Wikipedia talk:Tendentious editing/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

POVFIGHTER

Someone, without much of any consensus backing, has added a section called WP:POVFIGHTER to WP:Tendentious editing. It reads:

Crusading against a specific POV

If you see it as your mission to protect article content from the POV overzealousness of conservatives (or some other political leaning) who do not care about Wikipedia policy, you are as POV as they are. If you see it as your mission to protect article content from the POV overzealousness of liberals (or another political leaning) who don't care about Wikipedia policy, you are as POV as they are. If you see it as your mission to protect article content from any edits that are against Wikipedia policy, you are a good Wikipedia editor.

This section is not to be construed as excusing fringe POV pushers. Rather, it asks: How often do you edit against your own bias?

This is not written in appropriate language for a {{Supplement}} page, especially one that is generally treated as if it is a {{Guideline}}. (Like WP:BRD and WP:AADD, WP:TE is one of those pages that, in its long-standing, stable form, has a tremendous level of community acceptance.) The material quoted above is just "random musings" essay wording that appears to be motivated by personal angst in current US politics topics, and (aside from being redundantly worded) is not enunciating a principle that generalizes well, because not all viewpoints are created equal. We have policy about this at WP:DUE.

The tack-on about WP:FRINGE at the end is not actually a saving grace, because of the amount of WP:GAMING and WP:WIKILAWYERING that goes on about what exactly constitutes "fringe". This entire iffy section still puts fringe patrollers in a position of having to defend their actions; it's a powerup for fringe pushers, even if not meant to be one. If you ever deal with those "this country/ethnicity/religion/whatever versus that one" hotbeds, you know that what the most DUE viewpoint in reliable sources actually is can take a great deal of research, often in non-English-language materials, and including background research on the reputability of the publishers and authors. It takes time so sort out, and at no point during that process should those restraining the imposition of one-sided PoV material be themselves branded as PoV warriors.

There's a confusion here between restraining the pushing of viewpoint X because it is the pushing of a viewpoint, and being personally opposed to the ideas in viewpoint X. The wording of this material makes this confusion obvious: to "protect article content from the PoV overzealousness of [viewpoint X]" is about zeal of the PoV's promotion (a very legitimate concern to have here), not about a personal stance against X's tenets. So, as written, the POVFIGHTER material is just flat-out wrong.

My immediate response to this POVFIGHTER mess is that it's a direct threat against the vital work of the "regulars" who are involved in WP:MEDRS, WP:FRINGE / WP:FTN, MOS:WTW, WP:NOT, WP:NONAZIS, etc. In direct effect if not in original intent, it is an attempt to paint those of us who devote time to weeding out organized PoV pushing (which is often going to be the same PoVs being pushed again and again), as "enemies" of those particular PoVs, and thus WP:NOT#ADVOCACY failures ourselves, when the fact is that we're countering the PoV pushing because it is PoV pushing, not because we hold an equal-but-opposite PoV that we're pushing. It has been already been latched onto by PoV pushers as a weapon to use against those who thwart their pushing attempts. If there's any doubt about how this weak essay material will be abused, see here, where it is being cited as if it's policy, and used in exactly this sort of a demonizing manner (that's a link to an ongoing RFARB case; I would not advise getting involved in it if you have not pored over all of the case evidence).

