Wikipedia talk:Content forking

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[edit] From Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

retrieved from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive#Wikipedia:Content forking 16:31, 1 November 2005 (UTC):

This is listed as just an essay and it's pretty much stating the obvious - we don't fork articles. But for those editors prone to rules lawyering, is there a policy or guideline that does spell it out? If not, why not paste a policy template on this essay? SchmuckyTheCat 05:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The worst way to deal with rules lawyering is creating more rules, and I think don't fork articles follows from both some of our general principles (like WP:NOT) and plain common sense. I have no specific objections to declaring that essay policy, but I haven't read it carefully. --fvw* 05:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Agreed on your first statement, which is why I'm hoping a simpler formulation already existed. SchmuckyTheCat 06:08, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Expanded Wikipedia:Content forking a bit, for example made a connection to wikipedia:summary style which explains a technique how to split, while avoiding content forking. And added an example where POV split was denied by wikipedia community.

Also put the {{proposed}} template on top, so that the community can assess whether or not to make it a guideline ("policy", as in Category:Wikipedia official policy probably not so suitable IMHO, implicitly it is covered by NPOV policy)

Asking for other guidelines who reflect the no content forking: the wikipedia:naming conventions (people) also indirectly advises to give each person one single article, with the most obvious name, and only use "summary style" type of splits for those so famous that they get more than one page (which, all in all happens not so often, and is as far as I know normally not from a "circumvent NPOV" outset). Whether a similar guideline can be found re. articles not on people I do not know. --Francis Schonken 21:58, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge suggestion

It was suggested to merge this project page in the NPOV page. Well, wikipedia:neutral point of view is already a very long page, and this "content forking" page is maybe rather about practical considerations regarding how to avoid POV when splitting content. So I added a "Article splitting" section to wikipedia:NPOV tutorial, where it seems more on its place. That "Article splitting" section is only a short summary of this article (using the {{main}} template under the section header directing to this page), so it isn't actually a "merge" - such "merge" of the complete content would make the NPOV tutorial too long too.

Considering all that, which I think a workable solution, I remove the "merge" suggestion from the project page, and upgrade this from "proposed" to "guideline", for which there appears to be no opposition (or am I wrong in that?) Provisionally I put it in the "how-to" subcategory of guidelines --Francis Schonken 08:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge suggestion (II)

A merge with wikipedia:POV fork seems much more logical, so I proposed it myself --Francis Schonken 08:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I support this idea, regardless of what else is done. This appears to be duplication on a basic level. KillerChihuahua 15:31, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I am the creator of the article Wikipedia:POV fork and I also support merging the two forks. Andries 19:51, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I am Wikipedia's foremost supporter of NPOV - if not our leading expert, even if I do say so myself a bit too often! - but no one else seems to want to claim the title, and Jimbo seems to agree with my observations quite a bit on the mailing list. Anyway, I support a merge, especially one which will distinguish between valid and invalid forks. Uncle Ed 18:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality, consensus and "points of view"

The neutrality policy of Wikipedia is a core community value. It's not subject to debate or revision. (Check with Jimbo, if you're not sure about this.)

While whether to comply with NPOV is never subject to a vote, how to comply with NPOV is certainly up for grabs. We should do our best to reach a consensus on how to make any given article neutral.

Some people feel that "points of view" are appropriate only in some articles and should be excluded from others. This attitude crops up most frequently in politically-charged controversies over scientific topics, but also can be found in politics itself, as well as culture, sociology, mental health, religion and many other areas. I have repeatedly dialogued with Jimbo on this point, and as most longterm Wikipedians know, he his always affirmed that any significant view should be included - even when it's a minority and often simply because it's a minority.

There is no grounds whatsoever for excluding a "POV" from a controversial article simply on the grounds that "it's a POV" or that it is "POV text", a "POV explanation", or a biased view of any kind. To say so is either to miss (or maybe to refuse to accept) NPOV policy:

  • all points of view (POV) are to be described accurately and fairly, in articles on controversial topics.

There can be no doubt that US national policy (as in Vietnam, Iraq, and presidential elections) is a controversial topic. So are global warming, the creation-evolution controversy, Macedonians (ethnic group), and hundreds of others.

[edit] Good forking

Often it is helpful to divide a long controversial article into parts.

The best example is Augusto Pinochet, although there are many other good examples. Contributors were edit warring over several aspects of his political and military career. After a long time, some of realized that his role in the 1973 Chile coup was the main focal point of the squabbling.

When this segment was split off, it became much easier for editors to work together and express the main POVs about the coup - and the respective roles of Pinochet and the United States.

A summary was subsequently put back into the main article, but the "sidebar" or "fork" worked better when left to stand on its own. And no one could predict this, until the fork was made. Uncle Ed 18:29, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

That is already covered in the article, as is the fact that it is possible for people to create supposed "spinout" articles in ways that dodge consensus and the fact that this is not acceptable, just because spinouts themselves are not always unacceptable. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:54, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I might be misunderstanding you. Or not. I'm saying that content forking is not always bad, and often can be good. Your response, "already covered in the article", doesn't really tell me whether you agree with me or not. It smacks of disagreeing, actually. :-(
And I'm completely mystified by your follow-on comment about "ways that dodge consensus". What is consensus, and why is it important? I thought we were talking about neutrality (considered good) and biased writing (considered bad). Uncle Ed 16:58, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Ed, what you are calling "content forking" is something the article already clearly states is not content forking unless it is done wrongly. If you want to make contributions to the discussion it really would be helpful to use the same vocabulary as everyone else. Is it really that hard to engage in a discussion using the same terms as everyone else? The Wikipedian definition of vandalism states that "any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia ... is not vandalism"; if I start arguing that we shouldn't be so hard on vandalism, because "hey, a lot of vandals are really honestly trying to help the encyclopedia!" then I am not making any actual point; I am just muddying the waters by refusing to use the established definition of the term and trying to sneak in my own.
As for "What is consensus, and why is it important?", well, I really shouldn't have to tell an admin what consensus is, should I? Your assertion that Wikipedia policy suddenly has nothing to do with consensus and everything to do with neutrality is startlingly, puzzlingly naive. Neutrality is not something Wikipedia expects to find in individuals; it is something Wikipedia expects to emerge from the consensus of multiple editors. As such, to ask "why is consensus important? I thought we were talking about neutrality!" is like asking "why is it important for the jury to hear the argument of both the prosecution and the defense? I thought we were talking about a fair trial!"
You do not provide enough details about the example you hold up of supposed "good forking". When you decided to split off the details of the 1973 Chile coup from Augusto Pinochet to Chilean coup of 1973, did you start with what consensus had already produced as a description of the coup? Or did you start from scratch, assuming that what you wrote alone would be more imbued with "neutrality" than a description which had come out of a process involving multiple editors representing multiple points of view? And when in the process did you let other editors know that you had created a new article on the Chilean coup? (Would you call a trial fair, if only the prosecution or only the defense was notified of which courthouse it would be held in and what date it was scheduled for?) These are factors that separate what you are calling "good forking" from what the rest of us are referring to when we talk about content forking. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:16, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I was going to ask about this too. Currently there is the statement "The sub-articles can each treat a particular aspect - which might reflect a point of view for each of the sub-articles - but these sub-articles should anyhow be linked to the other subarticles and to the main article, for instance by a navigational template." This seems to imply that an individual article can be POV, as long as some ensemble of articles is NPOV. I believe this to be utterly wrong. Every article on Wikipedia must be balanced unto itself, and in fact that's the whole point of this guideline. I'll remove it for now, please comment if you violently diasgree.

