that we missed or glossed over during the last time we discussed this, and the former was only just published.

Is it not within the realms of possibility that each of these independent sources, some of which have biases in favour of the LGB Alliance's position, and some of which are in opposition to it, are actually correct? Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:52, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

One possible solution here is to explore this topic in some detail in the body, ie. attribute what different sources and the organization say (So it might be a bit messy), and simply remove the founders section from the infobox since it's too complicated to explore there. I think that's the approach WP:NPOV would indicate, if you have different sources giving different accounts Tristario (talk) 22:11, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Then the wording in the lede could be changed to something like "The group was founded by Bev Jackson and Kate Harris, and also reportedly co-founded by Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott" Tristario (talk) 22:18, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I think the suggested form would only be appropriate if we had direct reporting of an actual controversy over who the founders are, ie. a piece stating that there is a dispute, rather than what can easily be written off as trivial failure of fact-checking. For example, if a company's own website describe an employee as the MD, and an extensive profile in a newspaper calls them the MD, and a passing mention in another newspaper describes them as CEO, we don't report this as a he said/she said controversy, we just accept that the company is more likely to know who its own employees are and don't go searching for other sources to create a dispute. Here, we have primary and secondary sources in agreement, and some secondary sources that don't actually challenge the org's own story about itself, but just happen to mention other individuals as "founder". The latter are being given undue weight, especially when some have been corrected since publication, or directly challenged by the principals. Void if removed (talk) 10:14, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

I think the problem is more to do with divergent definitions of the term 'founder'...  Tewdar  10:31, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Since we came to this noticeboard for outside opinions, I don't think editors who have already argued and failed to reach agreement should repeat that mistake here. So I'll just post my thoughts and see what others think: I think one of the problems isn't so much that two is correct and five is wrong, or the opposite, but that both can be correct depending on who you ask and how you think about "founders". We have a problem that probably the most notable member, Allison Bailey, the only one to have an article, is described literally everywhere (including our own article on her) as a "founder" or "co-founder" of LGB Alliance. So if the text only mentions Bev Jackson and Kate Harris, readers coming here to learn about the organisation that Allison Bailey co-founded will be confused to read that she didn't. Furthermore, the Wikipedia talk page of that article appears to be the only place on the internet that cares if it is two or five, and no published source has described two levels of "founder", with some people being more foundery than others. That's why I think listing five names is best, because that doesn't contradict sources that only list two. We can't explain the difference, so let's just list what we know and leave that hanging. -- Colin°^Talk 10:38, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

• It seems to me that this could be resolved by differentiating the directors and the members, saying something along the lines of: “The organization was founded by Jackson and Harris as directors, with Bailey, Clark and Sinnott as members.” Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

  I'd leave off "as directors" as that complicates things (when it was incorporated as a PLC a month after it formed, both Clark and Sinnott became directors), but aside from that this is my personal preferred approach. Void if removed (talk) 13:34, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

  And where do we have sources that make that distinction, that classify some as "founding directors" and some as "founding members"? We would effectively be inventing a hierarchy of foundership solely to satisfy a squabble between Wikipedians who seem to care about something nobody else does. I wonder alternatively if we could list all five and have a footnote mentioning that some sources only list two. -- Colin°^Talk 15:11, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

• I was a founding member of a human rights advocacy organization, while personally having zero to do with the organization or its founding. It meant only that I was on the very first list of (paying) members when the organization was created/chartered/registered or whatever it is that associations do to set up their legal existence and tax regime, and whose founding had been announced well in advance in related media, along with a call for support and to "become a founding member", which conferred some privileges on my membership (mostly fees) going forward, and the right to be called a "founding member" forever. I can't vouch for how these news organizations used the term, but that's what it meant at the time. Mathglot (talk) 19:52, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
• At a glance, I wouldn't think that something like this (a simple list of essentially disconnected data-points) would be synthesis - synethesis isn't just juxtaposition; there has to be some sort of meaningful implication not in the sources. There's no real implication to putting people together in a list of founders, unless "there were five founders, specifically" is meaningful somehow (and I'm not seeing how it is.) Attribution is an alternative, but I'd be cautious about it in that it implies that there is a controversy when that may not be the case (ie. it would mean the lead would read "the group says X, other source says Y, third source says Z"); it reads worse in that it is making the question of how many founders the group has look like a controversial point, which the sources may not support. I don't think, though, that we can simply omit people who are described as founders in multiple high-quality RSes just because the group doesn't list them; generally speaking, using a primary source to try and rebut secondary sources would be WP:OR. --Aquillion (talk) 05:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

  The specific makeup of the founders is of significance to an LGB organisation claiming to be founded by lesbians and lesbian-led, especially when LGB politics has consistently been dominated by gay men.

  Who is or is not the founder has also had knock-on effects for inclusion of material in the article over the years, since the actions and opinions of those listed as "founder" have been in some cases attributed as views of the org itself.

  The "History" section as it stands could do with reworking, but available info cannot be easily incorporated since the timeline of 2 lesbians spending months preparing to launch their own org - and then being joined by other supporters - is not straightforwardly consistent with the current list of five founders. Any attempt to merge these conflicting histories will be WP:SYNTH.

