Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Examples

AD/BC versus CE/BCE

Is there a stated policy on the use of AD and BC versus CE and BCE for discussing dates on Wikipedia?

I think the CE/BCE terms are much more in keeping with the NPOV policy, although I know AD/BC terms are more familiar to most. AD="In the year of our Lord" implies the superiority and truth of Christianity over other religions or non-religions for that matter. Not commenting about truth of Christianity, but it doesn't seem appropriate for Wikipedia to use those terms when neutral terms exist, such as BCE=Before Common Era and CE=Common Era.

Before I start revising articles for this, I'm curious if there is a Wikipedia policy about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.18.137 (talk) 21:03, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

$

" Symbols The $ symbol is used by over 60 countries in the world. Generally $ means the United States dollar, but to always assume that irritates those people who feel equally entitled to use the symbol. Try to use US$, or USD (the ISO 4217 code). Although much less confusing, the same goes for the £ symbol: use GB£ or GBP (or UK£ or ... you get the idea). "

I'm sorry but $ is clearer for any non-native Engliskh speaker than USD.

Ericd 21:01 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

I'm sorry but that's wrong. I'm a non-native English speaker, and USD is much clearer to me. When I see USD, I don't have to think twice about who authored the text, where it was written, or to what audience it was intended. Go ahead and use $ in articles that are about the US, I don't mind, but not in other articles. I mean, in most cases it might be obvious, but then again, sometimes not. If I read somewhere "The national debt of X is $400 million", I don't want to have to figure out first, whether X uses dollars as its currency or not, second, whether this dollar is in fact USD or another dollar, and third, whether the author has translated the figure from one type of dollars to another or not. If it states "... is 400 million AUD" or "... is 400 million USD", for instance, it's simple. "... is $400 million" might be okay, but it's really unnecessarily obtuse to force me to hover over the dollar sign to get to know what it means. -- Jao 20:35, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

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Can we lose this "Various cultures use differing standards of measurement" please? SI is an international standard of measurements, which only a few countries still fail to accept. Link to Wikipedia:Measurements Debate, too. -- Tarquin 23:05 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

What part do you want to lose? The leading sentence, or the two paragraphs on the subject? For background Wikipedia:List of controversial issues includes Anti-metrication. -º¡º

Well, frankly, avoiding cultural bias in this case would mean using only SI, because those have no cultural bias. They are international, and it's only the US's cultural isolationism which causes a problem here. it's a political issue, sad but true -- Tarquin

I just read the entire Wikipedia:Measurements Debate article, and I doubt I have much new to say that someone hasn't already said in one way or another. It doesn't look like there ever was consensus, but everybody just decided to keep doing whatever they were doing before. -º¡º

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Ah, you say the earth goes round the sun, but that isn't strictly true. They go round each other, it is just that the mass of the sun is so much greater than that of the earth that its motion is small in comparison. -- SGBailey 13:46, 2003 Dec 22 (UTC)

And don't forget to add in the other motions of the sun due to the other planets. But I think we can agree: to a first approximation, "the Earth goes round the Sun" -- The Anome 14:06, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's fair. -- SGBailey 15:41, 2003 Dec 22 (UTC)

What is a fact?

I cut "can be validated on demand in such a way that a reasonable person would accept the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt" from what is a fact and replaced it with the idea a fact is an undisputed item. If this is a problem, please comment (or revert). Tom - Talk 06:22, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think the original "can be validated on demand..." version is closer to the spirit of what "facts" are compared with merely "undisputed", even if it is wordier than your replacement. But given your comment was made 2 years ago and apparently no one care to either comment or revert, I am not motivated to revert anything at this time. 24.19.184.243 09:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The current version reads: "In general, facts are items that are not known to be disputed at all by otherwise reasonable people [citation needed]". Wow. That's the most disputable statement I've ever heard, and unsourced, to boot! KenThomas (talk) 02:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

About some disputes illustrated on the page

I would argue that more explanation is not really the key. Less is, because more content on a contentious point simply invites bickering over personal attitudes, not well-founded fact. So if in real doubt, remove the stuff that is causing waves until the the rational discussion over the contribution's worth is resolved, preferably by references being added and NPOV being applied more thoroughly.

Also, I think many of the most problematic situations outlined on the page have to do with basic fallacies in argumentation; in fact mostly the problem of "many questions". The kind of arguments which say, "Have you already stopped beating your wife?", without any possibility of discussing the starting and the ending claim separately. Those sorts of problems should then be addressed formally, I think, in Wikipedia guidelines. But in a language that doesn't require formal training in logic, fallacies, "critical thinking" or any of the sort, or import any of the kinds of intimidating "lists of errors" that often crop up in this situation. Decoy (talk) 18:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

"This interpretation has been heavily criticised " The world "heavily" is not neutral. You can't measure "heavily". A neutral point of view would not include adverbs or adjectives like that. 98.127.168.159 (talk) 06:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I have some solutions and corrections:

• Anti-Americanism exists in the world because of a number of things in American foreign policy, such as with Palestine... "Thing" and "such as" seem more neutral than "error" and "particularly with".
• Darwin's theory of natural selection is one of many scientific explanations for the diversity of life on Earth. You never know when aliens may be reading Wikipedia...
• The pro-life movement holds that abortion is wrong or that it is only justified in some cases I think this sounds more accurate.
• Subject to the influence of other bodies in the Solar System, the Earth and the Sun orbit their common center of mass, or barycenter. To an approximation, the Earth goes around the Sun. "Good" is positive, not neutral.
• Scientologists such as (whoever) believe that living cells have a memory. This is based on an interpretation of the work of Crick and Watson in 1955. This interpretation has been criticized by cell-biologists such as (whoever) ... "Notable" seems subjective, as one may be notable to John X but not notable to John Y.

--Turkeybutt (talk) 22:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

GB£

This is not a valid abbreviation used anywhere and probably constitutes a WP:HOAX, have substituted with the widely recognised form '£ stg'. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 02:31, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

That is a clear violation of your topic ban. Don't do that. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:21, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

So you're happy to retain patent nonsense. This is not a currency-related page. There is no verifiable reliable source that can be cited for "GB£" in the way there is for "£ stg", it clearly does not belong in an encyclopaedia. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 10:58, 18 October 2022 (UTC)