[edit] Bad forking

Unless I read the article too hastily, it seems to be saying that if the majority of contributors to an article gang up against a lone contributor, who is trying to add a neutral statement about a point of view, then:

  • the article is deemed to correctly exclude all information about that POV
  • any further attempt to describe the POV they are trying to censor should be deemed a violation of policy (because it's "evading consensus")

I have an e-mail in hand from user:Jimbo Wales which says precisely the opposite of this. I wish you guys would simply agree with Wikipedia because you understand it and support it. Please don't make me drag Jimbo down into this. Uncle Ed 17:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Certainly there are many ways available to resolve NPOV disputes, but trying to avoid discussion by forking disputed content should not be seen as one of them. Lone contributors who feel that they only trying to add a neutral statement to an article and are being unfairly ganged up on should attempt to engage people in conversation and seek outside opinions; if that fails, they should take the article through the dispute resolution process. While there are many good uses for forks, they do not strike me as the correct recourse in the situation you describe... Forks should be created because someone thinks that creating a fork is the right thing to do to improve the article, not because of temporary infighting among editors. --Aquillion 23:17, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Ed, there's a saying where I come from: "When one person tells you you're drunk, ignore him. When ten people tell you you're drunk, sit down." What's your version of that saying? From what you've written above, it sounds like it's "When one person tells you you're drunk, ignore him. When ten people tell you you're drunk, ignore all of them. No matter how many people tell you you're drunk, ignore them. They're just ganging up on you, oppressing your sober self." -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Criticism(s) of ..."

It's worth noting that Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of Islam, Criticism of Mormonism, Criticisms of communism, and Criticism of Hinduism all sport neutrality disputes, all because either the scope of the article implies that the only discussion of the subject that exists is negative or the scope of the article inherently advocates the negative point of view. Contrast Criticism of Objectivism, which has not been allowed to fork from Objectivist philosophy, which in turn attempts to include all discussion of the (specific area of the) subject, both positive and negative, and is not sporting a neutrality dispute. Uncle G 13:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Asking for clarification

I must admit I have a bit of puzzlement regarding the references to summary-style articles. In the context, I believe it's referring to what happens to some articles after detailed articles have been spun out of them; eventually the original article may become primarily, or wholly, just the summaries of content now located in spinout articles. However, the wording is confusing, so I can't be sure this is what it's saying.

I think it's important to be clear on this, because otherwise people might try to argue that under the letter of the policy, they are entitled to create new POV fork articles, as long as those forks are "summary-style". -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what problem *exactly* you're talking about. Maybe a good idea to give an example, so we're not talking about different topics.
I don't see the sequence of events you describe in the first paragraph above as obligatory. Often it occurs one encounters an article that's near to 30 Kb with a, say, 2-paragraph section that might benefit from elaboration. In that case one might first insert the {{details|...}} tag under the section header (which makes this article "Summary style", as in wikipedia:summary style), and then start the subsidiary article as an elaboration of the two original paragraphs that were in the main article. No harm done.
Further, it's the main article that is summary style, not the subsidiary articles. I don't know if there's possibility to misunderstand the "content forking" guideline text in that sense.
The thing is, that with "Summary style"+"subsidiary articles" format, things are still more or less controllable (NPOV-wise, etc...) - unlike the scheme proposed presently at wikipedia:village pump (policy)#Sub-article notation (a system for which I predict a noble death sooner or later) --Francis Schonken 06:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, let me illustrate what I mean with a scenario: Say there's a general topic Foo which, if you try to break it down, breaks down fairly completely into the sub-topics Blue Foo, White Foo, and Grey Foo, such that if you've fully discussed Blue, White and Grey Foo you've pretty much covered Foo.
OK. Here's possible sequence of events number one. Wikipedia's coverage of Foo begins with someone writing a Foo article which covers Blue, White and Grey Foo. Multiple editors contribute to that article until it gets too large; when that happens, coverage of the three sub-types of Foo are split off to Blue Foo, White Foo and Grey Foo, and Foo becomes a summary-style article.
This is an acceptable scenario. But unfortunately, long experience dealing with editors who think they can blatantly violate the spirit of policy, as long as they stay technically within the letter and never disclose that they're well-aware they're acting in bad faith, leads me to think someone might try the following (possible sequence of events number two):
Articles on Blue Foo, White Foo and Grey Foo were all started independently. Each article is edited to consensus. Editor Scofflaw feels very strongly that a particular claim about Blue Foo's qualities should be included; the consensus of other editors, however, is that this claim is not appropriate for Wikipedia so it is excluded from the article. Scofflaw thinks he knows much better than consensus ever could, so he creates a new summary-style article Foo, which points to Blue Foo, White Foo and Grey Foo, and which also contains the claim about Blue Foo which consensus already decided was not appropriate for Wikipedia.
Here we have a clear case of content forking: Scofflaw has already submitted the claim he wants Wikipedia to make about Blue Foo for the evaluation of others; the consensus of those others has already determined that the claim is not Wikipedic; now Scofflaw is trying to evade that consensus by creating a new article and inserting the claim there. However, we have already seen some editors profess some confusion, presenting the fact that this page says spinout articles are not necessarily POV forks as if it said spinout articles are not POV forks, missing the point that they are POV forks when they are made for that purpose. (See Talk:Evolution#Content fork.) I'd like to leave as little room as possible for people to claim they misunderstood the policy and believed their article was provably not a POV fork because it's summary-style. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
At Talk:Evolution#Content fork Ed Poor/Uncle Ed at 18:29, 9 December 2005 (UTC) makes the remark:

Have you read Wikipedia:Content_forking#Article_spinouts_which_summarize?

There is no "Article_spinouts_which_summarize" section in the Wikipedia:Content_forking guideline. That is to say, at 18:28, 9 December 2005 Ed Poor had created that section header in the "Content forking" guideline [1]. Exactly 8 minutes later someone removed it [2]. Ed was just trying to bend the guideline his way. Which didn't last.
And whatever way it is turned neither wikipedia:content forking neither wikipedia:summary style make an "exception" to NPOV policy. If one wants to make a "summary style" article out of several existing articles:
  • NPOV has to be applied as well to the "summary style" article as to the "existing" articles;
  • None of these articles has any type of "exception" status w.r.t. any of the other policies & guidelines;
  • In particular, on top of usual policies and guidelines the recommendations of wikipedia:summary style are best followed for the "Summary style" article (which seems quite obvious to me...)
  • Putting together several theories (even if each of them separately is acceptable in wikipedia) in a new format to make a new type of assertion, might be infringement on WP:NOR. Quote from that guideline:

    An article that makes no new low-level claims, but nonetheless synthesizes work in a non-standard way, is effectively original research that I think we ought not to publish.

    (See: Wikipedia:No original research#Origin of this policy: the opinion of Wikipedia's founder)
Don't know if this answers your questions, but I tried to give you some complementary info which might help you guys to get on track re. the issue you're presently discussing. --Francis Schonken 21:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] origin of name?

anybody know where the name "content forking" originated from?69.22.224.249 23:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Both "POV forking" and "content forking" originated by analogy with code forking. The derivation of code forking probably comes from the fact that in such a situation, one contingent continues with its original plan and another goes off to do something different. This is similar to how some multitasking systems work; when a running program wants to start another sequence of instructions executing in parallel, the facility it uses to do so is called "forking off a process". -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
And all this originates from fork.--Patrick 13:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merged from Wikipedia:POV fork

There seemed to be clear consensus for this. I defined a "content fork" as a neutral term for duplication of articles, usually unintentional, and a "POV fork" as a deliberate evasion of NPOV by using a content fork. If this is no good, you know what to do. Stevage 09:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks Stevage for putting an end to this "Wikipedia:POV fork"/"Wikipedia:Content forking" content forking! --Francis Schonken 09:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Heh, yeah it would be ironic if the two pages had separate irrenconcilable definitions of the terms...Stevage 10:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problematic sentence

An editor having some trouble understanding what POV forking is and why he's not allowed to do it pointed up a very problematic sentence in the text:

Since what qualifies as a "POV fork" is itself based on a POV judgement, do not refer to forks as "POV" — except in extreme cases of repeated vandalism.

