Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view

Russian wiki

Hi,

In Russian description of the NPV rule there is missing a clause, namely that about importance of sources:

Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources.

My attempt to supplement the rule has not yet been successful. My question: is it possible to describe the importance of the said above clause? Thanks in advance. Basicowes (talk) 08:37, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

We, uh, aren't the Russian wiki. ☩ ^{(Babysharkboss2)} 00:48, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Try [[1]] and the UCoC. A number of other complaints to do with RuWi have ended up there Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 05:14, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

To explain a bit more: the various language Wikipedias are each separate projects… and while the rules tend to be similar, there are significant differences between them. If you think something is missing from a policy at the Russian WP, you will have to discuss it over at the Russian Wikipedia. We here at the English Wikipedia can’t tell them what to do. Blueboar (talk) 17:18, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

The year Anthony left Max Rowley's Media Academy

Anthony Maroon panel operated my first class at Max Rowley's Media Academy in 1985 and graduated very soon after that. He was conspicuous by his absence. The current WIKI states that he left the Academy in 1989. Can somebody change the year he left. Even better, can someone confirm it with Anthony. He is currently commentating on CH 9 for the Women's NRL 2025 season. Statusquo7707 (talk) 02:14, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

This is the page for discussing improvements to Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy. You should try discussing this on talk:Anthony Maroon.
However you will need a verifiable source to back up the change, Wikipedia doesn't allow personal recollections. The details have to have been published somewhere so other editors can check and verify the details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 08:49, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

RfC on BLPCRIME

There is currently an RfC on WP:BLPCRIME at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons § RFC: Amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:13, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Notability of asteroid namings

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) can officially name minor planets after anything or anyone who they deem deserving of the honor. Often, the namesake will be notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. Since the early days of Wikipedia, many users have operated under the implicit assumption that such an asteroid naming is automatically notable, and deserves to be mentioned in the article about the namesake. For example, the biography Valentin Lebedev mentions asteroid 10015 Valenlebedev; the article about the village Fröjel mentions asteroid 10127 Fröjel. I estimate that about one third of all articles whose subject has an asteroid named after them mentions that fact. This rarely entails more than a single sentence, of the form "In 2025, asteroid X has been named in their honor." Sometimes it also includes a quote from the brief naming citation published by the IAU. I am not aware of a Wikipedia article where this has later been removed. That does make it look uncontroversial.

I agree with making such additions in principle, and have made some myself (example diffs: Martha Argerich; Hofheim, Hesse; and MS Zaandam). As a source, I usually refer to the official announcement by the IAU (that is, the corresponding issue of the IAU's WGSBN Bulletin [2] or of the Minor Planet Circulars [3]). Others have referenced astronomical databases like JPL's Small Body Database [4] or the MPC Database [5]. Those are undoubtedly reliable sources. However, to my knowledge, the assumption that this is notable by default has never received community consensus, or any form of discussion. This has become even more acute in recent years, when the numbers of known and named asteroids have increased dramatically. By now, the IAU has named about 25,000 asteroids, mostly small rocks in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter that themselves are completely non-notable (see WP:DWMP for the guideline how to deal with articles about the asteroids themselves).

The question is: Is a reference to WGSBN or a database entry enough to establish that the naming is notable enough to be mentioned in the namesake's article? That is, do we need additional coverage of the naming in reliable secondary sources, like the ABC news story [6] cited at Ghillar Michael Anderson in addition to the WGSBN Bulletin, to justify mentioning the asteroid? Or is the mere announcement of the name by the IAU enough? I personally believe that such a naming is generally interesting, and that a single sentence does little harm, but I'm too invested in asteroids to form an unbiased opinion.

There has been a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (astronomical objects) about this question, but this was found to be the wrong place to make such a decision. Still, you may want to refer to that discussion for further context, and for input from other users. Renerpho (talk) 03:09, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Notified: WT:ASTRO, WP:NASTRO. Renerpho (talk) 03:09, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

BALASP

I don't think BALASP (editors "should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject") reflects how articles are actually written. We aren't simply trying to reflect the treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. Apart from obvious (to experienced editors) caveats like NOT and BLP, the emphasis of sources covered by WP:BESTSOURCES, tertiary sources and retrospective accounts are understood to better establish emphasis than the "body of reliable, published material on the subject". Leaving source hierarchies aside, striving to treat each aspect with a proportional weight would result in movie articles that are 90% reviews and embedded systematic bias, which is just not how we try to write articles.

I asked WhatamIdoing what she thought about my assessment, and was told: BALASP needs to move away from pure "prominence in the reliable sources" towards "encyclopedia articles provide some basic context, even if reliable sources mostly ignore it". For example, every biography needs to place the subject in the basic context of time, place, situation, etc. If we write a ten-sentence stub about a 19th-century person, we don't spend two of those sentences on his birth and family because 20% of reliable sources are all about his birth and family; we do that because that's what encyclopedia articles do. The "articles should provide basic context" framing seems true, as do similar framings of articles should take explaining their subjects as the primary goal.

Generally, I find the framing of content inclusion/exclusion around neutrality strange. While overemphasizing aspects or including/excluding information can compromise neutrality, coherence, subject MOS compliance, preventing the article from looking unbalanced (irrespective of source emphasis) and subjective boundary drawing around subject definitions (tangentiality) will often be the driving reasons for adding or removing information to an article. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 07:50, 4 October 2025 (UTC)