  And it isn't just rebutting multiple secondary with a primary source alone - it is multiple primary sources plus multiple consistent secondary sources. Meanwhile PinkNews does come with the proviso "caution should be used", so perhaps this is one such case. Void if removed (talk) 17:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

The specific makeup of the founders is of significance to an LGB organisation claiming to be founded by lesbians and lesbian-led, especially when LGB politics has consistently been dominated by gay men. That still doesn't make it WP:SYNTH; the other sources disagree with that timeline even taken individually - combining them into a list doesn't change that, since the fact that the timeline you're suggesting is not reflected by coverage is established by any one of the sources cited. And your interpretation of the significance of the founders raises a much more serious issue for your attempts to use a primary source, since if they're claiming that then their own descriptions of their founders are unduly self-serving and can't really be cited to them under WP:ABOUTSELF. We can cite uncontroversial points to a non-WP:RS primary source, but if it's being used for the argument you seem be presenting here (about how it lends the organization importance and significance relative to others of its type) that's certainly not something suitable for WP:ABOUTSELF sourcing. With that in mind we probably should not be citing them for their own founders at all. This should be obvious, but the same applies to anyone affiliated with the group talking on Twitter. Do you have secondary, independent sources backing up your assertion that the organization was founded by lesbians and lesbian-led in as many words? If not, by trying to imply that in the lead without a secondary source stating it, it seems like you're the one attempting original research. We should not be trying to imply that the organization was founded by lesbians and lesbian-led in the lead unless independent sources actually highlight that aspect - even putting aside the fact that significant amounts of secondary sourcing suggest that your inference there may not be accurate. --Aquillion (talk) 22:28, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

At no point did I suggest putting "founded by lesbians and lesbian-led" in the lead, I'm not sure why you suggest that?

And the talk archive is extensive so I don't want to rehash it in great depth but, the "significant secondary sourcing" is an exaggeration.

There are no high quality secondary sources explicitly naming all five as "founder" in one place that predate this wiki article, so what is there is by definition WP:SYNTH

The list of 5 names has been assembled from passing mentions, headlines and photo captions, where any of those five has been referred to as "founder", even in stories not specifically about the org or with comment from them.

In one case (halfway down this archive discussion) I went through 8 provided sources for Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. 2 were corrected post-publication and no longer support the assertion, 1 actually said "founding member" and also contained a factual error in naming Eileen Gallagher as a founder, 3 were WP:OPINION, and the remaining 2 were PinkNews, one of which Malcolm Clark directly disputed multiple times on Twitter - and again I reiterate, with PinkNews, "caution should be used".

There are few secondary sources specifically addressing the founding of the organisation, with ones that do exist mostly being WP:OPINION, eg this Spectator article which says "Its founders Bev Jackson and Kate Harris were veteran lesbian campaigners. They were joined by filmmaker Malcolm Clark and barrister Allison Bailey", which supports the narrative on their website that there were two founders whom the others joined, but again, WP:OPINION.

Multiple high quality secondary sources that expressly name Kate Harris and Bev Jackson as the two co-founders have been argued as not necessarily exhaustive (eg. this from the Guardian: "the two co-founders of LGB Alliance, Bev Jackson and [Kate] Harris, both of whom are lesbians").

And the list of 5 assembled first in this article have subsequently appeared in exactly the same non-alphabetic order in at least 3 other places, so I still question whether this is now quite possibly WP:CIRCULAR. Void if removed (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Modifying and making up examples

(1) Is it original research if examples from a source are modified, for example, to make them more accessible? For example, this article on knowledge talks about different types of knowledge. One type of knowledge is knowledge-who. It is expressed using the term "to know" followed by a who-clause. One of the examples given in the source is "knowing who is due to visit". Our article knowledge gives the example "knowing who killed John F. Kennedy". Are modifications like this a violation of WP:OR? (this is being discussed at Talk:Knowledge/GA1)

(2) In some cases, sources only contain a general discussion of the issue without giving any examples. If it is clear from the description in the source of what is meant, is it original research when an uncontroversial example is given to make the explanation more accessible (assuming, for the sake of the argument, that the example really is uncontroversial and that no substantial new claims about the topic are introduced)? Phlsph7 (talk) 19:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I am neither a philosopher nor an administrator, but I have a couple thoughts. Most importantly, having read the discussion at Talk:Knowledge/GA1, I'm not sure that a noticeboard is the right place to resolve this rather general question that feels like it should be the subject of an essay. Yet, here we are. In that vein, my position is that this may be best described in the "Translation and contextualizing" section of the non-policy essay These are not original research. The original source used an extremely academic tone in stating "who is due to visit." The use of "due to visit" is somewhat archaic and may be unfamiliar to readers. A minimal translation of that sentence to Wikipedia style would be along the lines of "Knowing who is coming to dinner." But I don't think it's unreasonable to fully translate the example to a very familiar context (like "Knowing who killed JFK"). My instinct is that the former is more preferable than the latter, but that either is an exercise in making the example fit Wikipedia's style rather than being beholden to the exact wording of a scholarly text. If the translated example were controversial or disputed then of course it should be reverted to the verbatim original. But here, it doesn't sound like anyone is saying the JFK quote is not a valid example, so I would let it stand or use an example like "who is coming to dinner." 49ersBelongInSanFrancisco (talk) 06:45, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@49ersBelongInSanFrancisco: Thanks for the feedback! I think you (and Thebiguglyalien) are correct that it is preferable to have examples that closely resemble the text so I'll follow your suggestion concerning knowledge-who. I work a lot on philosophy articles and there it is often the case that examples are necessary to get the message across but that the exact examples in the sources are less than ideal for the average Wikipedia reader. The bottom line may be that modifications are not automatically original research but that it is better to avoid unnecessary liberties in order to ensure that the result is an uncontroversial example. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)