Talk:Oregon National Primate Research Center

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Oregon National Primate Research Center article.
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Contents

[edit] Cleanup

I slapped a bunch of tags on this, the wikification part should be self-evident, cleanup includes bringing the entire thing into wikistyle per WP:MOS, all the claims about problems with the center need to be sourced, and though the negative information is written fairly neutrally, I think perhaps it is giving undue weight to the problems, and needs to be divided into pro and con sections for balance. I have a feeling this could become controversial so please remember to stay civil. Thanks! Katr67 21:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Katr67!
I'm very new to Wikipedia and I'm still kind of fumbling around. The formatting I have no clue how to do. Even replying to this talk page is kind of confusing me...
This is actually only the first half of the entry that I've completed, I'm going to add a bit more (including references) in the coming days. Sorry for the somewhat sloppy work I'm really surprised this was seen so quickly! I just posted it a few hours ago.
JBeckham
22:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi JBeckham. I just sent you a welcome message and you can read more about formatting on there. You replied fine, just a couple pointers--you can indent your posts for easier reading by typing a colon (:) in front of the line, and you can sign your posts using 4 tildes (~~~~), which adds a link to your userpage and automaticaly applies a timestamp. More on this is here: Help:Talk page. I have a ton of Oregon stuff on my watchlist and refresh it complusively so I saw you edits right away. :) Stuff usually doesn't go unnoticed around here for long. Thanks for the update on your work. This isn't too sloppy considering some of the other stuff I've seen. You're a good writer (I even checked to see if this was a copyright violation but it doesn't seem to be)--if you address some of the issues I mentioned above this is looking to be a very good article. Happy editing! Katr67 22:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
P.S. Here's some help on citing sources: Wikipedia:Citing sources. Katr67 22:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Kat! I just started a new job where I have loads of free time on the internet (and thus, Wikipedia) so I'm sure in no time I'll be a pro and be frustrated at newbies like myself :P I'll clean this up shortly. JBeckham 23:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There were some serious problems here - the page on a 40 year old health research institution only included false claims of abuse from seven years ago and little to no reference to research. I can add more information in the near future - but the activist information was so full of incorrect info and so one-sided, we need to back up and do this in a way that truly provides users with helful information with strong references Onprc 07:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


From Katr67's talk page:

[edit] Oregon National Primate Research Center

Hi there, I'm writing from the Oregon National Primate Research Center. I check our WIKI page daily and was about to start adding info there when today I discovered that an animal rights activist in Wisconsin has posted some very one-sided and error filled info about our center with little to no actual info about our research. I made significant edits (there were so many problems with the false info posted I removed almost all of it because I didn't want to turn the entire page into a debate about what did and did not happen - and much of what was posted did not.)

I believe that the public has a right to many points of view but I also want to make sure that they don't just get false or bad info. For instance - if the page had alot of information about the center and included a reasonable amount of information about the activist claims in 2000, that makes sense to me. But it would also make sense to explain that the center had been cleared, and that the person who made the claims was known to make other false claims in the past. It shouold also explaini that the center has an excellent history of animal care.

I understand the in the past, Wikipedia has had problems with groups that want to use the online encyclopedia to further their causes - I'd love to get your thoughts on this.

Again - I would like to make the wiki page about our institution a useful resource and wouold be very pleased to get some input from you - thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onprc (talk • contribs) 08:06, December 4, 2006

Using passive voice statements like "the center has an excellent history of animal care" reeks of POV problems. If you want to contribute something to the entry that says something along the lines of, "the Primate Center maintains they have an excellent history of animal care" and then provide a reference to ONPRC literature or website that states this, that's fine. But not everyone agrees with your statement that there's an excellent history of animal care and that is precisely the controversy surrounding the lab and the topic that is before us. To state things in such an offhand manner does little to maintain neutrality or fairness. And why am I using Wikipedia to advance a cause any less than you?
I don't disagree with Kat that my original entry had problems of undue weight - and I don't mind OHSU or ONPRC PR people adding bits they think may cast their primate center in a positive light. But deleting an entire entry and replacing it with your undue weight solves nothing. And using neutral language is important. Although most of what I wrote in the entry will be viewed by many people as shocking or alarming, I was careful in my choice of words to keep things to the point and framing it in neutral and factual terms. If you can prove a specific factual inaccuracy in my entry, I will have absolutely no problem with its removal. JBeckham 08:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
This was the response I was posting on Onprc's page whent JBeckham's message came in:
(P.S. For the record, you should know that I dislike being called "Kat".)
I think it's a shame that you gutted the article (that kind of thing leads to revert wars), though I understand your concerns. I realized what was written may not reflect a balanced view, which is why I put a {{POV}} template on it. Like I said on the article's talk page, I think there is room for both pro and con on there. Unfortunately, if you are connected with the ONPRC, you are discouraged by Wikipedia policy from editing the article on it. Please read conflict of interest for more information. This probably doesn't seem fair, but hopefully we can work things out on the talk page. I suggest you read this about ownership of articles as well. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, however, so if the activist viewpoint cannot be backed up with sources, it is appropriate to remove the material. Your ideas about how the article should look sound good, if you have any of that information at hand that you can back up with reliable sources, which in this case should probably be from somewhere other than the center itself (for example your mention of the care the primates get could be backed up with something like: "The Society For Primate Welfare gave ONPRC an A rating for its animal care" followed by a link to the source). I don't really have a lot of experience with such controversial subject areas, the place just happens to be in Oregon so I keep an eye on the article. So other editors will probably get involved at some point. I hope everyone will remain civil. Thanks for asking instead of simply reverting without comment! Katr67 08:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you and I'm sorry for calling you Kat. Hopefully maybe you can mediate this tension and craziness :P I think everything you said was spot on and I don't disagree I need to add sources/references - which I will do tonight (while at work of course). I think having a pro/con type article is not a bad idea. I guess what I'm most upset about is 1. The removal of non-contentious information, such as the dollar figures and primate population statistics (which are directly from ONPRC's website and 2. the entire removal of the article instead of just adding things from another perspective. I say the more info the merrier - not the less. Also, the removal of the undercover investigation entirely is pretty terrible. It is not a stretch at all to say that the whistleblowing and the undercover investigation 6 years ago is what most people in Portland associate with the primate center - it captured more headlines than anything else affiliated with the lab and garnered substantial media attention and even structural change within OHSU/ONPRC. This would be no different than someone editing the Enron article to remove all mentions of fraudulent accounting practices and accounting scandals.JBeckham 09:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem. It's getting late and I need to sleep, so I won't explain how to do it, but you could copy the previous version of the article to userspace and work on it there. Then you can add the sources for some of the not-so-controversial stuff like population and slowly add bits back into the main article. If you have time on your hands I think if you search around for the term "userspace" you should be able to find some instructions. Katr67 09:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to you both - I am well aware of the revert wars and don't think we want to do that. However, the page does need balance and that was why there is a need to step back and make sure it did not echo one point of view. The animal numbers were outdated and incorrect - you are correct - should have updated on the spot. I am in Portland and will add references to the fact that primate center was cleared when that info is reintroduced, but again, there was so much false info in this section that was not supported, we needed to step back. I should note that the "undercover investigation" is far from the biggest story out of the center. The coverage of research at the center is common and in some cases, worldwide. We can definately add some of these references. JBeckham, please don't view this as any kind of "war" or "tension." We merely need to collectively create a posting that remains fair and balanced. 19:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
So far so good--this is how Wikipedia should work! I would agree that so far the "tension and craziness" are minimal. :) Let's keep it that way! Katr67 21:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

Since this article is one which is likely to provoke some controversy, I took the liberty of adding a citation for each statement of fact, using the standard citation templates.

I also edited the sentence regarding the animal census to the current year since it appears to be time sensitive and subject to change.-- J-M Jgilhousen 22:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Animal testing template

This {{animal testing}} was added and I have moved it to here. Is it me or is it maybe a little POV and inapprobriate for this article? Aboutmovies 01:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't see the problem myself. The primary purpose of the center is do carry out research using primates, which clearly is a form of animal experimentation. It may be helpful to provide information on the subject to readers. What is POV about it? Rockpocket 01:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Right, but a rather large template that tended to dominate the article with Animal Testing in large bolded text tends to give the reader the first impression that the article is only about animal testing. Animal tresting being the dominant topic of the artilce is just one view. Another view: local employer and research facility that also does research on primates. Another: a division of OHSU. There are plenty of views, but the template tends to introduce undue weight onto that topic. In this instance since this is an actual entity (versus putting the template onto the actual animal testing page) I think there should be some deference to how the entity would want to be classified. Now obviously there can be coverage of animal rights/abuse within the article as there is, and even links in the see also. I would even say putting a nav template at the bottom on animal testing would be fine, as again it would not dominate and give undue weight.
On a side note, just like employees of OHSU/ONPRC need to abide by COI guidelines and ideally should not edit the article, COI also applies to those on the otherside of the coin. I think a WikiProject whose goal is to "educate readers and editors about the concept of animal rights, the animal liberation movement, ..." would seem to be a bit at odds with the subject of this article's world view. I think we would all say it would be inapprobriate to tag the article on Addidas with a WikiProject Nike (if that project existed) tag, or the NYSE with a WikiProject NASDAQ (again if it existed) tag, and so on. It's not that those editing have an agenda or are incapable of editing in an NPOV way, its the appearance of a conflict. Aboutmovies 03:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I take your point about due weight, but then again, the addition of a template that direct readers to articles related to other aspects of the article would have the same problem. How do other articles resolve this apparent problem?
I'm not sure what you are implying with your side note. The whole point of Wikiprojects are to encourage editors with an interest in a subject to work together to improve associated articles. Your rationale would appear to preclude anyone in a Wikiproject from actually editing any article within that subject area, which would render the whole concept pointless. You may not be aware of this, but since the article coverage an animal experimentation wikiproject would overlap completely with the animal rights one, so there is little point in creating one. Therefore this project also includes members that are opposed to animal rights, and those who have experience working with animals in places similar to this subject, so there is an excellent balance of expertise to ensure our articles do not suffer from POV issues. To that end, there is no "conflict" in out project having an interest in this subject.
I'm also unconvinced with your comparison. The template you have an issue with covers both animal rights and animal research information, advocates and groups. So the examples you provide of diametric opposites is not relevant. Rockpocket 07:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
My problem with the template is the size and location, which I think creates undue weight, which would caue it to fail NPOV. Obviously all templates need to abide by NPOV for their content, as everything on Wikipedia is supposed to, and I assume the one added to the article follows that guideline. Like I said, a less intrusive one at the bottom would eliminate the undue weight issue, or just have a few see also links.
My side note is not that people interested in a topic should not be allowed to edit (please remember that COI does not prohibit editing), but editors with affiliations that strongly support or strongly oppose something should not ideally edit articles concerning those topics to try to reduce the amount of bias that can be introduced. It's not that editors cannot fairly present the topic, but it can tend to taint things. This is not my view, this is what WP:COI says and I had no input in formulating it. This is why I tend not to edit articles on other law schools (I do leave notes on talk pages and will add links for their alumni as I write a lot of judge bios). The problem I have with the Animal rights WP is what their stated goal is, which is what I quoted and not the normal goal you see, which you stated. A WP goal should be to improve articles, a WP stating they want to educate comes accross as WP:SOAPBOX, and that is not what Wikipedia is about.
The template comparison is part of the side note and not part of the mainspace article template. This is an issue with the WP animal rights template on the article. If the WP was truely neutral I would expect not to find "It's an exciting period for supporters of the movement" statements like that in the mission statement, and I would expect to see the Animal rights nav template on the project's main page to be balanced. All of the activists look like they would be opposed to animal testing, wheras the nav template in question for this article's mainspace had a balance of the two sides including groups for animal testing. Therefor I do think the "diametric opposites" comparison is valid. Aboutmovies 16:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I think the term "educate" is simply meant as shorthand for "improve articles relating to", but I take your point about "Its exciting times...". Not my choice of words. I can't say that all the members of our project are truely neutral, but then I doubt any project can. I can say that, as one of the most active members, the project itself does not exist to promote animal rights, but to ensure that related articles are free if the bias - on both sides - that this subject inevitably draws.
I should explain about the different templates. There used to be an animal rights template and an animal advocates template, but they were recently merged to create an animal testing one. The old one remains on the wikiproject.
Finally, in terms of undue weight, I note there are 5 sections of information on this subject (not includind the lead and references etc):
  1. History
  2. Facility
  3. Research
  4. Animal Care Oversight
  5. Criticism
The latter three are all clearly related to the primary purpose of the subject, animal experimentation. That is over half the article. Based on your argument of undue weight, there cannot be any templates in this article. Frankly, I don't really care whether the template is there or not, what bothers me greater is that your arguments appear to associate a perfectly neutral template with the (erroreously assumed) motivations of a Wikiproject. That is somewhat disheartening for the number of editors that have put a lot of excellent work into this subject area. Rockpocket 17:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Remeber my main objection was placement, not the content of the mainspace nav template. The section thing could easily be re-done, as Anicmal Care Oversight could be combined with either Research or Criticisms (it curently does not meet the MOS). Then only 2 out of 4 re animal testing. And criticisms does not necessarily mean it is related to animal research, there could also be employee/employer relationships criticisms in an article (see Talk:Pacific Northwest Seismic Network for examples of this type of criticism) or criticism about perhaps poor enviromental stewardship. If you look at the Weyerhaeuser article you will see criticism about gun rights and environmental issues. So though in this instance it currently does not have any other criticisms, that section does not equate to being a animal testing section. If the template was re-added to where it had been, then would it be appropriate to remove it again if other criticisms were added? Or if new sections such as "relationship with OHSU" or "economic impact" were added, then should we remove the template? I personally don't think that would be approbriate, as the article does contain content related to the content of the template. Again, there are differing views on what this article is about, there is no question they do animal testing, but by putting the dominating template with "Animal Testing" in large, bolded font in the upper right corner screams that this article is only about animal testing (that's why infoboxes are normally placed in that location, draw the readers attention so they can get a quick overview of the article). Additionally, usually a nav template such as this if placed in the upper right corner (see the legal related articles) usually have a link to that article, so it is meant as a way to navigate within that topic. I don't recall seeing a link from the template to this article. Which to me means it is more of advertisement for related articles, and I dont have problem with that, but it should be at the bottom (see Oregon pioneer history for an example of a template I made and placed that is meant more for this purpose as the template has been placed on articles not included in the template). Lastly, if you were the article's subject, would you want that template on the article? I doubt that is how they characterize themselves. My guess is they seem themselves as researchers who happen to do animal testing, so that the research is their dominate self characterization, not animal testing. I don't know for sure, but judging by the previous talk page comments from an employee they talk about research, not animal research. Also, thank you for have a good discussion/argument. It seems rare to find editors who stay calm and don't resort to name calling, thanks. Aboutmovies 18:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
All valid points, and thank you for taking the time to explain them fully. Perhaps it might be a good idea to leave the template off for the moment. If the article develops to a point where it can be added back without overly dominating, then we can revisit the issue further. Incidently, I personally wouldn't mind having that template on an article about me at all. I don't see "animal testing" is anything to be ashamed of, and thus the more attention we bring to the subject and issues, uses and abuses, the more our readers will be able to be informed about it. Part of the wider problems in the field is that people who are involved in animal experimentation have been intimidated to such as extent that they would rather not talk about it, and risk drawing attention to themselves. The result of that is that misinformation has prospered as a critical agenda has dominated the wider discourse. Its turned into a "dirty secret", which of course suits those that oppose it. Part of my interest in the subject in Wikipedia is to, literally, "neutralize" that and give the subject fair, open and balanced coverage, free of the propaganda that litters the debate. Anyway, that is somewhat beside the point. Thanks again for the interesting - and polite! - exchange of views. Rockpocket 18:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. Or if a smaller bottom placement template is also created it could easily fit w/o causing any undue weight. Plus I'm sure this is not the only article where that type of template might work better (so many stubs so little time). Aboutmovies 21:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead concerns

To avoid an edit war here, I'm a bit concerned with the lead now. Since an editor cited WP:LEAD as their reason for restoring a large amount of text to the lead I was wondering if they realize that per WP:LEAD that the details of the 2000 incident do not belong in the lead per WP:LEAD: "briefly describing its notable controversies" which means half the lead should not be concerned with the 2000 incident. Not only is this a WP:LEAD problem but also an WP:UNDUE problem. Aboutmovies 04:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi AM, I don't know how to judge whether this is UNDUE, as I don't know how much publicity it got and how much the center usually gets. I think it's okay in terms of "briefly describing": what that means is that we shouldn't go into a lot of detail, but three sentences is okay. The problem with it before was that it had been placed at the very end, even though it's clearly an important issue if a research lab is accused of abuse. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 06:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
My concern is not that it is in the lead, but the second sentence goes into details that really should be later (that's the lead problem I see). Also, the paragraph is about the same size as the other paragraph of the lead which means around 50% of the lead involves a single incident of a 40 year old institution. It would be like having half the lead to the New York Times dedicated to the reporter who was making up stories and plagerizing. That's where the undue comes in especially since there is no coverage of any awards they may have received. Aboutmovies 06:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
There's no suggestion the material was made up. The center said that some of the images were misleading, but I don't think anyone denied the incidents occurred -- simply that they were viewed out of context. At least, that's my understanding; I've not done enough reading about it to be certain.
Also, percentage of lead isn't the issue; if you want to write other material about the center — e.g. the awards you mentioned — to reduce the percentage of criticism, please feel free. As for the detail, I think we do need to give some idea of what was on the video. I didn't include all the details, only the two incidents already mentioned elsewhere. We can reduce that to one if you prefer. Or we could simply say something like "The center came to public attention in 2000 when an animal rights activist posed as a laboratory technician to obtain undercover video footage from the center that allegedly showed animal abuse." And follow with the rebuttal. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 07:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Who said anything about this being made up? Please understand that I agree this information needs to be included, that's not the problem. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view a Wikipedia policy is where there is a concern, as is the lead and undue, all which are really intertwined here. Per the NPOV it really isn't supposed to "you add it if you want it in there" it is that all editors add all relevant info, otherwise that is POV pushing. I personally don't care that they did this or that the USDA cleared them of wrong doing. I care about WikiPedia policies and that articles are kept clean of POV issues. Having that much emphasis (along with the discouraged "controversey" sections) in the lead leads to UNDUE weight, and having the details in there leads to problems with LEAD. So yes, leaving out the second sentence with all the specific details (as I previously suggested) that you suggest at the end solves the problem. No video details are needed in the lead. Again to use my analogy to the New York Times, there would be no need for the individual article names that the reporter plagerized to be listed in the lead. Aboutmovies 07:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about the "made up" thing, AM. I misunderstood your post about the NYT.
The one sentence above is fine with me. I'll insert it now if you haven't already. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)