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A clause in Steele dossier about its role for the ICA assessment

The suggestion is: in Steele dossier, remove it played no role in the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment of the Russian actions in the 2016 election,[38][39][40] and from the lead. PapayaSF first complained about the clause in thread Semi-protected edit request on 1 August 2025. I supported removal in thread Dossier role for the ICA assessment, Valjean opposed, and added attribution.

My argument and sources are in the "Dossier role for the ICA assessment" thread in my post that starts with the words "Actually I didn't create this new thread but okay ...". The sources indicate that the intelligence community assessment (ICA) in fact contains a summary of the Steele dossier as an appendix, and that there is a reference to the appendix in the body, as post-2017 declassifications show. So it's one-sided to partial-quote only the old claims that it played no role.

I'm not suggesting adding the information and cites (gov docs + New York Times) for "balance" because adding requires consensus per WP:ONUS and/or WP:BLP. For removal, no-consensus will do. Therefore the suggestion is only to remove the clause, and the attribution.

Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:52, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

• I hope someone else can make sense of this effort by Peter. I have made FIVE requests on Talk:Steele dossier to no avail. He refuses to explain himself there and has just decided to open a thread here, which is a breach of conduct as we should first try to figure things out on the article's talk page. This is an unnecessary escalation of a content disagreement.

If I understand his meaning (and because he won't explain himself, I could be wrong), it appears he thinks "played no role" means "no mention of the dossier in the ICA assessement", which is false. The intelligence chiefs are saying they did not "use the dossier as an evidence base" for making assessments about the Russian election interference. In fact, they didn't because they had enough evidence from their own vetted sources. At that time, the dossier's sources were not all vetted, and when Trump came into office, all efforts by the FBI to vet sources was blocked. End of story. That's why we still don't know much about the dossier's sources.

So the CIA and FBI had enough of their own vettede sources (that, BTW, happened to agree with the dossier's most important claims) to make an assessment, but because the dossier was already known by them and under evaluation, they had to mention it. That did not mean it "played a role". The FBI and CIA and intelligence chiefs have all denied using the dossier for evidentiary/assessment purposes, IOW it "played no role" for that purpose. Here is the current content Peter disputes:

... according to James Clapper, John Brennan, and Robert S. Litt, it "played no role" in the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment of the Russian actions in the 2016 election, and it was not used to "support any of its analytic judgments".

That content is accurate and attributed, so I don't understand the problem. Hopefully Peter will finally explain himself. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:57, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Do we have more recent sources that say it did play a part? If yes, I would go with the more recent sources since a lot more information has been released about the report since those articles were released. From what I've heard it seems like it may have played an indirect role and it would be interesting to see what newer sources say. Springee (talk) 22:24, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's a legitimate point. I asked for more recent sources that were reliable. There are recent, very official DOJ attempts to rewrite history, all with strong, conspiratorial, and accusatorial language, but no good evidence. It's the same BS we have seen ever since Trump came into office the first time, IOW using lies to control the narrative and deny uncomfortable facts. Trump will never stop with those efforts. Roy Cohn trained him well. He uses the Big Lie technique, IOW repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat the same lies until MAGA believes them and all right-wing media report nothing but them. Now he's even shutting down mainstream media and getting any critics fired. The control will soon be complete.

We're in a strange situation where the government, and soon all information in the country, is now controlled by MAGA, which means we can't accept government documents as truly "reliable" sources, but we must document what they say because they are official sources. We cannot take what they say at face value because of their dishonest agenda. So far, independent secondary RS have been pushing back and exposing the lies, and they are sources we can use and trust. Wikipedia must not be used to whitewash history. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:56, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes that's a legitimate point. The dossier summary ("Annex A") was released in declassified form in June 2020. copied here. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence report was declassified in July 2025. I cited the New York Times about this. But the gov doc is longer. Samples: Oversight investigation and referral 18 September 2020: "Contradicting public claims by the DCIA that the dossier "was not in any way" incorporated into the ICA, the dossier was referenced in the main body text, and further detailed in a two-page ICA annex (see box "Fourth Bullet"). .. By devoting nearly two pages of ICA text to summarizing the dossier in a high-profile assessment intended for the President and President-elect, the ICA misrepresented both the significance and credibility of the dossier reports. The ICA referred to the dossier as "Russian plans and intentions," falsely implying to high-level US policymakers that the dossier had intelligence value for understanding Moscow's influence operations. ... By relegating the dossier text to only the highest classified version of the ICA, the authors were better able to shield the assessment from scrutiny, since accesses to that ICA version was so limited. ... Ultimately, the decision of how to handle the dossier was jointly made by the directors of CIA and FBI, who overruled the objections from CIA officers, and agreed to reference it with other text bullets describing Putin's intentions, while placing the details of the dossier in the ICA Appendix A, according to senior CIA officials. The ICA misleadingly described the dossier as coming from "an FBI source." But Mr. Steele was not an FBI source as he had already been fired two months before the ICA was published for lying to the Bureau, critical information that should have been clarified. ... The people quoted in 2017 could not have been checked at the time because this was classified, so I'd say these later quotes are better. NB, however, I'm not saying they're non-partisan and I'm not saying they have to go in the article, I'm only showing more evidence that the old claims are contradicted. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:33, 15 September 2025 (UTC) PS: I'll be off Wikipedia till next Monday. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 02:13, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

You realise that the quoted text is 100% consistent with the statements of Brennan, Clapper et al., right? It played no role, but had to be mentioned. "Referenced" does not mean they included anything from it. They namechecked it, because it was one of the many elephants in the room, but they had their own, much more detailed information to draw on. Exactly as Brennan et. al stated.

Also of relevance: Trump tried to sue Steele in London using English privacy law (because English libel law is no longer broken, following the Defamation Act, 2013), and failed. None of this can be viewed in isolation from the documented fact that the Trump regime, and its captive media, have consistently tried to pretend that the sole source of the idea that Russia interfered in 2016, was Steele., That is simply not true. There is simply no way that serious people would have used a private oppo research document, even one wriotten by someone with Steele's intelligence background, as the source of anything. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:56, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

• Those are primary sources. For something controversial like this, where large numbers of high-quality secondary sources have weighed in, we absolutely should not be drawing any conclusions from them ourselves. --Aquillion (talk) 15:38, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
• The deceptiveness of the current DOJ is evident in this quote from a primary source: "Contradicting public claims by the DCIA that the dossier "was not in any way" incorporated into the ICA... That is cited above by Peter, who says, "These later quotes are better." No, they are not. They are straw man lies. The Director of the CIA never made such a claim. Former CIA Director John Brennan said in 2017 that the Steele dossier "was not in any way used as a basis for the intelligence community assessment that was done." Nothing has shown that to be false. That is what happened, it's a fact, and he did not lie.

The current DOJ is carrying water for Trump and Putin. They are pushing a conspiracy theory that Factcheck.org picks apart:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claims to have uncovered “overwhelming evidence” that former President Barack Obama and others in his administration manipulated intelligence to “lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.” But the foundation for her case is misleading.

Gabbard’s claim relies heavily on an alleged contradiction between a Jan. 6, 2017, intelligence assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an “influence campaign” in an attempt to help elect Donald Trump and earlier intelligence assessments that concluded Russia did not successfully use cyberattacks on election infrastructure in the 2016 election. But those two assessments are not in contradiction.

“No one ever claimed Russia altered votes, but everyone claims that Russia tried to interfere on Trump’s behalf,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a video message posted on X on July 21. That interference was “well documented” and “well vetted” not only by the Intelligence Community but also by a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee and as part of then special counsel Robert S. Mueller’s report, he said. [Source: Factcheck.org ]

These people are political liars trying to deceive the public, and gullible editors here are carrying their water. Gabbard uses words like: "an Obama administration “conspiracy ... “treasonous conspiracy” and a “yearslong coup” ... seditious conspiracy" Factcheck.org counters with: "But Gabbard’s claim of a “treasonous conspiracy” distorts the facts and relies on a nonexistent contradiction in the 2017 intelligence assessment.

We should not lend credence to conspiracy theories here. We should not attempt to remove (the reason for this thread) properly sourced content that is factual. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:07, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

• It's incredible that nearly nine years later people are still trying to rewrite the history of the 2016 election. The fact is that the ICA did not use the Steele dossier as the basis for anything substantive, because it was rooted in opposition research and because they have way better sources of their own. The Truth™ is that the Russia-Russia-Russia-Hoax was 100% based on the Steele dossier which was once seen by Hillary and is therefore the work of Satan, personally, and this renders the entire Russia-Russia-Russia-Hoax false, null, void, it never happened, nothing to see here. Meanwhile, lifelong Republican, decorated veteran and former CIA director Robert S. Mueller III laid out the evidence of the Trump campaign's willingness to benefit from Russia's documented interference in the 2016 election, and every credible source supports the fact that it happened. Most conclude it wasn't decisive, but only because it is outweighed by the cumulative effect of Comey and Bannon.

All this should be viewed as of a piece with Trump's relentless attempts to rewrite all of history in his favour, especially the 2020 election which he lost, and to use the full force of the Federal government to punish anyone who dissents.

Wordsmithing the exact extent to which the ICA ignored the Steele dossier belongs on the Talk page, not here. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:41, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, there seems to be a conflation of "included or not included in Annex A and its existence mentioned in the assessment" with "it 'played no role' in making assessments and was not used to 'support any of its analytic judgments'."

That is a deliberate and deceptive conflation made by the DOJ, and it's not a new one. Such deliberate conflations have been made for years, such as conflating "conspiracy" with "collusion", and because "conspiracy" was not proven, claims are made that there was "no collusion", which is a nonsensical claim with no evidence for it and lots of evidence against it. In fact, there is some evidence of conspiracy, going all the way back to 2013 when Trump discussed his election plans with Russians and they publicly promised to help him.

If I were to take apart, line-for-line, all that green block of text (it lights up with multiple red flags), multiple deceptions could be mentioned, some of them of the straw man type, but let's just focus on this one conflation and see what Peter means. What is his real point? This is a conflation that needs sorting out.

Do any RS show that the dossier was actually used to make "analytic judgments" and "assessments", or do we accept what RS have always said? They said it was not used for that purpose because it was not yet vetted and because the FBI and CIA had their own sources that were vetted. Those sources just happened to confirm some of the major allegations in the dossier, giving the FBI more confidence in it and making them take it seriously, so seriously that Obama and Trump were alerted to its claims. It was not made up, a hoax, or a fiction. Those are Trump's lies. The dossier was what it claimed to be, raw intelligence that needed to be vetted. The dossier made claims six months before the FBI, some of them described as "prescient" because no one else knew or said those claims at the time, but the dossier's sources knew. The dossier was proven correct on those important points. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:46, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Correct. And we know the ideology that drives the deliberate conflation of inclusion and reliance. And we should give it exactly no consiederation. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:36, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Read the first sentence in this thread. It's not about analytic judgments (the words and it was not used to "support any of its analytic judgments" come after the role clause), nor is it about Satan or prescience or whistleblowing etc. The ICA report contains a summary of the Steele dossier and refers to it. The suggestion is to remove from the lead a clause that suggests otherwise. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:16, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

• @Peter Gulutzan: - unfortunately the Trump administration is far from trustworthy. The Federalist is a generally unreliable source per WP:RSP. Do you have any reliable secondary sources reporting that the Steele dossier played a significant role in the ICA? starship.paint (talk / cont) 14:17, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Read the first sentence in this thread, it's about "role" and your added word "significant" would require a judgment about that word's meaning. I did not suggest adding something citing The Federalist, I said their article was correct about semi-protection of Wikipedia's Steele dossier article. In thread Dossier role for the ICA assessment in my 18 August 2025 post I quoted a gov doc (a press release by the Director of National Intelligence) and The New York Times -- it's the quote in green. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:36, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Peter, you seem to be trying to make some sort of weird "point" out of old knowledge, a point that means nothing. We have known for years that there is a summary of the dossier in Annex A, and that it is mentioned in the assessment. So what? If you are surprised by this "new revelation" from unreliable DOJ officials, you haven't been following along with what everyone else has known for years.

Your effort seems to only find backing in unreliable MAGA sources that try to gin up a controversy where there is none. It's just part of Trump's deceptive efforts to undermine the dossier with his lies about it. The statement about "no role" is factual, properly sourced, and backed up by myriad RS (we don't usually remove such comments), and whatever "role" the dossier could have played (in the actual "assessing" made to create that whole ICA document) is what's important.

If the FBI had used it to alter their assessment, that would be an important fact we would document. Instead, it played "no role" because the FBI used their own sources to help shape their conclusions, and those sourced just happened to back up what Steele's sources had reported. Duh! That's the way evidence and facts work. If something is true, then multiple, independent, witnesses will affirm it is true. Yet again, important dossier assertions were proved to be true.

You're trying to create some point that means nothing except as a dot in a false conspiracy theory from unreliable sources that should not be pushed here. Use only RS. If you have something from them, then please present those sources here.

Also, keep your comments above the reftalk code. We don't want references interfering with the flow of comments, and that applies to potential references that might get added after this time. This is pretty standard practice, so your constant and uncollegial refusal to place your comments in the natural flow of the discussion is not appreciated. Proper threading is a behavioral guideline you are violating yet again. Just stop it. If you won't do that, then start a new thread where you can place your comment first when you start it. That's okay. After that, follow proper threading procedure. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:56, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Peter, instead of removing the "no role" statement, maybe you should try another approach. Should some wording be added? Should we document this deceptive DOD attempt to change the narrative? Maybe so. There are plenty of RS that mention and debunk this attempt and frame it in more accurate mainstream ways. As this complaint and wordings are coming from unreliable sources, it has no due weight, and that's a major reason it has not been mentioned yet, but when enough RS mention it, it may have enough due weight now to deserve mention. We do document false conspiracy theories here all the time. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:02, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

• As I said above, as far as I can discern from your arguments above, you're saying you want to change the article text based on your personal reading of primary sources. That's not appropriate; primary sources (including congressional records and similar government documents) cannot be used in ways that draw conclusions from them. If you want to dispute the article's statement that it played no role in the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment of the Russian actions in the 2016 election, which is sourced to high-quality secondary sources, you will need secondary sources of comparable quality and weight that directly contradicts that statement, not just your personal readings of the primary sources. And even with such sourcing you wouldn't be able to remove it entirely - at best that would make it a dispute which we would have to discuss and characterize. --Aquillion (talk) 15:38, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Well, all us non-bots do "personal" reading, but (ignoring that I cited New York Times twice) government documents such as CIA + House Committee commented about what's not being denied here, that the original government document -- the ICA -- referenced and took from the dossier. Dismissing all gov docs is like saying "the ICA is not a reliable source for saying what's in the ICA." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:27, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

"referenced and took from the dossier" is not denied because it's something that has been known for years. It's a non-issue as it is unrelated to the fact under dispute, that the dossier was not used in the analysis aspect of the ICA assessment. Other sources were used for that. The dossier was only mentioned (nothing wrong with that), and to avoid accusations (as it was well-known), it was summarized in Annex A.

It was not used to "support any of its analytic judgments", and that's what you are disputing. You have not presented reliable secondary sources that dispute our properly-sourced content. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:50, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Valjean has hatted a discussion that I referred to in my first post, and archived the talk page. So now to see the discussions one should click Semi-protected edit request on 1 August 2025 and Dossier role for the ICA assessment then click "Show". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, to avoid discussing this in multiple locations, that seemed the best thing to do. I only did that after you repeatedly (at least FIVE!! times) refused to clarify yourself, leaving the discussion with no basis for continuation. Dead discussions get archived. That is standard practice. In this case, you abandoned the talk page and improperly started this thread. I clearly advised and explained to you using these words:

You have been pinged, and if you refuse to reply promptly (I'll keep an eye on your activity), I will archive this thread as a disruptive waste of our time. I suggest you make this your top priority here. If it's not, then you should have no objections to an archiving.

No objections were forthcoming, so I followed through:

As advised above, because of the lack of response here, and then the starting of an improper discussion at ANI (rather than here), this thread will be archived now.

Since you improperly chose to use this venue and abandoned the article's talk page, I chose to respect your choice. What else should I have done? That seemed to be the least disruptive way to deal with your bizarre behavior.

Now that you are back here, why don't you just continue here and concede that you are mistaken? Your efforts are based on lies from this administration, conspiracy theories from the DOJ, and unreliable sources.