I believe I understand what it's trying to convey: that as part of Wikipedia:Assume good faith, one should not immediately leap to the conclusion that an apparent duplication between articles is a POV fork. However... the sentence is actually saying that even if someone has openly admitted that they created a new article on an already-covered subject because the existing article doesn't say what they want it to say on the subject, we can't call it a POV fork (even though that's exactly what it is) unless there's also been repeated vandalism by the forker? I really am trying to understand; if there's any reason why it shouldn't just stress that Assume Good Faith applies here as elsewhere, please explain it to me... -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Antaeus, by what would you replace this sentence:

Since what qualifies as a "POV fork" is itself based on a POV judgement, do not refer to forks as "POV" — except in extreme cases of repeated vandalism.

? If you give an alternate text proposition, that would maybe be easier? --Francis Schonken 12:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I must note before starting that the recent changes to the page represent an attempt to change, rather than to describe, current practice: in practice, most Wikipedians use "content forking" and "POV forking" pretty interchangeably, but we're trying to establish a definite difference between the two. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but we have to recognize that this is the case. With that in mind, I would suggest the following:
If you think you have discovered a content fork or a POV fork, be careful not to jump to conclusions; many things can look like content forking when they are not. See Wikipedia:Content forking#What content/POV forking is not for some examples. Even if it becomes clear that forking has taken place, remember the important policy of Wikipedia:Assume good faith; it is possible for something to be a content fork, but not a POV fork.
That's probably not perfect, but I think it is an improvement on the current text. The Wikipedian definition of vandalism is in fact very limited; it does not cover all forms of bad faith and we do not want to give people the idea that they can run riot with content forking and be untouchable as long as they never "make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit". -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I have to admit when i did the merge I was unable to tell from the text whether they were the same thing or not. It would certainly be useful to have terms to distinguish malicious forks from ignorant forks. If this is totally at odds with current usage, feel free to change them to being synonymous, and possibly propose a different term to describe non-malicious cases. Well, feel free to do anything at all, really. :) Stevage 07:07, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, it seems to me that current usage is for the most part very inconsistent, except for what a "POV fork" is: it's an article created on an already-covered subject for the purpose of allowing an editor to bypass consensus. Some people might say that "content forking" is just a synonym for that; some might say it's a euphemism; some might say that 'content forking' only implies the creation of an article on an already-covered subject, but not that it was done deliberately or for a particular purpose.
I think the question of whether we can and should establish more precise vocabulary to discuss these matters needs to be pursued, but my more immediate concern is that currently the article seems to be stating (please tell me if anyone reads it in a different way) that you cannot refer to a particular article as a POV fork unless it meets the Wikipedian definition of vandalism.
To illustrate why this is a problem, let me point you to the example of Microwave auditory effect; this is a real and known phenomenon which causes people to sometimes hear audible noises actually generated directly inside their ears by reception of certain microwave frequencies. As you can imagine, many people with paranoid delusions have jumped to the conclusion that they are being manipulated by the CIA/KGB/FBI by means of technology based on this effect. One such sufferer tried to edit Microwave auditory effect to include claims about the effect such as that it "constitutes the founding principle behind modern long range active invasive Brain Machine Interface." These edits were of course reverted. He therefore started a new article at "Frey effect", which is another name for the same phenomenon, and which should have been (and now is) a redirect; instead, he placed in the new article exactly the material which had been reverted at Microwave auditory effect. The contributor admits [3] that this is exactly what he did: He created a new article on an existing subject so that he could insert material that would not meet consensus.
But according to the current text of Wikipedia:Content forking, this wouldn't be a POV fork, or at least we couldn't refer to it as one: since the author sincerely believed that they were acting in good faith to improve the encyclopedia, by publishing their personal beliefs about the CIA mind control weapons, it isn't vandalism by the Wikipedia definition. This is why I think it's clear that we need to fix the text to make it clear that content forking/POV forking is an unacceptable procedure for trying to get content to go your way -- even if you are convinced that your way is in fact the way it "should" be. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] forking and redirects

Because unlike a link, a redirect can not point to a specific section in an article. It is sometimes desirable to fork out a section into a stand alone article, (even if it only initially duplicates information in the main article,) so that a redirect works properly. As time passes, either the section which has been spun out develops a life of its own, or it gets redirected back into the main article. I think that there should be a mention in this article covering this. An example of where I have considered doing this is for this link Varangian#The Varangian Guard for which the Varangian Guard redirect is not adequate. --Philip Baird Shearer 02:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Forking religious, mythological and other more or less fictional articles

In my opinion all such articles should be forked, or at least clearly seperated (in all cases), to historical, archeological and other scientific evidence based pages (or sections) and _(mythology) or _(fiction) variants covering information obtained from mythological, religious or some other fictious literary source. Forked especially if the event or item in question is held as undisputable fact among the practicioners of the religion and generally advocated as true(tm) thus earning a valid NPOV tag.

For example, Jesus: Instead of Historical Jesus it should be Jesus for the historical character and significance of Jesus in other sources (eg. Jesus is important in Christian tradition - See...for more info) and then the religious view of Jesus would be under the articles Jesus (mythology) (or Jesus (religion), Jesus (Bible)) - similarly as is done with Deluge (mythology) and Deluge (a disambiguation page to pre-historic deluges and the mythological Deluge).

Alternatively someone should introduce tags, like Template:RELIGION, Template:MYTH, Template:TRADITION, Template:BOOK, Template:FICTION, Template:FAD, etc.., on top of the page to represent an article which either has more or less fictional and/or uncertain source(s) or discusses the validity of the aforementioned sources (eg. Jesus-myth). - G3, 02:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bad forks and good spinoffs

This month is the 2-year anniversary of Chilean coup of 1973, which is (I think) Wikipedia's first successfull spin-off article.

I think that some contributors willfully misunderstand the difference between a POV fork, which is always bad, and a spinoff, which often can be good.

Creating another version of an article, to hide the fact that there is a dispute is dishonest. It's cheating. The policy which forbids this is a good policy.

Spinning off a part of an article, to resolve the dispute, i.e., to describe both sides fairly, is entirely in accordance with Wikipedia:NPOV. --Uncle Ed 14:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Sidebar article"

inserted in project page by Ed Poor, moved here for discussion by Francis Schonken 15:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Instead, a sidebar article can be created which focuses entirely on describing each viewpoint fairly (see "spinoff" section below). If nearly everything about a topic is uncontentious, but one part of it leads to contentious edit wars, instead of protecting the article consider creating a sidebar. The first and best example of this is Augusto Pinochet, which came to a screeching halt over the issue of US involvement in the coup against the Allende regime. After the 1973 Chile coup article was created, the edit warring stopped because writers could focus on the sub-topic of what happened in the coup, what were the reasons given for and against the coup, and so on.

Don't know why this was added to the project page, the example is inappropriate (I don't see a "sidebar" in the Augusto Pinochet article, nor would I think a "sidebar" in that article a good idea - "sidebars" are covered by wikipedia:navigational templates). The Augusto Pinochet/Chilean coup of 1973 example is covered by:
I also don't know why Ed put some things under a new "How these forks happen" section title, some of which obviously don't belong under that header.
In other words, the only thing I saw happening is an inappropriate rehashing of the project page, using wrong terminology (e.g. "spinoff" instead of "spinout"), for unknown reasons. --Francis Schonken 15:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
The project page said, the new article is sometimes called a "spinout" or "spinoff" of the main article. If this is the wrong terminology, then perhaps I was wrong to follow it. Should we replace "spinoff" by "spinout" everywhere in the project page?
And what's wrong with the example? Calling it a "sidebar" instead of a "spinout"? The point is that extracting the troublesome part (into a new, separate article) defused the edit war. --Uncle Ed 15:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
A splendid example of a POV fork. FeloniousMonk 15:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
What is an example? How is it an example? (Are you talking about spinning the coup article out from Pinochet? --Uncle Ed 15:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between a "spinout" (which is good) and a "POV fork" which is bad. My addition to the intro helps to distinguish the two.

