User:Masem/RSPoly

On Wikipedia, articles on topics relating to persons, groups, and events that fall into political or ideological arenas may attract a great deal of editor attention, particularly if there are recent or ongoing debates or controversies surrounding that topic as presented in the mass media. Editors should use a great deal of care to handle these articles as to avoid getting caught up in the furor of typical news reporting on these topics. Such article must still be written following all content policies, and should only include information that has appropriate permanence that would still be relevant five, ten, or twenty years (or more) down the road.

Editors are reminded that:

• Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and we have no requirements to be up to the minute on coverage of controversial topics.
• Wikipedia should document the controversy in a non-judgemental fashion
• Controversial information regarding named living persons must be handled with utmost care.
• Most mass media qualify as reliable sources necessary and required to support facts stated in Wikipedia's voice, editors should be aware that these sources may be expressing opinion as fact, and that other typical non-reliable but authoritative sources may be used to support inclusion of attributed opinions as counter points.

Rational

There has been a long culture war brewing in Western societies since after 2000, leading to more distinct separation between the left and right on the political and ideological scales. Events such as Brexit and 2016 U.S. Presidential Election has brought out these differences in culture to the forefront.

This has led to a mass media that has become much more engaged within this cultural war, particularly as the media on average have traditionally leaned towards the left on political and ideological issues, and there is a resurgence of right-leaning themes (such as the alt right) that are gaining popularity with average people. There is a question of how "objective" media sources can be under these conditions, and how that impacts Wikipedia's content polities. Editors need to be more alert that in the political and ideological arenas, current reliable sources should be careful scrutinized and not assumed to be infallible.

Processes to consider

Wait a few days before adding the latest mudslinging

Editors should seek to write articles that will stand the test of time, rather than making sure it is necessarily up-to-the-minute. Not every single daily news story about a controversy needs to happen. Often, the latest "twist" will resolve in a few days, and may seem relevant or not to include, particularly if the news tidbit is highly controversial. At times, it might even be better to wait a few weeks so that editors can rely on media's hindsight to figure out how best to approach a topic.

Document the controversy fairly, but use appropriate weight for opinions on it

In a controversy there are two or more "sides". The stance of each of those sides should be given roughly equal weight and documented without any type of judgment in Wikipedia's voice. Only after that's done can external opinions about the matter be considered, at which point, editors should find a balance that is appropriately metered by WP:WEIGHT. Editors may be tempted to use WP:FRINGE to dismiss minor viewpoints in these cases, but as such controversies are recent or ongoing, this presumes one side is "right", which is not appropriate if we are trying to document without judgment.

Be aware of opinions stemming from authoritative but non-reliable sources

In particular with matters dealing with the right, opinions supportive of the right-leaning position are very unlikely to be found in the left-averaging sources. Editors should be aware that we do not limit attributed opinion to only reliable sources; as long as editors have deemed a source an authority in the topic area, attributed opinions may also come from such non-reliable sources. This is particularly true in the WP:WEIGHT evaluation aspects. In particular when dealing with living individuals, editors should look to any self-sourced claims made by the individual that counter points made from other reliable sources, even if this does not come from a reliable source.

Rational/workpage concepts leading to this

This is only a workpage for tracking ideas for a potential proposal for WP:RS or a subsequent guideline.

