10 ms·

TLDR; Wikipedia's definition of "Neutral Point of View" evolved from "Providing different, attributable points of view, diverse sources, and prohibition of pej

TLDR; Wikipedia's definition of "Neutral Point of View" evolved from "Providing different, attributable points of view, diverse sources, and prohibition of pejorative labels" to "statements of fact, sourcing hierarchy, and acceptance of pejorative labels." This transition was propelled by early victories in the "anti-fringe" camp, driving away members of the "pro-fringe" camp.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
> acceptance of pejorative labels What's the rationale for the 'anti-fringe' camp to intentionally lower Wikipedia's credibility? And why would Jimmy Wales et al. accept that?
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  I think Wikipedia's credibility is enhanced by the homeopathy article stating it's pseudoscientific rather than something mealy-mouthed like "disputed".
  - dgrin91 3y ago
    I personally agree in the homeopathy case, but what about other cases? I generally think Wiki's NPOV is pretty good, but I'm sure there are corner cases I disagree with or they are wrong about. By stating a view as a definitive NPOV it becomes difficulty to change people's minds
    - kstrauser 3y ago
      I'm no longer convinced that changing the minds of someone who already believes a fringe theory is generally useful or productive. The big return on investment comes from being honest about the fringe theory's status to people who haven't made up their minds. In this case, you may not talk someone out of believing in homeopathy, particularly if they've invested a lot of time or money in it. You may have better luck with people who are first hearing about homeopathy, visiting the article, and seeing that it's junk. I've seen this play out in other subjects, like global warming (there's not a real "both sides"; climate scientists nearly universally believe in it), evolution (almost no biologists believe in Creationism), chiropractic (there's no plausible mechanism of action; studies fail to show that it works for anything beyond some back pain), the "electric universe" (cosmologists universally think it's dumb), and many others. Diehards are gonna diehard. People on the fence can benefit from a solid dose of reality.
      - lucubratory 3y ago
        Trying to figure out which of the five fringe science groups you mentioned are downvoting this comment
    - LastTrain 3y ago
      It is a community run site. It has warts, like anything. I can't really think of a better example of how something on the internet has been run than Wikipedia, can you? And no one is saying it is perfect.
      - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        > It is a community run site. Are you sure? Why? Because they told you it is? Because you donated? Because you see the people that make edits and articles? What if it a community labor site? How would you as an outsider be able to tell the difference?
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        LastTrain 3y ago
        Are you sure the moon's not green? Hey I've made a few edits over the years and there they are. Maybe that's just another part of the big ruse? They cleverly keep /my/ edits around? Maybe only I see them? Maybe we're all living in a simulation...
        hot_gril 3y ago
        I do recall getting shadowbanned from Wikipedia in middle school because I kept repeatedly creating an article about my friend, pretending he was a famous person. Indeed they made my edits only visible to me. But of course it was easy to notice that going on another IP address.
        LastTrain 3y ago
        Didn’t we all do that :-)
        hot_gril 3y ago
        Getting the school IP temp banned from Wikipedia was a rite of passage in computer class. Tell a bunch of 13yos that there's a site anyone can edit, you know what'll happen.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    If even just 1 out of 10 homeopathy topics/issues/articles/etc. turn out to be mostly true, then labelling it all as 'pseudoscientific' would seem pretty silly in hindsight? I'm not quite sure what the advantage is over labelling it 'disputed'.