If I have have added something which is against Wikipedia policy, please point out the difference between (a) what I said and (b) what policy actually is.

Reverting my changes with terse edit summaries isn't helping clarify anything. --Uncle Ed 15:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion Ed, and your judgement on POV forks in the past has been questionable, considering you created a good number of article that were deleted in AFD as POV forks. Sorry Ed, but you're forcing the issue here with your multiple reverts; there's been no community discussion on this, and the two here participating with you oppose it. FeloniousMonk 15:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

As for what's wrong with your proposed addition? Well, the passage "If nearly everything about a topic is uncontentious, but one part of it leads to contentious edit wars, instead of protecting the article consider creating a spinout (or "spinoff")" weakens the prohibition on POV forks by allowing for any "contentious" material to be shuffled off to a subarticle. Most legitimate criticisms of a subject are going to be objected to by those sympathetic to the topic and viewed as contentious, and thats not even considering contrived, bad faith objections on contentious topics. Shuffling criticisms under the guise of "contentious content" off to a subarticle violates WP:NPOV (which says all significant viewpoints must be covered) and thus a POV fork is created. That's the first problem. Do I really need to go on? FeloniousMonk 16:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unfounded accusation of POV forking

recopied to this page from user talk:Francis Schonken

PS. Might be accidental, but I see some similarity with a trick previously played by Ed Poor/Uncle Ed, see above #Asking for clarification. --Francis Schonken 15:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Before you accuse me of playing a trick, wouldn't you rather ask me what I meant? Please assume good faith, at least for a single hour. --Uncle Ed 15:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The example in the #Asking for clarification section above shows that at that time, long ago, you couldn't be trusted for a minute. You fidgeted with the project page, and within a minute you hade made claims elsewhere that there was content on this project page which had only been there for a minute, planted there by you, i.e. content that was removed another seven minutes later. I don't want to hold that against you, you may have changed your mode of operation after RfC and similar troubles you had to undergo, so please note that I assume good faith, and want to keep these things in the past and not repeat them. But it may provide an explanation of why someone else said in an edit summary reverting you: And you have a history of creating POV forks, Ed --Francis Schonken 16:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a false accusation, designed to damage my character to sway this discussion: a personal attack, actually.
If I had such a history, you would be able to list several articles created over a period of time along with a sufficient explanation of how each of them evading NPOV.
I have asked repeatedly to see such a list, but everyone refuses (on the grounds that it's too obvious to mention, or that they've already done it or as FM says, "I won't play that game"). But the burden of proof is on the accuser. So please provide evidence for your claim, or withdraw it. --Uncle Ed 14:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Francis' comments strike me as an accurate description of what I've seen with you trying to tweak policy to gain advantage in the content disputes you constantly contrive. Those tweaks were often made within minutes of your attempt to fork an article. That no one now is willing to waste their time documenting that history here is only evidence that we've have gotten wise to the game, not that such evidence doesn't exist. If anyone were genuinely interested though, which I seriously doubt, they can start with the partial list of your deleted POV Forks here, Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Ed Poor (2)#AFD_history, which in and of itself is sufficient evidence enough to make scrutinizing your changes to Content Forking policy and guideline more than warranted in my opinion. FeloniousMonk 03:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creating a spinout

Then when is it a good idea to create a spinout article? Currently, the Cuba article is protected because of an edit war about whether Cuba is "the only non-democracy in the Western hemisphere". Bruce Hallman suggests spinning off (out?) this issue into a separete article.

The spinout would not be for the purpose of creating a biased article. And it wouldn't be a "content fork", because there would not be two different versions, each with its own POV. Rather, the issue of "democracy in Cuba" would be entirely removed from the Cuba article. There would remain only a link (e.g., to Government of Cuba or Democracy in Cuba).

Is what Bruce is proposing (and I am endorsing) a violation of Wikipedia:Content forking policy? Or is it an example of following the policy? --Uncle Ed 16:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

"entirely removed" would be the difference between spinoff and spinout. The Content forking guideline is clear that one would always have a NPOV summary of the subsidiary article in the main (or "summary style") article. Note that that was also what is currently the case with the Pinochet/1973 coup example.
FYI, that's where I saw the similarity with the previous incident. The trick you played then was only changing the section title, implementing a terminology that could be understood differently from the actual content the newly proposed terminology was describing. Exactly what you tried to do now, proposing to cut the democracy issue off from the Cuba article. Of course, the description of the way democracy is treated in Cuba is a logical part of the Cuba article. Entirely removing that to a separate article is not a solution. Note that also talk pages can be used to sort out issues. --Francis Schonken 16:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
That is exactly what you shouldn't do. For example, don't create an article "criticisms of Foo religious cult" in order to remove all criticism from the article on the "Foo religious cult" in order to subvert NPOV policy. — Dunc|☺ 17:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. There is absolutely no reason to remove the content from the article simply because a few editors have difficulty with reality (or at least have differing perceptions thereof). In fact, in looking over the article, I see no reason why the neutrality of the two issues in dispute is questioned. Both sections, while needing minor tweaks, ring true to me, but then, I suppose my college background in PoliSci (my major) allows me to see the forest for the trees. In any case, moving "The government of (insert country name)" section from any article on any country is utterly ridiculous -- would you suggest the same for the article on the US?
What if, for example, someone were to easily dispute some of the assertions made there by noting that what is decribed is true only when the process works properly? There is little doubt that others would join in, thus creating the same problem the Cuiba article is now experiencing. That, I'm afraid, is the price we pay for having an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
In other words, the best way to resolve the dispute is by following current guidelines and allowing the process to work. •Jim62sch• 17:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I propose to do with Cuba precisely what you mentioned (in positive terms?) about the Pinochet/1973 coup example. Which, by the way, I spun off (or out) or forked or whatever you want to call it. I call it a sidebar article, but no one seems to like that term.

We should mention as briefly as possible, in the Cuba article, that there is a dispute over this or that aspect of life in the country. I am suggesting we split off (or spin out?) the controversy over whether it is "non-democratic" (as Adam keeps maintaining). The most neutral title I can think of is Cuba and democracy. The most neutral way I can think of to mention the dispute (at the moment) is "See Cuba and democracy."

Neither the title of the new article, nor the link to it, make any assertion of any point of view. So it would not be a "POV fork". The new article would be developed in accordance with NPOV, while the old article could be unprotected.

Any attempt to "push POV" in the Cuba article could be reverted (or better yet, properly sourced). But if this once again began an edit war, then the disputed text could be moved (not simply deleted) to the sub-article (or sidebar article or spin up down in out off...) to keep an edit war from paralyzing Cuba. --Uncle Ed 19:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

So far as I can make out, Ed Poor is trying to change the guidelines unilaterally here, against the wishes of everyone else who has contributed to the discussion, in order to justify what he intends to do at Cuba. Have I misunderstood?
In any case, whatever the reason, unilateral changes to guidelines (which are, as the template explicitly says, the result of consensus among editors) are unacceptable. (It doesn't help that in this case these changes are couched in language unsuited to the context; "came to a screeching halt"?) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I'll wait until the spinout (or spinoff) from Cuba to "Cuba and democracy" succeeds. A few more cases like this, and it will be obvious that it's a good policy. --Uncle Ed 21:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
  • But bear in mind that the policy currently states: Provided that all POVs are represented fairly in the new article, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate a controversial aspect as much as possible to its own article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious. --Uncle Ed 13:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a guideline, not a policy, and the way you're trying to spin it makes it run counter to WP:NPOV, a policy.
In the current wording, to "isolate a controversial aspect" does not mean you can remove a significant viewpoint that is critical (criticisms, in other words) to a subarticle. That's clearly a POV fork and prevented by WP:NPOV, and NPOV, being a bedrock policy certainly trumps WP:POVFORK, a guideline.
Were we to implement what you suggest in the guideline how long before every partisan with an ax to grind objects to the criticisms found in their pet articles as "controversial aspects" do you think? How long before you do it in creationism-related articles?
Considering your history with creating POV forks, all deleted now I'll note, I think you'd better give this one a rest Ed. FeloniousMonk 15:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

What history? You've made that claim dozens of times and never explained why even ONE spinout I made turned out to violate NPOV.