I was going to just open an RfC to remove this highly questionable material from the WP:TE page. But some more free-form discussion might result in substantial revision that fixes this section. There is probably the germ of a worthwhile idea in it, though I'm not certain it belongs in this page rather than at WP:Advocacy.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Just to point out that it was added by User:JFG nearly three years ago [1]. Black Kite (talk) 16:19, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  I know. I don't like to approach these things from a "blame User:SoAndSo" perspective, per the "focus on content not contributor" maxim. PS: The fact that it's sat around for a while is one of the reasons I didn't just RfC it for deletion from the start.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:10, 2 January 2021 (UTC); rev'd. 03:14, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for the ping. In turn I'll ping the original author of this micro-essay, Mandruss, whose wise prose inspired me to share it here back in the day. Looks still valid to me. — JFG ^talk 18:10, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yeah, that's not a good addition. It basically blames editors for being human. What does it even mean for an editor to be "POV"? I mean, "NPOV" is a description of content, not people. And what does it mean to "edit against your own bias"? One could just as well argue that editing against personal bias is tautologically impossible: if I remove an unfounded allegation from the article on a political candidate I voted against, then that just proves I wasn't biased to begin with. As advice, "edit against your own bias" is useless. The tack-on about WP:FRINGE makes it even worse, because it invites wikilawyering about when a conspiracy theory is a WP:FRINGE issue and when it's an American-politics issue. The text in question reads like somebody internalized the idea that "POV is bad" and started using "POV" as a pejorative. Whether that was the intent or not, I can't say (and don't really care); the effect of it is bad advice. XOR'easter (talk) 16:30, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  Editing against your own bias is far from "useless"; quite the opposite. Of the hundreds of editors I have interacted with, only those who are able to see both sides of the coin have been able to uphold Wikipedian virtues over the long run. — JFG ^talk 18:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  I'm saying that the advice to "edit against your own bias" is content-free, because any edit that could be described as doing so could equally well be described as following a different, equally emotional commitment. It's like telling someone to "omit needless words". Which words are needless? The ones you can omit. XOR'easter (talk) 19:25, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• I disagree somewhat... I think NPOV does apply to editors as much as to content. WE, as editors, are supposed to adopt a neutral point of view when we edit. Or to put it another way: If we can not put our own biases to one side, we will not write neutral content. I am sure there is a better way to express all of this, but I do think it needs to be expressed. Blueboar (talk) 16:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I think that's wrong. Wikipedia can't dictate editors' mental states. An editor might well be thinking "well, I think this looks iffy but it's what RS says so - sigh - I'll add it faithfully", or they might be thinking "fuck yeah! RS and me totally agree, let's get this content in!". (And I'd expect most seasoned editors to have experienced something like these extremes on occasion). But it's immaterial; what matters is how editors actually edit. Alexbrn (talk) 16:58, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  It’s possible to edit against ones own bias, with the caution that you may be overcompensating for it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:54, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  And if NPOV "applied to editors as much as to content" it would say so, and would be a behavioral policy not (or in addition to) a content policy. You can't wish policy coverage into existence out of nowhere.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:13, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Responding to ping. Every editor has a bias and claiming you don't is like claiming you don't speak with an accent. A good editor (1) has enough self-awareness and self-honesty to recognize their own biases and (2) works hard to counter them. In political topic areas, the objective (and relatively easy) self-test is how often they "edit against their own bias"; the classic example is how often an editor who opposes Trump in their personal life supports Trump-positive content, or the inverse. If we simply edit according to our personal political leanings, consensus is nothing more than a numbers game; policy can never be sufficiently clear and unambiguous to prevent that. Beyond saying those things, I don't particularly care whether English Wikipedia has enough to sense to have something like this in its guidance. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:29, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  Oh God, AP2. Doesn't this just boil down to: don't engage in WP:ADVOCACY? Admittedly, some of the most strident fuckers on Wikipedia edit in the AP2 area and seem to see it as nothing more than a battleground (a situation which is, IMO, overly-tolerated). But while we already say how material should be used, we can't make it a Thought crime to be biased. So I'm not sure what this section was meant to bring to the table that isn't covered in WP:ADVOCACY. Alexbrn (talk) 18:40, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  It's not just AP2; that was an example as I said. If you're working in an area where controversy exists and have any opinions about it, you have a bias in that area; that's axiomatic. That could be American politics, classical art, horses, or any number of other areas. we can't make it a Thought crime to be biased and that is hardly the goal, as evidenced by the stated premise that all editors have biases. Somewhere, not necessarily here – somehow, not necessarily using these exact words – with more weight than essay where level of support is a matter of opinion and perspective – the encyclopedia would be well served to say to editors who invariably take the same "side" in a controversial area: Stop it. Regardless of enforceability, which is a separate and more complicated question, they need to hear that the community does not support or endorse this. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:09, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  So to editors who always take the same side in the "did the Holocaust happen?" controversy, you'd say: stop it? Alexbrn (talk) 20:10, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  Reductio ad absurdum. That is not an actual controversy. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  Excellent, I agree. So we can broaden that to all topics covered by WP:FRINGE presumably (e.g. fake cancer cures, black people are stupider than white people, homeopathy works, abortion causes breast cancer, 9/11 an inside job, etc.) That being so this section should in fact start by saying something like "in WP:FRINGE areas Wikipedia recognizes the mainstream POV as true, and only describes fringe ideas within that context. Editors are expected to root out content which advocates a WP:FRINGE view, and editors who persist in trying to emphasize fringe POVs are detrimental to Wikipedia's aims and can expect to be blocked and banned in due course". This is where we want "crusaders". What this leaves is areas of what be called "legitimate disagreement in RS", and yes maybe something could be said about this, though it would be hard to imagine it having much more meaning that WP:CGTW#3. Alexbrn (talk) 21:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  I wouldn't mind a paragraph of advice in an essay somewhere that said, "If the main satisfaction you get out of editing Wikipedia is stomping on people who disagree with you, check your motivations, and remember, nobody has laid on their deathbed wishing they spent more time on Wikipedia talk pages." But I also don't want to jump to the conclusion that an editor is here to stomp just because their rv's seem to lean a particular way or it looks like they only watchlist the pages for one sportsball team. XOR'easter (talk) 21:49, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  it's an interesting question, whether a good edit done for an unwholesome reason is desirable, but is it the job of an explanatory supplement to offer tips for life? Alexbrn (talk) 22:00, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  That is not an actual controversy Depends on what you mean by "actual controversy". Holocaust denial is just like other pages about fringe theories: it is attacked by people with denialist or fence-sitter POV and defended by people with anti-denialist POV. See [2], section "no neutral POV". According to the paragraph in question, both are equally bad. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  The problem is that in some topic areas (AP2 is definitely one of them, but there are several others), there's a huge risk of longtime users falling into the trap of thinking "I am here to push back against the POV-pushing of those people. When I see it I will revert or remove it." And this leads to vicious cycles in which other users with differing views, seeing those people editing one-sidedly, say to themselves "look at that POV-pusher! I must stop them." I absolutely guarantee that if you asked the more tendentious experienced users in the most controversial topic areas (especially ones with experienced, good-faith editors on both sides), they would tell you that the reason they spend so much time on it is because they need to push back against the POV-pushing of other people. This leads to WP:BATTLEFIELD conduct and makes it harder to edit constructively. Falling back on accusations of advocacy or POV-pushing allows editors to avoid engaging and leads to irreconcilable conflicts. --Aquillion (talk) 22:33, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  The breakdown of good-faith discussions is definitely a bad thing for the encyclopedia when it happens. But I don't see how the guidance under discussion helps prevent that; if it has any effect, it could as easily be deleterious. It opens up a means to criticize an editor: "If you don't live up to my arbitrary standard of making reverts on Both Sides, you're as bad as a POV-pushing troll!" If somebody comes into a dispute with a battlefield mentality, it's just another tool in their rhetorical arsenal. "You clearly see your mission here as suppressing all voices that disagree with your [fill in the blank]-ism, instead of upholding Wikipedia's policies in a neutral way." XOR'easter (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Maybe this would be fine as someone's WP:ESSAY, but besides the several errors pointed out by SMcCandlish, it's too specific to recent American politics (highlighting "liberal" and "conservative" as examples of POV) to be included as part of WP supplemental guidelines. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:31, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  I concur that the specificity is too high. Moreover, putting those forth as the examples promotes a ... hmm, maybe the right word is a reductive understanding of what bias means. It gets the reader thinking there's only one axis, with a clean split down the middle. XOR'easter (talk) 19:25, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with the clear intent of this section: ensure the goal of your editing is always to ensure the article content is NPOV. If your goal is to remove or minimise the influence of $POV and/or to ensure or maximise the influence of $POV then it is very easy, and indeed quite likely, that you will lose sight of what is and isn't NPOV so don't be surprised if other editors perceive you as the one pushing a POV. This applies whether the POV you are pushing against is WP:FRINGE or something else - your goal should always be NPOV rather than removal of FRINGE. While removing FRINGE material can be a way to ensure NPOV it is not always the case - for example consider whether the nature of the FRINGE theory is being described correctly. With regards to MEDRS, on more than one occasion I've seen content removed for not being supported by a MEDRS compliant source when the content in question wasn't making a medical claim. The wording of the section isn't perfect but its nowhere near bad enough that removing it without replacement would improve the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
• Wikipedia is a team effort. It is not as if every editor needs to be good at everything. Some are good at writing stuff that supports conservative ideas, some are good at writing stuff that supports liberal ideas. If someone wants to be good at both, fine. That is a useful skill, and Mandruss, who has it, does a top job at articles like Donald Trump because of that. (I see current American politics as a ratcheted-up version of Monty Python's Election Night Special, only it's not the Silly Party but the Crazy Party. So I try to keep away from editing that article.) But I see no point in demanding that everybody should have that skill. Like science, Wikipedia works because people are different: they have different strengths and different blind spots, and what I cannot see because of my blind spots, somebody else will. Dogmatic agnosticism should not be a Wikipedia rule. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:12, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  Yes. And, for that matter, one can be emotionally committed to centrism or agnosticism just like any other position — even to the point of irrationality. XOR'easter (talk) 20:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with the spirit of WP:POVFIGHTER. There are some folks on Wikipedia that are proudly anti-fringe to the point of being POV themselves. It spills over into the wordings they allow into articles.

I had a bad experience where I tried to edit some prose to have a less emotive, more factual tone, and I got swarmed by some of these editors, who reverted me with edit summaries like "nope". Even their names and their user profiles proudly proclaimed they were anti-fringe.