(Also, yet again, you fail to respect our standard practice of keeping references at the bottom of the thread so they do not interrupt the flow of discussion. I have NOT moved your comment, but (per WP:REFACTOR) moved the instructions and reftalk code back to the bottom where they belong. Try being collegial for once and follow the instructions. It's really not hard to do. Deliberately acting in an uncollegial manner after so many warnings is disruptive.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:48, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

For more information about the deceptive nature of the current DOJ and the HPSCI report about the Steele dossier, read this excellent analysis by Marcy Wheeler. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:37, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Valjean's conduct accusations don't belong anywhere but WP:ANI, I ignore them. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing others acknowledge that the dossier excerpt's inclusion in the ICA report is arguably a role. If that doesn't happen, I acknowledge that this attempt to get NPOV notice fails for now. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:40, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

References

Should infoboxes of Ukrainian cities occupied by Russia say they are "de facto" part of Russia?

See example of Mariupol Raion, where Ukraine is listed as "de jure" (based on their constitution), but Russia is listed as "de facto" (based on the fact they control the region).

The dispute is taking place on the Mariupol article, among others.

Please see related discussions: here and here. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 06:42, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 06:54, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

No. They are not part of Russia unless they are ceded by Ukraine in a peace agreement. In the meantime they are Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Occupying territory does not make it belong to the occupying power in any legal respect, including de facto. This is a very straightforward aspect of international law. It could be mentioned that Russia claims them, but not that they are Russian territory. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:13, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Well claims is definitely the wrong word to use. Claims is normally used for territories which are "claimed" or said to be a part of country A by country A but for which country A has no control over. The Philippines still (I think) claims most of Sabah (and indeed there's an infobox about this in our article) but Sabah is not de facto part of the Philippines so the situations are not at all comparable. And de facto has nothing to with any legal respect. The whole point of defacto is it is ignoring legal aspects & is solely looking at what the actual situation is like not what it's well recognised it should be like. Nil Einne (talk) 08:09, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

De facto isn't really a legal thing it's more about who who controls the land. GothicGolem29 (talk) 12:27, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

De facto makes sense. Wikipedia looks stupid if we ignore the reality on the ground. Per WP:RGW our articles need to reflect the reality and if some area is fully controlled or almost fully controlled by Russia our articles need to reflect this. And de facto is the standard way to reflect this which says zero about any legalities of the situation simply what the actual situation is. Nil Einne (talk) 08:05, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

I'd add I'm open to alternative proposals like the infobox saying occupied. But we definitely have to do something to reflect the reality of the current situation and claims is definitely not it. And we should remember de facto has nothing to do with any legalities or recognition but simple what the actual situation is like. Nil Einne (talk) 08:12, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

No, they are not "de facto part of Russia", they are occupied, so call them that "Occupied by Russia". Slatersteven (talk) 12:29, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

i support this—blindlynx 21:01, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Do reliable sources state they are de facto part of Russia? Do other sources deny it? What do the best sources say? And that’s it. Unsourced content doesn’t belong in an encyclopaedia, and the infobox is for showing key facts that appear in the article body. Cambial — foliar❧ 12:36, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

We use "de facto" for places like Famagusta which has been occupied by Turkey for a long time and "controlled" for Afrin, Syria which has been occupied for a shorter time, so I think these are legitimate options. Alaexis_¿question? 12:39, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

The measure of legitimacy on this website is whether content is directly supported by reliable secondary sources. Is this? Cambial — foliar❧ 12:44, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

The term "control" and its derivatives are indeed used by RS for the occupied territories

As of September 1, 2022 Russia controls the entire Ukrainian shore of the Sea of Azov, and most of the Ukrainian Black Sea ports in Oblhod. However, Ukraine maintains its control over the main Black Sea ports in Odessa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi as well as a port in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi in the Dniester Estuary, and the ports of Izmail and Reni in the Danube Delta. The port of Mykolaiv is under Ukrainian control, though it can't be operated due to the Russian troops on the Kinburn Peninsula.

The Russians took full control of Mariupol in May.

Alaexis_¿question? 15:00, 20 September 2025 (UTC) Alaexis_¿question? 15:00, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

The fact that the location is under Russian control is already cited in the article to the NYT, Guardian and others. It's of no relevance. The parameter proposed was the "subdivision" parameter. As per the template, it's for the country of which the settlement is a subdivision (or part). So to support such a statement (which ought to go in the article body first), secondary sources need to directly support the notion that the subject is a subdivision or part of Russia, de facto or otherwise. Cambial — foliar❧ 15:50, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Well, it would be trivial to find a source produced by the Russian government that describes the administrative division of the occupied territories. Such an official source would be reliable for the viewpoint of the Russian government.

There are also other sources that are critical of Russia but say that Mariupol was annexed as part of DNR, for example this Meduza article [1] which is, again, highly critical of Russia and shows the destruction due to the siege. Alaexis_¿question? 12:41, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

A source produced by the Russian government is not a reliable source. We are discussing facts here, not the aspirations of the Kremlin.

That's not exactly a mainstream source, is it. It's quite easy to find scholarship that states that Crimea is de facto part of Russia (I mean, it became a popular Russian tourist destination..). That kind of sourcing does not exist for Mariupol and other areas, and for obvious reasons. Cambial — foliar❧ 13:25, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't see much difference between Crimea and Mariupol and I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "obvious reasons." Alaexis_¿question? 08:25, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

What you see is not relevant: what matters is what the sources state. We still have no reliable secondary sources that state these regions, such as Mariupol, are part of Russia. Cambial — foliar❧ 08:33, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

That article also refers to the Ukrainians as the 'legitimate authority' of Mariupol—blindlynx 21:00, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

No, they are not part of Russia until such time that there is some sort of peace agreement, or international treaty. Until that time Russia is illegally occupying the territory of a sovereign nation state. TarnishedPath^talk 13:24, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

After looking at sources, it seems that "control" and "de facto part of Russia" are two different things:

• The US President's special envoy added that they then would go back to what they call de facto or de jure. He explained that de facto means physically occupying the territory, and that the Russian occupiers are not going anywhere from it, but de jure does not mean completely annexing it or giving it to Russia as part of its territory. He emphasized that these are the discussions that need to take place. [2]
• [Rutte] quote: "When it comes to this whole issue of territory, when it comes to acknowledging, for example, maybe in a future deal that Russia is controlling de facto, factually some of the territory of Ukraine, it has to be effectual recognition, and not a political de jure recognition." [3]
• The U.S. has privately floated the possibility of Ukraine accepting the de facto loss of some of its territories—especially Crimea—as part of a ceasefire or peace proposal with Russia during negotiations in London, UK [4]

It looks to me as though "de facto" status requires acknowledgement or recognition, which might be part of a future peace deal. So having "de facto" in the infobox is not appropriate, per WP:CRYSTALBALL.

On the other hand, sources do say "control", so that could be included in the infobox, like it is in the Afrin, Syria article where "Control" is used as an infobox parameter. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 16:38, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

To add, I'd also support it saying "Occupied by", if the infobox parameters allow for it. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 16:41, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

To my mind what that’s saying is we all know Russia does de facto control the territory but countries are pretending they don't for political reasons. In particular the US privately acknowledges the territories are de facto Russian since it's the reality of the situation they're just publicly not willing to say what's actually true since they're holding off recognising reality for political reasons. Note the text you quoted doesn't say they will become de facto Russian territories but rather they already are. I don’t see why we would do such things as a reality based encyclopaedia who doesn't hide reality because it's not what we want it to be or for other reasons. IMO instead we should follow what sources say which is that they are currently de facto Russia regardless of who wants to pretend they aren't. for political reasons. We can of course mention countries denying reality in the article.We should of vourse also mention that everyone agrees they should not be part of Russia but that part has never been in dispute or question.. Nil Einne (talk) 09:51, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Franco (ok) 2600:1012:B37D:9D6E:C175:9569:5F6:98FA (talk) 20:32, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

The occupied territories are de facto controlled and administered by Russia, that a statement of fact we should reflect. Also a statement of fact we should reflect is that the attempted annexation has received negligible foreign support or acceptance. Whether someone interprets that to mean "part of" is up to them and their particular interpretations of vocabulary. The replies above suggest mostly disagreeing on that vocabulary, however the infobox at Mariupol Raion does not contain "part of", so the question could perhaps be framed in clearer wording. The whole thing gets a bit WP:DISINFOBOX, but showing both claimed and controlling powers for disputed territories is a common practice on en.wiki that predates the Russia-Ukraine war. CMD (talk) 11:22, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

You struck at the heart of the issue: controlled by ≠ part of. They're not synonyms. "Control" is a reasonable synonym of "govern", though. A statement about Russian de facto control could reasonably be used in the Government_type or Government_body parameters. I note that the de facto and de jure mayors are already indicated. Cambial — foliar❧ 13:25, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your reasoning. Occupied territories are de facto controlled and administered by Russia. Benzekre (talk) 16:51, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Occupied would be a better term here and more easily supported by reliable secondary sources. When it comes to contested details govermental sources are better used with attribution in the articles body, where they can be put in context. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

OK, as its so easy find one RS that says they are part of Russia. Slatersteven (talk) 12:45, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

• I think not the right word choice -- it kind of fails WP:V, WP:DUE, and goes against logic and precedents to phrase it like that. Individual cities are not the level of claims by Russia or denial by Ukraine and the UN, Russia does not seem to be administering the cities in any meaningful way, and they seem more just occupied areas - in some cases rubble zones - that are no longer cities at all in the sense of inhabited and functional or have any Russians present other than soldiers. For consideration as precedent, cities were occupied in WW II -- by the Germans and then Russians or British ... they did not get referred to as 'German cities' then 'British cities'. And where the North Koreans are deployed, they would not change it to a 'North Korean city'. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:29, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

References

Talk:History of slavery in the Muslim world#Chattel slavery

Extended discussion

I want to flag this discussion. I think that there is an NPOV problem with removing all instances of the word "chattel" from the history of slavery in the Islamic world when at least some sources use that term to describe it. Am I off-base here? Andre🚐 17:52, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

There is indeed an NPOV problem with sticking the word "chattel" everywhere, regardless of the claim and what the sources say about it (please refer to my initial response as well as my response to the sources that they cited). They even cherry picked the word "chattel" (out of context) from this source to justify what they think is the correct approach. M.Bitton (talk) 18:53, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

That source is by a historian and published under Oxford Islamic Studies, and states: Islamic Africa chattel slavery, mainly female, was more common. How isn't that relevant at least for an attributed mention about slavery in the Muslim world? Also, I already said during the discussion that I was ok to mention it differently than it was mentioned in the prior edit as long as we mention it somehow. Andre🚐 18:55, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Since there is no point in me repeating what I said (emphasis en "everywhere", "unsourced" and "cherry picking"), I'll just await input from uninvolved editors. M.Bitton (talk) 19:26, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't see how the given sources are cherry-picked given that two of the authors are already used in the article (Freamon and Marmon) and are well-credentialed and well-published with sources specifically dealing with this topic. Marmon in particular[5] are you claiming she is unreliable? She specializes in this topic and is a tenured faculty member of Princeton, and the article already cites Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society and Slavery in the Islamic Middle East. On page 2 and 5 of her other book, Slavery in the Islamic Middle East, she clearly refers to Islamic slavery as chattel slavery contra your claim that it is not. Again, I am open to compromise on specific wording and attribution. Andre🚐 19:36, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

are you claiming.. please don't do that again. M.Bitton (talk) 20:06, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

So you are agreeing that Marmon is reliable for the claim, or not? Earlier you said, The second says many things, including that in Islam, all humans are slaves (chattel slaves according to the author). That is a misread, but also, you still didn't answer if she is reliable or not. Andre🚐 20:16, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I didn't come to this board to persuade you (we're past that). M.Bitton (talk) 20:19, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm open to changing my view, but so far you've not provided a single source about Islamic slavery that says it is not chattel slavery. Andre🚐 20:24, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

in case it is unclear, Marmon is simply discussing the theological view laid out and attributed to Ibn Manzur. Andre🚐 21:15, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

The entry on Slavery of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought (edited by Gerhard Böwering and published by Princeton University Press) starts with Chattel slavery was a well-established reality of political, legal and social life of Pre-Islamic world. The advent of Islam did not change this.... Considering the other sources mentioned in the discussions, it seems like this view is held by many scholars. It doesn't mean that "chattel" should be appended to "slavery" every time but its removal isn't warranted. Alaexis_¿question? 19:47, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't mean that "chattel" should be appended to "slavery" every time exactly (context and sourced statement are what matters). Hence, what I said in my initial comment. Take the Slavery in ancient Rome article as an example: the word chattel is mentioned there three times and in context. M.Bitton (talk) 20:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I said several times I was open to negotiating specific wording, but you hand-waved away all the sources and claimed that Islamic slavery is not chattel slavery. If we can agree it at least is sometimes described that way we can workshop how to use the sources in the article and which places to work them into, but as we don't have broad agreement that chattel should be mentioned and you've rejected the apparently reliable sources, I brought it to this noticeboard to get other opinions. If you are willing to change or clarify your position vis chattel, that would help I think. Andre🚐 20:15, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

What I said is written in black and white (it doesn't need an interpretation, much less an inaccurate one). 20:23, 5 October 2025 (UTC) M.Bitton (talk) 20:23, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

In my view few things are black and white. There is often nuance and shades of gray. As you've staked out an intransigent position on the far end of what the article should say, that is why your view for what the article should say has NPOV issues. NPOV means a well-balanced, well-rounded viewpoint. But I hope you will acquiesce if the consensus is that chattel should be mentioned. Andre🚐 20:25, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Per above comment. M.Bitton (talk) 20:27, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Generally concur with what Alaexis said above. The word chattel should be used when relevant and supported by a reliable source. In my opinion it’s POV and probably OR to invoke “Islamic slavery” as a single institution that invariably is, or invariably is not, chattel slavery. Put simply, it needs to be decided case-by-case. —Rutebega (talk) 15:04, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

That's exactly what I said, while highlighting how it's done in similar articles (I gave Slavery in ancient Rome as an example). M.Bitton (talk) 15:06, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

You removed all mentions of chattel, even ones that are obviously about chattel slavery, and have rejected all reliable sources provided. Do you now concede that we should mention it? Andre🚐 15:09, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

The IP did (I just have happen to agree with them). I'm fairly certain that what I wrote (in the edit summary as well as my initial comment) is in plain English (it goes without saying that the approach will have to be compliant with all policies, and not just WP:V). Why was it sidelined with a tangential comment? I don't know. All I know is that the tangential comment bred more of the same, and ultimately, to a fruitless discussion that wasn't even needed to begin with. M.Bitton (talk) 15:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

• My view:

• At WP we primarily go as per RS. Let us continue to prioritize the same.
• Chattel means basically movable property.
• Other than hired labour who is free to leave the job, Debt bondage, Indentured servitude, Serfdom rest of slavery/ slaves which was property to some one basically amounts to Chattel only.

Following is my over all understanding subject to correction as per RS wherever applicable.

• In relation to slavery it used more often with a shade of dehumanizing condition but meaning of the word Chattel is movable property then that won't change irrespective of actual better agency if any slave have had with any slave master at any particular time.
• In the context of Islamic and Muslim world if a male slave gets chance in military service and could achieve some good rank then his agency would improve even though his official designation of a slave continues. But for rest of men it was a fluid condition if the same slave gets resold as a galley slave his agency will get compromised.
• Until a slave gets manumitted s/he used to remain as a property i.e. chattel and most men slaves were available for resale if Master wished so.

