Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Catholicism/NPOV


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

The result of the debate was delete. PeterSymonds (talk)  02:27, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Catholicism/NPOV
I believe this is an inappropriate page for this (or any) Wikiproject. Wikiproject Catholicism is aimed at maintaining the pages relating to Catholicism; this page seems, instead, to have the aim of spreading a particular Catholic viewpoint (that of the culture of life) on pages unrelated to Catholicism. (Edited to add:) The page has been substantially edited/vandalised to express the opposite point of view to that originally proposed - I think that this edit is probably the last that reflects the original creator's intentions. My objection is based on the original intention, not on the 'altered' one. TSP (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Npeters22 (talk) 14:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Even in the old version, this was cynical POV pushing in its tone, and there is no place for it here. Mayalld (talk) 14:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete My edits weren't vandalism, just irony about a page that in its intention is contrary to all Wikipedia standards. David Olivier (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Obviously too much subject to vandalism to exist even as originally intended. Student7 (talk) 21:11, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Calling this NPOV is like saying that Romania is a species of lemur. The old version was slightly more NPOV, but still not really neutral. The policy is NPOV, not CPOV, and WikiProject Catholicism doesn't appear to want it either. David, you forgot Orthodox ideas. Bart133 t c @ How's my driving? 23:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't forget Orthodox ideas; I just included them among the heretic ones. David Olivier (talk) 01:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment I've no objection to what is clearly already the consensus here. I'd already concluded that it was going to be, at best, a neglected part of the WikiCatholicism project. I object to the categorization that this is cynical POV pushing as the page was intended. It was not. The idea that one should correct POV on subjects one is passionate about up to NPOV is not inherently a bad one. And, pace Bart133, a hungarian/romanian example. One of the minor heroes irredentist hungarians have is Harry Hill Bandholtz, an american officer who served in the chaotic post WW I days in Budapest. Romanian opinions are rather more negative on Gen. Bandholtz than Hungarian ones. The article when I got there was all about Bandholtz's activities in Budapest. His much longer stint in the Philippines as head of the constabulary and even provincial governor as well as his intervention in the W Virginia mine wars was given very minor coverage, if at all. At this point, the article is much more complete, more balanced. And I didn't include the aggressive stuff, like Gen Bandholtz's implication that he would have liked to have shot some of his Romanian allies, his tendency to cast aspersions on Romanian manhood, or that the statue came back to the streets of Budapest because a Hungarian American US ambassador privately financed the restoration as one more chess move int the long hungarian-romanian peeing match. That would truly have been POV pushing and while technically accurate, probably unfair to Bandholtz.

I had hoped that this soon to be deleted page would provoke not "CPOV" but NPOV. That's obviously not going to happen.

