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SYNTH, NPOV

Steele dossier - I'm requesting input regarding what appears to me to be a classic case of noncompliance with WP:NOR (SYNTH), and WP:NPOV. I am also of the mind that if one issue is resolved, the other with possibly self-correct. I'm going to focus on a single paragraph from a rather lengthy and detailed lead in a topic area I just know all editors and admins love to edit. You can thank me later. 😎

Contrary to a conspiracy theory pushed by Trump, Fox News, and many of Trump's congressional supporters, the dossier was not the trigger for the opening of the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign. It did play a central role in the seeking of FISA warrants on Carter Page in terms of establishing FISA's low bar for probable cause.

I realize we can state several facts in a single sentence citing different sources as long as we don't reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources; however, the various sources that were cited in that paragraph were used to not only form an absolute conclusion but to justify stating it in WikiVoice, which is not only SYNTH, it is noncompliant with NPOV.

The CBS News report that was cited for "probable cause" in the last sentence of the above paragraph also states: "However, the Horowitz report is not the final word on the origins of the investigation. U.S. Attorney John Durham is leading a separate review of the FBI's investigation, and after Horowitz released his findings, Durham also questioned the conclusions." There is no mention of this important fact. It is also a known fact that the IG is limited in both scope and reach outside the department which the IG report and Horowitz himself admitted - again, no mention. Durham's probe is a criminal investigation, and it includes information from outside the Justice Department, to include testimony from witnesses outside the US. There is also the AP report published by PBS News Hour that corroborates the information, and like the CBS report, is neutral and presents all relevant sides, which is what WP articles are supposed to do.

1. Is it SYNTH?
2. Is it compliant with NPOV? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atsme (talk • contribs) 18:19, January 12, 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Talk:Hitler family#Otto Hitler

In a discussion on this page, an editor apparently doesn't understand what WP:OR and WP:RS mean.

The issue at hand is the birthdate of Otto Hitler, a sibling of Adolf Hitler who lived for only a few days after birth. Numerous reliable sources (Ian Kershaw, John Toland, and Ulrich Volker, for instance, give the year 1887 as the date of birth. In 2016, a headmaster in that area of Austria, who has an interest in local history but no credentials as an historian, was said to have found a birth certificate which shows a birth date of 17 June 1892, after, rather than before, Adolf Hitler's birth.

The "discovery" was reported in a local regional newspaper, and the story was picked up by Reuters. However, no other news sources have repeated the story, and there are no scholarly papers which discuss the new date or the provenance or legitimacy of the document. (The links to all these are available in the discussion on the talk page.) In other words, to my knowledge, there are no reliable sources which support this new birth date.

Several editors have attempted to insert the new date in the article. I have explained -- numerous times -- that as of the moment, the "fact" has not been validated by subject experts, and there is no known consensus among them that the new birth date is correct. Until we have that consensus, through published reliable sources, we cannot add that formation or change the birth date.

I have asked -- again, numerous times -- for any reliable sources which support the supposed change of birth date. Finally, one editor posted a long comment, the nub of which was if you look at so-and-so document than it will show you -- if interpreted in such a way -- the new date. I have tried to explain that this is original research, and that not only are we, as Misplaced Pages editors, not qualified to interpret a document that we can see by way of a digital scan, but we are not allowed to do so.

The editor does not accept either contention, that we need reliable sources from experts to confirm the new date,or that we are not allowed to evaluate documents on our own.

I'm filing this because, in an attempt to perhaps alleviate the dispute, I added a footnote to the article recounting, with sources, the story of the "discovery" and the limited reporting of it. The editor -- although unwilling to accept that their interpreting a document is original research -- appears to think that my footnote is original research, although everything in it is supported by citations to reliable sources. It's likely that they will be heading this way to file a complaint, and I thought it would be better to explain the underlying circumstance before they did, because I have no faith in their willingness to do so fairly, so strongly do they believe in the validity of the new birth date. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Seems quite simple. If there's a reliable secondary source giving the date, Misplaced Pages can relay that. If there isn't, we keep schtum. Alexbrn (talk) 07:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• It's a tiny more complicated than that, but basically you are correct. The editor claims that the new date is accepted by a new biography of Hitler by an Austrian historian, which is in German. The problem is that many more existing reliable sources accept the established date, so there is no consensus of subject experts who accept the new date. The only other sources I could find were the single Reuters report -- which, in this context -- cannot really be called a reliable source, as it's all written in the "it's been reported that" voice, not in Reuter's voice, and it clearly relies on the report in the local Austrian regional newspaper. The Reuters story has absolutely no detail. In their edits to the article and , the editor claims that the information is "well sourced", but their references are to the Reuters report, the document itself, and to the German-language biography I mentioned above. This is not "well-sourced", and it's certainly not sufficient to overcome the existing corpus of reliably sourced information supporting the earlier date. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:12, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• I see. Well, Reuters and primary source documents are off the table when we have secondary academic sources. In the disputed edits I'm not see a reference to this new biography. What is it - can we have a reference? Alexbrn (talk) 08:18, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• I don't think that the book in question is an "academic source", considering that one of the authors "is an exhibition curator, an advisor for radio broadcasts and TV documentaries and directs scientific research projects. He also teaches at the Department of Contemporary History of the University of Vienna", while the other is " is an Austrian author, cultural scientist and exhibition curator" who studied "theater, media, and art history". These hardly seem like the credentials of a subject experts on either Hitler, Austrian and German history of that period, or documents from that era. Cf. Ian Kershaw, who "is an English historian whose work has chiefly focused on the social history of 20th-century Germany. He is regarded by many as one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and is particularly noted for his biographies of Hitler." Indeed, even the author of the most recent two-volume biography of Hitler, Volker Ullrich, wrote in it that Kershaw's 2-volume biography is likely to remain the definitive biography of Hitler for many years to come.When the new date is accepted by people like Kershaw, Ullrich, Richard J. Evans and the like, when there is a consensus about the date and not simply a single outlier book, then I have absolutley no objection to the article being changed. I have no personal attachment to any theory about what Otto Hitler's date of birth was. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Hannes Leidinger is a full historical scholar with habilitation. You can hardly deny his competence by listing what else he is, neither because he works with a co-author. --KnightMove (talk) 09:16, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

There's absolutely no indication that he has any expertise in this particular subject area, unless you would like to provide some. Anyone can write a book about Hitler -- and many, many have -- but whether the book can be taken seriously or not, or relied on, is a matter of who wrote it and what their qualifications are. These two authors do not seem to have any credentials which qualify them to write about Hitler as experts. Nor do they have -- it appears -- any training in determining the validity and provenance of documents. They must have relied on some other source -- it's unfortunate that the Google books except doesn't include footnote 3, which would presumably have shown what the source of their information was. If it was -- as you attempted to do in the discussion on the article talk page -- simply their looking at the supposed newly discovered document, then the books is completely useless as a source for that information, because just as they don't appear to be experts on Hitler, they certainly aren't experts on validating historical documents.Again, I remind everyone about the history of the Hitler Diaries, which were authenticated by Hugh Trevor-Roper, who then changed his mind, and forensics determined that they were fakes. Nothing like that has been done to this new document -- at least as far as we know, because nothing whatsoever has been reported about them after the initial Reuters report. We simply do not know if they're real, or fake, or don't actually show the information they're supposed to or what, because there are no reliable sources to go by, and your personal interpretation of the document (or rather a scan of the document) is as close to the ur-definition of OR as it's possible to get.Frankly, the fact that you're still fighting to get the new date in the article is astounding to me, given the many ways that it just doesn't satisfy our requirements -- and that's something you seem to be unable to understand. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Sure, the cite he provided was to this on Google Books. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:23, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Here it is: Hitler - prägende Jahre: Kindheit und Jugend 1889-1914 at Google Books by Austrian historic scholar de:Hannes Leidinger. --KnightMove (talk) 08:25, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• The authors of the book are Hannes Leidinger and Christian Rapp (author). Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:29, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Very well. --KnightMove (talk) 08:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

• Neutral pointers to this discussion have been placed on the talk pages of these WikiProjects: Biography, Austria, Germany. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:15, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
• A pointer to this discussion has been placed on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:15, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
• Note: The current version of the article with the thread starter's insertion Hitler_family#cite_note-24, which has provoked escalation of the conflict beyond the talk page, is discussed at Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Hitler_family. --KnightMove (talk) 08:51, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

For context: The filing here is Beyond My Ken's reaction (see explanation below) to mine on Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Hitler_family, motivated by his highly unneutral and OR-based insertion Hitler_family#cite_note-24 and his edit-warring about keeping it in this specific POV version. Without those actions, no filing anywhere would have been necessary and continuation on the talk page would have been possible. --KnightMove (talk) 08:32, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Ah, check the time stamps, please. I filed my report at "06:44, 13 December 2020 (UTC)", and you filed yours at "07:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)" Please strike out your incorrect contention above.

It's ridiculous to say that discussion on the talk age could have continued, since you do not appear to understand how OR and RS work, even though they they were explained to you many times. You cannot interpret the document, that's OR, and you must provide reliable sources to show a consensus of subject experts to support your preferred birth date. Without that, the information is WP:FRINGE. The footnote was an attempt to show that there was something of a controversy about the birth date, but that there were no reliable sources to support it, and that's what it did. Every fact was supported by a source: that the "discoverer" is a headmaster, that he has an interest in history but no credentials as an historian, that there is nothing on Google Scholar showing any research into the new date -- all sourced. You don't like it, because it contradicts your personal belief that the new date is factual, and therefore I must be operating out of a non-neutral point of view, so you file a complaint at NPOVN, but I have no point of view about Otto's birthdate, except that if we report a date, it needs to not violate basic policies like OR and RS. My only "pont of view" is that we must follow basic Wikpedia policies, or the whole project comes crashing down around us. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:50, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

OK. The timeflow was: You pointed me to WP:ORN yesterday night. This morning I announced to report your current version of the article on the talk page at 6:20 there. I had to make myself familiar with the rules here and in other places and to do real-life stuff in between. Until I had made up my mind to file a report in Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Hitler_family, ompleted at 7:50, you had taken my announcement into your own hands and created the section above at 6:44. Ok, I had missed that, my bad. Still this does not mean your current version is not to be discussed. --KnightMove (talk) 09:04, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Citing the policy of Misplaced Pages:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources:

"Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Misplaced Pages, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may be used on Misplaced Pages only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source."

I think that the extraction of the baptismal register I gave in Talk:Hitler_family#Otto_Hitler is well within that rule, as it is for a "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge" - only with spending few more seconds than just e.g. reading a single sentence.

Anyway this primary source is even much easier: It's the newspaper de:Neue Warte am Inn, 25 June 1892, hosted by the Austrian National Library. In the mid column, you find: I think it is a "straightforward, descriptive statement" from that source that Otto Hitler was born on 17 June 1892. Or if not, why not? --KnightMove (talk) 13:05, 13 December 2020 (UTC) PS: This is also cited in the book source mentioned above - so not just by me. --KnightMove (talk) 13:11, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

In this case, is it not possible to include the traditionally accepted date in wikivoice but explain that the second date was claimed by the local headmaster based on the Reuters reference and the new book by the German historian?Boynamedsue (talk) 20:58, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The local headmaster is not a subject expert, and the Reuters story is simply reporting his supposed findings. The book is not written by subject experts, and not published by a house known to have the error checking and correcting necessary for reliability. Due to this, there is no reliable source to support the supposed "new" date. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:19, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree, a published book is sufficient to establish the existence of a theory, and satisfies notability, assuming it is not self-published. It's not enough to state it as a fact in wikipedia's voice, but it is enough to include it as information, if a user wants to do so. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, that is not the case. Please read WP:RS. Not all books are created equal, and a book written by two non-experts is not a reliable source for historical question. The information is already in the article in a footnote, and that is sufficient. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:02, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I've checked out the author, Hannes Leidinger, he's a professor of history who specialises in the period to which the book refers. The publishing house, Residenz Verlag, is respectable and has been in existence since 1956. It's RS, I'm afraid. Like I said, we can't wikivoice it, but inclusion in the article is merited. Boynamedsue (talk) 10:19, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, your facts are incorrect. I'm not going to repeat what already been discussed to death. Not RS. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:02, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I apologise, I am taking my information from the German wikipedia pages, perhaps you could clarify. Is it not the case that Leidinger is a professional academic historian specialising in the early 20th century? Is Residenz Verlag not a respectable publishing house? If both of these things are true then his book is clearly a reliable source. Boynamedsue (talk) 19:53, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Repressed memories

Everything I wrote was substantiated by the article from MedHealthDaily.com. There are many many other articles and publications that firmly, and are from emperically based studies. The ENTRY is OUTDATED. So INACCURATE.

1. Forget Me Not: The Persistent Myth of Repressed Memories ...

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/ ...Oct 2019

1. Three Myths about Repressed Memories - Beating Trauma

beatingtrauma.com/2019/02/27/three-myths-about... There is no such thing as repressed memories, so any recovered memories must be false. This is the most blatant myth. And it goes against everything we currently understand about trauma and dissociation. If a repressed memory is wrong, it could get the victim in big trouble. This myth is based on the threats so many of us received as children. As a young child, I was already aware of False Memory Syndrome and defamation of character. People who are recovering memories are looking for attention. This myth often started with the invalidation from our childhood too. We learned that the truth was attention seeking so we needed to follow the script and protect the mask.

1. §The repressed memory concept came into wider public awareness in the 1980s and 1990s followed by a reduction of public attention after a series of scandals, lawsuits, and license revocations. A U.S. District Court accepted repressed memories as admissible evidence in a specific cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RespressedMemory (talk • contribs) 14:48, December 13, 2020 (UTC)

First off, you need to tell us what article you're talking about. Second, don't all caps, it's like shouting. — The Hand That Feeds You: 21:27, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

@RespressedMemory:, it is much more helpful to use short, descriptive section titles, not an argument. The only thing I can find that you have edited is your sandbox which is not the type of material allowed on Misplaced Pages. Specifically, Misplaced Pages is not for personal survivor stories nor is it for advocacy of causes. If you want to make suggestions to how the Repressed memory article is written, then please click >>this link here<< and express in concise terms what you think is incorrect and what you think the correct text should be. Remember to present sources that back up your preferred text. I hope that helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:42, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Regensburg lecture

Requesting attention @ Talk:Regensburg lecture#Why no one pays attention ?

Thanks Bookku (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Irreversible Damage

Hello. I suspect that there is some OR, and possibly synthesis, in Irreversible Damage. Particularly, there seems to be OR in the last sentence in the lead section, which is also repeated in the summary section: "The book has been controversial for its views on transgender identity and its support of the unproven hypothesis of rapid onset gender dysphoria."

The two sources for this statement include:

The sources don't seem to be directly evaluating the book. Thank you. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 22:31, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Is it OR to quote an OSHA report about the death of an employee on the owner of the company who also designed the device that killed?

I have opened a RfC for Talk:Donald_Gary_Young#RfC: worker killed by pressure device designed by Young. We have both a source that quotes the report and the report itself both of which say: “The entire operation was designed by Gary Young President and built on site. The vessels were not built under any consideration to ASME code for pressure vessels. No type of pressure relief device was installed on any of the vessels." Thanks for any help you can give. DolyaIskrina (talk) 23:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Does a source exist for the specific proposition that the pressure device was itself, in fact, designed by Young? I feel like this discussion has been had four or five times, and every time there turns out to be no source making this more specific claim. BD2412 T 19:31, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

This is why I bring the topic up here on this forum. You are essentially saying that unless I can do my own original research, to fact check the quote, to your unusually high evidentiary standard, we can't include a quote with WP:RS and Notability. He is dead so WP:BLP doesn't require us to not mention something he was accused of. The burden is not on me to create the connection. The quote is the quote made by an OSHA inspector and published in WP:RS. But if you really want me to connect dots I can. One of Young's claims to notability is that he designed innovative distillation techniques. It's all over his promotional material, including photos of him with distillers he made. For instance: "Gary's first distillation experiment was welding two pressure cookers together and placing it on top of the kitchen stove." But again, we don't need to clear this hurdle that you have set up. We can just quote the OSHA inspector and leave it at that. Cheers. DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:21, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

My request for a source stating the asserted proposition can not reasonably be read as a request that you engage in the above exercise in WP:SYNTH. To be very, very clear, for an assertion that a BLP subject directly caused the death of another person, you can not "connect dots" and draw your own inferences. You can't say that one source indicating that the subject designed a device in 1991 means that he was the designer of a different device in 2000. In fact, the OSHA report that you cite states at pages 13-14 (pages 47-48 of the PDF) that "Todd Rindlisbaker P.E., WHW Engineering, Inc. ... designed the pressure relief system to be installed on each of the vessels". The source you cite literally contradicts the conclusion that you are attempting to imply. BD2412 T 15:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

At no time have I suggested we say that Young directly caused anybody's death. I am trying to include the quote from the Skeptical Inquirer which is itself a quote from the OSHA report. You are going back to the OSHA report to fact check the Skeptical Inquirer that quotes the OSHA report. That seems to me like OR. And the OSHA report does indeed include the above quote. It's on page 47 of the PDF of the OSHA report and is exactly as it appears in the Skeptical Inquirer article minus the expansion of the acronym. But again, I'm not suggesting that I have the authority to interpret the OSHA document, nor should any wikipedia editor. We are in the reliable source and notability business, not the going back to the PDF and scanning the document business. As to my "connecting the dots" above. That goes to notability. Young is notable for building a business based on distilling essential oils. One such distiller killed a man. There is a WP:RS that raises the possibility that the distiller was of his design. And even if it wasn't directly of his design, the fact that a worker was killed by a distiller is notable in and of itself. Young has himself died. We have no reason not to include the quote, unless we raise the evidentiary burden to the level that you suggest. I think your bar is raised to a level that violates policy. Why? Because if we generalize your rule, we would be required to always do OR on all BLP pages. Suppose there's a WP:RS that says x? Well we better go back to primary sources to see if x is true. Suddenly we aren't editors of an encyclopedia, we are investigative journalists or forensic reporters. This would be a systemic problem, and should be of concern to all editors who care about the OR policy. I'd love to hear from some other editors about this. DolyaIskrina (talk) 03:05, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

First of all, BLP expressly does not automatically cut off when an article subject dies, because it applies to their surviving family members who may be affected by a claim made against the person. You state that a source "raises the possibility that the distiller was of his design", but the source does not say this; you are merely interpreting it as such. You state in the header of this section that the "owner of the company... also designed the device that killed". Not only is this not stated in the referenced published source, it is contradicted by the OSHA report that you brought up in the first place. At this point, the header definitively makes a demonstrably false statement, and I am left wondering why you would want to introduce a factually incorrect inference to an article. BD2412 T 03:49, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

A few points.

1. The policy against original research regards publishing original research in an article. There is no prohibition against conducting anything that may be considered original research during the discussion process, as a way of deciding whether a source is reliable. I am not saying that anyone has conducted original research, but rather, that even bringing up this argument is irrelevant if no one is proposing adding that research to mainspace.

2. It would be best not to make rigid assumptions of the meanings of phrases used in any source, such as "design". To say that Young designed the whole operation does not necessarily mean that he designed each and every individual component. In fact that could be a reasonable way for a source to describe that Young conceived the overall layout of the operation but still had to hire an engineer to figure out the details. And we know that he hired an engineer.

3. Rigid adherence to mimicking what one believes is said by what one believes is a reliable source is neither wise nor possible. If the designation of a source as reliable were thereafter sacrosanct, Misplaced Pages would be filled with unnecessary errors. Sources make mistakes, and sometimes sources are misleading, and sometimes there is nothing wrong with the source at all, but an editor insists on drawing inferences from the text that are not present in the original. There is nothing inappropriate about reviewing primary sources for clarification that the secondary source has left murky. Further, and this is kind of really important and painfully obvious, while we trust secondary sources over primary sources for interpretation and analysis, a secondary source cannot be trusted over a primary source about the literal content of that primary source. If a secondary source says, "according to primary source, X", but the primary source clearly says, "not X", the policy-compliant resolution is simply to decide the secondary source isn't reliable on that point. This isn't hard. But that's not even necessary here. The secondary source states that Young designed something in 1985. And that in 2000 an operation he designed killed someone. It never explicitly states that Young literally designed and built the killer device himself. I'm sure a wording can be found that can describe this event and Young's involvement without turning him into an engineer/machinist. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:18, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I feel like we should have something somewhere that codifies your third point, If a secondary source says, "according to primary source, X", but the primary source clearly says, "not X", the policy-compliant resolution is simply to decide the secondary source isn't reliable on that point. Do we not have anything like that? BD2412 T 04:38, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

@Someguy1221: Thanks Someguy. I stand corrected that OR can be done to check on reliability. It's right there at the top of the OR page so I'm chagrinned. I still worry that down this path lies madness, or at least us becoming more like Snopes than wikipedia. However, in this particular case, the quote is correct. It occurs in the primary source exactly as in the secondary. BD2412 is mistaken that the additional quote he found exonerates Young, because the engineer who is mentioned made modifications to the devices after the accident. We would be doing SYNTH to assume that he designed the devices before the accident. The thing you say that is most exciting to me is "I'm sure a wording can be found that can describe this event and Young's involvement without turning him into an engineer/machinist." Thus far, BD2412 and others are refusing to let the event be mentioned at all. Given that Young built his notability on these devices, whether or not he specifically designed this particular one, it's an important moment in his life that should be on the page. If you have the time to stop by and help us find that wording, or nudged us to find it, I'd be grateful. DolyaIskrina (talk) 05:29, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

You can't just say "it's an important moment in his life" based on your opinion. Is there a source that describes this as having any impact on the subject's life whatsoever? The OSHA report indicates that the multi-million dollar company under investigation was fined ten thousand dollars, but offers no hint of any significance to the individual subject's life. However, the incident is described on the page for the company, which is appropriate. As for the engineer, if we had an article on that person, I would also oppose mention of the incident in that article based on the ambiguity of the report, and the absence of a source describing any impact on the engineer's life. BD2412 T 05:50, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

References

1. "D. Gary Young". Archived from the original on October 26, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.

Fath Freedom International

The article on Faith Freedom International (FFI) is thoroughly trimmed down as compared with an older revision. FFI is the site of Ali Sina (activist), who used to be a secularist critic of Islam, and debated several notable Muslems on his site. Over the years, Sina became more involved in far-right, Islamophobic circles.

I happened to be the author of the "Notable content"-paragraph in the older revision. The debate-part in the article was originally written by someone else, with a longer list of people who debated Sina. However, to prevent violations of WP:SELFPUB and WP:BLP, the only remaining debates are those who also appear in the books and at the sites of Sina's opponents (like the one with Edip Yuksel).

For the articles on FFI, the site provided a list of authors. I looked which authors were notable enough to have their own Misplaced Pages-article, like Steven Emerson and Geert Wilders. The next thing to do, was checking if the author's article on FFI had an identical article on the site of the author, or another reliable source. If so, I could add the name of the author on the article, sourced by links to both articles. As such, WP:V, WP:SELFPUB and WP:BLP were covered.

A few months ago, User:Snuish2 pointed out two problems with this:

• Given the increasingly far-right nature of FFI, and therefor of the features authors the sites I linked to fail spectacularly as a WP:RS. However, I realize that, as User:SlimVirgin said in a discussion regarding the article in 2010: I should not use them as a source for anything except the most basic details about itself that you can't obtain from anywhere else, and which are harmless. Author names fall under this category.
• Going through the Faith Freedom website and citing articles from individuals that have Misplaced Pages pages and then citing written material by the same authors outside of Faith Freedom smacks to me of original research (particularly WP:SYNTHESIS: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources"), since Misplaced Pages is still not citing a single reliable source that states something to the effect of "Faith Freedom International includes articles written by these individuals..."

However, unlike that last argument, I believe the sections are completely in the spirit of what WP:WEB states:

Material about web content that does not qualify for a separate, stand-alone can be preserved by adding it into relevant articles if it:
* has the appropriate level of detail and significance for that article;
* avoids self-promotion; and
* includes information that can be verified through independent sources.

On Snuish2's suggestion, I have taken it now to the OR-noticeboard. The question here is: did the Notable Content-section violate WP:OR, or was the section acceptable for including in an encyclopedic article on Misplaced Pages? Best regards, Jeff5102 (talk) 21:14, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing the issue to this noticeboard, Jeff. Yes, it's my position that the section was a violation of WP:SYNTHESIS. I'd like to add that I don't think the section of WP:WEB you've cited applies to this discussion since we're not debating whether that material is noteworthy enough for inclusion or noteworthy enough for a "separate, stand-alone" article. Even if it were applicable to this discussion, the section would violate the second prong regarding avoiding self-promotion and the third prong regarding verifiability in independent sources. Snuish2 (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

And thank you for joining the discussion! I am not sure if this is the right platform, but I would also like to bring in the Red Table Talk-article. Here, the episodes-list has any references to establish that those interviews really took place. The same goes for the claimed contributors for the Huffpost-article. There, the unpaid bloggers are mentioned, and only sourced by a link to the Huffpost-site itself. As such, these sections have worse sourcing than the "Notable content"-section of the FFI-article. What should happen with them? Best regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 14:27, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Drawing "obvious" conclusions which are simply not in the source

Hello, I am interested in an opinion/advice in order to check if I'm seeing this wrong: the article is Anti-Albanian sentiment and the source used/matter of dispute is

Nowhere in the source is there a reference about anti-Albanian sentiment, only raw data is presented. The article by Politika gives % of people from one ethnic group which are not willing to live with members of other neighbouring ethnic groups. This is the TP section I've started where. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 20:34, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

The article has discrimination and prejudice as its topic, inclusion of data from it in this article is clearly justified. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

• Our policy is that we must be extremely careful when using raw data. We can not create any conclusionary statements based on that data unless the source EXPLICITLY states that same conclusion. Does the source you wish to use do this? Blueboar (talk) 18:42, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@BlueboarIf you read the whole thing, the topic of the article is antipathy to various ethnic groups in Serbia. The term "antisemitism" is used frequently, but the word "distance" is used for all other ethnic groups. Boynamedsue (talk) 08:51, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• The source translated into English using Google translate says the polling is evidence of "ethnic distance towards Albanians." I imagine that means anti-Albanian sentiment. TFD (talk) 19:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
  • That's a tricky stretch that I think does run afoul of OR - I wouldn't consider "not tolerating living among X" to being equal to "anti-X" which implies full non-tolerance, though still implies some racial inequity. I think stating the data from the source gives sufficient inference to that for the topic at hand, but Wikivoice can't make the logical jump to say that. It's not a "obvious" conclusion here for all purposes. --Masem (t) 19:27, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Masem The definition of "ethnic distance" in the article is ""In this research, ethnic distance is defined as the tendency for other nations to be presented as a potential danger and obstacle, someone to whom it is best to be careful and restrained.". The term used instead of "ethnic distance towards jews" is "anti-semitism". This justifies "anti-Albanian sentiment. Boynamedsue (talk) 09:01, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think "ethnic distance" means just that they don't want to live among Albanians. It means that they don't like Albanians, which is the reason they don't want to live among them. It would be helpful if someone who speaks Serbian could explain what the term means. TFD (talk) 09:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Blueboar: The source is not explicitly stating the same conclusion. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 23:51, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

There aren't any conclusions that have been inferred from the poll. Sadko's question relates to whether A survey in Serbia showed that 40% of the Serbian population would not like Albanians to live in Serbia (..) is relevant to the article Anti-Albanian sentiment. I consider its relevancy obvious. The specific mention of one of wikipedia's descriptive titles - in this case, "Anti-Albanian sentiment" - doesn't define the scope of a subject. It's obvious that the scope of the subject includes the quantitative aspects of prejudice and discrimination towards a social group.--Maleschreiber (talk) 02:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Once again, there is only raw data presented in the article and 0% is "obvious", as I have stated before. No context is given. If anybody needs help with additional translation of the article, I can land a hand. cheers, Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 02:34, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

The article says: "In this research, ethnic distance is defined as the tendency for other nations to be presented as a potential danger and obstacle, someone to whom it is best to be careful and restrained. The results showed that there is still the greatest ethnic distance towards Albanians, which 40 percent of respondents are reluctant to see as citizens of Serbia, and as many as 70 percent would refuse to marry them." This is, to my mind, more than enough to justify the term "anti-Albanian sentiment", there is no requirement for a source to use the exact phrase which appears in the title of the article. Boynamedsue (talk) 08:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• Disclaimer: I do not speak Serbian. This is based on me translating the original article. But I have done so in three languages to confirm the meaning. As a matter of principle, I do agree that taking raw data presented in a certain context, and inserting it in a completely different context is questionable. However, in this particular case, the data is not taken out of context, because the article is about discrimination and prejudice. The editor also guaranteed WP:NPOV by removing the even more that is present in the sentence of the article.--JBchrch (talk) 11:52, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I am a little unclear as to what we are referring to when we say “the article” (WP article vs Source article)... so let me ask in a different way: is the data being cited “about” discrimination and prejudice? Blueboar (talk) 12:45, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, it was indeed unclear : I was referring the source article. I believe that the data cited is about discrimination and prejudice, that it was not taken out of context and thus that it is not original research.--JBchrch (talk) 14:22, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

In Praise of Blood: Is it SYNTH to say a book describes two events as "comparable in scale and cruelty" when book never does this?

Requesting advice from experienced editors about using this sentence in an article about a controversial book: "The book describes the RPF crimes against Hutu civilians during the 1990s as a genocide comparable in scale and cruelty to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi."

You can see a debate about this sentence between me and Saflieni on the book's talk page.

To summarize my opinion, this sentence is WP:SYNTH because:

1. The book never unites the two concepts of "scale and cruelty" and
2. The book never compares the scale of the two events.
3. Analyzing the 3 RS cited for this statement: first is a rough estimate of numbers killed by the RPF in 1994-1996, but makes no mention of cruelty and makes no comparison to the number of Tutsis killed during the three months of the Tutsi genocide; second compares cruelty by two groups of civilians; and the third is an extended description of killings by RPF but draws no equivalence to genocide against Tutsi. So those 3 RS don't support the claim in the sentence.

Saflieni's opinion (just quoting from the talk page, although I hope he will speak for himself as well):

1. in the RFI interview, Rever claims that the alleged RPF crimes against Hutus are also genocide and she gives a rough estimate of its scale: half a million. This is more or less comparable to the scale of the Tutsi genocide, whether she uses the word "comparable" or not.
2. The appeals to WP:SYNTH and original research are not relevant here. As I've just explained: I've summarized a main theme of the book in a few words. The job of an editor, according to WP:NPOV is to "convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly".

I don't consider the sentence to be a fair summary, because it implies something inflammatory but untrue about the book.

It is already controversial that Rever describes RPF killings of Hutus as also a genocide. We should not imply, in Misplaced Pages's voice, that she uses this claim to minimize the 1994 genocide against Tutsis. On the contrary, Rever says (pp 229-230), "There is no part of this book that denies the genocide...between half a million and a million Tutsis were slaughtered in a period of three months—an unfathomable number...Their individual and collective suffering will never be forgotten."

Sorry if this is long, it is late at night when I write this. Please share your own thoughts. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:40, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

• Response by Saflieni:

I'm going to be very lengthy too and use quotes to make my point because this issue keeps coming back and I want the facts to be clear once and for all. The sentence fairly represents the book's content and complies with WP:NPOV: ... carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias. HouseOfChange mentions three sources but there are in fact many other examples, in the book and in RS, provided by the author herself and by scholars.

In this interview on CBC , presenter Carol Off and Judi Rever are clearly discussing Rever's double genocide theory in terms of equivalency.

Judi Rever: ...at the same time that ethnic Tutsis were being killed in Hutu-controlled zones, his Tutsi troops were killing with equal zeal and organization. And in every zone that the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its army entered, they killed massively and in an organized way.

(...)

Carol Off: And the record is that Hutu Power militias — the Interahamwe as it was called — massacred Tutsis in the numbers of somewhere between 500,000 and a million. What numbers are you saying that the Tutsis kill of Hutus?

Judi Rever: Several hundred thousand anyhow. I've spoken to a lot of people, and many of them have said that there are at least 500,000 Hutus who were killed by Kagame’s troops during the genocide and in the months after the genocide. Now, some people have said that figure could be as high as a million. It's very difficult to know in Kagame’s Rwanda without doing studies and investigations of the numbers. But clearly, it's a massive number of people who were targeted.

Carol Off: But you're saying you believe you have evidence that shows equivalency — that equal genocides were committed on both sides. Even though ... only the genocide against the Tutsis has been documented... You're saying there is an equivalent genocide that occurred that was absolutely not documented in any way, because your version does not appear in any other books?

Judi Rever: No, it doesn't. And this is a real problem that the killing was not investigated — the killing in RPF-controlled zones was not investigated.

In the book's final chapter, Rever gives estimates of both the genocide against the Tutsi: between half a million and a million Tutsis were slaughtered in a period of three months (p. 227), and the alleged genocide against the Hutu: The RPF's victims are estimated to have been between several hundred thousand and a million human beings. (p. 232)

Some specific examples of equivalency from Rever's book (emphases added):

• In areas seized by the RPF or already under its control, its soldiers and intelligence agents worked with similar ethnic zeal, but they were more discreet (p. 3)
• Human Rights Watch clearly-and rightfully-found that Hutu militia, military and government officials targeted and exterminated Tutsis and, in some cases, Hutus opposed to their genocidal plan. But it appeared not to have discovered a similar ethnic dynamic in zones controlled by the RPF. (p. 99)
• But a growing body of evidence now shows that Tutsi civilians betrayed and killed their Hutu neighbors in the same way that Hutus turned on Tutsis. The dynamic at work was chillingly similar. (p. 106)
• These Tutsis-both abakada and civilians loyal to the RPF government and army-committed unspeakable atrocities against Hutus, crimes comparable to those committed by Hutu civilians and lnterahamwe. (p. 107)
• After the genocide, Father Simard was appalled to discover that the RPF was committing similar atrocities against Hutus in Butare, and started to make tape recordings of his observations. (p. 149)
• Despite the claim by Western human rights organizations and media that there can be no moral equivalence between the two sides, Hutus in RPF-controlled areas faced similar risks of annihilation as Tutsis did in Hutu-controlled areas. (pp. 228, 229)
• That the Hutus "deserved to be massacred" is pure Tutsi hard-line dogma. And Hutu hard-liners employed a similar ideology against Tutsis. Hutu extremists called killing Tutsi civilians "work." It is the same word Tutsi extremists used to describe exterminating Hutus. (p. 230)

Some examples of scholars commenting:

• Filip Reyntjens: The cruelty shown is almost unbearable for the reader and reminds us of the way the Tutsis were killed. The method is striking: similar mechanisms keep recurring. (My translation)
• Helen Hintjens and Jos van Oijen: Rever claimed RPF killings amounted to genocide against the Hutu on an equal scale to the genocide against the Tutsi, in terms of death tolls and cruelty against civilians. (This source was already referenced in the article and this sentence is actually what I paraphrase).
• Gerald Caplan challenges Rever's claim: I happen to know many of them ... and not one of them has ever implied that the sins of the RPF were on a scale comparable to the genocide, which they all witnessed from inside.

Rever also uses the word cruelty in relation to the alleged RPF crimes while she was writing the book: If the 1994 genocide against Tutsis stands as the most depraved and tragic chapter in Rwanda’s history, its corollary is certainly the three years that followed in which a slower, largely hidden campaign of abject cruelty was meted out against Hutu civilians in Rwanda and the DRC, with barely a whimper of international outcry.

I could go on like this, but I believe that these examples prove that I summed it up fairly and accurately in the brief description taken from my draft. Saflieni (talk) 08:52, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Saflieni: Thanks for your explanation. Just two points:

1. We are discussing the scale of two events--scale relates to proportion, not just to number. Two events may affect similar numbers of people but be very different in scale.
2. Tutsis are a small minority of the Rwanda population, about 15%. 70% of the Tutsi population died in the genocide. If a million Tutsis died in the genocide, then the RPF would have to kill 5 or 6 million Hutus to create a genocide of similar scale. This is probably why you never see the book say there were two events of similar scale.
3. The rate of killing is another large difference of scale. As Rever says, ..between half a million and a million Tutsis were slaughtered in a period of three months—an unfathomable number. When she estimates elsewhere the number of Hutus killed by the RPF, she is talking about killings over a period of two or three years. Again, these are two events on different scales.
4. Hintjens and vanOijen are mistaken to say that Rever claimed RPF killings amounted to genocide against the Hutu on an equal scale to the genocide against the Tutsi. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:09, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's content is determined by previously published information rather than by the personal beliefs or experiences of its editors. WP:VERIFYOR If HoC has a novel theory and believes that it challenges the views expressed by the subject matter experts and the author of the book, they might consider writing a paper about it and submit it to a relevant academic journal. In the meantime they should allow others to answer the question they posted.Saflieni (talk) 15:51, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Saflieni: Perhaps this is a clearer way for me to express the opinion that offends you: the Tutsi genocide and the alleged Hutu genocide were events of vastly different scale. That's my opinion, and, as you rightly say, my opinion doesn't matter to what the article says. IPOB never describes them, not even once, as events of "equal scale." That is a fact. Therefore if H and van O were writing in Misplaced Pages, WP:RS and WP:SYNTH would forbid them from making the claim, unsupportable by any text in IPOB, that IPOB describes the two events as "on an equal scale." That is also a fact. HouseOfChange (talk) 20:15, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

It's not very helpful when an editor starts a discussion on this Noticeboard and is simultaneously reporting negatively about it at another Noticeboard. Saflieni (talk) 23:55, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Saflieni: I created this discussion to give you an opportunity to demonstrate collegial content-focused editing. If instead you choose to violate WP:CIVIL, that should be reported at the noticeboard now discussing your behavior. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Saflieni:, I do not see the concepts of "scale" and "cruelty" in your citations, but the concepts of "way", "dynamic", "mechanism". I would suggest to write that The book describes the RPF crimes against Hutu civilians during the 1990s as a genocide comparable in scale and cruelty to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and to add in #Reception a passage describing Hintjens & van Oijen's review that could read Helen Hintjens and Jos van Oijen describe the book as claiming that "RPF killings amounted to genocide against the Hutu on an equal scale to the genocide against the Tutsi, in terms of death tolls and cruelty against civilians."--JBchrch (talk) 15:13, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, JBchrch for your compromise suggestion. The concepts "scale" and "cruelty" are in the examples of secondary sources I mentioned: cruelty in Reyntjens and in Hintjens; scale in Caplan and in Hintjens. On CBC they spoke of "equal genocides" which covers all aspects and they specify the scale (in this context, "scale" usually if not always means "death toll"). I hope you'll agree that it's their interpretations, not my original research. In WP:NOR I read: The best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words, with each statement in the article attributable to a source that makes that statement explicitly. Source material should be carefully summarized or rephrased without changing its meaning or implication. Unless I'm mistaken, the policy does not say: "Use the exact same phrases as the primary source." Saflieni (talk) 23:55, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Saflieni, my personal interpretation of WP:NOR is that you should not add any information that is not explicitly stated in the source: you should just restate what the source says. And it is true that you are ever so slightly merging the wording of each source to arrive at your result (1.comparable 2. in scale and 3. cruelty, expressed together as one statement). However, here we are bordering on various WP:NOTSYNTH points, such as not a rigid rule and not summary. I truly think you and HouseOfChange could work out a compromise, because it's just one problematic sentence, and no-one has criminally breached the policies.--JBchrch (talk) 00:32, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

JBchrch I appreciate your time spent on this very much. If you are looking for a compromise solution, here is what I would consider a compromise that respects the spirit of WP:OR : "The book gives details of many RPF crimes against Hutu civilians, comparing their cruelty in some cases to that inflicted on Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide." That much is true, and reflects the book very well.

Concerning the numbers of victims killed, even the well-studied and mostly agreed on number for Tutsi deaths (500k - 1M) has a factor of two uncertainty. The number of Hutus killed by the RPF is not just disputed but closely concealed--one can only guess at those numbers. Rever reports a number of guesses from sources, with much less cause for trust and a bigger margin of error (200k - 1M). It would make little sense to compare "numbers of deaths" when both numbers are wildly uncertain, and the book does not, even once, compare them. Therefore, it is wrong for the article to say that Rever compares the numbers, because she does not compare the numbers--and even worse to say that she calls the "scale" "equal," which she never does. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

• JBchrch HouseOfChange even rejects the main theme of the book according to the majority view among scholars - double genocide - because the book doesn't use that exact phrase.Virtually anything can be shoehorned into a broad reading of SYNTH, but the vast majority of it shouldn't be. . Remember that I paraphrased a peer reviewed journal article and that all reliable sources say more or less the same thing, including the author of the book, so I'm curious what exactly I'm supposed to have added. Saflieni (talk) 02:47, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

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