UDWiki talk:NPOV

Neutral Point of View

NPOV

Does this wiki need NPOV?

Hi, I'm a new player and I actually think this wiki doesn't need an NPOV policy. The sheer wackiness of this wiki, but also the visible power-plays, are part of the intrigue of this game.

Wikipedia has an NPOV policy because its purpose is to provide so-called "objective" facts and information. Without even questioning whether that project is in and of itself worthwhile or possible, it should be obvious that a wiki of this sort can't really contain "objective" information because there is no "objective" reality. There are a lot of numbers and so on in the servers, I understand, but what is important and how it is developed into a coherent narrative, a narrative that includes meaningful choices, is entirely subjective. I think we should welcome this.

I would support a policy that no one may add to a page something that is malicious to the page's intent. So a news listing could include "subjective" stories, because that tells me what other players in the suburb are finding interesting in the game. I think people ought to SIGN their stories, or contextualise them, in a way that helps them remain in character. In a way, I would reject objectivity in a post. I've tried to give the man on the street's perspective in my August 26 update on Dakerstown. To me, this kind of interaction and character development is part of the game. I don't really belong to any of the big gangs (pkers, zombies, zks, survivors) listed by another contributor. I'm still sorting out the interface and the strategy, I've gone from live to dead to live in three days, and will probably alternate a bit more.

At the same time, I am interested in what the big gangs are up to. I love having graffiti all over the suburb. It's quite haunting to wander around, finding graffiti, but all of the people are locked away inside with the zombies hammering on the barricades. It gives the game an amazing feel to know that there are these mysterious militias roaming around, fighting turf wars, even if I'm not immediately interested in participated. I would love to read press releases, manifestos, and other primary sources created by these movements (perhaps via links off the main news page). I don't want to go and find the group page; I want to know what the local politics are in my neighbourhood (maybe I'll turn arms dealer or something funky).

As for barricades, I'd love to see multiple policies. Again, it's interesting to know that there are conflicts in the local plans. It makes me want to find out what these conflicts are about, what people's motives are, so it draws me in. I'm not interested in the objective barricade plan for Dakerstown, because it doesn't exist.

I'm approaching this game as a roleplayer, and not so much as a wargamer (though I am interested in those aspects). Please keep in mind that there are probably a lot of players like me who are not so interested in getting the "encyclopedia" of a fictional town, but in collaborating in creating it. And sometimes we can fight over it! But when one group of people claims to know the objective situation, what is objectively significant information and what is frivilous, what is worth playing about the game and what is abusive, that IS a point of view. Bring it on. I look forward to reading about mad military Kurtz figures, mad heretics, governments and rebels, and terribly gut-wrenching terror. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Seamus Dubh (talk • contribs) 16:45, 25 August 2010.

As used currently, NPOV really only applies to the likes of building status, suburb/news updates, et cetera – and even then, verifiability is more important. Group and user pages can be just about as biased as they like, subject to NPOV sections in case they are egregious enough to distort verifiable face (e.g. group who PKs people claiming to be healers). "As long as there is an introductory NPOV paragraph and the information in the groupbox is neutral, groups are allowed to post POV material…" is the de facto status quo, and has been as long as I've been here (3+ years). I don't think there's any danger of universal NPOV being implemented in any hurry. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 07:54, 27 August 2010 (BST)

Defining NPOV.

Was no consensus met? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 21:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There is actually an already existing policy regarding this, but here I believe the issue that came up most was Barricade policies and altering of the Suburb Style Guide. Other than that I don't think there was much beyond some people who didn't like the policy already in place even though it's rarely followed/enforced.--Karek^maps?! 00:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Defining NPOV

Can we rigidly define what is, and is not, NPOV for contributions to community pages on the Urban Dead wiki? -- boxy ^{T Nuts2U DA} 01:06, 8 July 2007 (BST)

There are two types of NPOV. De facto and de jure. De jure would be all posts about groups, events, and such biased to one side are not allowed. De facto would be all posts making zombies look good is not allowed. --Sonny Corleone ^{RRF CoL DORIS Hunt!} 01:17, 8 July 2007 (BST)

I think the first step in defining this is going to be in looking at what is done now and arguments for it's POVness, see if we can get a consensus going on what is wrong before starting on what is right. Anyway I'm gonna mention a few things I view as problems.