With that said, I think the prose of WP:POVFIGHTER is not good and could use some work. I don't like how it specifically mentions conservative and liberal. Ironically, I get a POV vibe from it, like somebody is on a mission against POV fighters. I would support this section staying in, but being re-written with a more factual tone. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:39, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: Interesting. Could you point to that actual example as it could usefully inform the discussion? Alexbrn (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think that it ought to focus more on WP:AGF, WP:BATTLEFIELD conduct and WP:ASPERSIONS (the actual conduct issues that stem from it), rather than on what editors think. The core principle here is that you have to be willing to trust other users by default, even when it is difficult; accusing essentially everyone who disagrees with you on a topic of POV-pushing is effectively a form of tendentious editing, even if you honestly believe it to be the case. --Aquillion (talk) 22:33, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
• "Ironically, I get a POV vibe from it, like somebody is on a mission against POV fighters." Right! I was having a hard time putting this sense into words, but that nailed it. It seems like an example of what it is written against.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:17, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support removal. Section is extremely problematic as SMcCandlish has explained in detail. It endorses bothsidesism between POV pushers and those who combat POV pushing because it's POV pushing. The reason is that in many, many articles, one form of POV pushing is by far more common. This section can easily be used as a cudgel to suggest that those resisting the POV pushing are no different from the POV pushers. It stigmatizes neutrality efforts. Any actual problem of pushing of the "opposite" POV is still POV pushing and is addressed properly at pages about that. Actual POV pushers don't care what this page's advice is anyway. Wikipedia's WP:SEALION infestation is bad enough; we do not need this section enabling such behavior. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:50, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  If one is equally committed to resisting POV pushing on either side of an area of controversy, the intent of the language is not to discourage that, and it's abundantly clear on that point. The problem arises when you make it your primary mission – your reason for showing up here every day – to prevent the pushing of the "other" POV. When a majority of editors are doing that on one side or the other, that's when it becomes a numbers game and we might as well skip the pretense of "discussion" and vote democratically sans argument. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:15, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  In many topics, resisting all POVs is behaviorally indistinguishable from resisting one POV, because only one POV motivates people to show up and be a problem. The problem is that this page is about identifying bad behavior, and is commonly cited at ANI and in block logs. We are not mind-readers and this is not a self-help page; such psychological advice belongs in a separate essay, not an explanatory supplement with high acceptance. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:17, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  Accusing people or groups of POV-pushing, or approaching them from the default perspective that they are POV-pushers, is behavior, and is absolutely a form of tendentious editing, as well as a frequent justification given by tendentious editors for their actions. If you drop into any page that sees frequent objections by tendentious editors (I'm not just talking about civil POV-pushers here or longstanding editors, but the very very obvious WP:SPAs who drop in to do nothing but push a single POV and then disappear), one of the most common refrains from them is "this page is completely biased! All the editors here are biased! I am just trying to fix your bias and stop you from pushing your narrative! The fact that you won't let me rewrite this article to show that the sky is green shows your bias!" That sort of "everyone-else-is-biased" behavior needs to be understood as the warning sign for tendentious editing that it is. --Aquillion (talk) 22:41, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  To quote Mandruss on the Holocaust point above, "Reductio ad absurdum. That is not an actual controversy." There are no editors arguing the sky is green, much less a large number of everyday Wikipedians doing NPoV patrolling against predictable waves of viewpoint activism, but who all think the sky is green. I have no idea what point you're trying to make with absurdities like this, but it's failing. And this section of this page is not about "Accusing people or groups of POV-pushing, or approaching them from the default perspective that they are POV-pushers"; that's already governed by WP:AGF and WP:ASPERSIONS. This section of this page is trying to thought-police the motives of editors who work against PoV pushing in our articles. It may be reasonable as personal essay material, but it is not what we expect of a {{Supplement}} page. [Revision: That doesn't necessarily mean that it cannot be repaired in some way, or I would have simply RfCed it for deletion from the start.]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:30, 3 January 2021 (UTC); rev'd. 03:14, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  The point is that it feels like you're losing sight of what tendentious editing really is. It's a manner of editing that is partisan, biased, or skewed taken as a whole. Saying that WP:POVFIGHTING editing isn't tendentious editing because sometimes the other side really does need to be confronted and stopped amounts to saying that you can't be a tendentious editor when you're right (that is, believing you are in the right in terms of your edits accurately reflecting policy and NPOV, while the edits you disagree with do not); and using that as a justification to intentionally edit one-sidedly obviously isn't workable in disputes between established editors in good standing, because in my experience every experienced editor who engages in tendentious editing believes themselves to be in the right. --Aquillion (talk) 20:19, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

• The reason is that in many, many articles, one form of POV pushing is by far more common. This isn't a useful way of thinking when interacting with editors in good standing (part of the reason why WP:AGF is so important). I assure you, every editor in a controversial topic area sometimes thinks to themselves "this person cannot be for real, they are just trying to push their POV." But no editor is entirely unbiased; editors can reasonably disagree over which sources are trustworthy, what WP:DUE weight is, what qualifies as systematic bias and so on - all things that, while we have guidelines and policies to help us adjudicate, nonetheless always involve a degree subjective judgment. Such biases can lead to entirely legitimate differences of opinion breaking down along ideological lines, including legitimate differences so stark that it sometimes seems like what the other person is saying is absurd. In those cases the thinking you outlined leads to those ideological lines becoming entrenched as editors lose the good faith necessary to edit collaboratively. WP:AGF is not a suicide pact, and civil POV-pushers are a serious problem; but editors still have a responsibility to compromise and work with even people with whom they strenuously disagree - outside of very narrow situations where eg. an article is briefly under sustained attack from outside canvassing, we have to approach other editors from a default presumption of good faith, even when it is difficult. --Aquillion (talk) 22:33, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  None of that strikes me as incorrect, but it's not very relevant. The section of the page under discussion is not about any of that; it is about the idea that protecting an article from clearly identifiable PoV pushing is equal but opposite PoV pushing. One of the problems here is that it's false equivalence (or very likely to be in a large number of circumstances); it is bothsidesism. The passage in question says nothing about good-faith assumptions at all, but this is what you are dwelling on, here and in the material I replied to above. And what you've written also has nothing to do with "in many articles, one form of PoV pushing is by far more common", which is certainly true. You said "this isn't a useful way of thinking" about it, but you haven't demonstrated that it is not a useful way of thinking about it, or even attempted to argue that case; you just shifted immediately into AGF-related material. You're making points that are tangential/orthogonal to both the issue under discussion and the post you are directly replying to.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:29, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

It isn't a useful way of thinking about it because it serves as a justification for a tendentious editing (to "push back" against the bias and advocacy of other editors by tendentiously advancing the view you think they are trying to oppose or suppress), and because ultimately, Wikipedia depends on editors being able to edit constructively even when interacting with people with whom we strenuously disagree. Making a sweeping determination that an entire topic area is infested with POV-pushers from one side poisons the well for such interactions by giving people an out to avoid doing that. Once you've decided that the people you're arguing with in a topic area just represent a bunch of activists, all arguments and statements get parsed through the most hostile possible reading and any sort of compromise or negotiation becomes yielding to the enemy - in short, it leads people into becoming tendentious editors themselves by encouraging them to approach the topic from a battlefield mentality. I'm open to rewording this to focus more on AGF / battleground conduct, as I said above, but I think that the way some topic areas have broken down shows how dangerous the things it warns about are, and how important it is to step back from the brink and accept that a widespread dispute among large numbers of experienced editors in a topic area usually means that there is a valid and complex underlying disagreement over sourcing, due weight, and how to apply policy, rather than evidence that the editors on the "other side" are a sinister cabal of activists who must be fought at every turn. --Aquillion (talk) 23:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• What Crossroads said here is the primary reason this pseudo-guideline is dangerous for MEDRS and various other topic areas in need of frequent patroling: "In many topics, resisting all POVs is behaviorally indistinguishable from resisting one POV, because only one POV motivates people to show up and be a problem."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:11, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • SMcCandlish, I think you should start an RfC on this, since it's been reverted back in. I'm thinking a binary keep/remove option, with it being made clear that "remove" means that it can still be turned into someone's userspace essay or something, but the main point is whether it can stay here. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

    I wasn't aware anyone had removed it. I'm inclined to let the discussion go on a bit, to see if we can home in on whether there's a general sense that it should go away, or be revised, or be moved, or what. I'm honestly surprised at the level of input that arrived so quickly, and it's fairly diverse. That doesn't, of course, mean someone else can't put up an RfC, but it's past my bed time and I would personally rather leave it be for a while. :)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:14, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

    Yeah, no rush. Even my thinking has evolved with time, though I am now convinced that it is fundamentally incompatible with this page because it is behaviorally undetectable. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• While I agree with the sentiments and that AP2 has far too many editors who believe wikipedia is just another battleground in the information war, it is entirely inappropriate as a policy statement. At minimum, it needs significant editing for language to 1)stop singling out specific ideologies 2)Reinforce Wikipedia has taken a hard stance on WP:Fringe, WP:pseudoscience, WP:Conspiracy theories. Even then, it still likely fails as a policy and instead should be converted into an essay. Slywriter (talk) 03:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  As a precision matter, this isn't in a {{Policy}} page, but a {{Supplement}}, a form of {{Essay}} that is sometimes considered half way toward {{Guideline}}. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• I also strongly support the intent of the section, for both the reason Thrynduulf mentioned and also because without it, it's fairly easy to POV-push by finding an article that's already slanted to your POV, and whenever someone comes to fix the slant, you come out swinging with "That's POV editing! You're just trying to push your POV! What an activist you are!" It's not even always obvious to you that's what you're doing: you just see an article that reflects your own biases and so it looks neutral to you. But it's not.