Bookku (talk) 15:36, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

• I tried what I thought was a pretty modest attempt at adding appropriate text and it was reverted[6][7] Andre🚐 21:16, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  Your recent edit is about something else entirely. It was reverted with a valid explanation, as well as questions that you are yet to answer. M.Bitton (talk) 21:18, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  I have just responded, but to be clear, that text is not about something else. It is about the dispute about whether the article should describe chattel, or not. I say it should and am open to compromise on specific text, attribution, or balancing a source that claims otherwise. Andre🚐 21:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  It is about something else: your attempt to reduce Islamic law on slavery (a complicated subject that we have an article about) into a sentence. M.Bitton (talk) 21:32, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  I'm open to making it longer, or changing it altogether, do you say it should not be included in the article at all, which is a major omission? Andre🚐 21:32, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  What's "it"? M.Bitton (talk) 21:37, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  Text explaining the basic background that under Islamic law slaves were property to be bought and sold, with their submission and labor owned by the master, i.e. chattel slavery. Andre🚐 21:39, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  We have an article about that. You reducing it to a sentence (through some weird cherry picking and WP:SYNTH) is not acceptable. M.Bitton (talk) 21:41, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY Andre🚐 21:43, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  That doesn't apply, since what you did is indeed good old fashioned SYNTH (as explained in that discussion). M.Bitton (talk) 21:46, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  If you don't like my summary, propose some alternative text based on the sources that summarizes and explains this essential background information. Andre🚐 21:48, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  A summary of Islamic views on slavery? M.Bitton (talk) 21:52, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  Sure, if you want to think of it that way. It's essential to understanding the history of slavery in the Islamic world. Andre🚐 21:53, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  In that case, short of linking to it (which is what I suggested), one can use Template:Excerpt (to avoid possible POV forks). M.Bitton (talk) 21:56, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think that's a good approach. I think we need one or two well-sourced sentences that explain the Islamic jurisprudence and the status of slaves in the medieval sphere of influence of the Abbasids. Andre🚐 21:57, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  That's your opinion. For me, the idea of reducing a complicated subject into a sentence or two is not something that I would entertain (it also defeat the purpose of having an article about it). M.Bitton (talk) 22:01, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  So far, there are several other editors that agree in principle the article should say something about it. We can wait and see if anyone else has a comment on the specific issues at hand. We can prep an RFC if we need to although, I think there is already probably enough of a consensus that we should write about this in this article. but maybe that will become clearer. Andre🚐 22:03, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  about it. is a meaningless and highly misleading claim. Nobody suggested what you did (reducing Islamic law on slavery into a sentence). M.Bitton (talk) 22:07, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  I have asked you for an alternative text. Linking or excerpting the article is not an alternative proposed text for this article about the history of slavery. Some things changed about slavery and some things stayed the same. What were they, and why? Andre🚐 22:08, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  I have answered. The fact that we don't agree is pretty clear, so no need to repeat our views. M.Bitton (talk) 22:11, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  You didn't propose a text that would address the growing consensus that the article should explain how slavery worked. Andre🚐 22:12, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  I proposed a solution. M.Bitton (talk) 22:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  AndreJustAndre, my earlier comment should not be construed as endorsing any specific language in the article, only explaining how to resolve the dispute. All that is needed is to summarize what reliable sources say, which should not require an RFC. So far the only source I have seen that mentions chattel slavery in a pertinent way is Ze’evi, and that is in a specific and narrow context. I could not verify your recent addition and your rationales sound like SYNTH to me. Please provide quotations or at least specific page numbers (not entire chapters) to support the language you want to add. See also MOS:EDITORIAL. —Rutebega (talk) 13:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Rutebaga, I never claimed you endorsed specific language. An RFC might be needed if this dispute is so intractable and it's difficult to make headway on a compromise. Chattel slavery is mentioned explicitly in Marmon, Keadmon, and Ze'evi, as well as the Böwering encyclopedia entry. are you able to access those sources. I gave page numbers for Marmon, p. 2 and 5. Andre🚐 17:27, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Chattel slavery is mentioned explicitly is a meaningless statement: you added a claim (a sentence) that according to you is a summary of Islamic law on slavery.

  You added six sources. Luckily, two of them as easily accessible.[8][9]

  How exactly do they support the statement about Islamic law that you added to the article? M.Bitton (talk) 18:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  The sources are all accessible either through WP:TWL, Google Books preview, or are accessible period. That is a paraphrase of what is contained in the sources which do say that. All statements are supported by sources. I am happy to change or workshop the text. So far you have declined to offer alternative text and proposed instead linking to Islamic views on slavery. That article has its own problems and that is not a valid compromise for the problem here. Andre🚐 19:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Would you mind answering the simple question (about what you added to the article)? Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 19:14, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  I have answered the question. The sources explictly talk about Islamic jurisprudence. If you haven't read Marmon p. 2 and 5 it would explain why you can't figure out what I mean. I don't know how else to work with you if you won't offer your own version of the text, it would seem that we should proceed to an RFC. No point in starting dispute resolution because that also ends in an RFC. I think an RFC will find that chattel is a key concept to this article and must be explained. Andre🚐 19:18, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  You know as well as I do that content that doesn't comply with our policies doesn't belong in any article (a RfC won't change that).

  I asked you a very explicit question that shouldn't take you long to answer (the sources that you added are easily accessible, so it's a matter of copying and pasting the relevant quotes).

  Can you please answer it? Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 19:25, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  The Google Book preview doesn't allow copy pasting, so I would have to re-transcribe it. It would be easier if you would simply review p.2 and p.5. It is very clearly outlined on those pages. On p.5 there is a paragraph that goes from "chattel slavery" to "Muslim jurists...commodity...humanity." Andre🚐 19:28, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  I explicitly listed the two sources that are easily accessible.

  How hard is it to answer that question? M.Bitton (talk) 19:31, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  I refer to the Marmon source. But the Kloss Springer source also contains a similar quote, According to medieval Islamic law, slaves could be bought and sold like any other property Andre🚐 19:33, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Repeating the same question, only to have a non-answer is very tiring.

  Address above (whenever you're ready). M.Bitton (talk) 19:37, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  It is exhausting because I already answered your question. In fact in my last message I provided an explicit quote from Springer. What is your problem with that quote? Honestly, my proposed text is not controversial or at least it shouldn't be. These are well-supported facts. The article as it stands has a major deficiency in explaining this. Andre🚐 19:38, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Still waiting for an answer to a very simple question. M.Bitton (talk) 19:41, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Maybe you could rephrase or restate the question because as far as I can tell I answered it. Marmon support my text directly. I just quoted a similar quote from Springer. Your repeated non-content messages are honestly starting to be frustrating. This is not how to collaborate. Andre🚐 19:43, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  You want me to repeat it? Sure.

  You added six sources to support a claim (a sentence) that according to you is a summary of Islamic law on slavery.

  Luckily, two of them as easily accessible.[10][11]

  How exactly do they support the statement about Islamic law that you added to the article? Those sources are easily accessible, so it's a matter of copying and pasting the relevant quotes. M.Bitton (talk) 19:49, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  OK, I didn't mean just say the same thing again. That is unhelpful, and I answered that already. I explained why I can't easily copypaste Marmon, but you should review it and tell me what is the objection to it. This is a quote from Kloss. "According to medieval Islamic law, slaves could be bought and sold like any other property" It is a summary on Islamic law. The term "chattel" is what that means, and is used explicitly in the other sources. Synonyms and summary are not synth. I explained elsewhere what I used Ze'evi for. Andre🚐 19:52, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  At this stage, I have no choice but to conclude that you refuse to answer a simple question because you are aware that those sources don't support what you added. M.Bitton (talk) 19:56, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  That is ridiculous. I just answered your request for a direct quote from the linked sources with a direct quote. Andre🚐 19:58, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  the master owned the slave's labor and property and was entitled to his or her sexual submission - Ze'evi.

  According to medieval Islamic law, slaves could be bought and sold like any other property - Kloss Andre🚐 20:01, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  None of which supports the statement that you added. In simple words, you engaged in plain old WP:SYNTH and WP:OR to create your so-called "summary" (that's without mentioning the blatant WP:CHERRYPICKING).

  Frankly, I don't expect this from an experienced editor. M.Bitton (talk) 20:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Not at all. It is supported by the sources, with some simple summary. If you disagree, be more specific. Nor is it cherrypicking at all. These are all good sources, and Marmon and Keadmon are already used. Andre🚐 20:13, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  You modified your comment after I responded to it. There is nothing not-policy-compliant about my proposal. Andre🚐 19:32, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

To be clear as there is a lot of text above, this is the text I proposed adding. Please propose an alternative text.

Under medieval Islamic law, slaves, while still viewed as human, were essentially a commodity, property that could be bought and sold, i.e chattel slavery, and the master owned the slave's labor and submission, including domestic slaves, eunuchs, slave soldiers, concubines (sex slaves), and courtesans.

References

Andre🚐 22:00, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Addressed here, and the discussion continued above (starting from this comment). M.Bitton (talk) 22:03, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

About half of the disputed uses of "chattel" are supported explicitly by sources. For example, The Sulu Zone, James Francis Warren: "A distinction was drawn by Taosug between chattel slaves (banyaga.... and bond-slaves (kiapangdilihan)".

"Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem", By Suzanne Miers: "The 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s saw the virtual eradication of slave raiding, a great decline in the slave trade, and an end to the legal status of chattel slavery everywhere, except in parts of Arabia".

I'd suggest leaving the word 'chattel' for those claims and removing the rest, and using the quote= field when citing. Hi! (talk) 04:47, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

This seems very much like a two person convo right now. MBitton and Andre have done about 62 out of 67 of the replies here. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 20:09, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I would love for some more other editors to weigh in. As far as I can tell, everything in my above text is supported by the sources. M.Bitton has claimed it is SYNTH without giving any rationale as to why that is, and a baseless accusation of cherrypicking. I also asked him to propose his own text, but he instead proposed linking to another article. Let's review how the sources explicitly support my text:

the master owned the slave's labor and property and was entitled to his or her sexual submission - Ze'evi

According to medieval Islamic law, slaves could be bought and sold like any other property - Kloss

p.2 and 5 of Marmon, "chattel slavery" to "Muslim jurists...commodity...humanity."

Chattel slavery was a well-established reality of political, legal and social life of Pre-Islamic world. The advent of Islam did not change this. Böwering

Muslims considered the likelihood of such events and participation in such behaviors to be juridical and social impossibilities in the modern world, given the worldwide assumption of abolition and the effective disappearance of de jure chattel slavery and slave trading in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Keadmon

There are at least four legally significant instances in the Qur’an where the ’abd usage clearly connotes the context of chattel slavery. ... parable describing two men, one a chattel slave who has ‘no power of any sort’, ... the Quranic legislation permitting slaves to marry and its exhortation for marriage between enslaved and free persons also tended to humanize the face of chattel slavery. ... the slave, like the horse or other non-pastured animal and goods and tools not placed in commerce, is chattel but just not a ‘zakatable’ chattel. Ibn Rushd agreed Keadmon

Much evidence – textual, material and documentary – points to slavery in the early and medieval Islamic Middle East (c. 600-1000 CE) as a social fact, persistent and multivalent. ... But reading such accounts of the early Islamic period is to confront head-on the challenge of historicizing Middle Eastern slavery. Modern scholars quarrel over the question of the reliance of Muslim exegetes and jurists on pre-Islamic legal and intellectual traditions... the Quran and hadith were not always a principal source of guidance for Muslim scholars, who often looked elsewhere in shaping precepts pertaining to slaves and slavery. There is no question that, from a very early point, they were determined to give shape to a properly Islamic legal framework.... What follows is a consideration of four categories of ʿAbbasid-era urban slavery,...Future research should parse medieval Arabic slave vocabulary: Muslim scholars wielded a variety of terms for enslaved and freed persons, and, when possible, each term, with reference to specific individuals and groupings, deserves discussion. A greater requirement still is a close study of Islamic slave law, though considerable ground for such a project has been carried out. .... Legal texts produced in the early ʿAbbasid period also make frequent reference to slavery. Following their lead, the first generations of Muslim jurists (seventh–tenth century) developed a body of slave law to which successive generations of scholars closely adhered. .... devote long comments to slaves in their chapters on marriage, divorce, inheritance, and other areas, as well as discrete chapters on emancipation and concubinage. These count as indications, in other words, of an extensive ʿAbbasid-era reliance on slave labor. Gordon Andre🚐 21:19, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I will indulge you and go line by line.

Ze'evi: this quote makes no mention of chattel slavery. He mentions it elsewhere but I don't think it supports your argument.

Kloss: again, no mention of chattel slavery.

Marmon: Chattel slavery appears in a separate sentence that is about slavery in general and does not mention islamic law.

Böwering: general statement that chattel slavery continued to exist in the Islamic world. This is not an interpretation of islamic law.

Keadmon 1: referring to the de jure end of chattel slavery globally, nothing said about medieval islamic law.

Keadmon 2: I cannot find this passage and you did not cite it in the article. What is the full citation? The Quran and medieval islamic law are not exactly coextensive.

Gordon: no mention of chattel slavery

I don't want to belabor the point but we can't say one thing "essentially" is (i.e.) something else if no source explicitly uses that language. That is what WP:SYNTH means.

If such a passage is warranted, it should only summarize Islamic views on slavery#Traditional Islamic jurisprudence or similar to prevent forking. —Rutebega (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

WP:SYNTHNOTSUMMARY, even from summary of multiple sources.

I would ask you propose your own summary text. This is not a fork. This article is history, and not theology. Please tell me what you think is a fair summary of this history.

As far as your analysis, it is flawed.

Ze'evi mentions chattel slavery and he also defines aspects of it, which supports the usage as I outlined. I explained what I was using him for. Not every source has to support every part of the sentence as long it is a fair summary of multiple sources that reaches no conclusion not found in the sources.

Kloss defines aspects of slavery without using the term chattel, but her definition was used in my text. It's a synonym. "Essentially" is not necessary, but simply a summary word. That word could be cut without changing the meaning, so I'm not wedded to that. Marmon does in fact mention Islamic jurists and the commodity aspect, so you are incorrect on saying she doesn't mention law; jurists and law are effectively synonymous.

My apologies on writing Keadmon. That is an error. The author is Bernard K. Freamon, and his name is not Keadmon. Somehow I combined the K and the Freamon into Keadmon. There is no Keadmon. The link is Definitions and Conceptions of Slave Ownership in Islamic Law It is not one passage (note the ellipses) and it goes from the section "Slavery in the Qur’an" to 'Zakat" and the full cite indeed was in my edit. Andre🚐 01:19, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok, with the caveat that this is not my "field" Gordon has the most interesting things to say, notably, that modern scholars quarrel over whether jurists used pre-Islamic legal traditions or the Quran and hadith. Your proposal doesn't include any mention of those disagreements. Once you have established that scholars disagree, that opens the door to present different views attributed to individual scholars, e.g. Böwering noting that under pre-Islamic laws, slaves were considered chattel, and the arrival of Islam didn't change that. You can then also get into Freamon noting that there are instances in the Quran which clearly [connote] the context of chattel slavery, and that one I would quote directly to make it abundantly clear it is the source's interpretation and not a literal translation. You could also simply quote Kloss directly. Finally, if it were me, I'd go out of my way to find scholarship disputing your selected sources since Gordon indicates there is a debate. Xan747 (talk) 01:51, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

OK, you're right, I'll buy that. A better version would portray the debates and the range of opinions in this field, as many scholars do not agree about the views of medieval Islamic jurists. That is a very good point. That will be a significantly longer and maybe less clear, but ultimately better version of this text. Andre🚐 01:55, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Glad I could help, happy editing! Xan747 (talk) 02:03, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@AndreJustAndre, as an alternative, perhaps you don't need to start with the *law*. It's more important to describe what existed on the ground than what what was the legislative framework. So I'd start with Böwering and then discuss the scholarly debates. Alaexis_¿question? 09:52, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

That's a good point, too, Alaexis. The reason why I started that proposed sentence with the Islamic law is because that is how Marmon frames it, and Kloss explicitly creates a similar formulation even though she doesn't use the term chattel explicitly. Probably because Kloss didn't want to muddy the waters with disputable phraseology; her description though is essentially a 1:1 map to the concept of chattel. However, I can see invoking the law, even in an accurate and supportable way, opens a can of worms and maybe a cleaner way to get into it is just talk about physical reality and the historical record, and then talk more about the justifications by stepping further back in the abstract ontological tree once we've situated ourselves in real time. Andre🚐 21:32, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Regarding your claims:

• Ze'evi mentions chattel slavery N not in the context of Islamic law (in fact, you ignored what they said about Islamic law).
• Kloss defines aspects of slavery without using the term chattel N nothing about "chattel slavery".
• Böwering: N nothing about "Islamic law".
• Bernard K. Freamon (Keadmon) 1: N putting aside the fact that it's a FRINGE interpretation of the Qu'ran, you said Islamic law is not equal to the Qu'ran (when I mentioned what the Encyclopedia of the Qu'ran says), i.e., you agree with Rutebega on this point.
• Bernard K. Freamon (Keadmon) 2: N nothing about "chattel slavery" (this is about slavery during the Abassid period).
• Gordon: N he doesn't say anything about "chattel slavery".
• Marmon: N she doesn't say anything about "chattel slavery".

In other words, your so-called "summary" is not just WP:SYNTH, it's one of the worst cases of SYNTH and misrepresentation of the sources that I have ever come across. It literally beggars belief that an experienced editor would do such a thing, much less waste so much time and energy arguing about it.