Consider the spinout I made of Cuba and democracy in May. The initial version states:

This article explores the ongoing controversy over whether Cuba is a "democracy" or not. Much of the dispute hinges over which definitions of democracy the various sides are using.

Several other contributors joined in over the last 2 1/2 months, and the article is a sub-topic of Politics of Cuba.

Both the intent and the effect were to create a neutral spin-off. Also, to reduce the edit warring over the parent article. Note that neither Politics of Cuba or Cuba and democracy have a {pov} tag on them, so in this case I must have done something right. --Uncle Ed 15:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to say Zleitzen (talk • contribs) has done quite a good job on improving the original article and making it NPOV. — Dunc|☺ 16:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversial aspects of a topic

It was Antaeus Feldspar who added the following to the policy page nearly one year ago:

Even if the new article was created because it's a particularly controversial aspect of the article subject, that does not mean that the new article is a POV fork; if one aspect of the article subject is more controversial than the others, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate that aspect as much as possible to its own article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious. [4]

There is barely any difference between that section then, and the current version of the policy. It has stood the test of time. So despite what Mel said in the previous section - and which I didn't contradict him about yesterday - I'm not actually trying to change the policy. --Uncle Ed 13:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not a POV fork

Francis wrote in an edit summary:

per "I'll wait until the spinout from Cuba to Cuba and democracy succeeds" - I see no success yet, currently a POV fork

I don't understand how this justifies the deletion of the text I added to the intro, i.e.,

On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate to extract a controversial aspect to another article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious. See below, "Summary style" articles.

Did you delete this addition because it contradicts policy, or what? --Uncle Ed 15:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

  • And why did you revert to the 7 April version of the article again? I wish you would discuss this here on the discussion page. You have not addressed any of my questions or comments. --Uncle Ed 15:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
The reasoning given by as justification for this is particularly specious. Even if Ed's efforts at creating a subarticle of Cuba succeed in calming the debate around that page's content, how long before the ideological ax grinder there learn to shuffle uncomfortable bits they don't want to subarticles by contriving a dispute over "controversial aspects"? No, this proposed change will never work in practice or make it into the guideline. FeloniousMonk 16:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war is stupid - pls discuss

Francis reverted all changes since April 7 with this edit summary:

Ed, stop it - you've currently *not* proved the Cuba fork was a success, and even less that an uncertain future success would warrant a *rewrite* of the guideline

I don't see what this has to do with my addition. Is there anything I added which amounts to a rewrite of the guideline? What specifically do you feel I am changing? Please answer before your next revert. I will undo your unexplained reversion only one more time today, because I don't want an edit war. --Uncle Ed 15:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

We have discussed, and your suggested change has been roundly rejected so far. Make the change, then discuss? That's not how it works Ed, and you know it. So yes, please stop edit warring Ed. FeloniousMonk 16:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Discussed my edit where? Rejected my edit for what reason? Saying that my edit "would change the guideline" without saying that that change might be is no discussion. --Uncle Ed 16:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Above. I poked a number of significant holes in both your proposed change and its justification. I can understand how you may have missed them though, with all the forcing of your change and restoring it you've done at the article and the starting of new sections here for every other paragraph. How's it working? FeloniousMonk 16:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Handling disputes

Above FeloniousMonk falsely accused me of a "history of creating POV forks". I know what he's referring to, but none of the articles I created was in any way a POV fork.

Here is what the guideline says:

  • Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. Provided that all POVs are represented fairly in the new article, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate a controversial aspect as much as possible to its own article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious.

I attempted to "isolate controversial aspect" of certain evolution articles, so that "all POVs [would be] represented fairly in the new article". How is this wrong? Only someone who was pushing a POV of their own would object to the creation of a new article in what all POVs are represented fairly. FeloniousMonk is the POV pusher, not me.

My addition to the intro here says only:

On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate to extract a controversial aspect to another article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious. See below, "Summary style" articles.

I see no way in which this contradicts the content forking guidelines or the NPOV policy. If anyone here sees such a contradiction, please point it out. --Uncle Ed 16:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

You know, your tactic here of creating a new section for every thought you have while ignoring or rejecting the reasoned explanations made to you why your proposed change is a Bad Idea, is not helping your cause or making people here want to discuss the issue with you. It's simply a discussion terminating move on your part to keep any discussion off-balance and off the real issue, which is your behavior here. FeloniousMonk 16:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

@Ed: above you wrote:

Okay, I'll wait until the spinout (or spinoff) from Cuba to "Cuba and democracy" succeeds.

...I keep you to that assertion.

From Talk:Cuba and democracy it is clear that there are still many problems... I've considered to put a cleanup template on Cuba and democracy... but when I found out I would need 4 or 5 at least (Merge suggestion to Politics of Cuba; insufficient/unchecked/poorly formatted references; uncategorised; general content policy issues...) and many other problems for which there are no specific templates: the page name doesn't cover the topic (currently the topic is limited to: "Cuba and democracy under the Castro regime", as if Cuba (or democracy) didn't exist before Castro's raise to power); various style issues, among which: written in the style of a school essay (WP:NOT), intro not formatted according to MoS standards, etc.

So I await success... the only reason why the article wasn't listed at AfD yet, appears to be that at Talk:Cuba and democracy people wanted to give it benefit of doubt for a few days... so I'd recommend you to use those days to improve the article... instead of messing around in the Content forking guideline. The fact that you remain bent on changing *something* in the guideline without improving it, only results in us taking a closer look at your so-called success.

As long as the Cuba article remains "protected", there is also no indication that the strategy you propose and implement by starting the subsidiary article on democracy is a true *success* (I mean, with regard to your own goals, and what you wanted to prove).

Further, when there is a success with the Cuba fork we can evaluate:

My personal tentative intuition is that you're trying to evade a NPOV summary in the main article (that is the article from which you started a split), and which is required to be conform to Wikipedia:Content forking#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles. I understand that the Cuba article is protected, so here are some suggestions:

  • A first thing you could do is propose a summary of the new article, destined for the Cuba article on a talk page (that could be talk:Cuba or talk:Cuba and democracy) if you've got talk page consensus over the new summary, that would be an excellent argument to second unprotection of the Cuba article, so that the new NPOV summary can be introduced there, to end the dispute.
  • Or, start Cuba/Temp, per Wikipedia:Subpages#Allowed uses, #1.
  • What could easily be done is to make the Cuba and democracy proposal a subsidiary article of Politics of Cuba article (much like Gay rights in Cuba is currently a subsidiary article of Human rights in Cuba, which is a subsidiary article of Cuba - without the Gay rights in Cuba article being mentioned directly in the Cuba article). If that gets settled (I mean, via the Politics of Cuba article) you would again have an excellent argument to request unprotection of the Cuba article, so that (if necessary) that article can be updated to the new NPOV version of Politics of Cuba.

--Francis Schonken 17:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Ed, regarding your edit that: "On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate to extract a controversial aspect to another article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious." This is arguably precisely what we shouldn't do, because it suggests that criticism be left out of pages in order to keep editing "harmonious." SlimVirgin (talk) 17:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last try this week

I copied and pasted the following from the body of the article into the intro:

Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. Provided that all POVs are represented fairly in the new article, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate a controversial aspect as much as possible to its own article, in order to keep editing of the main article fairly harmonious.