I'd be fine with tweaking the wording though. I agree liberal/conservative is a bit too modern American politics.

Also: other editors should be aware that this is somewhat of a WP:POINTy proposal, since the desire to make it originated at this arbitration case where one of the parties is being accused of, among other things, being a WP:POVFIGHTER. Loki (talk) 04:06, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Also: I see several people apparently arguing to remove this under the logic that Wikipedia doesn't require individual editors to be neutral, just pages. This is true, and I very much support this line of thought, but personally I see WP:POVFIGHTER as supporting this intuition, and removing it as applying NPOV to individual editors. For why, see above: without WP:POVFIGHTER, it's extremely easy for arguments about POV to become about the POVs of every editor who makes an edit to fix the slant of an article, when (regardless of whether they actually succeed at bringing the article closer to NPOV) that should be a normal and useful part of editing Wikipedia. For those edits to exist, it's important to not encourage editors to jump at every single edit that looks POV to them. Loki (talk) 04:16, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing WP:POINTy about this proposal; it is, rather, the natural consequence of it finally receiving wide scrutiny. I, and probably others, had never seen it referenced prior to that arb case. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:28, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@LokiTheLiar: Um, I explicitly linked directly to not just that case but the very spot where it was being [mis]used as the basis for a draft remedy. Your WP:POINT accusation strikes me as a WP:AGF failure. When someone mis-relies on iffy essay material as if it is policy to use to sanction another editor, it is entirely reasonable to raise a discussion about the intent and place and wording of that material and how much consensus there really is for it – especially if one is clear why one is doing so. I'm not sure how I could have been clearer without really brow-beating people about it. Hmph. Anyway, I can't buy the reasoning that without this passage it becomes very easy for people to... [yadda yadda]. Virtually no one knows this section exists, and even fewer of them ever mention it. It has no demonstrable effect on the community or the behavior of the individuals who comprise it, unlike the long-standing material in the WP:TE page, which is cited many times every day, often by section-specific shortcuts. Outside of this page itself, and the ongoing RFARB, and transclusions of pages already in the count, "WP:POVFIGHTER" has only ever been used on Wikipedia about 40 times. If you discount repeat citations of it by JFG, Mandruss, MrX, Widefox, Rhododendrites, Tsumikiria, and MJL, the number drops by at least 25%.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:22, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• Shouldn't "you are as POV as they are", instead be: "you are helping to patrol recent changes", meaning that ultimately that new section is not needed and could be harmful to the project. Its start self-describes its bias (even if "conservative" was removed). A key is "who do not care about Wikipedia policy", meaning their edits are unlikely to be valid. —PaleoNeonate – 19:44, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  So I've reread it a few times and looked at the original If you see it as your mission to protect article content from the POV overzealousness of conservatives who don't care about Wikipedia policy, you are as POV as they are. If you see it as your mission to protect article content from the POV overzealousness of liberals who don't care about Wikipedia policy, you are as POV as they are. If you see it as your mission to protect article content from anyone who doesn't care about Wikipedia policy, you are a good Wikipedia editor. How often do you edit against your own bias? (at Mandruss's page). It makes sense, although the tone is a bit aggressive or sermonic. It politicizes/polarizes not only politically but also in terms of good/bad with an optic of fight... If it's specifically about politics, it could be reframed and renamed. If it's more general than that, especially considering factors that are not black and white (that include WP:RS, WP:PARITY, WP:GEVAL, WP:YESPOV, etc.), a suggestion might be (comments welcome of course): Editors are expected to respect policies, processes and editors, as well as remain cold-headed. This extends to acknowledgement of our own bias and the capacity to compromise when reliable sources contradict our views. How often do you edit against your own bias?. Presented this way, POVFIGHT might no longer be a good description (and we already have WP:RGW, WP:BATTLEGROUND), but it's a condensed summary of WP:NPOV, WP:RS (without the mention of reliable sources, on what do we really compromise anyway?), WP:TPG, WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, while keeping the conclusion, the double-reminder that we should be able to compromise (and perhaps a fitting shortcut could be WP:OWNBIAS)... —PaleoNeonate – 11:12, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

  If the conservative/liberal aspect is removed, what this reminds me of slightly is the GMO ruckus which resulted in an arbcom case back in 2015.[3] The problem here in part was that some editors had decided that other editors were agents acting on behalf of malign interests (broadly, Monsanto) and were casting aspersions and generally engaging in disruptive behaviour to right great wrongs and "correct" the POV resulting from a perceived COI. Taking a cue from the findings in this case, the lesson would be something like "don't push back against the work of an editor or editors just because you have decided they are editing widely in a non-neutral way, and do not think that your judgement about their POV justifies ignoring the norms of editing as set out in the WP:PAGs." ? Alexbrn (talk) 11:28, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

  I think that perhaps part of the crux might be don't point to other people's behavior as a justification for your own tendentious editing; constantly doing so is itself a sign of tendentious editing. One thing I noticed above is that many people are presenting arguments for discarding POVFIGHTER that essentially amount to arguing that they should be allowed to edit in ways that are partisan, biased, or skewed taken as a whole, in situations where the people they are in a dispute with are obviously wrong and obviously disregarding policy. It isn't completely wrong (it is true that when a dispute is lopsided in that respect, an even-handed approach to it might look one-sided), but someone who constantly makes that argument is likely to be a tendentious editor, especially if their arguments aren't broadly accepted, because many experienced, tendentious editors believe themselves to always be in the right and will naturally think any longstanding dispute they end up with is one-sided in their favor. --Aquillion (talk) 20:25, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

  The above quote reminds me of the WP:ASPERSIONS information page, but that mostly stresses that evidence is expected. Another proposed variant with combination: Editors are expected to respect policies, processes and editors, as well as remain cold-headed. This extends to acknowledgement of our own bias and the capacity to compromise when reliable sources contradict our views. Do not point to other people's behavior as a justification for your own tendentious editing; constantly doing so without providing evidence is itself a sign of tendentious editing. How often do you edit against your own bias? —PaleoNeonate – 20:56, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Unnecessary bothsiding and a tool ready to be abused in wikilawyering. --MarioGom (talk) 18:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• Remove it. The tone is unsuitable for a behavioural supplement, it reads like a user essay. The mention of liberal vs conservative is too specific. There is a throwaway mention of FRINGE at the end, but the effect will be to enable such editors and false balance. It is also redundant to WP:USTHEM, directly below it. We should not do lengthy wordsmithing before removal - we should remove it now and then the proposers can refine it and try to get consensus to re-add some form of this guidance. Fences&Windows 13:14, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

  p.s. This was the discussion after it was added in early 2018: Wikipedia_talk:Tendentious_editing/Archive_1#"The_editor_on_a_mission_to_combat_POV". Fences&Windows 13:24, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• I have a proposal for alternative wording:

Crusading against a specific POV

The neutral point of view on Wikipedia is not a single "neutral" or "objective" point of view, but rather represents a balance of all significant views covered in reliable sources in proportion to the WP:WEIGHT those sources accord to them. It's therefore a form of tendentious editing to entirely refuse to represent a POV covered in reliable sources, even if that view is one often pushed by POV-pushers. It's also similarly a form of tendentious editing to, in an attempt to fight against alleged POV-pushing, assign less weight to a significant POV than is present in reliable sources.

Stated more directly: attempting to fight POV-pushers can itself be a form of POV-pushing, especially doing so without looking at the weight of that POV in the underlying sources. Similarly, attempting to increase the representation of a specific POV can be in the service of NPOV. It all depends upon the context of the article and the sources that the article is based upon: you cannot determine who is advancing NPOV and who is editing tendentiously entirely by knowing what POV they are in conflict over, without reading the article or the underlying sources.