The solution that was proposed by Rutebega is the only way to avoid POV forks of this kind. M.Bitton (talk) 11:10, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

This message once again misses the difference between acceptable summary and inappropriate synth. Nor apparently what the meaning of chattel slavery is, or the fact that several of the sources do in fact talk about chattel slavery and Islamic law. In fact, Marmon explicitly says chattel slavery twice and Freamon also mentions it a number of times. Kloss mentions the definition, but not by name. That being said, the solution proposed by Xan747 is reasonable. I will compose a much longer and more detailed paragraph about the various views of influential scholars on Islamic jurisprudence pertaining to slavery. That will take some time. The solution that you and Rutebaga argue for is not valid. Islamic views on slavery is a highly problematic article on its own, but that is an article about theology. This article is about history, and writing about the history will not be and is not a POV fork whatsoever. Andre🚐 17:41, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

There is nothing remotely acceptable about your so-called "summary", which is neither accurate nor neutral (the blatant WP:CHERRYPICKING alone is more than enough to discredit any claims to the contrary). Your conclusions ("essentially ..." and "i,.e ...") are literally a joke. Frankly, I've had more than enough of this nonsense. M.Bitton (talk) 22:39, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

•  Note: everything between this simple question and this comment pretty much sums up all you need to know.
  For context, as well the proposed solution that has been refused for no valid reason: you can start from this comment. M.Bitton (talk) 22:00, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  The reason why there are so many replies to this thread is comments like this one, which contribute nothing to achieving a compromise and are simply a form of repetition. M.Bitton claims the above text is SYNTH. But I have provided sources that clearly demonstrate all of the conclusion components of the proposed text, and M.Bitton simply repeats himself instead of explaining his objection. The core components are all sourced in detail.

  • Under medieval Islamic law, - verbatim Kloss and in Gordon and Keadmon and Marmon

  slaves, while still viewed as human, - Marmon and also talked about by other sources and proposed by M. Bitton as well.

  • were essentially a commodity, property that could be bought and sold, - verbatim Kloss, and close to verbatim Marmon.
  • i.e chattel slavery. Marmon, Keadmon, and Böwering
  • , and the master owned the slave's labor and submission, Ze'evi
  • including domestic slaves, eunuchs, slave soldiers, concubines (sex slaves), and courtesans. This is discussed in Gordon.

  If M. Bitton claims that I am doing improper SYNTH, he must explain what conclusion is in no source, and which disparate facts are not related or suitably being naturally summarized, and he must explain how to rectify that - either by removing some component of the text or by refactoring it to either state what is defensible in text according to him, or otherwise make a new statement summarizing what are honestly, in this field, basic, background knowledge anyway. Andre🚐 22:09, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Observation @AndreJustAndre Since you apparently want to insert the word chattel multiple places in the article, I suggest that you write out proposed text for each instance you want to add, and give a single citation which supports that text. You might also consider providing a direct quote from the source. If you and @M.Bitton both agree, we might also consider hatting the entire discussion above to also improve the odds of obtaining a community review. Xan747 (talk) 01:03, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm proposing one specific addition. There were previously multiple mentions but I am focusing on one. Andre🚐 01:09, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok now I see your comment, and @Rutebega has responded. I will be bold and hat everything above that. If anyone objects they can always revert me. Xan747 (talk) 01:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I took Rutebega's suggestion to review Islamic_views_on_slavery#Traditional_Islamic_jurisprudence and found: Sources of slaves

Purchasing slaves and receiving slaves as tribute was permitted. Many scholars subjected slave purchases to the condition that slave should have been "rightfully enslaved" in the first place.

Casting a wider net we find: Islamic views on slavery (lede)

Islamic law regarded as legal slaves only those non-Muslims who were imprisoned or bought beyond the borders of Islamic rule, or the sons and daughters of slaves already in captivity. [...] The hadiths [...] regarded slaves as legal only when they were non-Muslims who were imprisoned, bought beyond the borders of Islamic rule, or the sons and daughters of slaves already in captivity. [...] 13th century slave market, Yemen. Slaves and concubines are considered as possessions in Sharia; Masters may sell, bequeath, give away, pledge, share, hire out or compel them to earn money. [...] The Arab slave trade typically dealt in the sale of castrated male slaves. [...] The Muslim slave trade was most active in West Asia, Eastern Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa. [...] After the Trans-Atlantic slave trade had been suppressed, the ancient Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade and the Red Sea slave trade continued to traffic slaves from the African continent to the Middle East. [...] During the 19th and early 20th centuries all large Muslim countries [...] banned the slave trade and/or slavery. [...] The Ottoman Empire banned the African slave trade in 1857 and the Circassian slave trade in 1908.

This mixes law with historical practice, so those excerpts need to be read carefully in context. Elsewhere in the lede we see there were differences in interpretation, The hadiths, which differ between Shia and Sunni, address slavery extensively, assuming its existence as part of society but viewing it as an exceptional condition and restricting its scope. These details (and others) aside, there is clear support from sources that buying and selling of slaves was authorized under Islamic law, at least at some point in time, by at least some schools of thought. Now to the question of whether that authorized slave trade constitutes chattel. Chattel slavery

As a social institution, chattel slavery classes slaves as chattels (personal property) owned by the enslaver; like livestock, they can be bought and sold at will. Chattel slavery was historically the normal form of slavery worldwide and was practiced in places such as classical Greece and the Roman Empire, where it was considered a keystone of society. Other places where it was extensively practiced include the Muslim world such as Medieval Egypt [...]

Emphasis added. Of course in the Muslim world and under Islamic law are two different things and we must not assume the former implies the latter. Now to the question of whether there is direct Quranic support for chattel slavery. Fortunately Freamon is available via Wikipedia Library, so I've been reading it, as well as reviews of it. One review on the publisher's website is unsurprisingly largely positive. Neighborhood of this paragraph is good reading:

Yet if Freamon is engaged in the interpretation of the Qurʾān and what its intended message is regarding slavery, he is not the first. The admirability of his cause is not a license to transcend the history of which he and we all are a part. His conclusions about the Qurʾān’s message may not be as obvious as he thinks, especially since Possessed by the Right Hand addresses only briefly the corpus of ḥadīth (the sayings of the Prophet) that yield much more than the Qurʾān as bases for legal rulings on slavery.

In a largely negative review we find:

[...] Freamon asks, “Is it possible to juridically abolish slavery in communities in the Muslim world that seek to be bound or consider themselves bound by the Sharīʿa?” He acknowledges that “finding a right of freedom from slavery in the traditional Islamic sources is a difficult undertaking,” but insists that “a careful, detailed, and critical examination of the sources,” using “a fresh and dynamic approach,” will result in “a jurisprudential basis for the elimination of slavery and slave trading in Muslim communities … even under a government bound by the Sharīʿa.”

This seems to undermine the contention that Freamon contends Quranic support for slavery of any form, chattel or not. From this little investigation I have the impression that Freamon can be controversial—as any scholarship in this domain is likely to be—but nothing to indicate he is fringe as M. Bitton argues. He's prolific and seems to be generally well-regarded as an authority in his field. @AndreJustAndre, given the content we already have in other articles, could you quickly explain what your sources add to the discussion that isn't already covered? In particular, why the emphasis on the word chattel itself. What sense of that word isn't being addressed in the sources we're already using? (The analagous question to M. Bitton and Rutebega is what sense of that word isn't plainly supported by existing sources.) In general, I'm not moved by Rutebega's argument that you must limit yourself to summarizing existing content from another article. We're not only allowed, but encouraged, to expand articles with novel content based on exiting or new reliable sources. I look forward to reading your draft. Xan747 (talk) 20:58, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Xan747, to your insightful questions above, the History of slavery in the Muslim world article had a number of mentions of chattel prior to the edit by the IP and M.Bitton reinstating their same removal[12], and some of those usages were supported by sources already and appropriate (I restored one per Oort1 which was clear-cut), while others were clear from context but could be explained better. That is what prompted me to look into the article and realize it is missing basic background. It is just basic background information obvious from the sources that slavery means, in Umayyad, Abbasid, and Mamluk domains, extrapolated to most of medieval Islamic history by the sources, that slaves from the categories discussed by Gordon were commodities, property to be bought and sold, ie chattel slavery. Despite some Qu'ranic stuff and other material arguing that slaves were human or that manumission was virtuous etc., which can also be mentioned, we need to be realistic and pragmatic in describing the actual history of slavery, which goes beyond the Qu'ran into hadiths and fiqh and so on, that do not all agree, plus the issue of pre-Islamic precedent and whether it continued, such as in Africa etc.

It is complex but also not that complex! This basic fact is evident in sources but not adequately explained in an encyclopedic and informative way, which has become quite clear during these discussions, and a major omission now is just a simple explanation thereof. To your earlier point a better way to improve the article would be to explain the controversies in more depth. So I agree with you largely that many of the senses of chattel are already explained in part just not in name. I also agree that both that article and the Islamic views on slavery need to be improved and expanded to portray that. In terms of Freamon, perhaps Freamon is not the centerpiece of the changes we need to make to improve this coverage, but should be used in conjunction with better and more generalized material. Gordon, Kloss, and Marmon are authoritative mainstream sources, and Freamon is more specialized, but NOT fringe. I think there is a NPOV issue in excluding this, but I am very flexible and have repeatedly insisted that others offer a proposal to compromise on the particulars, which has not been taken up thus far. BTW, I'd summarize Freamon and Marmon's point about the Qu'ran was that despite the emancipatory sentiment in the text, and despite some improvements for slaves versus the pre-Islamic system, in reality that didn't actually have an effect on reducing the prevalence of or the society's reliance on chattel slavery as an institution. I regard the argument that it was not chattel slavery due to an emancipatory sentiment to be specious and ahistorical, and basically the opposite of what Freamon and Marmon say. Andre🚐 21:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

To be fair to M. Bitton, he did not say Freamon is fringe, so I should walk back my earlier statement to that effect. The argument was that Freamon's interpretation of the Quran on this point is fringe, and thus far the Internet hasn't given me a direct answer to that question. But I do keep finding reviews of the book, this one attacking its central thesis that "the Qurʾanic approach to slavery would therefore, if human beings shaped their actions according to its prioritarian approach, lead to a world that is slavery-free":

Whether or not Freamon’s reading of the Qurʾanic text is compelling in ethical and theological terms, it leads to a book which is almost completely antithetical to a history of slavery in Islamic law. The geographic focus is the Indian Ocean world, very broadly understood. Freamon consistently discusses the post-Qurʾanic development of Islamic legal frameworks for dealing with slavery and slave trading as having been wrong. As such we learn very little about the place of slavery in Muslim substantive law despite it being a major topic in the compendia of every “legal school” touching on everything from the regulation of commerce, marriage and divorce, zakat, hudud punishments, property, war, raiding, booty, and the patronate.

Further down the reviewer answers one of my initial questions in the negative: "It is important to emphasize that Freamon is not an apologist for slavery in Muslim contexts." From what I'm reading, he does seem to be walking a fine line though, and one which is drawing criticism. TL;DR: as the book has drawn many reviews, I agree it pretty clearly deserves a citation or two, but not with the same emphasis as mainstream scholars. Xan747 (talk) 22:20, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, and to be clear, I'm proposing to use Freamon for a much less controversial claim, simply that slavery in the Islamic world existed for all intents and purposes as chattel slavery and what that means. M.Bitton has offered as a source the Encyclopedia of the Qu'ran[13] which also argues that slaves were "not mere chattel," in the eyes of the Qu'ran. I would say this makes the opposite point that he claims. The point isn't what the Qu'ran says, but what people did despite it. Andre🚐 22:28, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

less controversial claim utter nonsense.

M.Bitton has offered as a source the Encyclopedia of the Qu'ran offered in a different discussion (not here), and if I recall, you rejected it by saying Islamic law is not equal to the Qu'ran, only to turn around and cite a passage about the Qu'uran (Freamon). Sigh. M.Bitton (talk) 22:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I think it's a fine source to use. I think that source and Freamon are basically in alignment. But that isn't the question (what does the Qu'ran text say), the question was about Islamic law. Islamic law is not equal to the Qu'ran. Islamic law is a large body of extra-Qu'ranic things. I made that the question with my text, but I offered to remove that or change the text to something else, but you do not want the text at all. The point of my text is the claim that slavery was effectively chattel slavery. Something that Marmon explicitly says. So Freamon is not alone. Andre🚐 23:03, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

They are not in alignment. It's not a question of what I want, it's about our policies and the fact that your addition violates multiple ones (as explained above by Rutebega and myself). M.Bitton (talk) 23:51, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Claims that are not FRINGE tend to be repeated elsewhere. M.Bitton (talk) 22:47, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Multiple sources other than Freamon say that trading in slaves was regulated under Islamic law, varying by time, place and school of thought. If you don't agree with that much, then our difficulties here are truly unlikely to be resolved to mutual satisfaction. If the only sticking point is whether to call the practice of buying and selling people "chattel slavery" then I suggest everyone simply erase the word from their vocabulary for the duration of this discussion, and especially leave it out of any draft text for the article. It just isn't needed to illustrate the practice, and definitely isn't worth all the ink spilt contesting it. Xan747 (talk) 02:29, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I was referring to thus far the Internet hasn't given me a direct answer to that question. Your suggestion is fine by me. M.Bitton (talk) 02:43, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I didn't look very hard as I was more interested in vetting Freamon's overall reputation, as well as the fact that what I did find moved me beyond that specific question. The fact that you say his interpretation of the Quran on this point is fringe carries weight with me because you are evidently well read in this area. In case it wasn't clear, the balance of my comment to drop the word we're not saying anymore was more directed at @AndreJustAndre. Xan747 (talk) 02:54, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I promise I'm not just fixated on the semantics, that just happens to be the standard academic term for the system of human beings being bought and sold as property on the market. And I think there are clearly sources that say that this is what happened in the medieval Islamic world under several different time periods, geographical locations, and Muslim imperial domains. But, I am more than happy to sit down with these sources or a few others and sculpt some text that explains these important and relevant aspects of the article in more specific attributed sentences and without using that specific term that is leading to sensitivity, as an exercise and in good will, and because it will still improve the article more than not doing that. Though I do think any high school world history class in the US would impart this information, and because it is relatively well-known that may be why a lot of contemporary sources don't bother saying it because they don't want to waste words on stuff that the whole audience probably already knows. Anyway, I haven't written a new proposal yet because I need to think about it, sleep, function as a human in society for a bit, and do some more research. I plan to look at Bashir, Urban, Grasso, Lydon, Gakunzi, Alexander (Two different types of "XxxCENSOREDxxX" slavery, those permitted by the Christian and Islamic religions, were introduced into Africa but only the Christian slave trade to the Americas has been studied by archaeologists), Perry, Cronin, Philips, Esseissah and Wink tomorrow or in the next few days, and I'll come back with a new draft. Andre🚐 04:59, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Having bound myself to forget the word even exists, I officially have no comment. Enjoy your research and time in meatspace. Xan747 (talk) 05:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I have a first draft up. It's not done because I need to check all the citations and make sure they support it, tighten up some of the duplicate citations, and do another iteration making sure I have adequately captured the sources in text and collate all the quotes and paraphrases accurately. To make things easier with this big pile of text that I had downloaded into pdf, I am disclosing that I used Google Gemini (an LLM) to do some cutting and parsing of text and cites, so I have to make sure that there are no hallucinations or errors that were introduced by that. But it can be ready for preliminary review, and please feel free to make any improvements in the draft directly. Andre🚐 22:36, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

It's been 6 days so I'm checking to see if any participants of the thread read my draft and think I should 1) consider refining the draft in this vein, 2) rewrite parts of it to address some change of scope or focus, or 3) start over again from scratch with a new draft from square 1, 4) don't even understand or agree with the premise of the draft. Andre🚐 01:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

@AndreJustAndre, I haven't checked all the sources but overall it looks good.

