Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2022 June 12

= June 12 =

How to interpret WP:BIASED (on the topic of religion)
Hello, I'm wondering about identifying bias in sources. I'm aware of the guidance at WP:BIASED and at WP:NPOV but neither is very clear about when things cross the line into being "biased". In particular, I'm wondering when the religious affiliation (or absence of religious affiliation) of the author of a reliable source is grounds to consider the source biased, when it's a Wikipedia article on religion. I realize that sources should not be excluded because of bias, but I'm wondering whether it should be noted in the text (e.g., Hindu cosmologist XYZ argues that ZYX, rather than just cosmologist XYZ argues that ZYX). Is there some more specific guidance on this? For example, to say a source is biased would we have to show it has been criticized by another reliable source, or is it adequate just to show the potential for bias on the topic of religion given their religious views?

I know that this is not the place for dispute resolution, so I wrote the whole question above in general terms. However, in case more context is helpful, I'm having a disagreement with another editor at Talk:Baháʼí views on science. My view was that since most of the reliable sources on the topic are by adherents of the religion in question, we should note their religion when discussing their opinions (though not when discussing uncontroversial facts). He feels that if they've published their views about the Baháʼí Faith and science in academic sources, their religion isn't relevant and shouldn't be stated. Again, not asking for dispute resolution but just if there is general guidance on this sort of case. If this isn't the best place to ask about this, let me know. Best, Gazelle55 (talk) 00:25, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Nobody has answered this, so I will give it a shot.
 * The most reliable sources for how a given religion views X would usually be scholarly articles and the like. If there is reasonable consensus across such sources, then it can be stated as a fact in wikivoice that e.g. "most Hindus believe X". If there are disagreements among such scholars, then the views need to be attributed; if the disagreement splits across religious lines, it might make sense to mention it.
 * However, in many cases, there are no such scholarly sources. One is then forced to rely on theologians and other partisan / primary sources (even if a theologian may claim to lay down the view of adherents of faith X, which would make them a secondary source, in many cases they are mixing old information with their own beliefs/theory, which is primary). The main difficulty in such cases is to choose which views are WP:DUE to mention. Again, if it is clear that the beliefs are split by religious affiliation, it could be ok to say something like "Hindus believe X [refs to multiple Hindu theologians] while Muslims believe Y [refs to multiple Muslim theologians]".
 * All put together, I do not think your question has a simple yes or no answer. If a person is cited as representative of the whole world’s consensus on a subject, their religious affiliation need not be stated; if they are cited as representative of a certain thought current (religious or otherwise), then it is implicit that they are part of that thought current. Tigraan Click here for my talk page ("private" contact) 09:35, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Ethiopia–United Kingdom relations
I want to add this bilateral image map to Ethiopia–United Kingdom relations. The Supermind (talk) 09:21, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * In Visual editor, you can add images by clicking Insert -> images and media.
 * In Source editor, you can add Ethiopia–United Kingdom Locator.svg in the appropriate location. Femke (talk) 10:24, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Did that for you! If you need help, check the wikitext for other "relations pages", this helped me. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I used this:


 * See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_relations, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Russia_relations or others. Hope this helped! Mozart12345678910 (talk) 16:06, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Change from stadium
How to change from stadium to main domain ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16A2:CB13:4A00:E45C:55D4:9575:ED94 (talk) 11:30, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are asking about. Is this about editing Wikipedia? If so, which article. If it's not about Wikipedia, then you've come to the wrong place. ColinFine (talk) 11:46, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * One use of "stadium" is as a specialised term for a stage in insect metamorphosis. My guess is that the OP wants to metamorphose a draft into a mainspace article. Maproom (talk) 20:53, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