Worse still, crusading against POV-pushers can lead to a host of other bad behaviors, including seeing the topic area as a WP:BATTLEGROUND, believing that you are the rightful owner of articles in the topic area, and casting WP:ASPERSIONS of POV-pushing against other editors, all while ironically entrenching a POV in an article past the ability of other editors to correct it.

What do people think? I've tried to cut out wording choices people objected to or that appeared to be confusing people, and replaced them with references to existing policy to make it clear what the point is and why this is in an explanatory supplement. Loki (talk) 19:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it's worse than the original, in that it doesn't even gesture towards the fringe situation, in which Wikipedia wants push-back against a WP:PROFRINGE POV, in a WP:Lunatic charlatans sort of way.

My general take on the existing POVFIGHTER text is that pretty much everybody seems to agree it's crap, and that maybe ${something completely different} would be better. This suggests to me it should simply be deleted. Alexbrn (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

For reference, I think the existing POVFIGHTER text is fine. Please do not construe my rewrite to appeal to other people's objections as an objection. Loki (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, for the record, this does take into account fringe views. If a POV is significantly represented in reliable sources, it isn't WP:FRINGE, by definition. Acting as if views that have significant support in reliable sources are fringe is, again, tendentious editing. POV-pushing against a minority but respected position is still POV-pushing. Loki (talk) 20:40, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I'll comment that RS treating these views as being a respected position is crucial here. The simple fact it's presented heavily isn't enough. If it's presented in RS as a reasonable POV, sure. If it's just covered heavily because it's so out there and is such great clickbait, no. Simple numbers of mentions is nothing. —valereee (talk) 20:52, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's more complicated than it seems. Sourcing on fringe topics needs to be WP:FRIND rather than (just) reliable, and per WP:PARITY sometimes sources which are normally considered weak may be used to counter fringe notions. Thus we have situations in the fringe area where blogs can trump academic peer-reviewed journal articles. The proposed text blows right past that. Alexbrn (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Alexbrn, including that this is worse than what is there, and with Valereee. It's therefore a form of tendentious editing to entirely refuse to represent a POV covered in reliable sources is flat-out wrong. For example, an academic paper is technically a reliable source, but there are many ideas mentioned in one or a relative handful of academic papers whose WP:Due weight in a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia is zero, because those ideas got little or no uptake. Attempting to increase the representation of a specific POV can be in the service of NPOV is a red carpet for POV pushers. You cannot determine who is advancing NPOV and who is editing tendentiously entirely by knowing what POV they are in conflict over is also wrong; if someone is pushing, say, creationism, or "Stop the Steal", you know right away their opponent is correct. The assertion that crusading against POV-pushers can lead to a host of other bad behaviors casts WP:ASPERSIONS against editors who enforce WP:MEDRS and WP:PSCI. These editors should be thanked, not treated as no better than those who oppose their efforts. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:35, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• I actually came here looking for a nice, concise description of the well-known problem of the tendentious POV-fighter, so I hope that there can still be one. It's the kind of user who announces they're here to fight the terrible bias of Wikipedia, and make it more accurate and true. Who then proceeds to make unsourced edits, many of which contradict existing sources, and to delete sourced material that they just don't like. The sources, they say, are biased too - but they know the way things really are. When other editors revert them, it's taken as evidence and loudly proclaimed that those editors, too, are biased.

I always kind of liked the existing text, because it's short, pithy, and catchy, like a saying of Buddha: "Don’t keep searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions." [4] There's a grain of truth to it: if you think you're fighting bias, maybe take a look in the mirror. The problem is that it's wrong. Someone can have a great Wikipedia career if all they ever do is fight the bias of a certain group of ideologues pushing propaganda - by demanding reliable sources, due weight, and no original research. That's the crucial distinction that the current text fails to make - the difference between a constructive POV-figher and a tendentious POV-fighter. If you're faithfully following the core content policies, and a POV-fighter you revert exclaims, "Oh! See how biased you are! What gives you the right? What's the difference between you and me?" The answer is: "I'm not wearing hockey pads." --IamNotU (talk) 00:10, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

IamNotU, what do you think about my proposed rewrite, above? I feel like it does a better job differentiating between tendentious POV-fighting and legitimate POV-fighting. Loki (talk) 03:11, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, it's not "short, pithy, and catchy"... it doesn't seem to capture the essence in a concise way, and some of the other criticisms are valid. Thanks for putting the effort into it, but I don't think it's going to fly, sorry. --IamNotU (talk) 12:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• I appreciate the effort that went into crafting the alternate wording, but I don't think it really solves anything in the end. It still takes an issue that's at best advice for mental well-being — if you get your satisfaction in such-and-such a way, you might be developing a bad habit — and turns it into a way to judge our fellow editors. XOR'easter (talk) 01:33, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

  Hmm good point, this reminds me of the WP:NOTTHERAPY essay. —PaleoNeonate – 18:38, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support removal per several persuasive arguments above, esp. recent statement by IamNotU. Generalrelative (talk) 04:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Quick note: please do not remove the existing section, because there is not consensus for doing that. Consensus is not a vote but I count 8ish people here that are broadly for the existing section, versus 11ish who are broadly against, and even within each camp there's no agreement about what should actually be done with it. (So, for example, I've counted people whose actual proposal was a rewrite on both sides based on whether they were more like "I like the spirit but it needs a rewrite" or "ew, we should rewrite it".) Certainly there isn't a consensus to remove it. At best there's a consensus that something should be done, but no consensus as to whether we should touch up the wording, or totally rewrite it, or remove it entirely. Loki (talk) 21:35, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

My take is the consensus is to remove. Hardly anybody like the current text. But if it's really going to be necessary to sink community time into a RfC then - sigh - it'll have to be so. This would be without prejudice to something else being written in future. Alexbrn (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

You already expressed your view above so theoretically shouldn't be the closer (or decide the outcome), —PaleoNeonate – 23:58, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Obviously not, and I'm not claiming to be. I'm making a note on the talk page in response to attempts to remove the section entirely without consensus. Loki (talk) 02:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

11 to 8 would lead to deletion at the vast majority of AfDs. And RfCs are a huge time sink. Also, per WP:ONUS, it's those who wish to include the material who have to get a consensus to do so. This chunk clearly does not have the community's consensus and therefore should not stay. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:57, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

If it's eventually dropped from this page, it could certainly be integrated into one of the existing essays... —PaleoNeonate – 05:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me – remove it from this page and integrate it into an essay instead. —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Yep. That's where I've ended up on this, too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

trim "Failing to appropriately thread your posts on talk pages" section?

Any interest in deleting the "Failing to appropriately thread your posts on talk pages" section? Doesn't seem to have much to do with tendentious editing. It just seems to be a correlation between tendentious editing and new users, which opens the gate for adding other new user behaviors to this list, which reduces the succinctity of the page. WP:BLOAT –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree. That section is IMO too WP:BITEy for my taste. Loki (talk) 14:27, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree too. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't know the origin of this text but there have been several cases of editors who refuse to follow convention when commenting. They use various rationales, all of which suggest trolling and/or a competence problem. They aggressively support their right to do what they like and are highly tendentious. I don't particularly mind if the text is removed, but the text has nothing to do with biting a newbie. Johnuniq (talk) 22:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I also sometimes see this... a proposed alternative may be: Title: "Persistent failure to observe technical talk page guidelines", text: "Signing and properly indenting talk page posts help make discussions easier to follow. Persistent failure to do so may strain the patience of other editors and eventually be perceived as uncivil, arrogant or tendentious (WP:TPG#Layout, WP:SIGN)." It adds the importance of signatures as well as stresses "persistent". —PaleoNeonate – 02:58, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

For better or worse, there are long-time, experienced editors who don't follow the usual conventions for nesting replies, so I personally agree it shouldn't be listed as a correlation to tendentious editing. isaacl (talk) 00:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I believe I was the user who initially added this text, and think it is still applicable. Sure, not every problem editor fails to thread, and some non-problem editors do fail to thread, but the correlation between tendentious editing and poor talk page etiquette is quite high in my experience. Yilloslime (talk) 17:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