Issues

• In the current political climate (since ~2010), reporting in mainstream media on political and idelogical topics has become highly subjective and less objective as a result of several factors: the ongoing culture war, the last US election, shrinking readerships affecting the way newspapers operate and cutting staff, the need to drive more eyes to stories (thus turning to emphatic reporting) to gain revenue, and fighting against citizen journalism and other new media sources.
  • Sources more and more frequently will through out contentious labels and claims towards people or groups ideological or politically opposed but without given the statement in context of opinion, leading to WP editors seeing these as facts.
• Due to several factors, what we generally have as main RSes are left-leaning/liberal-leaning works, taking a broad average pictures.
  • The media has historically always been a bit to the left
  • There has been a number of newer conservative media outlets that came about post-9/11, eg Breitbart, in response to the seemingly weighted left-leaning coverage and the success of Fox News. These sources did not hold back on low-ball tactics/unethical journalism processes to get their point across (exaggerating, misquoting, etc.) As such, Breitbart and many of these other sources have been labeled as unreliable for factual content, for very good reason.
  • While we are doing the right thing by eliminating bad sources for fact, it leaves most left-leaning sources as classified as reliable.
    • When coupled with less objective reporting on certain subjects like politics and ideological issues, this potentially creates an echo chamber where the same opinion from only one side of this spectrum can be included as we have seemingly eliminated contrary voices.
• RS as presently defined primarily sets RSes as only being those that have a history of editorial control and fact-checking so that they can be used for supporting factual content; RSes that fail that can only be used in very limited cases.
  • RS does not have reasonable allowances when the topic includes elements that rely on opinion and stances that would never be written in a fact but always as a claimed attributed statement.
  • WP:RS/N has frequently made clear that there are sources not acceptable for fact-validating RSes (per WP:RS) but are fine for opinion if the work is known to be an appropriate voice (expert/authority/involved) for a topic. Eg: Breitbart [1]. (More examples to fill in)
  • RS does not reflect this aspect of RS/N adequetely, as least when it comes to how RS is applied in other policies. Principle example is for WP:UNDUE/WEIGHT considerations at NPOV; several cases in articles on the political spectrum where editors have refused to entertain opinions that are outside the RS-defined scope and thus use UNDUE to exclude other opinions.
• Editors themselves may have implicit or explicit biases; we do not prevent editors from participating due to this bias but they must be aware of that in how they handle topics
  • An editor with a bias that favors how a political topic is presented by the press will be drawn to make sure that presentation is upheld, and will refute discussion to include material against that stance on the grounds of UNDUE or FRINGE. In some cases this may be proper to keep that material out, but key is to not block any type of discussion of other viewpoints before consensus can be made.
  • Similarly, an editor with a counterbias against the media's presentation may try to push very unreliable sources to demand their point be included. This also has the same problems.
  • In both of these cases, as well as for the middle ground, we must watch for cherry-picking of sources, particularly when they are opinions. In many cases, it can be very easy to find an op-ed from a respected RS that uses much more extreme opinionated language compared to most other sources and use that attributed text in the article. Opinions within a given POV on a situation must be taken from a balanced perspective and avoid using language chosen from extreme ends
• Policy lacks any exact nature of how do deal with mainstream media when mainstream media is involved (not independent) of a topic, particularly when it comes to NPOV/UNDUE.
  • A very explicit case is the current confrontation between media and President Trump and the accusations going back and forth. The media is clearly involved (heck, most sources are not "clean" in reporting on this) requiring careful considering of opinions and facts.
  • However, media's involvement can be more subtle, and sometimes requires a high-level view to understand exactly what is going on, which is limited if only "reliable sources" are used.

Requirements of any modification

• BLP must be upheld, period. Any opinion from any source (reliable or other source) that engages in outright BLP violations cannot be included.
  • However, much of what falls on these political/ideological issues will generally involve the opinions or impressions of persons/groups rather than malicious claims, and there is a balance that BLP allows for this.
• There cannot be a weakening of how RS is applied to prevent "nonsense" added to pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, or other types of topics that fall under WP:FRINGE.
  • Any new aspects of the RS guideline to be derived must focus on what covers political and ideological issues but not in areas where there is more objectivity to determining something being pseudoscience, etc.
• We need to recognize that a majority/plurality/near-unanimous opinion/label/claim from the normal RSes cannot be ignored in writing such articles, and must be included in some manner.
• There is a "time" factor involved; political/ideological conflicts far in the past do not need the same careful care as current and ongoing ones, since there's sufficient hindsight, perspective on the broader picture from other sources to provide that insight. This is an issue that more affects the recent and ongoing stories where that hindsight has not developed.
  • This is possibly where the importance of WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:DEADLINE - for any type of current/breaking story that rests on personal claims or allegations, it is likely best to wait some time for details. We should be trying to write these events as if we had a decade of hindsight to know how they fit and what are key details, and the current trend in editing to write breaking news rubs this the wrong way.
• We need to make sure what is clear when we say an RS that is acceptable for opinion only, how then to evaluate such sources for their "expert" or "authorative" stance, since we have established these fail the normal "fact checking" aspect. At minimum there should be evidence of editorial control , but other facts would need to be developed, as to cover cases considered already at RS/N

Implementation Most likely this will come out to be a guideline that covers additional context to the following policy/guidelines, limiting it to specifically political or ideological differences of opinion about intentions or motiviations where there has not been sufficient time for the required hindsight (which can range from months to years), and specifically excluding things like pseudoscience or conspiracy theories where there is some objective means to evaluate a portion of the claims.