Olivierd's edit (or edits, I didn't bother to go beyond the first) was indeed vandalism, not least because he didn't bother to engage me at all on the subject. Frankly, until I got the deletion notice, I hadn't even noticed the 'contribution'. One would think that the subject of (even the poorest attempt at) irony should at least be alerted. He'll get off scott free as I can't imagine a fit punishment for vandalizing a page about to be deleted altogether or the present wiki admin community imposing it. Let the whole thing go. TMLutas (talk) 01:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment. I suspect the startled comments above are due to failure to read the edit pointed to in the lead paragraph which gives the originating author's intent which were well meant. Reading the vandalized article leads to strange (and erroneous) conclusions.Student7 (talk) 11:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Most of the comments explicitly reference the pre-'vandalism' version, so I think most people have noticed it. (Only one person had posted before I added the note.) I agree that NPOV is a praiseworthy aim; but there's nothing specifically Catholic about NPOV.  I can't see any reason to call in Wikiproject Catholicism if your only aim is to ensure NPOV.  Specifically looking for Catholics to seek out "articles that promote or soft-pedal the culture of death" doesn't seem like the best way to achieve a neutral approach, and seems more likely to result in bias in the opposite direction.  TSP (talk) 12:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There's nothing wrong with organizing Catholics to do an NPOV cleanup on articles that have a POV offensive to Catholic sensibilities. Others seem to disagree. Would they protest if Catholics organize to adopt a highway and cleanup trash or more apropos highway graffiti? What if the graffiti was pro-abortion? What makes participation *as Catholics* in turning POV articles to NPOV a bad idea on Wikipedia other than it gives a too fat target for anti-catholic bigotry? TMLutas (talk) 19:26, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * (In answer to TMLutas above:) (Sorry its a bit off-topic, just a personal rant, can be skipped without harm.) Call my edits vandalism if you want. They were in fact practical comments on a page that quite evidently was inappropriate, and insulting too. It was insulting because there are Wikipedians who believe in all those things that you call “the culture of death” — such as Darwinism, animal equality, the right to choose to have an abortion, the right to decide that one's own life is no longer worth living, and a few other things; and who are insulted when you call their benevolent opinions a culture of death. I happen to be one of those Wikipedians that you have insulted that way, on that page and elsewhere; and you will certainly get off scott free for that. David Olivier (talk) 13:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh please, let's not skip over things when the mask slips. There is something called the culture of death. It is a fit topic for Wikipedia, though now that I've brought it to your attention, I would not be surprised to see it up for deletion soon by you or like minded editors. Like all other ideological topics, one can be POV or NPOV about it and advocates and opponents do struggle over such pages. This is a general fact of life and mature editors put aside their passions for the sake of the project and try to improve the article as best they can even as they emphasize development of the parts they like.


 * Darwinism, as an evidentiary description of the reality of how we got here is not actually part of the culture of death. Darwinism, as applied by Pol Pot, Mao, Adolph Hitler, Stalin, 19th and early 20th century US eugenics judges who ordered forced sterilization, etc. absolutely are. This is not a criticism of Darwinism per se, merely a recognition that the term is overloaded and if one does not take care to differentiate between the different ways Darwin's work has been used, you descend into slander. That's as true of those who mix in the forced sterilization crowd with honest, moral, mainstream biologists as it is true for those who misstate the Catholic Church's criticism of the former with criticism of the latter. It is a shameful act in both cases. TMLutas (talk) 19:26, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * (In answer to TMLutas and others above) The page would probably be acceptable if it were changed from a project to add the Catholic point of view to articles into a project aiming to improve neutrality in Catholicism-related articles. The page is currently too close to an anti-NPOV project, though. NPOV isn't removing comments about non-Catholic points of view; it's covering both Catholic and non-Catholic points of view on equal terms. Bart133 t c @ How's my driving? 22:36, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * What a catholicism related article is could be a problem. Another problem is your characterization of the page does not match what was on the page. I never advocated the one-sided removal of information. I advocated the restoration of NPOV specifically focused on articles that had drifted into POV in a culture of death way. TMLutas (talk) 19:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not always clear cut; but I think that my problem was that the page didn't seem to relate at all to Catholic subject areas; it wasn't, for example, seeking articles which had inadequate or inaccurate information on the Roman Catholic Church. Instead it seemed to be concentrating on making sure that Catholic-influenced views were expressed on pages with no obvious relationship to Catholicism, which I don't think is the best way to promote NPOV.  None of the page entries mentioned their coverage of Catholicism - but rather that they seemed to express views incompatible with Catholic Church teachings.  NPOV is of course laudable; but there seems no neutral reason to want to specifically attract Catholic editors to these pages.  NPOV should be ensured by making sure that the sources are reflected accurately and neutrally; not by attempting to attract editors with personal views opposite to those you feel the current bias favours.
 * It also concerned me that "culture of death" is in itself a phrase very indicative of a particular point of view - consider how you would view it if a Protestant Wikiproject had a page "Restoring NPOV on articles that promote or soft-pedal Papism" or similar. TSP (talk) 20:08, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd likely cock an eyebrow and smile. There are 18 references to papism in en-wikipedia (something I hadn't bothered to check until your post piqued my curiosity) and though I don't have the time to go through them all, all that I did skim over dealt with the term appropriately. I was not offended. One thing that has not been brought up is whether I would tone down promotion of Catholicism that was POV so let me take the opportunity to be proactive. I would attempt to salvage what was useful and reform it in a way that would be NPOV and would thus survive less sympathetic scrutiny by other editors. In the approximately 5 years I've worked on this project, I suspect that I have though who keeps track of that sort of thing? TMLutas (talk) 22:18, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete I suspect the whole thing was just a joke. Gavin Scott (talk) 20:17, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that TMLutas has now put the page back into his original version. I think that only mixes things up even more, but I refrain from reverting him.