RFC: POVFIGHTER

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should we remove WP:POVFIGHTER from WP:TE, or not? Loki (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Survey

• No: POVFIGHTER is a useful section that describes a common style of tendentious editing. Constant fighting against one particular POV while ignoring others is itself a common sign of POV-pushing, especially accusing others of being POV-pushers while ignoring or dismissing suggestions that one might oneself be pushing a POV. I'm sure we've all seen cases where a new or IP editor goes "this article is very biased and must be fixed to conform with my very specific set of extreme beliefs". Some of us, myself included, have seen the reverse: an article, usually a small or obscure one, that is actually very biased, and is maintained so by one or two experienced editors that throw out POV accusations at anyone who tries to fix the bias. Without POVFIGHTER we wouldn't have either of those behaviors described anywhere. (I agree the wording is not great and we should probably consider a rewrite; I'm making this RfC very binary primarily because the discussion above has coalesced around this binary choice.) Loki (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes: current wording is not fair with a lot of editors that do a great job here. I'm perfectly fine with people whose main activity is fighting WP:FRINGE theories (see WP:FTN). I don't buy the bothsiding here. Someone who devotes a lot of time to clean up the mess created by some lunatics is not just as POV as they are. Not to mention that people are not POV. --MarioGom (talk) 22:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• No, although there is definitely room to improve the wording; most of the issues people have objected to above are plainly fixable. The larger section it's placed in serves as a list of characteristics that can indicate POV editing (not ones that always do); numerous other entries on that list also apply to non-tendentious editors, so they have to be viewed as a whole. But it is definitely true that frequently and one-sidedly making sweeping accusations of biased or tendentious editing without evidence (or when such arguments fail to convince people) is one characteristic of tendentious editors, since when an editor has very strongly-held beliefs, editing that goes against those beliefs is going to look POV to them. Anyone who has dealt with the most obvious, WP:SPA-type WP:NOTHERE editors knows that quite frequently, the first thing they do when they meet resistance is to accuse everyone they come into conflict with of being biased, trying to censor them, etc. --Aquillion (talk) 22:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes - If this needs an unambigious choice, in its current state, yes, for the reasons that I already explained above. —PaleoNeonate – 22:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. We already had this debate above so I won't repeat myself. Fences&Windows 22:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. I find the arguments for removal above to be broadly persuasive. Generalrelative (talk) 22:48, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  To be more specific: 1) The text as written appears to encourage bothsidesism, which is fundamentally incompatible with WP:NPOV, specifically WP:FALSEBALANCE. 2) There is really nothing here but bothsidesism, so rephrasing cannot address the issue. 3) The legitimate concerns raised by those seeking to retain this section are already covered by existing policy and guidelines, e.g. WP:AGF, WP:BATTLE, and of course WP:NPOV. I will further note that, contrary to what has been suggested below, I see no reason to suppose that those seeking to cut this section are any more motivated by tendentiousness than those seeking to retain it. I see no reason to speculate on the motivations of contributors to this discussion at all. Generalrelative (talk) 03:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• No. It's not perfect, but the issues with it are entirely fixable with a small amount of tweaking. A large proportion of the arguments against this seem to come from those who don't want their tendenitious editing and/or the tendentious editing of those they are supporting in a dispute somewhere to be characterised as tendentious editing. Thryduulf (talk) 00:12, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes It doesn't belong, and it doesn't help. It invites confusion between bad-faith POV-pushing and legitimately holding the line, rather than giving any actual guidance on telling the two apart. The issues with it are fundamental, not minor quibbles of wording. XOR'easter (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  And to concur with MarioGom above, it's poor form to call people "POV". That's a description of article content, not human beings. XOR'easter (talk) 17:25, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• No. As I mentioned in a different section of this talk page, certain anti-fringe editors take defending Wikipedia from POV to their own POV extreme. Rude edit summaries, usernames declaring their POV, userpages and essays proudly declaring their POV. I had a bad experience with these editors when copy editing the tone of an article. I feel this section of the policy could help temper this kind of behavior. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:25, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• No, we should not remove information about an existing phenomenon. However, my support for keeping this section is contingent on changing "you are as POV as they are". Simply changing it to "you may be as POV as they are" would be acceptable. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:28, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• No... but I would be open to re-wording. Blueboar (talk) 03:19, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, remove. The section is extremely problematic as has been explained in detail in the above section by SMcCandlish and others. In many, many articles, one form of POV pushing is by far more common. Thus, in those cases, resisting all POVs is behaviorally indistinguishable from resisting one POV, because only one POV motivates people to show up and be a problem. The problem is that this page is about identifying bad behavior, and is commonly cited at ANI and in block logs. We are not mind-readers and this is not a self-help page; such psychological advice belongs in a separate essay, not an explanatory supplement with high acceptance. The section endorses bothsidesism between POV pushers and those who combat POV pushing because it's POV pushing. This section can easily be used as a cudgel to suggest that those resisting the POV pushing are no different from the POV pushers. It stigmatizes neutrality efforts. Any actual problem of pushing of the "opposite" POV is still POV pushing and is addressed properly at pages about that. Actual POV pushers don't care what this page's advice is anyway. Wikipedia's WP:SEALION infestation is bad enough; we do not need this section enabling such behavior. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:41, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  I endorse this message. XOR'easter (talk) 04:10, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, remove. My initial sense that perhaps this could be massaged into something appropriate to keep in WP:TE, when I opened the original discussion, has clearly not panned out. I have no objection to it becoming a user-space essay or something. I assume someone will want it. That is, if someone does copy it to a side essay, I would not MfD it. But it doesn't belong in a {{Supplement}} of such site-wide buy-in that people cite it as if it's a policy. That really requires WP:PROPOSAL and the above discussion has essentially been that proposal, with a Failed result.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:46, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes As explained above, these thoughts are not useful. I don't recall any examples where describing a problem or person as WP:POVFIGHTER would be helpful. It's more likely that someone not liking the way their POV wss being rebutted would use WP:POVFIGHTER to claim their opponent was worse than them. There are only 55 pages linking to the shortcut, and several of them are from pages referring to this RfC. By contrast, WP:RGW is linked from thousands of pages. Johnuniq (talk) 06:28, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I would argue that this is a problem and both that WP:POVFIGHTER is underused and WP:RGW is overused, especially in the kind of blind-to-one's-own-POV arguments that WP:POVFIGHTER describes. Describing your opponent in an argument as a POV pusher who is there just to RGW is a very powerful argument here even if it's not true, in fact even when you're the POV-pusher and they're fighting for neutrality. Loki (talk) 07:31, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes as I have argued at length on this page already. Alexbrn (talk) 07:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, too easily misconstrued and User:Crossroads makes a good point. The material can be moved to an essay somewhere. —Granger (talk · contribs) 08:22, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. Wikipedia is a team project. It is absolutely no problem if some editors protect articles from POV pushers from one side, while other editors do the same in the other direction. Some are good at writing understandable article text, others at making pictures, still others at checking for consistency with sources or even for correct grammar. Some are good at fighting left-wing loons, others are good at fighting right-wing loons. This section goes against the team spirit of Wikipedia. It deamnds too much. It is like demanding that everybody who does not write article text, make pictures, check sources, as well as rebuff vandals and do all other things that need to be done has no place here. The claim "you are as POV as they are" is especially insulting: it is an outflow of one specific intolerant POV, a postmodern POV, a dogmatic POV that does not know it is a POV too, and that rejects all POVs except itself as illegitimate. If an umpire in a ball game had that POV, he would send off all the players because they are not impartial. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:01, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  [it is a] POV that does not know it is a POV too - yes that is the exact problem with many people (not all, but a not insignificant proproption) who see themselves as pushing back against POV pushers - they see their view as NPOV and all others as POV. This is the exact issue the section is addressing and why it should stay. Thryduulf (talk) 16:36, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  POV editing is bad. Opposing POV editing is good. Giving POV editors a tool to rebut their opponents is bad. At any rate, there are 44 occurrences unrelated to this RfC where editors have used Wikipedia:POVFIGHTER (created in April 2018) and that demonstrates that the community does not support the term. Johnuniq (talk) 01:59, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  And it demonstrates that POV editors are not using it as a tool to rebut their opponents. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:18, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  In that case, since the section itself is pushing back against POV pushers, the section must go. It defeats itself, as every bit of postmodern reasoning does. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:07, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, plenty of articles where POV pushing is extremely one-sided. Protecting these articles against any edits against Wikipedia policy is identical to protecting them against edits from [group]. I'm rarely editing political articles (beyond a comma or other minor edit here and there) but I see this a lot in fringe science articles. --mfb (talk) 07:24, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, if an editor spends a lot of time removing vandalism, does that make them a vandal? We have a wall of committed IP's/recurring new editors with strong POVs in specific topic areas (e.g. racism), who are only held back by small groups of editors who revert them in that area. Are they POVFIGHTERS and therefore subject to sanction? The central issue is that we have core guidelines against POV, which don't require POV to address, just adherence to our codes. If an editor spends all their time enforcing those guidelines in a topic area, and does so within our codes, why would that make them a problem? Are we going to have WP:VANDALFIGHTER, WP:SPAMFIGHTER, WP:SPIFIGHTER sanctions as well? Britishfinance (talk) 13:19, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, or else it needs a lot of revision. But as written, it paints with too broad a brush. We already have WP:NPOV, of course, so we don't need to tell editors not to POV-push, and there are other, better ways to tell editors about "editing for the other side". --Tryptofish (talk) 19:15, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, there is no reason for this; is editors can single-mindedly eliminate particular typos or errors, why discourage similar behaviour in more cognitively stimulating ways of improving the encyclopaedia. GPinkerton (talk) 23:38, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, Remove, if I understand SMCandlish correctly it was unilaterally added 3 years ago, and it does not to me describe a real problem, but something that someone with too much time on their hands sat around and dreamed up. Firejuggler86 (talk) 14:48, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes This is extremely clearly only got added due an editor wanting to use a made up position therefor trying to change a Wiki policy, its actually hilarious. The use of the word "liberal" makes that completely obvious as well as the poor wording which makes it obvious this was made for only one reason that being to try to go and "win". It's like getting reported for edit warring so in response you attempt to change the article on edit warring. I have also seen editors try to redefine the definition of consensus towards "You didn't read through my 30 lines of text therefor I have consensus" or "you didn't respond for a week therefor I have consensus". This entire thing imo is like trying to change a Wiki policy with the only goal being to push your agenda. Des Vallee (talk) 09:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• No per OP. In fact I found it apt for a situation. There are situations wherein a bias is so strong that any attempt to negotiate against the bias is labelled as "POV". Further the bias could be held by a majority which makes it worse. Vikram Vincent 13:46, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. Really the only lines in the section are If you see it as your mission to protect article content from any edits that are against Wikipedia policy, you are a good Wikipedia editor. and the exception for fringe theories. Everything else is un-nuanced both-sidesing that's better done by the WP:USTHEM section below it. Maybe merge the two lines above with the section below. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:34, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• Opening this RfC since some parties to the above discussion are claiming consensus to do this. Since there was already pretty extensive discussion above, and I highly doubt many of the people involved are watching this page, as a courtesy, I will ping everyone who participated in the above discussion: SMcCandlish, JFG, Black_Kite, Mandruss, XOR'easter, Blueboar, Alexbrn, ProcrastinatingReader, Hob_Gadling, Aquillion, LuckyLouie, Thryduulf, Novem_Linguae, Crossroads, Slywriter, PaleoNeonate, MarioGom, Fences_and_windows, valereee, IamNotU, Generalrelative. If I missed anyone, please feel free to ping them in response to this comment. Loki (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  Oops, forgot Mx._Granger. Loki (talk) 21:58, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• I don't really have a support/oppose position here, but FWIW there's a PAG or essay one can falsely quote for any action they want to do. They can spew nonsense and claim WP:NOTTHOUGHTPOLICE, one can ignore a PAG page and cite IAR/NOTBURO, someone can close in favour of 5% of the voters and cite WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, look down upon newer editors and cite meta:Wikimedia_power_structure#Meritocracy, etc etc. The validity of any of these assertions is tested at enforcement time. If it's a nonsensical assertion in the specific context, the editor will be sanctioned regardless. Hence, I don't agree that the existence of the language poses difficulty for people working to counter POV/FRINGE/etc editing. Sure, maybe they'll cite the section on you, but if this section didn't exist they'd find something else to cite on you. This section intends to address a real issue, seemingly, and if so it should stay. If the language can genuinely be improved we can do that, but if the fear is just people misquoting it out of context/WP:WIKILAWYERING, well, that's nothing new lol, and removing the section won't stop them. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• At AfD (where I have spent a lot of time), you sometimes meet an editor who is putting up a lot of AfDs in a subject area (e.g. fashion or porn models, religious groups like Mormons etc.). Some on the other side of the debate will complain that this is akin to a CRUSADE against the topic area, akin to the POVFIGHTER logic, and demand for a reduction in AfD activity (and even sanction of the editor). However, the conclusion is always the same – as long as the AfDs are being created within the guidelines and are legitimate AfDs, then there is no issue. Similarly, if an editor is specifically addressing a POV in a topic area, then as long as they do so within the guidelines, there should also be no problem. A guideline that says you are breaking our guidelines by over-patrolling a specific guideline, even when you are operating within guidelines, seems illogical to me? Britishfinance (talk) 13:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Try to imagine how to actually apply WP:POVFIGHTER:
  • Let's assume, hypothetically, that you are a political scientist, an expert on Communist dictatorships, and you have therefore edited articles about Communist dictators. You have reverted lots of edits by Stalinists and Maoists who have tried to insert their POV, tried to whitewash Communist crimes. According to WP:POVFIGHTER, you now need to do something in the other direction, to balance out your POV editing (which is as evil as that of the Maoists you fought). But you do not know enough about right-wing dictatorships to edit the articles about them. To be on the safe side, you would need to revert edits by right-wingers who want to heap more crimes on Stalin, crimes he did not commit. But there are no such edits. (I have no idea if that is the situation in those articles; as I said, this is hypothetical.) So what do you do?
  • Let's assume you have fought the efforts of QAnon fans to turn the article about the Furry, Mo and Rudy Putsch into something they see as The Truth. What do you do to compensate? Fight back against Democrats trying to... well, to unjustifiedly portray something else the way they see it? What if you cannot find any such cases that are against the rules? What do you do when it is Sensible Party vs. Crazy Party? One side is fighting against reality and the other is not, so you cannot expect to have to expend the same amount of time on both. Or even to have to spend any time on fighting the pro-Sensible-Party POV at all.
  • And what if your own position is left of both Democrats and Republicans? If you fight both types of POV pushers, you will still be defending your own position by fighting people to the right of you. Help the first hypothetical guy out with fighting Stalinists? But if you are not far enough to the left to count as Stalinist, that will still be defending your own position. Seek out articles about your own position and remove your own opinion! That is what WP:POVFIGHTER actually says, but if you do that, you will get blind-spot problems; you will not have as easy a time of finding the chinks as someone who does not share your POV and your blind spots.
• I do not see how this helps anyone. This ideologically charged text adds an unnecessary, counterproductive layer of thought-policing, and it imposes one specific position on all readers: namely the position that you can achieve neutral text only if everybody is as unbiased as possible. That position is bollocks. It is an unworkable, unrealistic armchair idea on how searching for truth should work, an idea that uses someone like the fictional character Spock as an ideal a scientist should aspire to. No good scientist is like Spock, and if one tried to be, it would be detrimental because he would care less about the results of his research; he would become more care-less. If you seriously tried to adopt the position demanded by the text, you would see any really thorough search for mistakes in text you suspect of being unreasonable, as a cause for remorse. Why should you have to feel bad for finding and removing mistakes? If the mistakes you find are all in the same direction, so what? Someone else will remove the ones that go in the other direction, and be better at it than you. All you have to do is: not fight the people who correct the mistakes in the other direction. On a site maintained by humans, wagging a finger at all non-Vulcans adds nothing useful. If you want to be Spock, be Spock, but don't try to force others to be. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:23, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Hmm... On the one hand, I do see your point now more clearly. On the other hand, three things are still true:

• It may happen that a Stalinist or a QAnon supporter adds something to the article that is supported by reliable sources, and you shouldn't remove that just because it comes from a kook. So for example, there really are reliable historians who argue the Holodomor was not a genocide, and removing that from the article in the name of fighting Stalinists is POV-pushing.
• Much more likely, the Stalinists and the QAnons are extremely likely to say This article is so biased against Stalin/Trump! We need to correct the bias of this article immediately (by making it conform to my bias). Almost no POV-pushers think they are pushing a POV, they think they are correcting a bias.
• Many POV disputes are not so obviously one-sided. What happens when you treat someone who (to use an actual example I've seen recently) says that the US should be described as "violating" the US-Iran nuclear deal instead of "withdrawing" from it the same way you'd treat a Stalinist or a QAnon? At that point you're just pushing your own POV, not fighting against an opposing POV. Loki (talk) 18:51, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Addendum: The problems you identify with actual usage are why basically everyone here supports at least tweaking the wording. (In particular, I really don't think You are as POV as they are is true in all cases. Sometimes you are not as POV as they are. Sometimes you are much more POV than they are. It all depends on the current state of the article and the reliable sources. WP:POVFIGHTER doesn't mean that you are as POV as they are, it means you don't know how POV you are.) But I really don't want to just remove it. The behavior it describes does happen, so it's useful to have a section describing it. Loki (talk) 18:55, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• If a user I have pidgeonholed as "a Stalinist or a QAnon supporter" "adds something to the article that is supported by reliable sources", then there is not much I can do against it - unless the information is not WP:DUE, and consensus need to be found. Reverting it with the justification that the person who did the edit has some specific opinion would be forbidden by WP:NPA. I don't need WP:POVFIGHTER for that.
• Yes, they say "this article is biased" all the time, about all sorts of articles. The usual answer is that such complaints are misusing Talk pages as a WP:FORUM. If they have actual edit suggestions, those can be evaluated on their merit without invoking WP:POVFIGHTER.
• Whether to use "violate" or "withdraw" is decided by how the reliable sources put it. Only if reliable sources disagree on the wording, there is a problem, but that problem has to be addressed by looking for a wording that fits the sources-disagree situation, not by looking at the intent of the users who prefer one or the other wording. If I favor one specific wording because of my political stance, I need to use good, source-based reasoning to defend it. If I can't because my wording has no basis in reality (or rather, the sources), I will lose that discussion. Again, WP:POVFIGHTER does not help.

So, what exactly is the effect WP:POVFIGHTER is supposed to have? To sometimes make people think "oh, it seems I have no good reason for my preferred wording, and I prefer it only because I am a XXXist"? Then, instead of hitting people over the head by telling them they are biased if they fight POV fighters, it should ask them to try to ask themselves what their own bias is and how to prevent it from having unwanted consequences. Of course, this sort of thing still suffers from the blind-spot weakness. If someone sees their own POV as The Truth, I do not think there is any wording that will make them stop doing so. Basically, the people who really need to read such a section will tend to ignore it, and those who tend to take it to heart will know it anyway. If there is a way to word it so that there is a group somewhere in between that is actually helped by it, fine. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

To your answer of point three: That it's decided by the reliable sources and not by the intent of the users who prefer one or the other wording is exactly the point of POVFIGHTER. You are defending POVFIGHTER very eloquently in that answer even as you say it's not necessary.

The point of POVFIGHTER is to counter spurious accusations of POV-pushing by people who haven't read the reliable sources, they just see [group they dislike] adding material to an article and presume that means it's POV-pushing. Will they themselves take it to heart? Unlikely, but the point of any argument anywhere on the internet isn't to convince your opponent, it's to convince the audience.

Without POVFIGHTER, the state of Wikipedia policy is biased towards spurious accusations of POV-pushing, because it's easy to accuse someone of POV-pushing but the policies that exonerate one from spurious accusations of POV-pushing are more spread out, harder to explain, and rely heavily on interpretation. The closest second is WP:ASPERSIONS but that doesn't say anything about the underlying content dispute. We really need something somewhere that says You can accuse someone of POV-pushing and be wrong about it. Saying someone is a POV-pusher doesn't mean they are. Loki (talk) 19:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

That to counter spurious accusations of POV-pushing is the point of POVFIGHTER is just your idiosyncratic understanding of WP:FOVFIGHTER. Actually, it talks about users who protect article content from the POV overzealousness of [other users with specific POVs]], not about users who do this by actually accusing those other users of having those specific POVs. That is a totally different thing, which is not at all covered by WP_POVFIGHTER but, as you say, by WP:ASPERSIONS.

WP:POVFIGHTER, as currently written, does not specify how the POV fighters it opposes fight. Any user who correctly applies all rules and:

• throws away unsourced material that makes conservatives look bad,
• reverts WP:UNDUE edits that make conservatives look bad,
• correctly refutes other users' reasoning in defense of edits that make conservatives look bad,

is in violation of WP:POVFIGHTER if he does not do the same thing with "conservatives" replaced by "liberals" or "bad" by "good".

Other behaviours, behaviours that violate actual rules while pushing a POV, need not be covered here. We already have the rules themselves covering those.

People who violate rules have motives for doing so. WP:POVFIGHTER tells people not to have motives in the first place, even if they do not violate rules; or rather, to behave as if they didn't have motives. I have seen no good justification for that.

Your reading is at odds with the actual text. Maybe, instead of defending the currently existing section by defending something else it does not even mention, you should suggest a wording that actually says the something else you are defending. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

• Anyone not yet involved feel like closing this? It's been over a week since the last !votes, and it does seem that a rough consensus has emerged. Generalrelative (talk) 01:57, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Try WP:ANRFC. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:18, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
    • I'd be happy to, but I saw that it states there that When the consensus is reasonably clear, participants may be best served by not requesting and then waiting weeks for a formal closure. It seems to me that consensus here is reasonably clear (I know that this is WP:NOTAVOTE but the yeses do outnumber the nos by 18 to 7 at this point, so more than 2.5 to 1). Above there has been an objection to an involved editor deciding the issue, but I wonder if anyone would object now that consensus is perhaps clearer. Generalrelative (talk) 03:14, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
      • From how this has gone with people reverting it back in, I think we need uninvolved, rock-solid, indisputable closure. I was going to list it at ANRFC after 30 days were up, but if you want to put it up sooner, I think that's fine. Crossroads ^-talk- 07:04, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
        • Cool, will do. Generalrelative (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
          • Yesterday LokiTheLiar closed his/her own RfC. That was inappropriate, so I reverted both the RfC header and the content under discussion. Leave the process to ANRFC people. — JFG ^talk 08:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
            • I closed it against my own side because of overwhelming consensus. If you believe my decision was contentious, sure, we can wait, but ANRFC will just give the same result. If there was any chance whatsoever of getting a different result, I would not have closed it. Loki (talk) 18:24, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
              • I think that there was nothing wrong with Loki's close, and there was no valid need to undo it. But now that it's what it is, there is also nothing wrong with waiting for someone else to close it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:51, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.