If you delete this from the intro, please delete it from the body, too. But please say WHY you feel it violates NPOV policy. --Uncle Ed 17:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Not clever enough by half. It should read "Provided that all POVs are represented fairly in the new article and the main article". WP:NPOV clearly states "All significant points of view are presented" and shunting a significant point of view to a "controversy" subarticle to "maintain harmony" (whatever that means) clearly side-steps WP:NPOV and its undue weight clause and opens up a loophole for POV forks to be created whenever someone makes a big enough stink. The original phrase you took this from was poorly thought out. FeloniousMonk 17:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, speaking as the person who authored it... It's true that the phrasing was not perfect. Ed Poor has demonstrated how someone could entirely violate the spirit of the guideline while claiming that they were abiding by its letter. This is true. However, I ask you to remember that there are two kinds of loopholes that we have to try and avoid in crafting any guideline or policy. The first is the kind that Ed demonstrated -- creating a clear POV fork and twisting the letter of the rules to argue that it isn't one. The other, no less damaging to Wikipedia and possibly worse, is twisting the letter of the rules to falsely describe something as a POV fork and call for its deletion on that basis.
As for "whatever that means", I would like to correct your misquotation and then give you an example of the sort of situation the paragraph was meant to deal with. The paragraph says "Provided that all POVs are represented fairly in the new article, it is perfectly legitimate to isolate a controversial aspect as much as possible to its own article" (emphasis added). That really isn't the same thing as "shunting a significant point of view to a "controversy" subarticle to 'maintain harmony'". You are talking about taking just one POV and moving it into a different article, whereas the paragraph you are criticizing specifically states that what is proposed to be moved is a controversial aspect of the subject, on which all POVs must be fairly represented. As for an example, I suggest you might look at what happened with David Miscavige. David Miscavige is the effective head of the Scientology organization, the successor to L. Ron Hubbard, who created virtually all of Scientology's doctrines. Miscavige is controversial even among Hubbard's own followers, in part because he instituted something called "patter drills". Some people think the patter drills are just a logical extension of Hubbard's doctrines. Others think that they are actually a specific contradiction of doctrines Hubbard laid down. Now that there is all you need to know about the issue of patter drills as it relates to David Miscavige! However, what people were doing were filling the David Miscavige article with long explanations of why patter drills were 100% on-policy, right in accordance with "TR 101" and others added long explanations of how patter drills violated "HCO Policy Letter 13 May 1972, 'Chinese School'". People were fighting back and forth, creating huge article churn in David Miscavige over this issue. Moving the detailed explanations of why the different factions believe what they do about the issue to its own article, and leaving an NPOV summary in the main article, allowed editing on David Miscavige to proceed much more smoothly. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abuse of consensus vs. breaking up a page

FM reverted this without discussion (other than declaring it "not an improvement").

On the other hand, it is also possible for editors to abuse "consensus" by maintaining a biased version of an article. Any attempt to add well-referenced opposing points of view might be falsely labeled "POV forks". If the spin-out article conforms to NPOV, then this is not a POV fork.

Wikipedia:Summary style says:

The length of a given Wikipedia entry tends to grow as people add information to it. This cannot go on forever: very long entries would cause problems. So we must move information out of entries periodically.

Moreover, sometimes an aspect of an article becomes so contentious that it leads to edit wars. It behooves us (those of us who support NPOV) to facilitate alternatives to edit warring. The best way to do this is to write a separate article about the dispute.

The first time I did this was 2 years ago with Chilean coup of 1973. At first, others resisted (fearing it was a POV fork). But the tactic proved itself, and in fact the article remains as a spin off (or "spinout") of Augusto Pinochet.

Many users, seeing an edit war (especially when it gets personal and nasty) simply avoid editing such a contentious article. The edit war deters users from contributing. A spin-off of just the controversial aspect makes it easier for other contributors to join in.

Sometimes, once the spin-off is complete, it can be reintegrated with the parent topic. It can become a section, and be replaced with a redirect. If not, it can remain separate (a standalone or "sidebar" article). We use the {{main}} template to indicate the relationship, while providing a summary in the parent article.

There are two topics (both related to science) in which some users have resisted spin-offs, spuriously labeling them "POV forks". I have asked repeatedly on what grounds they call these spin-offs "POV forks", but they never give any reasons. They simply repeat themselves and ofter accuse me of 'having a history of doing this'.

It would be a POV fork, only if the purpose or effect was to evade NPOV policy. That is, if either the parent article or its spin-off became biased as a result of the split. However, leaving behind a neutral account of the dispute (however short) is not adding bias to the article, nor is it "POV editing" as defined by the ArbCom. Nor is creating an article which is only about one controversial aspect, provided it's not a one-sided article.

I request those users who have been claiming a "consensus" to keep biased, slanted articles intact according to their personal notions, to stop doing this. Instead, allow Wikipedia articles to be unbiased by having them describe all points of view fairly. Allow spin-off article to isolate controversial aspects and describe the dispute in detail, leaving behind a neutral summary of the controversial aspect.

This is in accordance with policy, as I'm sure the ArbCom and (if it comes to it) Jimbo Wales would agree. --Uncle Ed 18:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

As explained to you on this page and elsewhere Wikipedia:Summary style is not a justification for creating POV forks, and neither is content covering controversies or content disputes arising from controversy. FeloniousMonk 18:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
You apparently have missed my point altogether. As I just now explained I (also) oppose the creation of POV forks. What I am talking about is different. Please respond to what I wrote, instead of putting words into my mouth. --Uncle Ed 18:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
You apparently have missed my point altogether. As I just now explained I (also) oppose the creation of POV forks. What I am talking about is different. Please respond to what I wrote, instead of putting words into my mouth.
It would be a POV fork, only if the purpose or effect was to evade NPOV policy. Splitting off a controversial aspect of a topic into its own page is different from "creating a POV fork" because:
  1. It fulfills NPOV by summarizing the disputed point neutrally in the parent article.
  • It fulfills NPOV by describing the disputed point in detail neutrallyy in the sub-topic article.
If you think any part of what I'm suggesting is opposed to NPOV, please point out that part and say why you think so. --Uncle Ed 18:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Um, "spin-offing of just the controversial aspect" clearly opens the door to POV forks. "Making it easier for other contributors to join in" is not a particularly sensical justification for your reasoning. FeloniousMonk 18:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
From the standard guideline template, which is on top of this guideline:

When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus.

There was no consensus. Two editors reverted it. Your reasonings above don't establish consensus. They don't follow from the sentence you quote from wikipedia:summary style. You have presented your identical arguments on this page several times, the consensus always being against these always returning proposals of you. 3RR is not a viable excuse for changing the thrust of a guideline, when you know in advance there is currently no consensus for these changes. That's your track record on this issue, and you just made it longer. --Francis Schonken 18:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV pushing and neutrality

Sometimes, in an attempt to preserve bias in an article, some Wikipedians will band together to "vote" that a spin-off is a Wikipedia:POV fork, even when it's not.

Proof that this often happens can be easily found by checking the number of AFD votes which were resolved purely by counting votes rather than by examining the reasons given.

Saying things like "Another POV fork by this user" is not a reason, but an attempt to avoid assuming good faith and avoid giving reasons. I propose the following standard, and I'd like to see a vote made on it (if not here, then in the appropropriate place). --Uncle Ed 21:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Vote on policy:

  • Winning an AFD vote is not proof that a particular article is a "POV fork".
  • Discussions about this should show how the new article is violates NPOV, and should not be resolved merely by counting votes.
  • Discussion should also show in what way the multiple articles advocate different stances.
  • Deleting a "POV fork" is not automatically the best way to resolve an NPOV dispute.
  • Retooling the articles so that they each are neutral is preferred.

