Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 November 5

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was deletion. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 04:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:Biased source (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Little-used template with no apparent utility. Its use is probably a WP:NPOV violation in and of itself (biased according to whom?). — Sandstein 22:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Please keep: I only wrote this as a deescalation tool: I often mediate ethnic conflicts, in which opponents often end up in fierce edit conflicts whenever someone adds text they disagree with. This template gives the opponents a chance to clearly make their concerns known without starting or perpetuating an edit war. As such, it is a compromise: I agree, compared with a nicely worded article text, this is clearly inferior and can be considered non-NPOV. I added a recommendation how to use it in Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation#How to avoid a revert war, but to be honest, I'm not sure how many people actually are following it. Maybe we could rewrite the instructions to allow this only to be added to newly added texts that do not cite a universally accepted RS. — Sebastian 22:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

  Won't the edit warriors simply continue to edit war about the inclusion (or not) of this template? At any rate, I just notice that we already have {{Verify credibility}}, which seems to be widely used and serves just as well for what you have in mind. Sandstein 23:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

  The two templates serve different purposes:

  • The purpose of {{Verify credibility}} is for another editor to look at the source and check if it meets our criteria for reliable sources.
  • The purpose of {{Biased source}} is to mark that a particular statement comes from a biased source. Biased sources are generally not unreliable. In fact, WP:NPOV#Bias states: "All editors and all sources have biases." This template calls for a different action: Find another RS to counter the bias. That said, if that isn't apparent from the template, then we should find a way to clarify this. — Sebastian 00:04, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

  What's wrong with using {{unbalanced}} or {{POV}}? Why flag good, reliable (if biased) sources as if they're bad when the problem is not with content that's been included but with what's been omitted. Flowerparty^☀ 02:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

  • {{unbalanced}} and {{POV}} are about articles; {{Biased source}} is about specific sourced statements.
  • Re "Why flag good, reliable (if biased) sources?": Because, as I explained above, that's still better than an edit war. I urge everyone to whom this is not immediately obvious to take a look at any of the many articles where we experience such fights daily. (Just taking this one for example, because it is one of the articles that still have this template.) — Sebastian 03:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Why delete this template? Let's look at each argument:

• "little-used": This is a temporary template; how often it appears in articles does not reflect how often it has been used.
• "no apparent utility": To summarize what I said above: Its utility does not consist in it actually being used, anymore than you would toss your airbag just because you never used it. The less it's needed, the better.
• "Its use is probably a WP:NPOV violation": As explained above, this depends on which alternative you compare it with. If the alternative is - as is common practice among POV editors - to simply remove what you don't agree with, then it is a good step towards NPOV.

In conclusion, none of the points brought forward for deletion applies to this template, so it should remain. I fought hard to get some of the POV editors from both sides of one of the fiercest conflicts on this globe to move at least sometimes away from edit warring and towards NPOV, and it would be a bitter irony if this effort were shattered by people who think they are defending NPOV. — Sebastian 03:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment: See also Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 November 5#Category:Wikipedia articles with biased sources, which is about the category populated by this template. Sandstein 06:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete while named generically or rename to specific project. If this is to be kept it should be renamed in a way that makes it crystal clear what its purpose & limits are. For instance, Template:Sri Lankan cite needs balance. --lquilter 12:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

  Very briefly - Sorry, I thought the reason was implicit in my suggested rename. Basically my concern is that the template will be applied very broadly (see Taprobanus' suggestion below) without any thinking through about the significant policy change it suggests. Defining a source as biased and requiring a "balanced" source is a very significant change, since everyone thinks some sources are biased and all sources are thought by some to be biased. We don't want to get into a situation where we require multiple sources, or only sources agreed to be "unbiased". ... There is a lot of confusion among editors about what is an appropriate source -- I've seen people argue that references have to be neutral (not true), that references have to be free (not true), that there have to be multiple references (not true), and so on. With this amount of potential confusion I think we should think carefully before implementing a template that is very likely to be used and implicates very foundational policies. --lquilter 20:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

This would be a valid concern if this were a new template. But this template has been around since January, and it has not created a single complaint in all that time. There is no reason to be afraid of it now. (Of course, whenever you're dealing with ethnically motivated edit wars, you will run into some problems, and your message points out some of them. For some of them, we found solutions, but there remains more to be done. If you're interested, I invite you to participate in our busy project WP:SLR.) In short: It's not perfect, but that comes with the territory. When you're hungry, you won't throw away your soup, even if there's a hair or two in it. — Sebastian 22:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep Although this may have been created with Sri Lank conflict in mind, currently it is great tool to question the inherent biases of so called RS sources. It is especially useful in BLP articles where nominally RS sources are used to portray negatively people who are disliked by an interest group. Taprobanus 13:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete If a source is biased, it is unreliable, and therefore should be uncite-able. —ScouterSig 03:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

And, this kind of confusion is exactly why this template is a bad idea. (Although I agree with the !vote.) In the hands of someone pushing an agenda they will believe that a source that is biased is unreliable and that this tag is a way to flag such sources. Scoutersig, it is not true that a source that is biased is unreliable. All sources have some bias -- some leaning or tendency or perspective. Sources must be reliable -- meaning, they hold to some standards of their own about verifiability, reliability, incorporate peer review, etc. Not unbiased. --lquilter 14:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is confusion, but this template is not the cause. It only restates what our policy WP:NPOV says: Reliable sources can be biased. I think, the root of the problem sits deeper. Wikipedia has two faces: One towards its readers, and the other towards editors. Among ourselves, in our policies, we admit that reliable sources can be biased. But when that ugly "B" word appears on the surface, emotions run high! Anyway, if anyone has a better term than "bias" that we can use both in our policies and our articles, then we could solve this problem. — Sebastian 19:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the template isn't the cause, but I think we should rename it to avoid adding to the confusion. If you hope to use it more broadly than the specific project and therefore can't do a project-specific name, what about something like "Additional sources requested|list reason"? Then the "list reason" can explain this is seeking a balance, or seeking a more neutral source, or seeking the original source, or whatever. --lquilter 21:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was wrong process page. Stub templates are not handled here, but at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion.

Template:Sega-console-stub (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

The template is redundant. Main template: Template:Sega-stub — Janadore 18:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Read the instructions at the top of this page! Grutness...wha? 00:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was deletion. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 04:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:OriginalMetaCollabCollaboration (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Appears inappropriate for the Wikipedia mainspace and is only used in two articles. h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 16:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per nomination. Doczilla 05:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.