How to use this wikipedia?
To get knowledge about to become smart class expert teacher? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uday1975 (talk • contribs) 11:32, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. Wikipedia is a big place. I suggest you start by reading Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/1. Shantavira|feed me 12:16, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Policy on videos
Do we have policy or guidelines on whether vidoes should be added to articles? Uploading, copyright and licensing are dealt with clearly, but is there anything from a content point of view? When I saw some video lectures on various article subjects added just below the infoboxes (one per article), my first thought was that WP:EL might help, but these are Commons files. Do we have anything specific on whether such videos should be included at all, selection criteria or positioning? More broadly, is it more common on en.wiki than I realise? NebY (talk) 12:33, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Mere lectures do not add to articles, in my arrogant opinion, not least because of accessibility issues; but there is long-standing consensus that videos can be very useful for articles on things like dances, martial arts moves, etc. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  13:16, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I like those examples; I'd only thought of animations of machinery or orbital mechanic and suchlike, likewise coming under the general principle of adding something that couldn't be in the body of the article - much like ELs. I don't think about accessibility enough so a good corrective there. Thanks. NebY (talk) 17:35, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Do you have some examples of articles where this has been happening? As User:Orangemike notes, videos that simply recap an article's topic or deliver a lecture tend to be problematic for a number of reasons. The essay Wikipedia is not YouTube is germane.
 * I remember we ran into a serious problem a few years ago with Osmosis, where an outside company generated (hundreds of!) videos about a wide assortment of medical topics, which were then inserted prominently into Wikipedia articles with a minimum of discussion.
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 110
 * User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 227
 * WikiProject Medicine/Osmosis RfC
 * At the time, a number of issues were identified with this sort of content. Videos are difficult or impossible to edit, so minor errors are virtually uncorrectable by third parties. Sourcing, to Wikipedia's usual standards, is essentially impossible to incorporate. There are accessibility concerns, as well. Near the end of that kerfuffle, in an attempt to summarize some of the major outstanding issues and lessons learned, I wrote:
 * Long-form video presents unique challenges with respect to editability. For anyone without access to the original narrator, for instance, correcting something as a small as a single word of narration often means re-recording the entire voice-over.  Videos aren't susceptible to the same easy discussion and revision that text is; we're much closer to a binary take-it-or-leave-it situation.
 * Long-form video presents particular challenges with respect to WP:V and sourcing. Do we require inline notes at the bottom of the screen?  Endnotes at the end of the video?  Footnoted scripts?  Throw up our hands in despair?
 * Long-form video often has accessibility issues, unless great care is taken to ensure consistent and complete captioning.
 * For long-form video summaries, how do we decide which articles get them, and who decides if they stay or go, and where do they appear in the article? Who signs off on the script and storyboard?
 * Is it appropriate or viable to present many of our topics in a long-form video format at all?
 * Though it's been a few years, it strikes me as unlikely that those issues have all been satisfactorily resolved. Videos that attempt to mirror all (or a portion) of a Wikipedia article will struggle to remain aligned with the much-more-easily updated, expanded, and corrected Wikipedia text, even under the best of circumstances. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:21, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you ; that's deeper and more comprehensive than I dared hope. I've found 28 examples by looking for edit summaries mentioning "video" of an editor whose addition came up on my watchlist, upon which I found more they'd added that day. These might be all or we might find more if we could eg identify which files in the Commons category are in use on en.wiki. Starting with the most recent we have University of the Netherlands lectures uploaded to Commons from Youtube and used in:
 * Memory (reverted and reinstated)
 * Serendipity (reverted and reinstated)
 * Statistical correlations of criminal behaviour (reverted and reinstated)
 * Co-living
 * Humanitarian aid
 * Propaganda
 * Control of fire by early humans
 * Video game
 * Sustainable seafood
 * Action film
 * Artificial intelligence
 * Noise-induced hearing loss
 * Value of time
 * Online dating application
 * Allergy
 * Human trafficking
 * List of female action heroes and villains
 * Anorexia nervosa
 * Attention
 * Fire making
 * Antibiotic
 * Global digital divide
 * Digital divide
 * Internet in Africa
 * Environmental issues with coral reefs
 * Impacts of tourism
 * Plastic pollution
 * Environmental health
 * (That edit summary search also has the earlier additions of an Osmosis video to Irritable bowel syndrome and a US Department of Energy one to Electric vehicle and Smart grid.)
 * I've checked a couple on Youtube and found "Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed)".
 * I'd hoped to discuss with the editor per WP:BRD when they'd picked one article talk page – I suggested that when they posted to my talk page at User talk:NebY – but they reinstated some anyway. Now that I've found all those examples, I'm wondering whether an article talk page really is best. Suggestions welcome, and if you'd like to take the lead, having thought about it much more than I have, that would be absolutely fine! NebY (talk) 20:34, 13 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I haven't quite as much time to devote to Wikipedia as I once did; I won't be able to lead the charge on this. It is concerning that PJ Geest has shown little willingness to engage with other editors about his campaign to add videos - mostly from a single publisher? - to a large number of articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 11:03, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Quite understood - I'm trying to manage my own wiki-time and attention, and you've helped a lot already. I'll see how discussion on an article talk page goes. NebY (talk) 11:45, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I am really sorry I did not follow WP:BRD 3 times, really sorry. I will not do this again. Off course I am available to talk about this. The videos are funded by the Dutch governement, so there is no problem like Osmosis that the videos come from an outside company. n extra argument for keeping the videos is that commercial websites like YouTube become more and more attractive and users increasingly expect answers to their search queries in rich content (e.g., image, video, and audio formats), see following post What does the world need from us now? External Trends to Watch. So Wikipedia cannot stay behind, it should stay attractive. --PJ Geest (talk) 12:14, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You mentioned WP:NOTYOUTUBE, this is not an offical guideline of wikipedia, and WP:EL is not applicable because it is not an external link. There is no issue of WP:NPOV, these lectures are given by scientists! And there is also not a problem of Verifiability because it is a reliable source by itself because these lectures are given by scientists (mostly professors which publish a lot of research about the subject). --PJ Geest (talk) 12:50, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * If you have a video made by a Wikipedia editor, then each thing which is said should be verifiable ([[Wikipedia:Verifiability ) off course, there should be links to scientific or other reliable sources for each thing which is said in the video. But if the video is by a scientists this is verifiable by itself because a scientist (in the cases of these videos mostly a professor) is a reliable source, its just the same as referring in the text to a vulgarizing article of the same scientist. --PJ Geest (talk) 13:40, 14 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for joining the discussion, PJ Geest.
 * I suspect that since this conversation is now a few days old, and halfway up the page, it's probable that only you, me, and NebY will read anything further written here. I suspect that if either of you would like to get broader input on the appropriate way to incorporate (or not) these videos into Wikipedia you would be well-served to open a discussion at Village pump (policy) or start a Requests for comment.
 * That said, PJ Geest, I will note that your interpretation of some of Wikipedia's core content policies is...out of step with the Wikipedia community's usual understanding. While the videos are verifiably the words of the presenter or the organization they represent, words and images do not become inherently reliable for Wikipedia purposes simply because they are delivered by a scientist or university professor.
 * The views of one scientist or institution may or may not reflect the consensus of all experts in their field. (Indeed, in some fields there may not be a consensus view, and presenting just one expert's view may omit important alternative perspectives.) Their individual judgements about which aspects of a topic are fundamental, or true, or contested, are not necessarily the decisions that Wikipedia would make. Privileging one professor's point of view over all others is a rather long way from WP:NPOV (Wikipedia's neutral-point-of-view policy). Their choices about which views to present are not necessarily the same as ours might be, which runs into problems with WP:WEIGHT (Wikipedia's rules on due versus undue weight for content).
 * These issues are compounded when someone places these videos prominently in the header of each article, as you have often done. It emphasizes and implicitly endorses one particular speaker and their one particular viewpoint, suggesting to our readers that this one individual represents and speaks for Wikipedia. It is particularly problematic when an essentially uneditable, unrevisable, uncorrectable video tries to supplant the core content of the encyclopedia "anyone can edit".
 * It is true that Wikipedia is not YouTube is an essay and not a policy (I said as much when I linked it). Nevertheless, Wikipedia's essays and guidelines are often useful references, that save repeating the same arguments over and over in different places. You've cited a blog post from one person at the WMF, who has perhaps a different vision--but which also does not represent Wikipedia policy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:53, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * While you were writing this, I was slowly posting Village pump (policy)! I feared we'd drifted into discussing what policy should be, rather than whether we have policy or guidelines and what understanding has developed so far, and might well have exhausted your patience, so thank you! That VPP discussion might lead to an RFC eventually, but that might go better after some open discussion first.
 * , given your comments here I felt that normal discussion on a single article talk page might not resolve anything and this is, after all, not the policy forum. I've alluded briefly to your stance; if you're not already persuaded by TenOfAllTrades's words here, I hope you'll join that discussion. NebY (talk) 18:18, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree for polarised/sensitive/controversial issues you should not rely too much on the view of one scientist, but almost all videos are about non-sensitive/non-controversial issues, so the scientist just represents the scientific consensus. So videos should be judged on an individual basis (like is also the policy on the Dutch wiki) --PJ Geest (talk) 18:15, 14 June 2022 (UTC)