 * Since the objection was to the original version and not your edits, why this makes things mixed up escapes me. Since the tag specifically allows for further edits I don't see the problem. The page is likely going anyway. All that's being discussed here is the justification for it. Is it too provocative to the anti-catholics or is there something inherently wrong with affinity groups going through pages as members of that affinity group and trying to correct NPOV violations that especially offend the affinity group's ideas, mores, and/or standards? TMLutas (talk) 22:18, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Now a short response to his “mask slips” prose above. That expression is quite characteristic; it means that those who disagree with him are wearing a mask. We're the Devil, eh? We're trying to propagate Death, under a mask? Can't you accept, TMLutas, that despite our differences in opinion with you, we too are well-meaning people? That those who believe in abortion or euthanasia rights, or Peter “Lucifer” Singer Himself, are honestly trying to determine what they believe to be right, to the best of their knowledge and efforts? We come to different conclusions than you, but I accept that you are a good-willing person, however deluded and misguided I may feel you are. Couln't you do the same? Do you have to demonize those who disagree with your worldview?


 * You know, I sometimes have trouble remaining neutral in describing advocacy of infanticide. I do try, for the sake of the project, not to let that get in the way of providing an accurate NPOV edit here and there in such articles. Like everybody else, sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail in being fair to a subject that I'm personally opposed to. Pope JP II tagged you guys with the culture of death thing as he (in his opinion) detected a common thread in a wide range of phenomena. That's a descriptive label that you could possibly oppose by saying "the appropriate, non-pejorative label for this group is" and then give an alternative label. But you don't do that. You just don't want to be grouped in with those other guys or some of those guys. You either don't see the connection or you don't like to admit the connection and so you complain about the label. I sometimes annoy my pro-life friends when I use the term pro-life and pro-choice. I think that using the pejorative anti-life label gets in the way of discussion so I don't use it. But I don't have an alternative to "culture of death". You haven't provided one either. Either please do or admit you're being obscurantist so I can give your further complaints on the subject the short shrift they would then deserve. TMLutas (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Note too that it follows from the definition given on your culture of death page (the 3rd definition, which is the relevant one here) that anyone who does not believe in the culture of life is part of the culture of death. And the culture of life is in turn defined by believing human life to be sacred. Thus anyone who is non-religious — and thus doesn't believe in things being sacred — is part of the culture of death as you define it. Your definition is slanderous towards all people who are not religious. That is what you call being NPOV — I don't see how you can get more biased, and intolerant, than that. Yes, I think those two pages should go too, or be deeply rewritten. But I'm not going to put myself to the task, I have more important things to do right now.
 * David Olivier (talk) 21:35, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the article on the culture of death is not to be relied on currently. It's been slightly improved after a couple of minor edits that I did after I discovered it but it really could use work. In fact, further development of the concepts of the culture of life or the culture of death and examining the border conditions between the two is probably going to engage a number of scholars for centuries. See the Principle of double effect for one of the gray zones that have been somewhat fleshed out. What a US bishop and a US medical doctor consider abortion do not necessarily have a 100% overlap. It very often is a 98% overlap and that differing 2% causes a lot of misunderstandings.


 * One can certainly hold certain things sacred without believing in God. Some of the irreligious have held the US Constitution sacred. See Civil religion for an example of why the sacred is not the exclusive province of theism. TMLutas (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2008 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.