Support:

  1. Uncle Ed: This will encourage contributors to work together to make articles neutral.

Oppose:

  1. Antaeus Feldspar: I have never seen the particular bad-faith conspiracies that Ed alleges sometimes happen, where "in an attempt to preserve bias in an article, some Wikipedians will band together to "vote" that a spin-off is a Wikipedia:POV fork, even when it's not." I have, however, seen Ed refuse to admit that an article he created is a POV fork, no matter how blatantly obvious it is to everyone else that it is. I also like the fact that he's citing as "proof" of these conspiracies the fact that not everyone is going into a long involved spiel explaining exactly why One individual survey in the evolution-creationism controversy is a POV fork; perhaps after participating in eight essentially similar AfDs, they are disinclined to explain yet again to the same user why merely finding a previously unclaimed article title is not permission to sprout a new front in his POV battle? Finally, the last proposed point might as well have a neon sign on it reading "LOOPHOLE FOR POV WARRIORS HERE". It basically asserts that editors have no obligation to proactively avoid making POV forks, only to reactively fix whatever POV problems the creator may have introduced -- even if the creator will then go on to introduce the same POV problem in six more unneeded articles. (Gee, did I explain my reasoning in enough detail to avoid being labelled part of those famous conspiracies to preserve bias?) -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:19, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  2. FeloniousMonk 01:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC): Considering Ed's own issues promoting bias detailed at his soon to close arbitration, I'd like to see him put his own house in order before trying to correct others. Also for Ed to consider:
    • If the majority of the community voting in AFD says that an article is a "POV fork", it likely is one.
    • AFD discussions usually show how the new article violates NPOV as fork, but that's unlikely to make much of an impression on POV fork creators.
    • The way the multiple articles advocate different stances is usually readily apparent to everyone other than the creator of the POV fork; therein lies the rub.
    • Creating a "POV fork" is not a way recommended to resolve an NPOV dispute, but a splendid way to start one.
    • Retooling the articles so that they each are neutral clearly would be preferred by the creator of the POV fork, but when that EDitor is an established edit warrior, retooling the POV fork becomes a matter of indulging in disruption, and in the end what you end up with is two articles that present the same topic, neither very well. And a headache.
  3. It isn't clear to me why we are voting on this right now when these changes were just proposed(doesn't some discussion occur generally?) However, given that we are I'd have to oppose mainly per FM and Feldspar above. I would however agree with Ed's statements that deleting a "POV fork" is not automatically the best way to resolve an NPOV dispute. In fact, some of Ed's own forks would be good examples of this such as Benny Peiser which was started as highly POV and rather than be deleted was cleaned up and improved to a decent NPOV article about someone who definitely met WP:BIO. However, this may be matter more of common sense rather than something that needs to have a policy about it. JoshuaZ 03:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  4. Odd, I never thought of AFD as winning or losing, nor do I think Ed's point that "to preserve bias in an article, some Wikipedians will band together to "vote" that a spin-off is a Wikipedia:POV fork"", makes any sense. If this group that banded together wanted to preserve bias in a particular article, why not just let the POV fork be? That way, the primary article could maintain its bias, and the POV fork could have its own. Since we can't use wiki for our references, would it matter from the perspective Ed is trying to spin if there was a POV fork? And that's where's Ed's logic breaks down -- the actions he ascribes to this "band" of presumed POV pushers is illogical. The reality is, that POV forks are forbidden, and will be nommed for deletion for that reason alone. •Jim62sch• 09:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should style templates be forked over disagreements?

Does this also apply to templates? Should a style template be forked if editors can't agree on the visual style it should have? See Template talk:Cquote#Please restore template. — Omegatron 16:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of Religion

I appreciate NPOV. However, in one article (likely a lot more than one!  :), a religious figure has been accused of everything under the sun by somebody: wife beating (he doesn't even have a wife!), anti-Semitism, anti-American, nepotism, neotony, you name it. An objective reader would have to decide if he really spent any time on religious activities or most of his time conscientiously violating every principal he believed in!

Since the man is dead, pro-editors have to strain a bit to meet the attacks of the media which tend to be so numerous, that they are overwhelming. BTW, that was the general idea of the attacks in the first place. To discredit the founder. So most of the article, rather than accomplishments, is spent explaining the position of the critics which are not terrifically clear, e.g. "This guy beat his wife (which he didn't have) on Sunday, but he never drew blood - except on Wednesday." This is really hard to research for an answer. We can't ask the guy. He's dead! We understandably don't believe the critics. Not all of them seem sincere.

So we have an article where the guy says the rosary ten thousand times (inflated to a couple of paragraphs!) and the rest of the article is devoting to trying to meet "attacks" which don't seem compatible with what supporters know of his life.

He exerted a lot of influence which the media would naturally like to diminish. When one media channel picked up a report, it was repeated in dozens of channels. All the same (often outlandish) report. No new news. No follow-up.

The critics cannot run out of criticsm as fast as supporters can run out of answers! They have the advantage of being able to make theirs up or interviewing people with little standing, or emotional problems. We have scruples and can't do that in rebuttal!

I like NPOV but reporting and answering each and every attack on a religious figure in this day and age really gets out of proportion sometimes.Student7 04:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cunado's recent changes

I reverted Cunado's recent changes, the "edit summary" box was a bit short to explain why in detail:

  1. The issue is not so easy, best to use talk page of this guideline for proposed rephrasings
  2. Not all spinoffs are "hierarchical" (this impression could be given by overuse of the word "subarticle")
  3. If the content of the spinoff article refers to several section of the original article,

Well I'm certainly editing in good faith. I thought I was improving the article. I think we're both editing with completely different examples in mind. I'm in the middle of debating how and where to include an obvious sub-article of a main article, which is a completely different subject, and someone keeps using this guideline, which doesn't seem to be written with that in mind, to support an argument. Here's what I did:

  • Change the section title, just cause I hate long section titles.
  • Format links to WP pages, this was just a style issue, because it makes the page easier to read.
  • Change new article to sub article, this reflects what I mentioned above. There needs to be some kind of distinction, because an article about Shia Islam will have hundreds of sub-articles that don't all need to be summarized in the main article with their own section.
  • change "must be" to "should be", see last comment.