    - nwiswell 3y ago
      > turn out to be mostly true Nope, it was still pseudoscientific at the time, even if it gained scientific evidence later. Wikipedia is a purveyor of facts, not of judgments, but sometimes the two are inseparable. As long as it's a fact, it's ok if it's implicitly a judgment too.
    - xboxnolifes 3y ago
      Just because something turns out to be true doesn't make it scientific. "Science" isn't a euphemism for correct, and "Pseudoscience" isn't an euphemism for wrong, even if many use them as such. You either followed the scientific process, or you didn't.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        > Just because something turns out to be true doesn't make it scientific. Right, but how does that relate to pejorative labelling policies? i.e. If even just 20% of readers will misinterpret the label, then why go with the label instead of something like 'disputed' which has a mis-interpretation rate close to 0%?
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        "Disputed" is frequently misinterpeted as something like "50/50". It would not accurately reflect the real situation in the homeopathy scenario.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        > "Disputed" is frequently misinterpeted as something like "50/50". What does 50/50 mean in this context? If you mean a 50% probability of the article ultimately proving to be mostly true, then that would genuinely be the case for some small fraction of homeopathy articles?
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    In this case, Wikipedia's credibility is enhanced by the fact that it demands very high quality references for medical articles, and the resulting portrayal of homeopathy is a mere side effect of that. The very fact that homeopathy is a non-mainstream practice means that it's hard to find reliable references that will describe it positively.
  - mike_hock 3y ago
    No, its credibility is damaged by the presence of an echo chamber that can impose its viewpoint unchallenged. An article that "objectively" lays out the claims and though processes of homeopathy and then simply states that there is zero supporting evidence and no experimental setup has ever been able to establish any effect above placebo, gives much more credibility to Wikipedia because it suggests to the reader that the wording has been challenged by proponents of homeopathy, but the factual statements about the lack of evidence could not be removed on objective grounds.
  - unyttigfjelltol 3y ago
    And then there's the `COVID-19 Misinformation` page[1] still pedaling the view that there is no "evidence" Covid was "accidentally leaked" from a lab. Wikipedia has a hard job to do, but this particular viewpoint is where they lost credibility on neutrality. Too many people pedaling a narrative. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation
zozbot234 3y ago
This has less to do with NPOV itself and more with the need for increasingly reliable references (meaning references that are unlikely to outright make stuff up, regardless of the identifiable views they portray). If "fringe" references are a lot more likely to be actively misleading than "mainstream" ones, it stands to reason that these references will be edited out, and the fringe views that are associated with them will be less represented as a result. This also plays out in the domain of politics, where political sides with poorer quality references (loosely speaking, anything other than boring centrist politics) are less represented too.
- pcl 3y ago
  > This also plays out in the domain of politics, where political sides with poorer quality references (loosely speaking, anything other than boring centrist politics) are less represented too. Oh man, if only..!
jrmg 3y ago
Where are you finding the descriptions you’re quoting? I can’t find the words ‘pejorative’ or ‘label’ anywhere in the linked article.
- pictureofabear 3y ago
  It's in the figure labeled "'How Did the NPOV Rule Change' (figure 2 from the paper)". If you're searching text or reading text only, I guess you wouldn't see it.
  - jrmg 3y ago
    Thank you! I guess I will have to admit I did not examine the figures…