My only quibble is with this sentence The presence of enslaved women, notably "concubine queens who ruled several Islamic polities and the wealthy courtesans" in courts like the Abbasid dynasty, significantly shaped medieval Islamic political institutions and ideologies. This complexity is described by Bernard K. Freamon as making the Muslim approach to slavery "unique in the history of the world". I understand that these examples are notable but they are notable because they are unusual. Most of enslaved concubines weren't queens. Worth linking to Sexual_slavery#Middle_East too. Alaexis_¿question? 06:38, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, you're right, Alaexis, that part needed to be reworked. I changed it to say that they rarely held royal power. I also added some stuff on the different jurists: [14]Andre🚐 03:36, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

@AndreJustAndre, I am concerned about the LLM use to combine so much content from so many sources (though I appreciate you disclosing it). On my first review there were some distinctly LLM phrasings which are just outside what I would consider proper encyclopedic tone. I see you have made substantial additions and edits today, so perhaps many of these issues have been resolved. Other than that, I have no comment on substantive content. My main initial intent was to attempt to mediate what appeared to be a relatively small content dispute; the amount of text in your present draft likely exceeds my ability to come up to speed on the expanded scope. I will, however, continue to monitor this thread (and camp on the article itself) and may jump back in if moved (or if parties think my input might help). Happy editing to all. Xan747 (talk) 17:51, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

I understand your concern, and I wouldn't use an LLM in mainspace without careful disclosure and review, that is why this is just a user draft right now, and I am open to the suggestion to blow it up and start over if that is your view. Current policy and guideline permits closely supervised use of LLMs AFAIK so long as the text is carefully spot-checked and reviewed. In this case it was a big help to crunch so many sources, but the underlying ideas are my own and I am using the LLM just to save time and help make the draft more cohesive, but I am not done yet. I am going to review all the sentences and assertions against the sources carefully and continue to refine the draft if we agree that is a valuable exercise. I would appreciate if you have any more specific feedback on the current draft. While I can understand that this has gotten bigger than a single paragraph, that is what I got from your and others' feedback, that to do this justice it needs to be comprehensive. I also expanded the body of sources to avoid the concern of a too narrow or cherrypicked list. I do think that is addressed in this draft but again I am open to feedback on starting over or what changes to make. Andre🚐 18:53, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

New York Times

In the “Controversies” section of this article the following sentence has been added: “Since 2003, studies analyzing coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the New York Times have demonstrated a bias against Palestinians and in favor of Israel”. This is discussed in a talk page section entitled “False balance…” I’d be grateful if other editors could comment there on if that is a claim we can make in our own voice abiding by NPOV. BobFromBrockley (talk) 02:18, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Assuming the sources in the footnote are being accurately represented I'd say wikivoice is neutral here for that specific claim. Simonm223 (talk) 12:23, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The phrasing "studies analyzing..." immediately takes the statement out of Wikivoice and makes it an attributed one, so meets NPOV. Masem (t) 12:27, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Cite the “studies”, but otherwise OK. Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Only if the studies are cited directly. If other sources use that wording or something similar, we can use it. Cortador (talk) 20:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for replies Cortador, Blueboar, Masem, Simonm223. I should’ve added: other sources “demonstrate” the opposite but they are fewer and lower quality and no longer cited here, so in using the word “demonstrated” in our voice we’ve taken a side, which may be justified but only if the opposing sources can be dismissed. Does that make a difference to your answer? BobFromBrockley (talk) 02:04, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Add in "some" or "certain" before studies to be clear that it does not encompass all studies. I presume the next immediate sentences discuss the specifics of those studies. Masem (t) 03:41, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Here are the peer reviewed studies that unequivocally demonstrate a bias against Palestine and in favor of Israel:

• Viser, Matt (September 2003). "Attempted Objectivity: An Analysis of the New York Times and Ha'aretz and their Portrayals of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict". The International Journal of Press/Politics. 8 (4): 114–120. doi:10.1177/1081180X03256999. S2CID 145209853.
• Zelizer, Barbie; Park, David; Gudelunas, David (December 2002). "How Bias Shapes the News: Challenging the New York Times' Status as a Newspaper of Record on the Middle East". Journalism. 3 (3): 283–307. doi:10.1177/146488490200300305. S2CID 15153383.
• Jackson, Holly M (2023). "The New York Times distorts the Palestinian struggle: A case study of anti-Palestinian bias in US news coverage of the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas". Media, War & Conflict. 17 (1): 116–135. doi:10.1177/17506352231178148.

A lone article published by Israel Affairs concludes that the NYT has made errors and omissions in its coverage of the Gaza war, but it does not make any explicit statement to the effect that NYT coverage is biased against Israel:

• Gilboa, Eytan; Sigan, Lilac (2024-09-02). "The New York Times coverage of the Israel-Hamas war: errors, omissions, and poor editorial supervision". Israel Affairs. 30 (5): 939–957. doi:10.1080/13537121.2024.2394292. ISSN 1353-7121.

إيان (talk) 06:17, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

And here's a link to the discussion, by the way: Talk:The New York Times#false balance: obfuscation, minimization, and erasure of Palestinian grievances إيان (talk) 06:18, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I guess my question would be whether there are any studies with contradictory findings? Simonm223 (talk) 11:12, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

That's all the scholarly-ish stuff I could find in ten minutes of looking:

[...] the net result of these imbalances and others is to create a depiction of events that is imbalanced toward creating sympathy for the Palestinian side, places most of the agency in the hands of Israel, is often at odds with actual events, and fails to give readers an understanding of how Israelis are experiencing the war.[15]

This article demonstrates serious errors, inadequate corrections, serious omissions and poor editorial supervision in the Times’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. These were not just sporadic failures. They seem to represent an endemic malaise. [16] It's not even pretending to be impartial: On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian terror organisation Hamas massacred some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and abducted about 240 people including babies, children, women and elderly persons. This was the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas terrorists raped, mutilated and dismembered bodies, and abused the hostages they kidnapped and imprisoned in tunnels under Gaza. (I'm not saying those things didn't happen or are excusable, only that I would expect a serious academic work to not give a summary with such loaded language.)

I haven't cracked open the other papers above to compare. Xan747 (talk) 04:47, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

In terms of peer-reviewed studies, the sources provided above are the ones I have found and been able to review. There is no manifest contradiction among the peer-reviewed studies.

As I mentioned, there is a discussion at Talk:The New York Times#false balance: obfuscation, minimization, and erasure of Palestinian grievances where sources such as those mentioned by Xan747—particularly the first one, a POV source by a business school prof writing outside of his field and without peer review—have been thoroughly discussed. إيان (talk) 08:00, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, I was not saying the papers I found were any "good". I missed it that you had already cited Gilboa (2024), which is clearly a bad paper. I also missed it that Pinker (2025) is not peer-reviewed, not immediately recognizing that SSRN is a preprint repository—I only saw Elsevier as the publisher. In any case, his methodology doesn't seem terrible, but being out of his field and not peer-reviewed this is not suitable for use in an article. Of the three other papers concluding a bias against Palestinians by the NYT, Jackson (2023) may be the most impressive to my non-expert eyes because it is the most quantitative of the three. I liked her discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative vs. qualitative textual analysis. The whole thing seems well-done, and not incredible to me. (I don't have trouble believing that any US news company would have a pro-Israel bias.) No objections to the other two papers apart from them being old, which is particularly key since much has changed in the political landscape since the turn of the century. There is my standard wariness of all social sciences studies; I tend to think of them as thought-provoking guides for what to watch out for as opposed to the natural ("hard") sciences which I trust a little more to tell me about reality. All that said, I wouldn't have any issue including these in a Wikipedia article as attributed opinion. The main question for me would be how much weight to give them. I hope this feedback is of some help. Xan747 (talk) 00:28, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Gender-critical feminism

Gender-critical feminism is a controversial subject and a controversial term. I would appreciate some more eyes on this page where the very first main section appears to have some POV issues, even though it is equally clear that some academic sources have questioned the framing of the matter, arguing that Gender-critical feminism is a self description chosen by its proponents that may be chosen to legitimise its views. We should follow that academic framing, but I am concerned that the terminology section is going beyond the evidence and is not neutral. I am particularly concerned by analogies to white supremacists, but I think there may be other issues. See also Talk:Gender-critical_feminism#Terminology_section. Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:14, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

It's an attributed statement from a lawyer writing in a legitimate legal journal. I'm not sure why you think that is non-neutral. Simonm223 (talk) 15:49, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT to me. TERF was a term long before they rebranded as "gender critical". Guy (help! - typo?) 16:39, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

What is it I don't like? Absolutely agree that TERF was there first and Gender-critical is an attempt to rebrand. Why do you think I don't agree? I said we should follow that academic framing which is in Thurlow (2022). Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, sorry, but that's not the impression you gave at the Talk page. For the record: I oppose bowdlerising the article to pretend that GC is anything other than what it is: bigotry.

I know that it is sincere bigotry, at least in some cases. I have lost friends because of it. But it remains bigotry, and a moral panic founded on the mistaken belief that removing the social stigma from something somehow conjures it into existence, rather than merely unleashing suppressed demand.

Those of us old enough to remember the 1980s "gay agenda" moral panic are very familiar with this problem. Laws were passed banning the "promotion" of homosexuality, when in fact the only thing that had changed was that gay people no longer felt the need to stay in the closet. Gay people have always existed. So have trans people. The first gender reassignment surgeries were over a century ago. Sweden recognised change of gender markers on passports over half a century ago.

Homophobes were bigots even when they branded themselves as protecting children, or promoting traditional values. It's just psychological framing to reduce the cognitive dissonance caused by criticism of a lizard-brain opinion. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:17, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Yep, you are making assumptions again. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:33, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Save the personal analysis for your substack. Follow the sources, WP:FOC to improve the article, and leave the incoherent drivel somewhere else. Just10A (talk) 16:10, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

:I want to point out - there are 9 pages of archived discussion on that page, so it's been the subject of much debate. The way they are listed on the page, it's easy to miss the archives. Because Gender and Sex are controversial outside of Wikipedia; they are also controversial here. Check the article Modern flat Earth beliefs. I used to use "Flat Earth" as an extreme example of a silly point of view, and then at some point people came out and said they believe it (around 2015, according to the article), and... people really have a sincerely held belief in flat earth. When I think of a neutral point of view, I also think of a non-judgmental point of view: we aren't writing persuasive essays, rather, we are writing on a book report on what other people think, and letting the reader make their own judgement. So, I'd prefer an article that recognizes it's a "sincerely held belief based on faith" and not in line with a modern understanding of science, but you can see it takes a judgmental hard line, from the get go, telling you what to think about the subject before even telling you what it is. I see this as a problem, but many editors strongly believe it is morally right to approach articles this way. Denaar (talk) 16:52, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

an article that recognizes it's a "sincerely held belief based on faith". This is a misleading summary of the viewpoint in question, and modern flat Earth beliefs are not the right comparison to make here. As the many sources which are cited in the article point out, it Gender-critical feminism can be viewed (and is certainly viewed as) as a dog whistle and a cover for anti-trans politics and hate speech. See this video for a comedic, deliberately exaggerated illustration of the issue. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:11, 9 October 2025 (UTC) Edited 17:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

When I read your comment, it sounds like you're saying "Modern Flat Earth beliefs are a dog whistle", I don't think that's what you meant, but I do think your comment relies upon an Appeal to emotion. I believe in the Wise Mind: If you use emotional reasoning it will lead you to make poor decisions. Relying of pure logic leads you to decisions that are inhumane. Correct reasoning is the wise mind: Balancing logic with an understanding of human emotions. So, I don't find your argument convincing; because it's emotional, and neither logical nor balanced - which is what Neutral Point of View should be all about. Denaar (talk) 17:23, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

And the religious pretext is exactly that: a pretext. Every single person I have ever seen claiming a sincerely-held religious objection to trans people, bases that opinion on selective quotations from the Old Testament. No Christian I have ever encountered has provided any support for bigotry - of any form - from the Gospels. It's not the Bible that denounces trans people or makes up nonsense terms like "trans ideology" to erect a wall between them and anyone who doesn't think we get to veto decisions made between a person and their physicians. It's not the Bible, it's Conservative-Christian¹ preachers. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:24, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

¹Related to Christianity in much the same way that National-Socialsim is related to socialism.

Per WP:TALK - Talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia, not for expressing personal opinions on a subject. Denaar (talk) 21:38, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy is correct, we should follow the academics here. There's no reason to be citing a law review article for a sociology page when better sources are available anyway. Further, I find there's some confusion with law review articles but FYI law reviews are not like scientific journals. Professors/scholars do write in them but most of time its just written by 2L/3L law students, so if you're citing a law review you need to check the author. This was legit written by a random non-scholar law student who even now is a 1st-year associate at a firm. Not appropriate RS for this at all. Just10A (talk) 18:52, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I want to apologize, I looked at your history and read it wrong, thinking you were a newer user. My response wasn't understood well because it was too indirect; I was hinting in a polite way that it's not something a new user wants to get too tangled into. I have not looked into this topic deeply, but generally, if an article really needs to be updated/rewritten, after the dust settles on a topic, the best place to start is collecting the strongest sources, and instead of "writing the article, finding sources that support what I write" - you've got to go with "these are the best sources, and these are what they report". That generates the best articles. Denaar (talk) 20:52, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Not a problem at all. I took your contribution as genuine and helpful. I think I even thanked you for it. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 06:51, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

2025 Buffalo mayoral election

Major NPOV issue with user @TheNewMinistry re: Michael Gainer, a candidate in the election, who appears to either be or know him very well.

@BottleOfChocolateMilk, another active elections editor, has also had disputes with this user before (see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Gainer), which resulted in the user being blocked from multiple pages, including Gainer's (now-deleted) article, his business' article, and the Erie County Democratic Committee. They were even blocked from the AfD discussion itself by @Star Mississippi.

The user has made extensive edits to the 2025 Buffalo mayoral election that severely contradict set precedent for the way an election article is meant to be written -- it's overcomplicated and muddled. He seems to have given an inordinate amount of focus to Gainer's small independent campaign (one could argue it's because he is Gainer).

The user has been blocked/partially blocked about half a dozen times, including for harassment (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=User%3ATheNewMinistry&type=block) When I added a thumb map for the Democratic primary (common practice for such elections, I was surprised it hadn't been added before), he said "there were more candidates in the primary than Ryan and Scanlon - if you're going to wreck the entire article's layout, make a better map" -- although Ryan and Scanlon (two other candidates) were the only ones to win any districts, hence the reason they were the only 2 on the map, and the image's 'thumb' format is quite literally so it wouldn't wreck the article.

The image used for Gainer's campaign on the election page (2025 Buffalo mayoral election#/media/File:MichaelGainer (cropped).jpg) says it is the "own work" of @TheNewMinistry. Why would this user have their own photo of Gainer from 2007 if they were not closely connected to him?

Given that he is already banned from articles relating to Gainer, I'm requesting he be banned from this one too as there is a clear CoI that he has failed to declare. Aesurias (talk) 21:30, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Just noting I've seen this. Confirming what @Aesurias said that I'd been the one to block @TheNewMinistry from the AfD but haven't followed this since TNM requested an unblock and do not have the on wiki time to look through the issues presented. Courtesy ping to @Daniel Case whose block remains in place. Star Mississippi 21:56, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The image you created was already put back into the article (by me, in a section where it doesn't break the layout) before you opened this discussion. You know, in an infobox with the two other candidates (Whitfield and Wyatt - not Michael Gainer) who broke 5% in the primary and therefore should be included in said infobox. I'm not even sure what you're arguing here. Sorry I wasn't more kind when I asked you to not break the layout? I just spent three hours restructuring the layout so it isn't broken. Thank you for starting a talk page discussion and then escalating it to a NPOV case without pinging me and giving me a chance to respond - you are a swell person of high character. TheNewMinistry (talk) 22:21, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm recommending an additional partial ban on your account from the 2025 Buffalo mayoral election, in line with the other bans placed on it relating to articles about Michael Gainer. I pinged you in a talk page discussion and escalated it here when I learnt of your many previous bans and undeclared conflict of interests.

I did not write the Democratic primary section of the article, so I don't need to put an infobox and am not responsible if one was not there. Primary elections typically don't use infoboxes either, by the way, they just have thumb images with election result maps and a smaller module with the results (no images of the candidates for example), which is what I did.

It's all great that you 'restructured the layout', but it's now wrong. There should be a candidate section for the Democratic primary, rather than just a bunch of separate lines. There is no reason for every minor party to have their own section, nor should they each have their own 'list' of endorsements thats just the party name itself.

That is not the primary issue here -- lets not detract from the clear connection you have to Michael Gainer. Aesurias (talk) 22:31, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I have no undisclosed Conflict of Interest, and accusing me of one is in violation of Wikipedia:Assume good faith. Please note for the record that I reverted the image at 11:09, reinserted the image at 12:57. Aesurias started a Talk Page discussion at 17:19, and finally started this NPOV case at 17:30. Please learn to scroll down before losing your mind and retaliating against a wrong that never occurred, my friend. TheNewMinistry (talk) 22:35, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm aware the image was reinstated -- the issue is not the image, its the fact that you should have no involvement in the article period. Your connection to Michael Gainer has already been discussed many times and the high probability that you know him resulted in you being banned from editing any of the articles related to him.

