Africa Growth Project

Module 3:

The Voice of Wikipedia:

Neutral Point of View

Presented by Ashioma Medi

Today’s session

• Check-in
• What is NPOV?
• Achieving NPOV
• Exercises
• Assignment

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Next session:

• Refresher on NPOV
• Review of assignment
• Q&A

Our learning agreements

This course is governed by the Universal Code of Conduct. This means that we agree that each one of us is responsible for their own behaviour, and that it will be founded in respect, civility, collegiality, solidarity and good citizenship. In particular for this training we will:

• Respect our fellow learners by being on time
• Be fully present and avoid distractions
• Be patient with ourselves and with our fellow learners

How are you feeling about the course so far?

Let's check in:

What is a

neutral point of view?

Based on multiple reliable sources, convey information fairly, proportionately, and without bias.

It is an ideal:

Identify the source:

Tiwa Savage is a global singer, performer, dancer and composer par excellence who canʼt stop blessing her teeming fans with her outstanding elegance, charisma and alluring presence on and off stage.

Angelic songstress and influential entertainer, Tiwa Savage is indeed an icon that never stops.

Tiwa Savage is a Nigerian singer, songwriter, and actress who has been called the Queen of Afrobeats. Savage sings in English and Yoruba; her music is a blend of Afrobeats, R&B, afropop, pop and hip-hop. Savage's contributions to the Nigerian music industry have earned her several achievements.

• Which one is from Wikipedia?
• What makes you so sure that's the one from Wikipedia?
• What kind of source is the other one?
• (it is from a press release posted as-is [paid promotion] on the Web site of the newspaper Premium Times of Nigeria.)

Wikipedia's Voice

"Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres, and with a population of over 230 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located."

--[[Nigeria]] on English Wikipedia, Sep 2023

The encyclopedia voice is precious. We must guard it.

Wikipedia's Voice

by the way...

Q: Who is the best football (soccer) player of all time?

What is Wikipedia's answer?

A: Wikipedia doesn't have an opinion.

It's an unencyclopedic question.

So would all football players be described the same way on Wikipedia?

No!

There are ways to convey someone's importance or achievements without promotional language or

grade-giving in Wifiipedia's Voice.

For example:

"Real Madrid [..] former player, Alfredo Di Stéfano, opined: 'The best player ever? Pelé. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are both great players with specific qualities, but Pelé was better'.^[91]" --[[Pelé]

So how do we achieve a Neutral Point of View?

How to achieve NPOV?

• There are many details and nuances, but today we will cover four broad principles:
• Be encyclopedic: fair and accurate.
• Do not take sides.
• Write for the world
• Avoid undue weight

1. Be encyclopedic:

fair and accurate

1. Be encyclopedic

• Avoid stating opinions as facts: Wikipedia's Voice should be reserved for facts.
• Significant opinions and assessments of the article's topic can belong in the article, but only with attribution and an accurate citation.
• Even reliable sources may include bias; we need to at least present them without bias.

1. Be encyclopedic

• Avoid 'puffery' (e.g. 'great', 'iconic', 'legendary', 'celebrated', 'famous', 'renowned', 'cutting-edge'...)
• Avoid emotive language (e.g. 'horrible',

'wonderful', 'exciting')

• Avoid editorializing (e.g. 'surprising', 'obviously', 'unfortunately', 'interestingly')
• Avoid giving grades (e.g. 'best', 'worst')

Example: avoiding 'puffery'

• Peacock example:
• "Bob Dylan is a defining figure of the 1960s counterculture and a brilliant songwriter."
• Removing all puffery:
• "Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter."
• Expressing the importance, with just the facts:
• "Dylan was included in Time's 100: The Most Important People of the Century, in which he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation". By the mid-1970s, his songs had been covered by hundreds of other artists."

(based on [[WP:PEACOCK]])

Example: [[Genocide]]

Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group) in whole or in part. The hybrid word "genocide" is a combination of the Greek word génos("race, people") and the Latin suffix -cide ("act of killing").^[1] The United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".^[2][3]

The term genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe;^[4][5] it has been applied to the Holocaust, and many other mass killings including the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas, the Armenian Genocide, [...], and the Rwandan genocide.^[a]

The Political Instability Task Force estimated that, between 1956 and 2016, a total of forty-three genocides took place, causing the death of about 50 million people. The UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been displaced by such episodes of violence up to 2008.^[6]

1. Be encyclopedic

Avoid unsupported attributions ("weasel words"), e.g. "many say", "it is widely believed", "experts agree", "research has shown".

Public domain, by User:Tkgd2007

1. Be encyclopedic

• Avoid implying doubt or truth when reporting:
• "said", "wrote", "commented", "according to" are neutral
• "clarified", "found out", "exposed", "insisted", "observed", "claimed", "confessed", "admitted", "speculated" are usually not neutral
• But these are okay: "At trial, she confessed to the murder."; "Robert Brown speculated that molecules cause dust to move in water. Einstein later proved it using statistical analysis."