MichaelZuo 3y ago

> acceptance of pejorative labels What's the rationale for the 'anti-fringe' camp to intentionally lower Wikipedia's credibility? And why would Jimmy Wales et al. accept that?

ceejayoz 3y ago
I think Wikipedia's credibility is enhanced by the homeopathy article stating it's pseudoscientific rather than something mealy-mouthed like "disputed".
- dgrin91 3y ago
  I personally agree in the homeopathy case, but what about other cases? I generally think Wiki's NPOV is pretty good, but I'm sure there are corner cases I disagree with or they are wrong about. By stating a view as a definitive NPOV it becomes difficulty to change people's minds
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    I'm no longer convinced that changing the minds of someone who already believes a fringe theory is generally useful or productive. The big return on investment comes from being honest about the fringe theory's status to people who haven't made up their minds. In this case, you may not talk someone out of believing in homeopathy, particularly if they've invested a lot of time or money in it. You may have better luck with people who are first hearing about homeopathy, visiting the article, and seeing that it's junk. I've seen this play out in other subjects, like global warming (there's not a real "both sides"; climate scientists nearly universally believe in it), evolution (almost no biologists believe in Creationism), chiropractic (there's no plausible mechanism of action; studies fail to show that it works for anything beyond some back pain), the "electric universe" (cosmologists universally think it's dumb), and many others. Diehards are gonna diehard. People on the fence can benefit from a solid dose of reality.
    - lucubratory 3y ago
      Trying to figure out which of the five fringe science groups you mentioned are downvoting this comment
  - LastTrain 3y ago
    It is a community run site. It has warts, like anything. I can't really think of a better example of how something on the internet has been run than Wikipedia, can you? And no one is saying it is perfect.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      > It is a community run site. Are you sure? Why? Because they told you it is? Because you donated? Because you see the people that make edits and articles? What if it a community labor site? How would you as an outsider be able to tell the difference?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - LastTrain 3y ago
        Are you sure the moon's not green? Hey I've made a few edits over the years and there they are. Maybe that's just another part of the big ruse? They cleverly keep /my/ edits around? Maybe only I see them? Maybe we're all living in a simulation...
        hot_gril 3y ago
        I do recall getting shadowbanned from Wikipedia in middle school because I kept repeatedly creating an article about my friend, pretending he was a famous person. Indeed they made my edits only visible to me. But of course it was easy to notice that going on another IP address.
        LastTrain 3y ago
        Didn’t we all do that :-)
        hot_gril 3y ago
        Getting the school IP temp banned from Wikipedia was a rite of passage in computer class. Tell a bunch of 13yos that there's a site anyone can edit, you know what'll happen.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  If even just 1 out of 10 homeopathy topics/issues/articles/etc. turn out to be mostly true, then labelling it all as 'pseudoscientific' would seem pretty silly in hindsight? I'm not quite sure what the advantage is over labelling it 'disputed'.
  - nwiswell 3y ago
    > turn out to be mostly true Nope, it was still pseudoscientific at the time, even if it gained scientific evidence later. Wikipedia is a purveyor of facts, not of judgments, but sometimes the two are inseparable. As long as it's a fact, it's ok if it's implicitly a judgment too.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    Just because something turns out to be true doesn't make it scientific. "Science" isn't a euphemism for correct, and "Pseudoscience" isn't an euphemism for wrong, even if many use them as such. You either followed the scientific process, or you didn't.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      > Just because something turns out to be true doesn't make it scientific. Right, but how does that relate to pejorative labelling policies? i.e. If even just 20% of readers will misinterpret the label, then why go with the label instead of something like 'disputed' which has a mis-interpretation rate close to 0%?
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        "Disputed" is frequently misinterpeted as something like "50/50". It would not accurately reflect the real situation in the homeopathy scenario.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        > "Disputed" is frequently misinterpeted as something like "50/50". What does 50/50 mean in this context? If you mean a 50% probability of the article ultimately proving to be mostly true, then that would genuinely be the case for some small fraction of homeopathy articles?
- zozbot234 3y ago
  In this case, Wikipedia's credibility is enhanced by the fact that it demands very high quality references for medical articles, and the resulting portrayal of homeopathy is a mere side effect of that. The very fact that homeopathy is a non-mainstream practice means that it's hard to find reliable references that will describe it positively.
- mike_hock 3y ago
  No, its credibility is damaged by the presence of an echo chamber that can impose its viewpoint unchallenged. An article that "objectively" lays out the claims and though processes of homeopathy and then simply states that there is zero supporting evidence and no experimental setup has ever been able to establish any effect above placebo, gives much more credibility to Wikipedia because it suggests to the reader that the wording has been challenged by proponents of homeopathy, but the factual statements about the lack of evidence could not be removed on objective grounds.
- unyttigfjelltol 3y ago
  And then there's the `COVID-19 Misinformation` page[1] still pedaling the view that there is no "evidence" Covid was "accidentally leaked" from a lab. Wikipedia has a hard job to do, but this particular viewpoint is where they lost credibility on neutrality. Too many people pedaling a narrative. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation

zozbot234 3y ago

This has less to do with NPOV itself and more with the need for increasingly reliable references (meaning references that are unlikely to outright make stuff up, regardless of the identifiable views they portray). If "fringe" references are a lot more likely to be actively misleading than "mainstream" ones, it stands to reason that these references will be edited out, and the fringe views that are associated with them will be less represented as a result. This also plays out in the domain of politics, where political sides with poorer quality references (loosely speaking, anything other than boring centrist politics) are less represented too.

pcl 3y ago
> This also plays out in the domain of politics, where political sides with poorer quality references (loosely speaking, anything other than boring centrist politics) are less represented too. Oh man, if only..!

jrmg 3y ago

Where are you finding the descriptions you’re quoting? I can’t find the words ‘pejorative’ or ‘label’ anywhere in the linked article.

pictureofabear 3y ago
It's in the figure labeled "'How Did the NPOV Rule Change' (figure 2 from the paper)". If you're searching text or reading text only, I guess you wouldn't see it.
- jrmg 3y ago
  Thank you! I guess I will have to admit I did not examine the figures…