Thanks. Cuñado - Talk 20:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't doubt the good faith,
  • Again, this guideline is a delicate balance, I really don't see how to change that balance without prior agreement, at least here on talk.
  • Re. "I'm in the middle of debating how and where to include an obvious sub-article of a main article, which is a completely different subject, and someone keeps using this guideline, which doesn't seem to be written with that in mind, to support an argument." - sorry, when you're in an argument, going to change the guidelines to support your side of an argument is usually not such a good idea. I don't think we should allow that here.
  • Re. Change the section title, please don't: this section title is linked to a few times from other guidelines, so don't change it without changing those links. Please don't forget, whether Cunado likes the section title or doesn't like it is about as irrelevant as whether Jimbo Wales likes it or not, that is, the opinion of a single wikipedian taken separately doesn't mean anything in itself. So, find consensus for such proposed change here on talk, before proceeding. See also #Asking for clarification above, documenting the last time I know someone tried to change that section title. I'm not saying it was in bad faith then, but it was doubtlessly in order to further a POV in the middle of an ongoing dispute. I couldn't say whether this can be compared with what you try to do, I only want to draw your attention to the unavoidable complications of guideline rewriting by one of the parties of an ongoing dispute.
  • Re. Format links to WP pages: of course this is a style issue, and your changes were a deterioration of style, per WP:WOTTA.
  • Re. Change new article to sub article: see comments above. Further, in the case you describe it might (for instance, I'm not that experienced) rather be indicated to get rid of the hierarchy between the original article and its spinout. I mean, for instance, when an aspect of Islam is shared by Sunni and Shia, it's not such a good idea to make the article on that aspect a hierarchic sub-article of Shia Islam: it might indicate that the Shia approach to that aspect is overemphasised (which is not OK NPOV-wise). The Wikipedia:Content forking#Related articles approach (that is: a non-hierarchical approach) seems more appropriate in such case. Note also, if you think "hierarchy" is best in the case you describe, that a "top" article of such hierarchy doesn't necessarily need to give a one-section summary of subarticles of subarticles (I mean, the hierarchy might be tree-like), for instance, Eucharist (Catholic Church) is a subarticle of Sacraments of the Catholic Church, which is a subarticle of Roman Catholic Church. Although Eucharist (Catholic Church) is somewhere linked from the Roman Catholic Church article (by a wikilink somewhere in a sentence, and another one somewhere in a list), it is not a "one-section-summary" subarticle of Roman Catholic Church. Eucharist (Catholic Church) is only a subarticle of Roman Catholic Church through the intermediate step of Sacraments of the Catholic Church (said otherwise, Eucharist (Catholic Church) is a sub-subarticle of Roman Catholic Church). Some similar structure might work for the issue you're trying to solve for Islam-related articles. No rearrangement of guidelines is needed for that.
  • Re. change "must be" to "should be": don't know about that one. NPOV issues are very delicate (see also several discussions above). I think "must be" was preferred here because so many people tried to escape it (some of these in good faith! - WP:AGF is not the problem here) --Francis Schonken 10:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Francis is right on all points here, Cunado's recent changes allowed for the creating of POV forks, exactly what this guideline is meant to head off. FeloniousMonk 16:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I really really don't care about this and I won't push any points. I was not advocating allowing POV forks. Also, please don't insinuate that I must consult before every edit. That would create a ridiculous situation. Be bold!
The argument I was involved in is long gone, and I was not changing the policy in the middle of a debate. This guideline is written with a particular example in mind (non-hierarchical), but in articles with some degree of hierarchy, like the Catholic Church example above, this guideline can be misread. I was attempting to improve the policy, and if someone wants to argue, then I'll move on. In my example, someone insisted on adding a new section with a summary and link to an article lower in the hierarchy. The information that the individual wanted to include was already in the main article, but spread throughout. He went on to quote this page and insist that if the sub-article was not included in its own section, then it's a POV fork. The information was already on the page, and it was never forked in the first place. If someone wants to improve the policy, then please do so. I won't be watching this any more. Cuñado - Talk 04:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spinoff articles: scope of spinnoff article lends itself to information on a particular point of view

From the guideline:

"In line with Wikipedia's semi-policy of assuming good faith, the creator of the new article is probably sincerely convinced that there is so much information about a certain aspect of a subject that it justifies a separate article. There is no consensus whether a "Criticism of .... " article is always a POV fork. At least the "Criticism of ... " article should contain rebuttals if available, and the original article should contain a summary of the "Criticism of ... " article." (emphasis added)

I find this somewhat confusing. This talk page doesn't appear to have archives, so I am not sure how to find information about this lack of consensus. Basically, what I am trying to figure out is the current consensus (or lack thereof) on spinoff articles, where the scope of the spinoff article lends itself to greater coverage of a particular POV.

Above, I saw a discussion of a hypothetical article Foo, which had spinoff articles on Blue Foo, White Foo, and Grey Foo. Suppose the Foo article was balanced, but Blue Foo covered a particular view more thoroughly, while White Foo covered a different view more thoroughly, and Grey Foo was fairly balanced.

Thanks!
Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 01:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Armed. Um... I find your question itself a little confusing, so I'm not totally sure I'm answering quite the question you have in mind, but I'll try anyhow.
I guess the best way to put it is that the scope of spinoff articles may lend themselves to greater coverage of a particular POV. However, they should not lend themselves to greater coverage of a particular POV in preference to opposing POVs. To illustrate the distinction with Wikipedia's favorite "the moon is made of green cheese" POV, it would be perfectly acceptable to examine the POV that the moon is in fact made of green cheese in an Alternative theories of lunar composition article, or even in its own Lunafromage theory article -- as long as any such article contains appropriate discussion of the POV that the "lunafromage theory" is wrong. (I'm simplifying things, of course, by only talking about the POVs at the two extremes, but I trust you'll understand that's just for purposes of discussion.) What would be unacceptable would be an article titled, say, Evidence supporting the lunafromage theory, since that title attempts to define an article scope which includes the pro-lunafromage POV and excludes the opposing POV. Such an article would be "inherently POV", as the phrasing goes.
This brings us to "Criticism of X" articles. This is where the consensus breaks down. Some editors (I count myself in this camp) feel that a "Criticism of X" article can discuss criticism of X in an NPOV manner, fairly representing both the POV that criticism of X is valid and sound and the POV that such criticism is invalid or unsound. Other editors, however, feel that articles with such titles will be inherently POV -- feel this so strongly, in fact, that Wikipedia:List of POV forks actually includes a specialpage link to find all articles which begin with the words "Criticism of" -- on the apparent presumption that exceptions to this 'rule' will be rare.
Since I am admittedly in the other camp, I am not an expert on why the people who believe that "Criticism of ..." articles are inherently POV believe that. My best understanding is that of those who believe it, some acknowledge an NPOV article under a "Criticism of ..." title as theoretically possible, but view it as impossible in practice. Others, I think, just get confused between "an article which is inherently about a particular POV" and "an article which inherently handles its subject in a POV fashion." -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
More thoughts on this -- if you're wondering why we have the sentence you emphasized, that "There is no consensus whether a "Criticism of .... " article is always a POV fork" -- I believe it is because we had some incidents with people who assumed there was such a consensus, and who would participate in deletion discussions under the assumption that the article had already been 'proved' a POV fork under Wikipedia policy, merely by virtue of its title.
As for your usage of the Foo example (which was originally created to address a quite different point, just to clarify -- the possibility that people might try to create a biased summary article after the articles it summarized, and claim that this did not violate the directions not to create biased spinoffs)... well, it's difficult to address that in the abstract. If "Foo" is "Evolution", and "Blue Foo" and "White Foo" were "Lamarckian" and "Darwinian", for example, it would be no wonder for Blue Foo and White Foo to treat their respective subjects quite differently. It gets very tricky, because sometimes "balanced" is NPOV and sometimes it isn't. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for you explanations. The lines between "an article which is inherently about a particular POV" and "an article which inherently handles its subject in a POV fashion", as you put it, do seem rather blurry. A "Criticism of X" article inherently puts the supporters of X on the defensive, even if it does include refutations.
Anyways, when there are multiple spinoffs from an article that seem to lean towards POV1 (good stuff about Foo) or POV2 (bad stuff about Foo), do you think it is a good idea to try to reorganise them in a more balanced way? Do you think it is necessary, even if they do already contain refutations, and the leaning in not necessarily obvious from the title?
Thanks again,
Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 17:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I would guess that 10% of Wikipedia articles, at a very conservative estimate, are "inherently about a particular POV". All articles describing religious beliefs are inherently about those POVs, as are all articles describing political beliefs, and all articles describing scientific theories. The difference is that when someone makes the statement "because the title of the article is X, the article should favor the stance that X is good and right," experienced editors correct that person's belief and explain that the favoritism that person advocates is called "sympathetic point of view" and that it has been very firmly decided for a long time now that this is not how Wikipedia articles should be written. When someone makes the statement "because the title of the article is Criticism of X, the article should favor the stance that criticism of X is solid and justified," too many editors fail to identify or deal with the real problem, and instead lay the blame on the article title.
More thoughts on Foo will have to wait, but as I've said before, it's extremely difficult to answer such questions about hypothetical articles. There are numerous factors affecting such a situation which I simply don't think we can "take as read" in any particular fashion. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Isn't this policy?

For all intents and purposes, "Do not create content forks" is hard policy - it's a clear rule which must not be violated. Why is it marked as a guideline? Stevage 11:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I suppose because it's relatively unimportant compared to e.g. the editing policy, deletion policy, and blocking policy. I have no particular objection either way, though. >Radiant< 15:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
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