Are you seriously trying to claim that you do not know this random non-public figure from Albany, New York, but have 1) tried to make a Wiki article about him, 2) created a Wiki article about his business, 3) created a Wiki article about a regional affiliate of the Democratic party so you could fill it with information about a scandal that paints Gainer as a martyr, and 4) have an image of him on a job site from 2007 (your explanation for this one was "it's from my archives")? Aesurias (talk) 22:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Please note that "own work" on a Wiki image would indicate that you took the photo. Are you suggesting you took a photo of Gainer in 2007 and kept the image so 18 years later you could write Wiki articles about his life, but do not know him? Aesurias (talk) 22:42, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

@TheNewMinistry, could you please answer this question? Thank you. -- asilvering (talk) 23:35, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not doxxing myself because Aesurias messaged you and asked you to do so. Sorry. TheNewMinistry (talk) 23:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I am not asking you to dox yourself. I am asking you to affirm that the photograph is your own work. This is required for licensing reasons. Is it or is it not your own work? -- asilvering (talk) 23:42, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

User:Kevin Hayes, the co-founder of Michael Gainer's company Buffalo ReUse, confirmed that I am not tied to the organization and did not perform edits or uploads on their behalf. TheNewMinistry (talk) 23:50, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

@TheNewMinistry, that does not answer the question. -- asilvering (talk) 23:54, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Maybe Aesurius should explain why he's uploading copyrighted logos and tagging them as public domain when he did not create them? This whole thing seems like weird projection on his part. TheNewMinistry (talk) 01:29, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not a 'he', and the CCFP logo is public domain, expressly permitted by the group after I sent them an email asking for permission (the previous logo on the Wiki page was outdated).

Your attempts to detract from the significant and credible allegations against you are not slick... Aesurias (talk) 01:45, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

That's...not how image uploading works. Condolences for your logo that's about to get deleted since there's no evidence of your correspondence. Read up on policy and VRTS: Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. TheNewMinistry (talk) 02:06, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't really mind. The logo can just go back to the old one, it's not my article.

This is not the place to correspond about the logo -- I will once again say:

"Please note that "own work" on a Wiki image would indicate that you took the photo. Are you suggesting you took a photo of Gainer in 2007 and kept the image so 18 years later you could write Wiki articles about his life, but do not know him?"

This should be a simple yes/no question but you seem unable to answer it, which is concerning. It seems you've trapped yourself -- because if you say you don't know Gainer, then you wrongfully uploaded a photo of a living person (and we have to ask ourselves how you got the photo in the first place!). If you say you do know Gainer (much likelier), then you're admitting you lied beforehand.

It would be easier for everyone if you just declared a conflict of interest on your page and continued to work on the article -- having a connection to one of the candidates is not punishable but trying to hide said connection is. Aesurias (talk) 02:09, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

You started a "neutral point of view" case accusing me of being unable to edit 2025 Buffalo mayoral election without bias. Where in that article am I showing bias towards one candidate over another? There is no evidence for whatever you're trying to do prove here in retaliation for our disagreement over the formatting of that article. I sincerely appreciate the map you made, and I eventually found a home for it in the article. All of this could have been hashed out on said article's talk page, but to know you wasted your entire day calling for my head is adorable. TheNewMinistry (talk) 03:04, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

That's not an answer, and if anything, is more of an admission that you do know Gainer. If not, then you falsely claimed the image was your own work, and given that the image is of a living person, that is equally concerning... Aesurias (talk) 23:55, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Also as per https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buffalo_ReUse&action=history&offset=&limit=500, just hours after the Buffalo ReUse page was created by you, an IP address begun to remove excessive amounts of personal info about Gainer that was poorly sourced (maybe the IP of one of the people who ran Buffalo ReUse from 2012 to 2022?). How did you know all of this information??? Aesurias (talk) 23:59, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Everything they removed was properly cited (and those deletions were later reverted by an admin). Maybe you should actually try reading the article and not trusting the anonymous IPs who kept blanking the page. TheNewMinistry (talk) 00:04, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Also, no, what I said is not a violation of WP:GF , but accusing me of 'wrecking the layout' (I fixed it to be in line with other articles) is borderline! These conflict of interests have been discussed many times, including by administrators, and there is clear evidence that there is a COI.

I am unsure why you refuse to disclose the existence of such a conflict because it is beyond clear that you know or are Michael Gainer -- there is a ridiculous amount of evidence. If you had just disclosed this, you wouldn't have been banned from the articles (having a CoI does not immediately prohibit you from writing an article about the related thing) Aesurias (talk) 22:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Take your witch-hunt elsewhere. The layout of the article is largely decided by User:BottleOfChocolateMilk, who I agree with on most things. You complained on the Talk Page about terminology like "Eliminated in Primary" and the various sections for third-party endorsements - that's his phrasing and layout style. I just maintain the article to standards he agrees with to avoid conflict. Go talk with him if you want something changed. TheNewMinistry (talk) 22:58, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't remember commenting on "Eliminated in primary", that is standard. It's the candidate layout that is the issue.

Once again, this is not the topic of this discussion. Your efforts to distract from the COI issues are not working Aesurias (talk) 23:11, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

User:Kevin Hayes, the co-founder of Michael Gainer's company Buffalo ReUse, confirmed that I am not tied to the organization and did not perform edits on their behalf. You must have missed that. TheNewMinistry (talk) 23:35, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

As long as another account said it...I guess it must be true...

How did you take an image of Michael Gainer in 2007 (according to what you uploaded to Wikimedia at least) if you don't know him? Aesurias (talk) 23:52, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

You really need to directly answer the question about the photo. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 06:35, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Yup!!! Aesurias (talk) 06:49, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

I also took a photo of Donald Trump in 1993 and uploaded it to Commons. I do not know Donald Trump. Being in the vicinity of a public figure and taking their photograph does not constitute a relationship. TheNewMinistry (talk) 02:08, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Michael Gainer is not a public figure, especially not in 2007. The photo also clearly depicts Gainer at a worksite. Are you suggesting you were 'in the vicinity' of this previously unknown man in 2007 at what appears to be a jobsite that he worked at, took a photo of him and kept it in case he ran for public office 18 years later? Aesurias (talk) 02:12, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Some of us have careers. I'm sorry the isolation of Australia limits your activities to Roblox and genocide denial. TheNewMinistry (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Is that an admission that you worked with Gainer and therefore do have a conflict of interest? Aesurias (talk) 02:25, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

You're not too bright. I must have played softball with Donald Trump, by your logic. TheNewMinistry (talk) 03:05, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

WP:PA, other editors have reminded you to cease the personal attacks before.

"Some of us have careers" in reference to a photo you took of a random man in 2007 is either a) an admission you worked with him or knew him or b) that you're a photographer

If you are a photographer, why not say so? Granted, it's somewhat odd that you would be taking blurry photos at a construction site but not my business. Aesurias (talk) 03:09, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

@Aesurias, I've just temp-blocked for PA, but I recommend you take this to ANI if it persists after the block is over. -- asilvering (talk) 03:12, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

👍🏼 Aesurias (talk) 03:13, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Request for Administrative Review - Bias and sourcing in the James Ossuary article

Text generated by a large language model or similar AI technology has been collapsed in line with the relevant guideline and should be excluded from assessments of consensus.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This request follows the recent Talk page discussion (October 2025), where multiple editors refused to address verifiable sourcing and engaged in personal disparagement of scholars and introduction of false claims (e.g., the alleged Jehoash Tablet sale in the Talk). The situation has reached a point where neutral administrative review is needed to ensure compliance with Wikipedia’s core content policies.

The current James Ossuary article gives disproportionate weight to early (2002 - 2004) allegations of forgery while minimizing the decisive scientific and legal findings accepted by the Jerusalem District Court in 2012 and by subsequent peer-reviewed research. As presently written, the article conveys the misleading impression that a genuine scholarly dispute still exists regarding the authenticity of the inscription.

In reality, no qualified expert or peer reviewed scientific publication in the past decade has argued that the inscription is modern, whereas multiple geological, epigraphic, and archaeometric studies have confirmed that it is ancient. This violates WP:UNDUE, since no peer-reviewed publication since 2012 has argued for modern forgery. The purpose of this request is to restore neutrality and verifiability in accordance with WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:BLP.

Key issues:

1. The lead emphasizes early accusations of forgery twenty-years ago (2002 - 2004) and omits the Jerusalem District Court’s 2012 findings after seven years of multidisciplinary expert testimony (approx. 60 experts). The court concluded that no evidence of modern forgery was found, and that natural patina had developed "over hundreds, if not thousands, of years" within the engraved letters (§143).
2. 2. While the judge noted that the court was not empowered to make scientific determinations, this was a procedural clarification. The verdict’s factual findings explicitly state that the prosecution failed to prove any forgery and that genuine ancient patina consistent with antiquity was present.
3. Several editors have deleted or downplayed peer-reviewed and institutional publications (e.g., Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, Vol. I, Israel Academy of Sciences, 2012), which lists the inscription as authentic and 1st-century.
4. Introduction of defamatory and false material:
   1. Leading epigraphers Prof. André Lemaire and Dr. Ada Yardeni have been described as "controversial scholars." This is inaccurate, unsourced, and defamatory. Both are internationally recognized specialists whose testimony under oath was accepted by the court.
5. Misrepresentation of the scholarly record - Editors assert that “the debate continues,” yet have not cited a single post-2012 peer-reviewed publication by any qualified scholar arguing that the inscription is modern. The only name offered, Prof. Christopher Rollston, explicitly testified under oath that he is not an expert in 1st-century inscriptions and did not give an authenticity opinion in court. His subsequent public comments are general methodological skepticism, not scientific analyses of the ossuary itself.
6. Selective citation of the verdict - The article quotes the judge’s procedural disclaimer that the court “does not determine scientific authenticity,” but omits the sections where he accepted geological findings consistent with antiquity and confirmed that the prosecution failed to prove any forgery (§§76–78, 143, 200, 259).
7. Policy violations:
   1. WP:NPOV - failure to represent the scholarly consensus proportionally.
   2. WP:RS - reliance on unsourced or outdated media reports instead of peer-reviewed academic publications.
   3. WP:BLP-  inclusion of defamatory personal claims and insinuations against individuals (e.g., Lemaire, Yardeni, Oded).

Requested administrative actions:

1. Review the article’s lead and sourcing for compliance with WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:BLP.
2. Ensure that the 2012 court verdict and post-2012 peer-reviewed research are accurately summarized.
3. Clarify that while the ossuary’s authenticity was debated in the early 2000s, no subsequent peer-reviewed evidence supports a claim of modern forgery.
4. Request input from uninvolved editors or administrators to achieve a stable, policy-compliant version.

Proposed neutral wording for the lead

"The James Ossuary is a 1st-century limestone box bearing an Aramaic inscription reading 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus'. Its authenticity was widely debated in the early 2000s, but a seven-year trial in the Jerusalem District Court (2005–2012) found no evidence of modern forgery, and later paleographic and geological studies have supported a 1st-century date."

This formulation is factual, verifiable, and supported by the 2012 verdict, Prof. Wolfgang Krumbein’s geological report, and later archaeometric analyses (Feldman 2019; Bible Archaeology Review 2015).

Conclusion

I am requesting the involvement of neutral editors or administrators to ensure compliance with WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:BLP, and to restore factual and balanced representation of the scholarly record in the James Ossuary article.

Respectfully

Domininunez (talk) 11:24, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

The lede gave undue weight to a court case over allegations of fraud. Fraud is an intent crime, and the court decided that there was no fraud, under Israeli law. Courts do not decide questions of historical fact. The creation of bogus religious antiquities is a well-known phenomenon, dating back long enough that the questions over patina etc. are moot. The Turin shroud dates back to the 14th Century, for example. So, no, Wikipedia is not going to state that an open historical question is settled as a result of a court case. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:09, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I also hope that someone could take a look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Daniel.sallow, Huldra (talk) 20:40, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for Admin Review - Bias, False and Politically Charged Claims to Lede

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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National Iranian American Council has been consistently subject to vandalism, and over the last two years, politically charged/biased editors have sought to maintain the highly biased/not neutral lede intro to "lobbying group widely viewed as the de facto "Iran Lobby" in Washington, D.C. due to its history of lobbying for stances on behalf of, and aligned with, the Islamic Republic of Iran."

The lede currently is adopting rhetoric of critics and presenting a controversial label as fact. The phrase “pro-Iran lobbying group” is not a neutral descriptor. The lede gives sole prominence and weighs heavily for one side and in favor of critics. Moreover presents it as fact without balancing it with other coverage showing how the organization identifies itself and is described by independent observers. Presenting one side’s framing as the article’s voice is not neutral.

Moreover, none of the articles cited to source/justify actually make, substantiate or even suggest this claim. The sources cited consist of politically motivated commentary, reports on calls for investigation, or litigation coverage, none establishing that the statement is a fact.

Can someone please review the lede, provide input and review in the talk page here: Talk:National Iranian American Council#Request for review & edits: intro & page subject to constant vandalism & false claims

Below are some of the many sources available that explain the org:

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/iranian-exiles-respond-in-unexpected-ways-to-idea-of-us-iran-nuclear-talks/2015/05/21/4a050db2-f7fe-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html
2. https://www.mediamatters.org/legacy/flaws-daily-beasts-hit-national-iranian-american-council?utm_source=chatgpt.com
3. https://www.visaplace.com/usa-immigration/country/iran/
4. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/06/twitter-iran-bots-mek/
5. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/majority-iranian-americans-oppose-us-strikes-iran-poll-finds
6. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/iranians-american-pac-niac-counter-pro-israel-lobby-119483
7. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/our-man-for-tehran/
8. https://niacouncil.org/about/what-we-do/

Shawrami (talk) 03:02, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

'Pallywood'

I believe the Pallywood article has significant issues with POV. There are 2-3 editors constantly reinserting the word 'falsely' into the lead paragraph to try discredit the entire concept of Pallywood, despite protest from various editors spanning months. I believe it insufficiently addresses the accusations behind the term and the fact that Pallywood definitely exists.

Additional issues:

- "It has been described as a conspiracy theory"

- "Derogatory label used to describe supposed media manipulation by Palestinians"

- Uses 'alleged' for anything Hamas has done, but not for anything Israel has done

- Only mentions issues where Pallywood accusations were false, discounts the times that Pallywood creators have disproven viral content

- Use of significantly biased sources including openly pro-Hamas professors

- Defends Saleh Aljafarawi, a recently-deceased member of Hamas (they fail to mention his open connection to the group), who was also a crisis actor (this is not me defending Israel by the way, its well established that he used his social media as a propaganda arm for the militant group...)

- "...attempts to discredit Palestinians by claiming that they are exaggerating or faking their casualties"

- "...uses out-of-context videos of cafés and restaurants to insinuate that the Gaza Strip famine is a hoax"

Would appreciate perspective from any and all Aesurias (talk) 21:01, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

I should add that almost immediately, one of the main editors tried to remove the neutrality tag I have placed on the article without any discussion. Aesurias (talk) 21:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

It looks like a page describing a conspiracy theory. Added it to my watchlist. However I would suggest "pro-Hamas professors" is not a legitimate neutrality concern. Simonm223 (talk) 22:14, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

You haven’t provided any RS to back up your claims. In contrast, the article looks pretty well-sourced at first glance. For example, the section about the false accusations against Saleh Aljafarawi is sourced to France24, the Sunday Times, and Politifact. Rainsage (talk) 22:21, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

"It has been described as a conspiracy theory" - That is true, as seen by reliable sources in the article.

"Derogatory label used to describe supposed media manipulation by Palestinians" - Supposed, "generally assumed or believed to be the case, but not necessarily so" - It's a type of accusation so we can't describe them as actual media manipulation as a whole. If you'd like the wording to be changed, that can be discussed on the talk page.

"Uses 'alleged' for anything Hamas has done, but not for anything Israel has done" - "alleged" is used 3 times in the article (+1 in a citation) to describe allegation that were either falsehoods or unsubstantiated conjecture. What incidents in the article regarding Israel's actions do you require the same treatment?

"Only mentions issues where Pallywood accusations were false, discounts the times that Pallywood creators have disproven viral content" - Such as? If you have such an incident reliably sourced & sources refer to it as "Pallywood", you should add it to the article. It's not other editor's duty to find sources to support your point.

"Use of significantly biased sources including openly pro-Hamas professors" - Such as? Do reliable sources describe them as "pro-Hamas professors"? Are there any factual issues with these "pro-Hamas professors", or do you just disagree with them?

" Defends Saleh Aljafarawi, a recently-deceased member of Hamas (they fail to mention his open connection to the group), who was also a crisis actor (this is not me defending Israel by the way, its well established that he used his social media as a propaganda arm for the militant group...)" - He wasn't a member of Hamas though, where are you getting that from?

"...attempts to discredit Palestinians by claiming that they are exaggerating or faking their casualties" - ...Yeah? That's what the term "Pallywood" means. I don't know what you want done here.

"...uses out-of-context videos of cafés and restaurants to insinuate that the Gaza Strip famine is a hoax" - Same as above.

Wikipedia is built on reliable sources, so if you think an article isn't neutral, you have to present sources to support your position. If you don't, it'll just look like you're upset the article doesn't agree with you, which isn't helpful. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 22:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

I understand how that comes across. I'm not disagreeing with the article on face value although I think it needs expansion because it is one-sided. "Falsely" in the opening sentence is my primary issue and its a concern that has been raised by other editors.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/prohamas-influencer-killed-in-gaza-battles/news-story/2d0fcacf1e00a518a2b2c445964f3386

Given that he was killed during a confrontation between Hamas and the Doghmush clan, alongside other Hamas militants, it is clear he is closely linked to the group Aesurias (talk) 22:30, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

You have not provided any RS to back up your claim that Pallywood is not “false”. The Pallywood accusations against aljafarawi have already been debunked by RS; it doesn’t matter if he was “pro-Hamas” or “linked” to Hamas (whatever that means) Rainsage (talk) 22:37, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

You should really self revert your addition of the NPOV tag @Aesurias. This is becoming disruptive. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 22:56, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Aesurias is a self-described Zionist who frequently edits articles to either insert pro-Israel propaganda or try and equate Palestinians with terrorists. TheNewMinistry (talk) 02:31, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not very active on pages related to Israel, with the exception of a few U.S.-based political action committees. Almost all of my Wiki work is about United States politics. Aesurias (talk) 02:33, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I can't access that article, but your reasoning that "Given that he was killed during a confrontation between Hamas and the Doghmush clan, alongside other Hamas militants, it is clear he is closely linked to the group" is not evidence, it's conjecture & unless stated within that article, is also WP:OR.

That other editors in the past also didn't like something, doesn't mean it's inaccurate. Again, we rely on reliable sources, not opinions. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 22:39, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

But are you suggesting that the use of the word 'falsely' in the opening paragraph is accurate? That there have been no faked videos? Because its certainly not true -- especially given the poverty in Gaza, many are exaggerating hardship to raise money online, a well-documented event

My primary issue is the opening paragraph. The other things can be easily rectified, I don't want them removed as they're relevant, but the article appears one-sided by only covering false allegations as of right now. If that was my only issue, I wouldn't bring it to the noticeboard. Aesurias (talk) 02:35, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Please. Supply. Sources.

If it's "well-documented", why have you yet to supply any sources that support that claim? Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 02:39, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

There are a number of prominent accounts on social media, primarily Twitter, that pump out fake photos, staged photos or photos from other conflicts to try fundraise.

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-children-used-as-a-propaganda-tool-in-the-israel-gaza-crisis/a-57571541

https://cedmohub.eu/war-of-narratives-syrian-imagery-falsely-illustrates-gaza/

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.343T96T

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-ai-generated-images-of-children-in-gaza/a-68146699

My primary concern is the use of the word 'falsely' Aesurias (talk) 02:48, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, there's misinformation online, but "Pallywood" is specifically an accusation of Palestinians spreading disinformation. I'm not seeing anything in these reports that they were posted by Palestinians or, in regards to photos from other times/locations, that they were intentional disinformation.

Also important, is that the only one of these sources that mentions "Pallywood" specifically differentiates it from the rest of the article.

I know this may seem overly stringent or pedantic, but due to the severity of the accusation, we would need solid, reliable sources that describe Palestinians actively spreading disinformation & reporting it as "Pallywood", otherwise it'd be WP:SYNTH. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 03:21, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

The only article that even mentions "pallywood" is the first one. It does not at all say that Pallywood is a real thing and actually implies it is not... Rainsage (talk) 03:35, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Much of this is covered by the Misinformation in the Gaza war article. pallywood, according to reliable sources, is about dismissing ALL info from gaza as crisis actors and such. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 04:15, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this article out, I wasn't aware of it before. I think I failed to understand the intention of the article, which was not to serve as a long historical list of certain things, but to highlight notable incidents.

I am still opposed to the word 'falsely' in the lede and am keen to hear your personal reasoning for why it belongs there. The main Pallywood social media account (I've forgotten the name) has had some blunders but they've also exposed fakes, so I am unsure if falsely is the right word to use. Does 'accuse' (the next word in the sentence) not already insinuate that many of the accusations have not been proven? Aesurias (talk) 04:34, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I'd also like to retract my complaint about use of the term 'conspiracy theory' ^ Aesurias (talk) 04:35, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Reddit posts have been made about this issue: [1], [2]. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 10:06, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Those links don't work, but you just need to remove the final 3 letters at the end for the page to load.

Two of the videos from the supposed 'megathread' don't give enough context to be clearly labelled as an example of Pallywood, because the videos cut off, but this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelWarRoom/comments/1o6uis2/a_hollywoodlevel_pallywood_performance/?share_id=aAML6OViVl_LwiUIDQiB2&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1 is a clear example of the fact that Pallywood isn't entirely fake. If it weren't so appalling and sad that they are exploiting that little girl (likely for donations from well-meaning Westerners), I'd almost be impressed by the coordination and large scale of the operation they're running. Aesurias (talk) 10:10, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I've fixed the links. Please read WP:CANVASS. It is against Wikipedia policy to recruit people on- or off-wiki to support a particular edit or cause. I am not saying you did it, but someone did. It is also against policy to allow oneself to be canvassed—to make edits or support a proposal after one has been encouraged to do so by another. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 10:19, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I understand that it very obviously looks like I was the one canvassing but I did not and would not. I am happy to share my own Reddit account with you privately and prove that its mine if need be.

I stumbled on the Pallywood page from, I believe, the Gaza genocide denial page? Perhaps thats where other people are seeing it, I believe someone proposed a redirect from Gaza genocide denial to Pallywood, so its possible someone has canvassed there and it's leading people to Pallywood, if that makes sense? Aesurias (talk) 10:22, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I never said it was you, or suggested it. Someone has and now the discussion is tainted. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 10:34, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Its bad faith to imply the reddit post is connected to any discussion. If it is connected to a person on here, WP:OUTTING explicitly forbids discussing it here and directs to forward such evidence to arbcom.

wrt to tainted convo, no esitor below 500 edits is allowed in topic area anyways. Allow the reddit outrage to die out in a week at most and itll be back to normal User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 12:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not implying, I am saying that this discussion has been advertised on reddit and that there are two active reddit threads about this discussion. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 12:57, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia can weather two Reddit threads. Simonm223 (talk) 14:05, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Lol don't worry, I know it wasn't an accusation. But obviously it looks like it was me so I wanted to make it clear :) Aesurias (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at far-left politics

There is a discussion needing input at Talk:Far-left politics#Covering right-wing extremism in the United States in this article about whether to include a graph in the article comparing far-left and far-right murders in the United States. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:26, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Not graph, one paragraph of prose. No one thinks that the crazy captions are going to be a thing and they have not subsequently received support, after being removed. But inserting the statements has received support. It's really about prose content. The files are indeed suitable illustrations for it. If the paragraph should be added, so should the illustrations. They are a subsidiary issue.—Alalch E. 23:45, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

See I kind of understand how we got here: there has been a lot of pressure from right-wing figures to put a recently conducted study that (bad science journalism) has claimed shows 2025 as a year in which left-wing terrorism has outstripped right-wing terrorism in the United States into a variety of articles about the political left.

This study is deeply flawed. First of all 2025 is not complete. Second the examples of left-wing terrorism include the shooting of Brian Thompson (terrorism charges were dropped against the suspect who appears not to have been particularly left-wing) and the shooting of Charlie Kirk (for which the trial has not even begun which makes the question of terrorism premature). The most remarkable finding of the study is actually, rather, that right-wing terrorism in the United States is far lower in 2025 than in past years. This is partly due to redefinition of terms and partly for reasons that the study failed to speculate upon.

But this has led a whole lot of people to quite rightly want to demonstrate that the situation, per scientific consensus, is far different from the one badly-constructed 2025 study that has become a point of faith in the right-wing. Of course, all of this, the study, the findings of the study and how that study correlates with the received body of scientific knowledge is highly Americentric. And the principal legitimate neutrality complaint about inclusion of this information on this page is its Americentrism. Far-left politics is not about far-left politics in the United States in specific.

I understand the impulse to want to protect information about the political left from POV pushing but it does appear that, in this case, the cart is rather before the horse. Simonm223 (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

• From uploader of charts: To summarize a rather long section: The disputed charts visually represent countless sources that refute Trumpian false claims after Charlie Kirk's killing that left-wing political violence is worse, and supposedly justifies clamping down on any left-wing organization. The claims have been compared from across the political spectrum with the Reichstag fire that Hitler used as a pretext to restrict civil liberties, and have been described as "page 1 of the authoritarian playbook" (sources). The implications clearly go beyond the US, even if the data are taken from the one country that is supposedly the exemplary democracy. Separately, I proposed moving text from image captions to the article's narrative, to respond to formal objections. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:32, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  I am going to be honest: on this page, specifically, I think the text is undue - as would be the right-wing claims I mentioned above. Simonm223 (talk) 16:40, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  With all due respect, this comment clearly demonstrates an approach to writing the article that is at odds with WP:NOTNEWS, WP:RGW, and WP:BATTLEGROUND. The purpose of Far-left politics as an article is to provide a comprehensive, historical and international view of the subject, not to respond to Trump's talking point du jour. If anywhere, this sort of comparative analysis would perhaps be appropriate at Political violence. Discussion of and comparisons to right wing violence in a section such as Far-left_politics#Far-left_terrorism if and only if the RS that form the backbone of such a section take up the question of comparing far-left terrorism to far-right terrorism (although in reviewing the section quickly now, it seems like there's some conflation of "terrorism" and "violence" that may need to be cleaned up). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:54, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  It seems that quite a lot of this editor's contributions involves the creation of charts designed to make a point and then placing them across several articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:26, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  I agree. RCraig09 should stop adding what he thinks the article should say as captions instead of integrating his original sourced content as prose. RCraig09 senses that what he wants to add cannot be integrated into running text and the normal structure of an article, because it does not naturally belong in the given article. So, he formats his text addition as a prose sidebar using (rather, misusing) the wikitext markup for images, such that his new prose is purportedly a caption. To justify such insertions he creates original images, to accompany this new text he had added. As a result of all this, the captions are not captions, they are sidebars (side text boxes), as they are known in journalism and publishing (on Wikipedia "sidebars" are for navigation only), and the added images do not illustrate the article, i.e., the body of the article, but illustrate the text in the sidebar. —Alalch E. 10:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Whoa. The location of the text (in caption vs in narrative text) is a formal matter, not a substantive one, and I did propose moving text from caption to narrative. All multi-year data I've encountered in research point in one direction, and exist regardless of Trump's blurt du jour. Countless sources, not just I, "make the point", which has relevance across numerous WP articles. The most recent comments here are personal in nature, and though the US data clearly has worldwide implications I do appreciate the issue of US-centrism and see a consensus on that point. I have formally conceded the point on the Talk Page. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:42, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

The caption/in-text discrepancy is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is hand-picking political arguments, and then putting them into several articles at once, prioritizing aspects that an editor has judged to be important based on their own opinion. I also have mandate (politics) on my watchlist, and I see you've added a WP:COATRACK about Donald Trump on that article as well. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 17:50, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Zaza language

Hi, I believe the Zaza language article has significant issues with neutral point of view. There are 2-3 editors constantly reinserting and trying to maintain an unilateral view and removing other views and references. The article has been consistently subject to vandalism and non-neutral, biased edits for years. Although Zaza language is classified as a separate Northwestern Iraninan language by all major and prominent linguistic databases/sources, SIL, Glottolog, Ethnologue and many other linguists studied the Zaza language, there are 2-3 editors constantly and insistently removing the view that Zaza language is a Northwestern Iranian language, separate from Kurdish langauge, and adding the view that Zaza is a Kurdish dialect/language. None of the major and leading linguistic sources classify Zazaki as a dialect of Kurdish or a Kurdish language. As you can see here, Kurdish is classified into three main dialects; northern, central and southern, by all major and prominent linguistic databases: Ethnologue, SIL, Glottolog. In the article, the reference in which Ludwig Paul demonstrated that Zaza is a separate Northwestern Iranian language and Zaza is not a Kurdish dialect/langauge is distorted. The second of the reference in the first sentence of the classification section indicates Zazaki as a separate northwestern Iranian language. The first source contains only a diagram without offering any linguistic analysis. My contributions are being removed for simple reasons, here, here etc. And here, all the content I added was removed by the same 2-3 users, slowly, piece by piece. This version contained a very detailed and valuable analysis of the language. Now, the views and analysis of linguists who have specifically studied Zaza language are not included in the article, there are only distorted sources and sources of no linguistic value. The Zazas article also has the same NPOV problem. Under these circumstances, I don't know how to contribute and add other opinions. I'm sure, if I reinstate this version or I add any source that classifies Zaza as a separate Northwestern Iranian langauge, the same 2-3 users will remove it directly or will remove it piece by piece. I would appreciate perspective from any and all. Vuzorg (talk) 20:41, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

You have for years now been disruptive on Zaza language. Making few tweaks to your disruptive edits is not helping you. Semsûrî (talk) 12:17, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Just a little reminder: NPA, CIVILITY, HARASS, OWN.

1. Why do you remove all the warning messages left on your message page by Wiki users?
2. Why do you leave warning messages on others users' message pages but you delete the ones left on your page?
3. Why do you remove even the slightest changes in the article Zaza language, without any analysis and reason? HERE
4. Why do you delete my contributions?
5. Why do you remove alternative views from article the Zaza langauge?
6. Why do you remove well-sourced content?
7. What is your evidence that I have for years now been disruptive on the article Zaza language for years?
8. Why are you talking like ... is not helping you? CIVILITY again.

All this is cyberbullying, wikimobbing. Vuzorg (talk) 13:37, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Grouped citations and summary phrasing

Hi everyone, I’d like to request input on a long-running content dispute at University of Michigan. The issue concerns four short statements such as:

• "Sources indicate that the University of Michigan is one of the flagship public universities in the United States."

Each statement was supported by grouped citations (22 reliable sources) (note a,b,c,d). Editor GuardianH removed all of them, citing WP:SYNTH, MOS:WEASEL, and WP:HIGHERED REP (2020).

After nearly two months of discussion, no other editor has agreed with this interpretation. Even ElKevbo, who initiated the WP:HIGHERED REP RfC, has stated that summarizing multiple sources in this way is acceptable and that removing such content does "readers a grave disservice."

Currently, only GuardianH opposes inclusion, suggesting that every individual source should instead be quoted in-text (“Source A says X, Source B says X, Source C says X…”), which would make the section unreadably repetitive. If the concern is purely stylistic—such as the phrasing “Sources indicate that…”—this could easily be reworded in seconds, as done in many FA/GA articles:
• Toy Story (GA) — note: "Sources that refer…"
• Jessica Chastain (FA), Cher (FA), COVID-19 pandemic (GA), Star Wars (GA) — use grouped notes beginning with "Multiple sources:"
• Knives Out (GA), iMac G3 (FA), David Fincher (GA) — use phrasing like “Attributed to multiple sources."

Questions:
+ Do grouped notes that summarize multiple independent sources violate WP:SYNTH or MOS:WEASEL?
+ Does WP:HIGHERED REP (which addressed prestige claims in ledes) apply to citation formatting or grouped notes in article bodies?

Each of the 22 sources independently supports the same descriptors (“flagship,” “elite,” “selective,” etc.). Grouped sourcing of this kind appears in many FA/GA pages, including Pomona College (FA, 2021), promoted after the HIGHERED REP RfC closed. Deleting all grouped notes without proposing any alternative wording has effectively frozen the article despite lack of consensus.