• Group Advertising. Ok simple, group advertising is bad right? NPOV pages, most importantly suburb pages, are not meant to be advertising tools for groups. Unless the group is part of a very historical note on a suburb(of the level of making it a noteworthy suburb) they probably shouldn't be mentioned in suburb descriptions or outside of the active groups area. This can be seen at Caiger Mall and Dulston
• Personal Attacks on anyone of any sort. This covers the conflicts like the recent one on the Ketchelbank suburb page to publicly listing PKers ud profiles on NPOV pages.
• Non Neutral words. The reporter in a news update or post should avoid personalizing it with words like I, We, Me, Us.
• Double POV isn't NPOV, a great example of this is Ridleybank in which both sides have a barricade plan up. Both are in POV because one side doesn't want barricades, the other one does.
• Anything that bashes other groups of people outside of real fact, Fort Creedy and Blackmore Building have good examples of this.
• Calling out of groups.

We're going to have to set NPOV based off of the groups in the game I think, specifically the 4 major groups must be able to make use of the information as factual and nonbias towards any of the three other groups.(groups would be Pkers, Zkers, Zombies, and Survivors). Reporting that a building has fallen, or is under siege is fine, those are factually based. But probably the most important thing, which we have not had included in this wiki's policy since I've been here, is the requirement for source citation or evidence that wikipedia includes in it's NPOV and edit policies. Verifiability should be a must. If it's something like updating a danger report require a news update for sake of nonvandalism, if it is challenged the party performing the original edit should be required to provide proof of the validity of their change, that could quite possibly get rid of many of the problems that lead to POV and hostile POV.--karek 02:02, 8 July 2007 (BST)

Re: group advertising - Methinks a group can be mentioned outside of the active groups block without it being either advertising or POV; a basic example would be, in a list of the suburb's revive points, "Cemetery [xx,yy], operated by the Malton Forensics Unit". But certainly groups aren't the only self-aggrandizing entities guilty of POV edits to NPOV pages... though I'd never mention any names cough . -- Atticus Rex ^{mfu pif} Δ 03:22, 8 July 2007 (BST)

That would actually be very good information to have placed in the TRPS template, not on the page itself. And I'm pretty sure that no one really cares who is running a revive point as long as it's running. It's just exerting a chance to get more name recognition off of a very popular page. And that is exactly what the recruitment page is for, if it is really an issue there is always the talk page to mention it on. And if you are inferring something please elaborate on my talk, I really don't know what that last sentance meant or was for.--karek 04:05, 8 July 2007 (BST)

Yeah...having people say every building, revive point, whatever they defend will just turn into spam...and lies. I don't need to hear that the 101st Ranger Marines SEAL Royal Batallion Regiment of the United Nations of Earth controls all of Caiger and Ridleybank. Groups shouldn't advertise crap like that. It's annoying. --Sonny Corleone ^{RRF CoL DORIS Hunt!} 04:10, 8 July 2007 (BST)

The revive point example was the first thing that popped into my head, but I still think it's a valid one. It does make a difference who's operating an RP to quite a lot of people, not least for unaffiliated revivers as well as people looking for a needle. And yes, that could go in the TRP block... but then we're outside the active groups which was the object of your initial statement. All I'm saying is that there are valid factual (thus NPOV) reasons why a group name, or possibly an individual's name for that matter, might appear elsewhere on a suburb page. (And Sonny, of course you know that revivers don't defend RPs... we actually kind of like it when there are zombies there. Means XP.) -- Atticus Rex ^{mfu pif} Δ 04:23, 8 July 2007 (BST)

Of course I know you want zombies there. I just meant defending the area as in keeping it going and such. You forget, I used to be one of the top survivors before becoming one of the top zombies. i r teh famoose. --Sonny Corleone ^{RRF CoL DORIS Hunt!} 05:56, 8 July 2007 (BST)

I'm not saying don't post group links, I was saying don't post it for the sake of recruiting, it's pretty obvious, for the most part, when a group link is just added for the sake of getting more people to see it instead of actually being useful or helpful in any real way. A great example of spammed links would be suburb barricade policies(which are very POV anyway), most of which have a developed by XX group tag. Even if barricade plans weren't POV on a suburb page there is no need for a group to advertise they developed it. (that being said if you want to mention that there is a barricade plan put it on the groups page then link it through the TRP bulletin, that makes some sense and avoids the POV issue because it's not on the suburb page.) Oh and might I also mention that if you want to mention your group is running a revive point in a suburb I suggest you go to the Revive points building/block wiki page and mentioning that this block is considered by xx group as a revive point. That should be enough to solve both issues. I would hope.--karek 06:04, 8 July 2007 (BST)

FYI, my wiki background is mainly at Wikipedia, so that's the angle I'm going to come at this from.

