Britannica doesn't have detailed articles on anything the way we do on WP

The question is would Britannica allow someone who is involved in the story to write their article? No. They might use him as a source but they wouldn't ask him to contribute. Berlet can be used as a source for Larouche articles but he shouldn't be editing them. You haven't addressed this point despite the fact that it's been brought up several times but, again, cherry picking which questions you answer is part of how you operate.

And I think you mean the Beatles, the rock band not the Beetles, the insect. It's a take off of "beat".

"NPOV" is supposed to include all positions, both pro and con, with adjustments made for "weight". This means effectively that you have to make room for all positions in any given article. If somebody finds a source which says "LaRouche is the best thing since sliced bread" and it fits the RS criteria, you have to give that fact room in the article. Verifiability, not facts, wasn't that it?

That's not true; the requirement to adjust for weight is perfectly consistent with some reliably sourced opinions not being sufficiently widely held/covered to merit any mention at all in an article.

(Not trying to cast myself in the role of defender of Wikipedia's content policies, but you were misrepresenting that one.)

The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively. Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions.
Policy shortcut:
WP:YESPOV

The neutral point of view is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject: it neither endorses nor discourages viewpoints. As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy on the grounds that it is "POV". Article content should clearly describe, represent, and characterize disputes within topics, but without endorsement of any particular point of view. Articles should provide background on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular; detailed articles might also contain evaluations of each viewpoint, but must studiously refrain from taking sides.

The question is would Britannica allow someone who is involved in the story to write their article? No. They might use him as a source but they wouldn't ask him to contribute.

Who do you believe manipulated it?

A good question, deserving of an answer. And don't forget mine:

So, I believe that my description fits into the spirit of these two paragraphs. How this is applied in practice is another matter indeed...

Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as a majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute.

"NPOV" is supposed to include all positions, both pro and con, with adjustments made for "weight". This means effectively that you have to make room for all positions in any given article. If somebody finds a source which says "LaRouche is the best thing since sliced bread" and it fits the RS criteria, you have to give that fact room in the article. Verifiability, not facts, wasn't that it?

For this process to work, you have to have procedure which does not allow material to be removed because somebody doesn't like it. It should be that something which is sourced should be not removable and removing that should be the bannable offense, not the type of political jerry mongering that typically happens now.

If you had to include a source which was not your own work and the information sourced could not be removed, then you might have a chance of coming up with "balanced" articles.

There are all types of people in the World. I just wonder if it is the place of an encyclopedia to be making judgments about who is "homophobic" and who is "racist" etc.

"We have another purpose in fighting AIDS, for our fighting AIDS — for our inducing people to do what they should have done anyway without our speaking a word. Government agencies should have done this. There should be no issue! But government agencies didn't! That's the issue. Why didn't they? Because of a cultural paradigm shift. They did not want, on the one hand, to estrange the votes of a bunch of faggots and cocaine sniffers, the organized gay lobby, as it's called in the United States. (I don't know why they're "gay", they're the most miserable creatures I ever saw! The so-called gay lobby, 8% of the population, the adult electorate; the drug users. There are 20 million cocaine sniffers in the United States, at least. Of course it does affect their mind; it affects the way they vote! ...

"Where did this nonsense come from? Oh, we don't want to offend the gays! Gays are sensitive to their civil rights; this will lead to discrimination against gays!

"They’re already beating up gays with baseball bats around the country! Children are going to playgrounds, they go in with baseball bats, and they find one of these gays there, pederasts, trying to recruit children, and they take their baseball bats and they beat them up pretty bad. They’ll kill one sooner or later. In Chicago, they’re beating up gays that are hanging around certain schools, pederasts; children go out with baseball bats and beat them up—which is perfectly moral; they have the civil right to do that! It’s a matter of children’s civil rights!" -- Lyndon LaRouche, Executive Intelligence Review, January 10, 1986. http://www.publiceye.org/larouche/context_quotes.html#gays

From the "Undue weight" portion of that page:
The classic example is whether to include in the article about Elizabeth II the (documented in reliable sources) view that she's actually an extra-dimensional lizard person. Consensus (in the real sense of the word) is no.

If that's what reliable sources are saying, we do include it. We can't say that, according to NPOV, we must include all reliable sources, but then add, "except for the ones that make what we feel are inappropriate judgments."

except in the article about the "Theory that Queen Elizabeth II is an extra-dimensional lizard person" article, in which that information would have to be presented, as well as the contradictory viewpoint.

Please note that Ms. Hell is using the Berlet website as a source of quotes from LaRouche. It's not a reliable source. Please note this discussion from when we were fighting over it 4 years ago.

Please note that Ms. Hell is using the Berlet website as a source of quotes from LaRouche. It's not a reliable source. Please note this discussion from when we were fighting over it 4 years ago.

I posted that for the benefit of my esteemed colleague GlassBeadGame. But point taken.

I really fail to see how LaRouche publications and sources could be kept out of any article about LaRouche and his movement, if you follow this policy.

Are you saying that it is an objective reality that, for example, women should be excluded from the List of major opera composers (or more correctly, confined to a ghetto) because nobody had any sources which were current and included information about women? And if you answer that this is supposedly an evolving process, just try to change one thing on that list and see what happens.

I already noticed that H. I'm not in the business of defending LaRouche, except that I once posted around here how he hooked me up with a very nice young lady. I don't think we need to be concerned about whether LaRouche is good or evil. We need to more concerned about whether Mr. Berlet ought to be a source for anything. That "code talk" stuff is just the most disingenuous and intellectually dishonest thing imaginable. I will never get past that. It just says volumes and not about LaRouche.

I also want to add that H himself is kind, slow to anger and considerate of fair process and the concerns of others, even of those who disagree with him. Even when they will never know that he is sticking up for their rights.

Please note that Ms. Hell is using the Berlet website as a source of quotes from LaRouche. It's not a reliable source. Please note this discussion from when we were fighting over it 4 years ago.

Are you saying that LaRouche did not say or write those things about gays being drug addicts, pederasts etc?

A good question, deserving of an answer. And don't forget mine:

We can only include e.g. women in lists of opera composers if we have reason to believe that women composed operas. If we have reason to believe it, it must be because someone has written about it.

Well, people have written about it, but the information is excluded from the article because of WP:OWN issues.

Let's explore this further : Have a look at the article Poseur, which gives the idea that this expression is almost exclusively part of the vocabulary of pop music genres. Yes, there is a brief mention of the French origin of the expression and then a brief mention of Norman Mailer before several long segments about Punk, Metal, Hiphop and other musical genres. Wouldn't you call this giving "undue weight" to what is clearly a sub genre of the meaning of this word, rather than the principal meaning?

Isn't this article inherently misleading?

I don't know enough to be able to answer, except to say that the non-music-genre use of the term is still about people adopting mannerisms not their own, so I wouldn't call it misleading exactly. Maybe you could add some of the non-music sources to the lead, just to make clear there are/were other groups who've used the term?

I'll say it for you: this article is misleading. There is clearly an agenda behind it. That seems quite clear to me. Why is this allowed to remain like this?

The main things I'm getting from this thread are:

1. Herschel, or whoever it was, shouldn't have started the biography on Chip Berlet. That was a real mistake. That biography should be deleted at the subject's request, and for other valid reasons.
2. Chip Berlet shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the LaRouche articles. He's been in litigation with LaRouche for starters, has a massive conflict of interest, and openly talks about his quest to counter LaRouche whom he regularly compares to Hitler. It was inevitable that his presence would cause major problems.
3. The clique of admins and users who are openly anti-LaRouche, who rallied round to protect Berlet, showed blatant double standards; dragged a large area of Wikipedia through the mud - further discredited the place. They have shown they cannot be trusted any more than any of the other disruptive forces at the site.

except in the article about the "Theory that Queen Elizabeth II is an extra-dimensional lizard person" article, in which that information would have to be presented, as well as the contradictory viewpoint.

You mean [[Allegations of English lizardry]]?

We're starting to go off on a tangent about American cultural history. To get back to the subject at hand, Kato provides an excellent summary above of where we stand in this discussion so far. I'd say that the next step is, how can Wikipedia resolve this? Well, I suggest:

- Topic ban DKing and CBerlet (I know, I know, Berlet is "retired" from editing).
- Delete Berlet's BLP.
- Topic ban Jayjg, SV, and any of the other editors and admins who have pursued the "pro-LaRouche" editors using bad-faith tactics.

You seem to reach decisions based entirely on whether you like the players or not.

...and you don't?

But with LaRouche, you want the experts topic-banned...

That's right, I don't, and there's an example in my post above. I like Jossi, but I can't support his editing [[Prem Rawat]] if he was indeed working for him.

Conflict of interest can be personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal. It is not determined by area, but is created by relationships that involve a high level of personal commitment to, involvement with, or dependence upon, a person, subject, idea, tradition, or organization.

That's right, I don't, and there's an example in my post above. I like Jossi, but I can't support his editing [[Prem Rawat]] if he was indeed working for him.

And you didn't think people would have a problem with that? Ridiculous. Wikipedia deserves all the trouble caused by this LaRouche mess. It deserves it. What an incompetent shambles.

Britannica had (or used to have in 2007-8) its animal rights article written by a law professor who is openly and actively pro-animal rights.

But with LaRouche, you want the experts topic-banned, the editors who opposed the LaRouche edits topic-banned, but the LaRouchies themselves, including those apparently employed by LaRouche -- for them you mention no restrictions whatsoever!

What trouble was caused on WP by the "LaRouche mess"? Herschel was taken to ArbCom, a number of LaRouche sockpuppets were blocked, and an expert on LaRouche stopped editing because he felt WP panders too much to lunatics. What trouble was there other than that?

A good question, deserving of an answer. And don't forget mine:

That's right, I don't, and there's an example in my post above. I like Jossi, but I can't support his editing [[Prem Rawat]] if he was indeed working for him.

What trouble was caused on WP by the "LaRouche mess"? Herschel was taken to ArbCom, a number of LaRouche sockpuppets were blocked, and an expert on LaRouche stopped editing because he felt WP panders too much to lunatics. What trouble was there other than that?

According to Wikipedia's great proclamations, administrators are supposed should be impartial overseers of neutral content. But you started editing on LaRouche related topics within a month of editing. And you've obviously got serious personal issues with LaRouche as evidenced by this thread.

What on earth did you thing you were doing using admins tools on the LaRouche articles? What on earth did you think you were doing building up profiles of "LaRouche editors" in your private space? What on earth do you think you're doing still trying to justify the blatant disregard for tenets now?

If you still can't see the discrepancies in your conduct, and the obvious Conflicts of Interest problem caused by allowing Chip Berlet to cite himself on LaRouche articles, I can only conclude that you are simply deluded, and beyond reason.

I have issues with single-purpose accounts who turn up to use WP as their latest platform and who violate the content policies.

I have issues with single-purpose accounts who turn up to use WP as their latest platform and who violate the content policies.

They're already banned; it's not worth mentioning.

That's exactly why I didn't mention them.

So, why shouldn't you or Jayjg not be topic banned from the LaRouche articles? Perhaps in your case it's because you haven't touched them in more than a year, as far as I know. But what about Jayjg? The AN discussion I linked to earlier in this thread showed him performing a checkuser on editors of the LaRouche articles about six months ago. Based on that and his history related to POV-pushing in topics about what he perceives are anti-Semitism, do you agree that he should be topic banned?

Slim has been very critical of Checkuser abuse but has been silent on one of the biggest abusers.

I'd say that the next step is, how can Wikipedia resolve this? Well, I suggest:

- Topic ban DKing and CBerlet (I know, I know, Berlet is "retired" from editing).
- Delete Berlet's BLP.
- Topic ban Jayjg, SV, and any of the other editors and admins who have pursued the "pro-LaRouche" editors using bad-faith tactics.

SV hasn't edited LaRouche articles in a long time, and I don't think Jayjg has ever edited them -- he's just the "go-to" guy when you want somebody banned. As of late, Will Beback is the sole OWNer.

2. Admin tools were used on those articles by admins who were editing them *only with the consent of the ArbCom*.

3. Show me one "innocent" person who was wrongly blocked as a LaRouchie (blocked per the rulings in three ArbCom cases).

I have issues with single-purpose accounts who turn up to use WP as their latest platform and who violate the content policies.

2. Admin tools were used on those articles by admins who were editing them *only with the consent of the ArbCom*.

I don't think Jayjg has ever edited them -- he's just the "go-to" guy when you want somebody banned.