• WP:RS - for how to consider RSes in a political/ideological conflict, and the importance of the difference between for-fact and for-opinion RSes. It should be recognized that if the media is trying to get involved and sway a viewpoint in its non op-ed reporting, they are no longer independent sources; it doesn't make them unreliable, but it does loses their objectivity and that must be balanced in our writing by some means.
• WP:BLP - Highest priority issue to make sure that outright BLP violations are not given, and strengthening that any highly contentious claims need to have clear justified sourcing from many sources.
• WP:LABEL - Understanding that contentious labels usually show up in these type of articles, so very careful attribution must be used
• WP:NEO - New controversies often bring about new terms ("Fake News" as the principle example), and just like all neologisms, the exact definition is usually fuzzy and vague at its introduction and can be used in a biasing way; as such, neologisms should only be used as part of attributed statements or quotes
• WP:NPOV - specifically from the above RS that for-opinion RSes should be evaluated appropriately in areas like YESPOV and UNDUE
• WP:FRINGE - making sure to distinguish between p/i debates and pseudoscience type fringe theories. A difference of opinion over intent or motiviation should never be treated as a fringe theory. Fringe theories usually can be show very much likely to be false through through some type of objective experimentation or evidence, even if this does not fully debunk the theory. Intent or motivation can only ever be subjectively judged based on observed actions (barring certain judicial/gov't agencies assigning such)
• WP:NOT#NEWS/WP:DEADLINE - that these type of articles attract up to the second additions, but really should be written with a long-term view. It is nearly always better to let a suddenly-new accusation in a controversy have a few days in the news cycle to figure out how best to include it, rather than racing to include.

It should focus on how to write about controversies, that presenting both/all sides of a controversy that is still recent/ongoing without editors trying to judge, and then after that considered broader opinions.

In phrasing it like this, this will probably more something akin to WP:Writing about fiction, though this should have at least guideline strength behind it.

Other issues A key presumption of this policy is that there is problem in the media today about lack of objectivity. To many, this lack of objectivity is clear over the last year and half from the election cycle (and moreso if one leans right), but in discussions leading up to this, there are editors that go "well if the media's not objective, provide sources to show that". The media does not report on the media, broadly, though obviously will cover specific cases (eg the Rolling Stone false rape accusation story, the Gawker/Hulk Hogan lawsuit).

The problem is that our policies/guidelines are all based on the presumption sources are objective (a factor that does not enter into RS determination, nor necessarily should it). NPOV in particular works out great if all sources are objective to the highest degree as it eliminates guess work in the areas of UNDUE and WEIGHT. In other words, if you are presuming that media are objective (and thus reject the possible non-objectivity), then it is very easy to defend any attempt to alter or weaken other policies and guidelines using non-RSes because the policy looks fine otherwise. But this creates a catch 22 situation to try to challenge this area.

While we do ask for sourcing in mainspace, there must be recognition that behind the scenes, we as editors do engage in productive original research as to establish how to write in mainspace. For example, most of what we have determined to be reliable sources are based on "original research" assessment for editorial quality. As such , this same type of original research needs to be allowed to consider the state of the media with an apparent "absence" of sources, however, one can point to works like Pew Research and CJR that actually cover the media to see there is a concern about objectivity. Once there's reasonable consensus that we can have cases in the media where objectivity has not be upheld, then there's means to discuss how that factor affects policy and guidelines. A key point must remain that non-objective sources don't become unreliable, they just become non-objective (and technically, non-objective as evaluated on a published article-by-article basis), and potentially no longer independent coverage. This principally affects NPOV writing.