Firstly, a quick clarification: what is meant by "community pages"? I assume all mainspace (i.e. non-user, non-talk, non-admin) pages, but there's no definition anywhere.

The problem with applying a Wikipedia-like NPOV standard uniformly is that many of the pages here combine "article" content (maps, building status, active groups, revive points, etc) with "talk" content (notably, the current form of news updates). The conventions for these are inherently different: "article" content is unnatributed, and meant to be picked apart and edited mercilessly. It is this editing process which is produces NPOV, where all significant viewpoints are noted and taken into account. "Talk" content, on the other hand, is direct, attributed commentary, and users should not edit another's comments except to remove personal attacks, etc. (No Personal Attacks is a separate policy from NPOV). While there is this mix of content types, there will continue to be this conflict.

Solution? As karek mentioned, there is no current verification standard for news updates. If they required "photo evidence", such as a screenshot or I/Witness snapshot, and were presented in terms of facts only, I think this would be a vast improvement. Example:

Feb 30: NE Caiger Mall is currently ransacked with 27 zombies inside and 85 outside. Screenshot. —Revenant ^talk 11:06, 8 July 2007 (BST)

I think that this talk/article style conflict is the main issue here, and we should eliminate "talk" content from articles and require verification of news. —Revenant ^talk 11:06, 8 July 2007 (BST)

This is a WIKI about a game, and we should not forget that fact. It is not exactly like we're talking about writing articles designed to hold up under the scrutiny of trained academics. Some articles naturally invite a specific POV (Such as a Mall Wiki, or the Mall Information Center). If you propose to take the pro-survivor bias out of resources specifically geared towards survivors, then what will you do next? Will you command the RRF to take down their "propaganda" on their WIKI entry? Now, if we're looking at a thread that specifically details historical events, that's a little different. I guess the distinction I am trying to draw can be summed up thusly: If it's a page about current status, events, or groups, it shouldn't be held to the same POV standard as a historical document. Tarumigan

Well, yes. Mainly, the problem here is that people are coming onto the wiki and placing entires on Suburb pages,Mall pages, Fort pages, and whatnot that are really just taunting other groups. I think we want to limit the POV content to Group pages and User pages. Guides wouldn't fall udner this, simply because their meant to be written from a POV. --User:Axe27/Sig 17:14, 8 July 2007 (BST)

No one mentioned anything about guides that I've seen. Tarumigan, Buildings, malls, forts and the rest are not put in the game for just survivor players benefits, they are put in the game for the purpose of being in the game, they have uses to both sides and posting about them in a neutral way doesn't make their use any better or worse for anyone but, does make the information pages actually useful to both sides, they don't need POV, they shouldn't have POV, and they are already defined as necessary NPOV pages, thus the NPOV header on just about all of them. Current Status and events pages very much should be kept NPOV.--karek 20:05, 8 July 2007 (BST)

I was under the impression that a bit of flowery language was O.K, as long as the essential facts where true. after all, we don't want to be just reading page after page of 40 Zombies attacked. 25 survivors dead. I mean, at the end of the day, this is a game, and it should be fun.--Seventythree 07:00, 9 July 2007 (BST)

Flowery language is ok, it has been considered before and is considered not POV under the current policy, which makes sense for the exact reason you said.--karek 07:10, 9 July 2007 (BST)

I think that the flowery language has gotten a bit out of control though. There are only so many times you can read the same stuff over and over again before it becomes just as boring as 40 zombies outside building X, 55 surviors inside, so many dead. In fact I'd like a just the facts style better as the primary purpose of the wiki isn't meant to continue role playing but for informing players. A just the facts rule for suburb pages would likely cut down on the drama as we change the way the reporting is done. We could drop the individual comments we have no in favour for a style guide. Building Y: barricaded. Building X: under seige. number of zombies X to Y or unknown. number of Survivors X to Y or unknown. Building Z: randsacked. etc. with people allowed to improve the numbers. Easier on the maintance then patrolling for POV and deciding if the individual comment can stay up or not.

In fact I wonder how much of a NPOV we actually need instead of simply a better style guide for suburbs and notible buildings pages. User and Group pages should be probably be exempt. The game mechanical pages never had any problems for which the a new NPOV is needed. and the suggestions page have their own sets of rules. It almost all comes down to suburbs and loction block pages. a style guide would be less cumbersome and less likely to create drama.-- Vista  +1  11:14, 9 July 2007 (BST)

I've always thought the goal should be that of an uninterested observer describing the basic facts relevant to the page. There's plenty of room for drama and character in group pages, but most other places I just want to know building statuses, how many zombies there are, how many survivors are left, and with luck how many have been killed. If a group like Shacknews or The Many has torn through other suburbs previously, make a note of it, but avoid hysterics.--Insomniac By Choice 13:52, 9 July 2007 (BST)

I don't know. I think the wiki does the job of informing players just right. I like the current style of suburb and location pages. Yes, there's misinformation, but it's not overwhelming and, to me at least, doesn't ruin the purpose of the page. I'm pretty new to the game and the wiki, but I've always been able to distinguish between truth, propaganda and stupid propaganda. And to be honest, I like that the roleplaying is even continued on the wiki in the comments. I've always hated the dry and detached "just the facts" style of other wikis. But I'm a peculiar person. --Trehkan 17:07, 9 July 2007 (BST)

Well the problem with it on the suburb page is that survivor groups tend to be less mobile and more confined to one or two suburbs while zombie groups tend to be more mobile and don't develop long standing relations with a particular suburb as much. (there are a few very noticeable exceptions) combined with the fact that zombie groups tend to have less need for public messages the suburb pages are really one sided in role playing and reporting overall. It makes the pages (and the wiki) to much survivor orientated. That can turn rather tedious if you're playing as a zombie. Especially if the stupid propaganda part is always the pointed against you.-- Vista  +1  18:12, 9 July 2007 (BST)

Everything Vista said plus that it leads to false information being provided a lot.(no verifiability.)--karek 01:23, 10 July 2007 (BST)

Replies from Swiers

I'm not gonna be buggered editing inside that log ass text block, and suggest others do as I am. If nothing else, it will cut down on edit conflicts.

Double POV isn't NPOV, a great example of this is Ridleybank in which both sides have a barricade plan up. Both are in POV because one side doesn't want barricades, the other one does. A LOT of the suburb pages have barricade plans on them. Its absurd to single that one out. I'll grant, posting the RRF's plan (which I did in response to the harman plan being posted for so long) doesn't make it neutral. But if your gonna yank either of those, you gotta yank every barricade plan from every suburb page. Not a bad thing; maybe such things could be moved to the suburb TALK pages? _.^. _{. swiers} 03:05, 11 July 2007 (BST)

Reporting that a building has fallen, or is under siege is fine, those are factually based. A lot of times it isn't, because it comes in the form of "OMG, Zambays r attack! SEND GUNZ NAHW!!11!". Or, if by zombies, something like "All your brains r belong to us". Which again, would likely be fine on the talk pages for suburbs. Maybe it would make sense just to move news to the talk page, as news is inherently biased; just the self selection of what gets reported makes it so. News items old enough to be considered "History" could go on the main page, perhaps after a qucik vote on whether the news item is historic. That would also encourage people to write thier news blurbs with the future voting in mind, and thus more like from a NPOV. _. ^. _{. swiers} 03:16, 11 July 2007 (BST)

Methinks a group can be mentioned outside of the active groups block without it being either advertising or POV; a basic example would be, in a list of the suburb's revive points, "Cemetery [xx,yy], operated by the Malton Forensics Unit". Whether something is or isn't a revive point could be considered based on POV. What if a location is declared a zombie zone and somebody else declares it a revive point? How many revives does it take before a place is a revive point, anyhow? _. ^. _{. swiers} 03:22, 11 July 2007 (BST)

Some of those things seem pretty cut and dry to me. Suburbs never should have had the barricade plans added to them in the first place, it should have been kept to group talk pages because it is group policy, mabey a mention or two on the suburb talk page but not hosted specifically/only on the suburb talk page only(spams page, makes harder to read, etc.).--karek 09:57, 11 July 2007 (BST)

Putting the news on the talk page is an interesting concept but it would basically mean that nothing would be enforceable and the news reports could be completely false and nothing could be done about it. