Talk:Protesters mark 3rd anniversary of Iraq invasion

NPOV

amgine:

• bush claims that he is supporting democracy in the middle east - that is a POV (highly disputed). The fact that he claims this, is not disputed, but presenting his claims as fact is highly POV.
• The most serious estimate of civilian deaths in Iraq, according to the NPOV of w:Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003, is 100,000 from March 2003 to Sep 2004 inclusive - about 18 months - so saying "30,000 to 100,000" for three years when the best estimate is 200,000 for three years (if we conservatively assume that the killing rate was constant, whereas in reality it has probably increased), is a big underestimate.

i don't see why we cannot make NPOV corrections to a published article - leaving obvious POV in an article is bad for wikinews. i didn't add any new information. Boud 21:09, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Your NPOV tag is not actionable:

• Bush's claim is what is being reported. That is the definition of NPOV. (btw: "alleged" has a specific legal connotation of committing a crime, surely you do not mean that his claimed support of democracy is a crime?) [AMGINE]

• Not quite: there is a difference between reporting Bush's claim as a claim and reporting it as a fact or as a comment about a fact. In case 1, the present sentence says: ...outlining his commitment to democracy in the region which implies that Bush is making comments about something, and that something is Bush's commitment to democracy in the region - presented as a fact. If we report that Bush outlines X, that implies that we consider X to exist. We neither agree nor disagree with his POV about X, but according to this wording, we consider X to exist. We could word it differently to my original NPOV change, e.g. ...outlining what he claims is his commitment to democracy in the region, but the present version implies that Bush is making comments about something factual, despite the disputed nature of the "fact".
• In case 2, the present sentence says: Elaborating on the effort to build democracy in Iraq... which implies that the effort to build democracy in Iraq is a fact, which Bush happens to elaborate on (comment on). We could word it differently to NPOV it, e.g. Elaborating on what he claims is an effort to build democracy in Iraq... would be NPOV.
• As an analogy to help, consider the statement: Elaborating on the arrival of Martians in Leichtenstein during the 1990's, Mr Bush said..., and suppose that Bush really had said something about Martians arriving in Leichtenstein during the 1990's (for the sake of the analogy). Would this sentence not have been rapidly NPOVed, to show that wikinews does not claim that Martians landing on the Earth is a fact? IMHO this would have been rapidly NPOVed to something like Elaborating on what he claimed was the arrival of Martians in Leichtenstein during the 1990's, Mr Bush said... or maybe by adding a sentence such as NASA, ESA and other near-space institutions consider the claim that Martians have landed on Earth to be "preposterous". i don't mind too much whether it's claimed or felt or alleged - the important thing is to NPOV it and not let it be thought that we consider his claims either to be true or false. Boud 22:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• Wikipedia's estimate is based on something, is it not? find that source and bring it here. Otherwise, assume the number is recent news and not necessarily relevant in this already published article (what was known and believed at the time by the reporters.) - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 21:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The wikipedia article is based on a long NPOV process involving many, many different people. There is a lot of debate about the Lancet Survey and if we only copy the link to the main source to wikinews, then wikinews people will have to redo the whole debate. The information is old news - about a year and a half old. It seems to me pointless to have an in-depth NPOV debate about old information on wikinews - surely that process should happen on wikipedia, and on wikinews we should respect the results on wikipedia. Boud 22:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

WN:NOT:

• Wikinews articles are not advertisements. Especially, they are not political advertisements. Surely this means that an article should not be a political advertisement for bush?
• Especially, they should not be altered to an angle or POV not reflective of the article as it was published. Does this mean that an NPOV article should not be made POV, or that an article violating NPOV cannot be made POV, or both?

Boud 21:17, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

You've removed the relevant sentences of course: Wikinews articles are not works in progress. Developing articles are marked with the {{develop}} template. Once written and published they are historical documents; they should not continue to be updated or changed.'

Wikinews articles reflect what was known and believed at the time they were published. Wikinews is not an encyclopedia. Our articles have a very limited period of newsworthiness, after which they become a part of our second mission: An historical record. Yes, we have articles in our history which are clearly wrong, clearly POV in hindsight, because we reported what was known and believed by our reporters and which was later found to be untrue or inaccurate. That is the nature of news. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 21:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean that if wikinews reporters fail to read the relevant articles in the wikipedia about old information and thereby put POV in a wikinews article, then it cannot be NPOVed later by people who spent a bit more time background-checking in the wikipedia? Boud 22:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is what it means. The period of time that an article should be published before further POV changes are dissallowed is not clear, however. Certainly other articles have gone into NPOV disputes after being published for up to three days. - Borofkin 22:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, in that case, shouldn't there be a reasonably objective deadline after publication after which a wikinews article automatically becomes frozen? If the intention is that articles really are frozen as historical records, including POVs of wikinews reporters who worked on the article and (whether intentionally or not) missed obvious wikipedia background material etc., then the problem is that many people familiar with the wikipedia culture will not realise that they should expect articles to be POV - on the other hand, if a page is frozen, no more edits allowed because it has passed the edit-by date, then it would be much more obvious why there are more likely to be POVs in the article than for a normal wikipedia article. Boud 23:23, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Possibly. I don't have an answer to these questions. At the moment it is not something that is defined, it's just up to the community at the time. - Borofkin 04:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

minor changes

i propose some changes which i think are sufficiently "minor" to be made after publication and serve to address the concerns expressed about this article.

• "outlining his commitment to democracy in the region." to "stating his commitment to democracy in the region."
• "Elaborating on the effort to build democracy in Iraq" to "Elaborating on his efforts to build democracy in Iraq"
• "Three years on, with 2,300 Americans killed, 17,000 troops injured, somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqis killed and the onset of "civil war," the US occupation of Iraq costs $200 million each day." to "With 2,300 US citizens killed and 17,000 US troops injured during the first three years, and an estimated 30,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed during the first 18 months, the US occupation of Iraq costs $200 million each day.
• retain the wiki article box.

Doldrums 05:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The first is already implicit in the sentence; he's making a speech. In the second case the sentence previous states he's making a speech, and the sentence itself *is* the statement elaborating on the efforts from the speech. The additional content is spin in a previously published article. If you have new information, write a new article. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 05:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

the actionable objections are that this article makes claims it does not (and cannot?) substantiate, such as claiming bush has a "commitment to democracy ...", that what is happening in Iraq is "an effort to build democracy". finally it incorrectly reports stats - X casualties in 18months is not the same as X casalties in 36. i cannot agree with ur characterisation that these corrections are "spin", they are required corrections to incorrect reporting. i point out that it is spin to place part of a quoted speech outside quotes to make it appear to be factual. Doldrums 05:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No, the article says he made a speech outlining his commitments to democracy. It says he elaborated in a speech the efforts to build democracy. It states what the authors knew and believed were the statistics on casualties at the time the article was published. Nothing more. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 05:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

amgine: the actual wording could be interpreted as being a quote, but it can also easily be interpreted as accepting parts of bush's speech as fact. This is the problem. w:spin (public relations) has: Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths as one of its five key methods of spin. The POV problem with the present article is phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths stated by G.W.Bush. As for not correcting an error due to the authors' lack of time to look for background information in the wikipedia, by that logic, spelling errors and in fact any error, due to the authors' errors at the time of publishing should also be preserved. In that case, a systematic freezing of editing should occur - there's no longer any point in having an article open to editing if it cannot be corrected for gross errors (such as 100,000 or so dead people forgotten about). Boud 02:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Contributor's Response re NPOV

This is all quite funny really! When I wrote this article on Monday, I added the Bush speech stuff to give a NPOV. I've been accused in the past of bias POV when reporting on Protests... I was being very careful this one. I thought it would be more NPOV with Bush's words. After all - thats the bottom line of why thousands took to the streets. This is a very interesting discussion. AZADI --elliot_k 08:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

<nod> This is a part of the reason I find the accusation quite amusing, you conservative warmonger you! How dare you attempt to produce a neutral article!

I have not seen an actionable NPOV compaint on this article. I am going to remove the NPOV tag. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 03:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

elliot: Your effort to be NPOV is of course laudable (to be supported :), but i suggest that next time, to avoid having accidental spin enshrined in concrete by people like amgine, you be careful to use "quotation marks" around what is cited. Boud 02:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

cheers mate. respect to ya. --elliot_k 04:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Bush section obviously POV

I agree with Boud's comments at the top of this page. Also, "Operation Iraq Freedom" is a similar term to the Taliban's "Taliban's Ministry for the Protection of Virtue"; such self serving psyops labels should not be used in a NPOV publication. Also a few other small pov comments I'll try to fix. Neutralizer 04:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Oops;just saw the last edit time on the article. Too late I guess; oh well. Neutralizer 05:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)