1. Be encyclopedic

• Avoid euphemisms:
• "passed away" (died), "eternal rest" (died), "tied the knot" (married), "collateral damage" (civilian casualties)
• ...and idioms/clichés:
• "tip of the iceberg", "ace up the sleeve", "at the end of the day", "white elephant"

1. Be encyclopedic

• Avoid contentious labels:
• "Cult"
• "Terrorist"
• "Fundamentalist"
• "Extremist"
• "myth"

2. Wikipedia does not take sides:

Describe controversies, don't engage in them

2. Wikipedia does not take sides

• Many things are contentious in this world. Sometimes even the basic facts of a conflict are disputed.
• The Wikipedia way is to transcend the conflict rather than participate in it: to take a step back and describe the different well-sourced points of view.

Example: [[Kashmir]]

Kashmir (IPA: [kaʃmiːr]) is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompasses a larger area that includes the India-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistan-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.

In 1820, the Sikh Empire, under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. In 1846, after the Sikh defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War, and upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, became the new ruler of Kashmir. The rule of his descendants, under the paramountcy (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted until the Partition of India in 1947, when the former princely state of the British Indian Empire became a disputed territory, now administered by three countries: China, India, and Pakistan. [...]

Example: [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]]

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other efforts to resolve the broader Arab–Israeli conflict. Public declarations of claims to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, including the First Zionist Congress of 1897 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, created early tensions in the region after waves of Jewish immigration. Following World War I, the Mandate for Palestine included a binding obligation for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". Tensions grew into open sectarian conflict between Jews and Arabs. The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was never implemented and provoked the 1947–1949 Palestine War. The current Israeli-Palestinian status quo began following Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War, known as the Palestinian territories.

3. Write for the world

3. Write for the world

• Write for a general reader, and do not assume nationality, religion, culture, etc.
• Contextualize! E.g. "According to the Christian gospels, ...", or "in Hausa folklore,

..."

• Avoid relative place/time references ("here", "recently", "last year", "soon", "in this country"). Use concrete, fixed references ("in 2005", "in Ghana").

4. Avoid undue weight

4. Avoid undue weight

• "Some people consider the Earth to be round; others consider it to be flat." -- neutral?
• How about this? -- "Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Most people think that the Earth is spherical, but more and more people are of the opinion that the Earth is actually flat."
• Depth, quantity, placement of detail can all lead to undue weight

4. Avoid undue weight

• Articles should reflect majority views in reliable sources. It's not enough that lots of people believe something:
• E.g. "Although millions of people believe one can contract HIV from kissing, medical science sources all agree HIV is not transmitted by kissing."

4. Avoid undue weight

• Coverage should also be proportional. Over-emphasizing a minor aspect at the expense of adequate coverage of major aspects is non-neutral.
• E.g. this opening paragraph: "Michael Phelps (born June 30, 1985) is an American former competitive swimmer and the most decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals. He has encountered legal trouble on several occasions. At age 19 in November 2004, he was arrested for drunk driving in Salisbury, Maryland. In February 2009, a photograph of Phelps using a bong went viral; this resulted in the loss of the Kellogg Company as a sponsor and a three-month suspension by USA Swimming. In September 2014, he was arrested again, this time on charges of drunk driving and speeding in Baltimore, Maryland."

Neutral point of view

Exercises

1. Neutral or not?

Determine whether each of the following words or phrases is generally neutral (i.e. appropriate for the encyclopedia’s voice) or not:

• Wonderful
• Severe
• Freedom fighter
• Died
• Impressive

• [a ] leading [...]
• groundbreaking
• Interestingly
• Worst
• Evil

1. Neutral or not?

• ... cannot be overstated
• According to Prof. X, ...
• Universal acclaim
• Topped the 2014 US Billboard chart

• Nobel prize winner X
• Opposition leader X
• Eloquent parliamentarian X
• In beautiful Paris
• Colonial-era streets
• Award-winning

2. Rewrites

Rewrite the following sentences to be neutral:

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• "Fela Kuti is the greatest musician from Nigeria. His work met with astounding success over the years, conquering all of west Africa and beyond."
• "Pilate ordered his men to search for Jesus. Unfortunately, Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. He was caught and crucified and died for our sins."

2. Rewrites

Rewrite the following sentences to be neutral:

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• "South Africa breathed a sigh of relief as President Jacob Zuma announced he will be stepping down. At the end of the day, his corruption brought about his downfall."
• "Horrific drought conditions in

illegally-occupied Kashmir threaten to take countless innocent lives."

In conclusion…

In conclusion, remember…

• The encyclopedia doesn't have opinions, likes and dislikes, favorites, or national/religious affiliations.

and...

• Nobody was born naturally composing NPOV prose
• It's a skill: it's learnable, and practice makes

perfect

• Criticism = learning opportunity; appreciate it, learn from it, fix what you can, and do better next time.

Resources

• The main Neutral Point of View policy page
• The NPOV FAQ (questions and answers) page
• A written tutorial page on NPOV
• An NPOV quiz with answers

THANK YOU

Keep in touch!

medi@wikimedia.org.ng

ashiomamedi@gmail.com