Any clarification on these policy questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much for your time and insights. CalCoWSpiBudSu (talk) 10:19, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I've only heard "flagship university" used before to indicate the primary university/university that receives the most funding in a public university network - SUNY Buffalo is the flagship university of the State University of New York system, University of Massachusetts Amherst is the flagship university of the University of Massachusetts system, etc. University of Michigan doesn't seem to be part of anything comparable. TheNewMinistry (talk) 13:56, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. The term "flagship" is indeed used in multiple contexts, but the current question here is not about semantics — it’s about whether grouping multiple sources (each independently describing UMich as flagship, elite, or selective) constitutes WP:SYNTH, MOS:WEASEL, and WP:HIGHERED REP under Wikipedia policy. Any thoughts on that aspect? CalCoWSpiBudSu (talk) 17:24, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm pinging WP:Higher Education and specifically pinging @GuardianH and @ElKevbo, as they may not have been correctly tagged in this. I haven't thought about this enough to have an opinion, other than an instinctive horror at the wall of text on the UM talk page. Namelessposter (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't recall this specific question having been raised or addressed in previous discussions. It certainly wasn't on my mind when I opened the WP:HIGHEREDREP RfC. If I had thought about it then, I would not have included it anyway as I see the specific way in which sources are included - individually or grouped together - to be immaterial to the core questions of (a) are there enough lots of good sources that explicitly discuss this and (b) is this already discussed in the body of the article. I think that the answer is "yes" for this specific article and I don't care exactly how the sources are cited. ElKevbo (talk) 00:24, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Do you think the majority of Neurodiversity advocates oppose disability selective abortion?

Talk:Neurodiversity#There is evidence that major neurodiversity organizations have argued against disability-selective abortion.

Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Does this material mean that neurodiversity organizations oppose disability-selective abortion?

Do the majority of these groups oppose selective abortion? Most appear to. I found no neurodiversity advocacy groups that actually advocate for disability selective abortion.

I am also seeking input regarding the reliability and application of the primary and secondary sources I intend to use.

Secondary Source

Steve Silberman's NeuroTribes has a citation count of 1,231 on Google Scholar. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) noted that the book "His book played a groundbreaking role in changing the public conversation on autism, elevating the concept of neurodiversity and the voices of autistic people into the mainstream. " (ASAN Mourns the Loss of Steve Silberman, August 30, 2024).

Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, Avery Publishing, ISBN 978-1-58333-467-6, pp.470.

“Neurodiversity advocates propose that instead of viewing this gift as an error of nature—a puzzle to be solved and eliminated with techniques like prenatal testing and selective abortion—society should regard it as a valuable part of humanity’s genetic legacy while ameliorating aspects of autism that can be profoundly disabling without adequate forms of support.”

Primary source

Evans, M. (2020). The Autistic Genocide Clock. In: Kapp, S. (eds) Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

The Autistic Genocide Clock was created by Autistic activist Meg Evans in 2005. The Clock was a ten-year countdown in the image of a clock in response to researcher Dr. Joseph Buxbaum’s public pronouncement that genetic research on autism could lead to a prenatal genetic test within 10 years. Evans’ point was that a prenatal genetic test for autism could lead to abortions of fetuses that test positive for autism: a form of genocide in her view. The Autistic Genocide Clock warned about the risk of genocide to the autistic population that drew parallels to historic attempts to eliminate minority groups. Evans took the clock down in 2011 after the prenatal test seemed unlikely and the culture had moved much further towards acceptance.

John Pring on 4th November 2021, Autistic campaigners’ anger over Spectrum 10K protest lock-out and ‘scare tactics’, disabilitynewsservice.

Nicky Vere-Compton warned that the research could eventually be used to encourage parents to abort unborn babies that had a genetic link to autism.

She said: “We have already seen what happened when they found a DNA link for Down’s.

“They used that as an opportunity to have conversations with the parents of unborn Down’s babies, saying, ‘Would you like to abort your child?’

“And as a consequence, less Down’s babies are being born now.

“If they find the DNA link for autism, which they won’t, because I don’t believe it exists, but if I’m wrong and they do, what will happen is that every doctor will be speaking to the parent of an unborn autistic and saying, ‘Would you like to abort your baby?’

“The level of ignorance about the autistic neurotype means that more parents than not will say, ‘Oh no, I don’t want an autistic child’ and there will be less of us being born.

David Gray-Hammond, who read out the statement, added: “On a personal note, I think most of us were lost for words when we saw this research come out… it’s yet another attack on the autistic community.

“Yet again, people are trying to find out what causes autism, rather than actually support the ones that are already here.

“Because we are here, we are human beings, we exist and we deserve support, and instead £3 million is being poured into research which could potentially be used to eradicate us.

“We have a right to exist.”

Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Letter to ACLU on Wrongful Birth and Life Statements, May 25, 2012

We are writing as members of the disability community to express disappointment with your action alert this past March defending wrongful birth and wrongful life lawsuits. As civil rights advocates, we are grateful for the ACLU’s tireless work. However, we strongly feel that your defense of these suits fails to address issues that reach beyond reproductive choice and that profoundly affect people with disabilities. We would like to schedule a meeting with you to begin a dialogue between our organizations. People with disabilities see these lawsuits as involving distinct issues unrelated to abortion, namely the harm to society when courts make decisions about the value of the lives of individuals with disabilities who have already been born. We are disappointed that an organization committed to and with a long history of protecting civil liberties and human rights, particularly the rights of traditionally marginalized or underrepresented communities, would support a policy that dehumanizes people with disabilities and devalues their lives. Wrongful birth and wrongful life lawsuits have as their basis the assumption that life with a disability is not worth living, which goes against the principles of the disability rights movement and the Americans with Disabilities Act. These actions require parents to publicly reject their child because of a disability. Only parents who convince the court that their child should never have been born are eligible to win a wrongful birth or wrongful life lawsuit. Similarly, because not every disability will be considered significant enough to win a wrongful birth or life lawsuit, courts are required to make decisions about which types of disabilities are “so bad” that parents should be compensated for having the child.

Autistic Self Advocacy Network of Australia and New Zealand, "History of Autistic Advocacy: How we got here"

Meanwhile, Meg Evans’ Genocide Clock warns of the dangers of prenatal autism screening, raising concerns about the erasure of autistic lives.

David Perry, Autism: Can other candidates match Hillary Clinton’s plan? January 10, 2016

To be sure, the plan is not perfect. Amy Sequenzia, an autistic activist, raised concerns about Clinton’s support for the genomic research program into the genetic makeup of autism, known unfortunately as MSSNG. First of all, she and many others have said, autistic people are not “missing.” Secondly, she wrote, “MSSNG, and any type of research under the guise of “mapping” the genetics of autism, is that the likely outcome is to prevent births of autistic people – as in selective abortion.

Otyuso23 (talk) 05:20, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

@ 49.197.241.104 (talk) 07:45, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Pornography addiction#Overview: recognition of the diagnosis of addiction

The question is whether this section should be dropped. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:28, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Did one user add all those unsourced names, or was it a collective effort? Deleting it all because of a lack of referencing seems reasonable. If a third-party says that the "addiction" labeling is debated, that can be noted elsewhere in the article. TheNewMinistry (talk) 21:23, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

It should be converted to WP:PROSE and cited to reliable sources, or else removed entirely. Tangentially, wow —Rutebega (talk) 21:41, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I have provided references, and converted it to prose.

There is one more issue: several primary medical studies get WP:CITED, and I do not find it fine. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:51, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

You never answered my question as to whether all those names were added by an individual user. Was it you who added the names? And regardless of who added the names - is that a comprehensive list, or were names deliberately left out of the "Who recognizes the existence of pornography addiction" section to push a narrative? It seems like you just came here for validation after the Talk Page discussion wasn't going your way. TheNewMinistry (talk) 23:16, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I added all those names.

Further, the IPv6 IP did had not yet replied before me posting this thread to NPOVN. That IP is an indeffed user who pushes research by Trish Leigh.

Porn addiction is not recognized by the two APA, not recognized by WHO, so it is not a recognized diagnostic in any meaningful way.

And the list wasn't complete for both camps. There are some sources for which I don't know their camp. And yet some sources don't belong in any of the four camps. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:53, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Right now it's a weird list because some publishers are listed in contradictory sections. I don't think it is generally considered the case that a publisher publishing an article by a submitted is considered to be taking the position of the piece, which would explain this contradiction. I would think that to say that a publisher recognizes a diagnosis, you would need something like a reported statement from their editorial board. BD2412 T 01:09, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm open to suggestions about how it should be rephrased. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:39, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

sorry, I should have spent more time with the article before commenting. Looking back, I now realize this is covered in Pornography addiction#Diagnostic status. This "overview" is redundant, the classification of expert opinions into discrete camps is inherently synthetic, and the section should be removed. I will amend my earlier comment accordingly. —Rutebega (talk) 15:29, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Dispute regarding how the "satanic verses" should be handled at the Muhammad article

See Talk:Muhammad#The_whole_discussion_of_Satanic_Verses_under_this_page_is_intentionally_misleading_and_Islamophobic. There's a dispute about what Western scholarship's opinion has been/is currently about the veracity of the infamous Satanic verses, and how much weight should be given to the Muslim perspective on the topic in the Muhammad article. Additional input from uninvolved users would be appreciated. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:51, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Pushing of Civilization Jihad conspiracy theory by @Boutboul

Soon after @Tamzin removed a CTOP block on Boutboul, Boutboul has been inserting information on the Civilation Jihad in a variety of articles.

• 1991_Muslim_Brotherhood_memorandum - created by Boutboul using entirely primary sources. It really has no meaningful secondary coverage at all. put it up for AfD at this point.
• [17] - Ok, this diff also shows significant WP:OR, the washington post article that says nothing about bridges instititute, and the Jewish Journal of LA, a very conservative org, seems to mostly be used to dismiss the Bridges Insititute.
• [18], [19], [20], drive by edits on various articles to further argue muslim brotherhood conspiracy by citing the The Investigative Project on Terrorism

is still adding right now based on that source. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:25, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

@Boutboul can you stop drive by listing every islamic org from that link? that article you are citing is very poor. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:26, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Link to article The Investigative Project on Terrorism Doug Weller talk 19:22, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I’m tired but think either an indef or TBAN, probably an indef. if no one does it in the next 12 or so hours I probably will. Doug Weller talk 20:11, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I left a message on their TP, so hopefully they have a response for all this. ←Metallurgist (talk) 02:17, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

In general, they seem to have been warned for WP:CIR and for failing to do WP:BRD correctly. [21], and then got blocked about an hour later.

this troll-ish diff in particular [22] seemed to have been the one to cause the tban.

they haven't been doing as much before. i think this series of edits was clearly egregious POV-pushing, but they haven't been contesting policy in general. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 12:07, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Prop 50 introduction does not include criticism. As usual: Ideological bias on Wikipedia

The fact that the introduction of Prop 50 doesnt include criticism is insane. Its almost like Wikipedia is partisan. I request that the WP:LEAD include acknowledgment of the criticism. 192.184.151.41 (talk) 03:15, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

You are more welcome to make edits on that article, but you will need to justify the addition of any material with references to policies. The lead section isn't to make a political statement, as Wikipedia is not a WP:SOAPBOX, it is to summarize the main ideas in the article so that the reader has an expectation of what further information they are able to find in the article. See MOS:INTRO. I'm not exactly sure sort of "criticism" you expect the lead to include that complies with Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policies. Katzrockso (talk) 03:37, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

The content of an article's introduction is dependent on the content of the article body. It is meant to be a summary of the article body. See WP:LEAD. You could argue that the article body is missing some content and/or that the introduction does not properly summarize the existing article body. But statements about an introduction as if it is an isolated, independent thing with no reference to the article body (as presented by things like Google's "Knowledge Panel", or AI summaries, tools Wikipedia has no control over) don't really make sense from a Wikipedia perspective. A singular focus on what an introduction says regardless of article body content is often a red flag in Wikipedia. It is associated with non-neutral, partisan editing, and attempts to influence the content of external things like knowledge panes/AI summaries. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:59, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Request for Review—Possible Fan and Unneutral Bias

I am writing regarding the pages on Kpop Demon Hunters the film, and the page on its lead single, Golden.

The pages read with wording that often sounds akin to promotional language and occasionally fan-like bias. I am not an expert or an experienced Wikipedia editor, but I wanted to point this out because I often turn to Wikipedia for neutral and well-researched perspectives on pop culture topics—especially when they are trending—and I was not able to find an objective perspective on this page.

Just a things that stood out to me, starting with the most visible:

• The Wikipedia article only contains the Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores, with no mention of the film’s 3.6 Letterboxd score in the “Critical Response” section.

• The negative critical response of the film is minimized, and the overall section reads like a fan’s preference. Only half of the last paragraph contains three mixed comments. These reviews are ambivalent rather than negative—mixing a “short runtime” critique with praise for the “worldbuilding and lovable characters.” The second review calls the short runtime “a fatal flaw” but also a “boon at points,” and says the film is only “slightly underwhelming” because of the “lovable characters.” The final mention of a negative element is about “occasional tonal whiplash.”

• All three of these “negative” comments come from critics (Garcia, Chapman, and Goldberg) who had already given largely positive reviews and are cited elsewhere on the page—such as Garcia’s praise of the soundtrack’s “overly infectious melodies,” which is also referenced on the Golden page. With only these three mildly critical comments drawn from otherwise positive reviews, the article gives the impression that there was no meaningful critical backlash.

• The “Critical Response” section includes only half a paragraph of negative commentary, while positive reviews—typically summarized as “generally positive reception”—are written out in extreme detail.

• In reality, there were several critical reviews of the film from both professional critics and the general public, including commentary on its “propaganda-like” depiction of the K-pop industry, its avoidance of mental health themes, and issues with pacing and writing. Many of these are reflected in the Letterboxd score, which is not mentioned.

For example:

Sam Jennings, a film critic at the Metropolitan review critiqued the film's hyper processed pace "made for people with the shortest attention spans imaginable," and that it ignores the "darker reality" of the way the industry "train[s] young pop stars and sell[s] their talent as a corporate spectacle to stadiums," https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2025/09/the-dark-heart-of-kpop-demon-hunters

The above is actually a critique that lowered the film's critic letterboxed score.

Michael Li at Film Purgatory (an Editor’s Pick) called the film “an unoriginal story and a shallow approach… a flashy corporate sellout to appeal to K-pop fans,” also noting its “uniquely grotesque animation.”

None of these more critical viewpoints—or even a general sense that some critics took issue with the animation—are reflected in the article.

Additionally, the second half of the final paragraph in the “Critical Response” section, after the single “occasional tonal whiplash” comment, pivots to describing the film’s overwhelming success and claims that “Sony made an incredible mistake letting it go.” This feels like fan cherry-picking, emphasizing every positive comment while being reluctant to include anything less flattering.

Instead of something more neutral, such as:

“KPop Demon Hunters received wide acclaim from both critics and audiences, who praised its animation, music, voice acting, and story. The film’s acclaim led Netflix to make it a rare theatrical release," the article currently reads with a sense of overwrought bloat and promotional enthusiasm.

Especially in the fandom-related sections, much of the writing reads like social media commentary or fan essays: “The film has been noted as a cultural phenomenon,” “Dance sequences went viral on TikTok,” and “The film’s success was also seen as a ‘watershed moment for representation.’” These are points frequently echoed by fans but not necessarily relevant or encyclopedic for inclusion.

The same issue is even more pronounced on the Golden page, which contains no criticism whatsoever—just eight reviews of glowing praise and record-breaking details. This gives the impression of promotional writing rather than balanced coverage.

Across both pages, there is little sense of objectivity. The writing occasionally includes embedded opinions, excessive name-dropping of other artists for comparison, and a tone that at times feels triumphant or proud of the film’s success.

The “Production” section, for example, includes expanded directorial opinions that appear in the film’s Oscar campaign press materials, rather than production-specific details typical of film pages. While most lines are factual, the level of commentary and sourcing feels more aligned with marketing than documentation.

To give one clear example:

“...drawing on elements of mythology, demonology, and K-pop to craft a visually distinct and culturally rooted film.”

The latter part (“visually distinct and culturally rooted”) reads as opinion rather than neutral description.

Another instance:

“Billboard noted that ‘following the soundtrack’s second-week streaming explosion, Republic hustled to have "Golden" impact top 40 radio stations’ on July 8.” This is oddly specific for an opening paragraph, as is the vague: “...and was named a cultural phenomenon by several publications.” Both sound promotional and unnecessary in the lead.

In general, there are small tonal slips throughout—none are egregious individually, but together they make the article feel more celebratory than encyclopedic. I believe a more distanced editorial review could help bring the article back into alignment with Wikipedia’s standards of neutrality and objectivity.

I appreciate the work that goes into maintaining pages like these and am only raising these concerns in the spirit of improving the article’s overall neutrality and professionalism. Lordonlyknowssopleasehelpsus (talk) 06:06, 1 November 2025 (UTC)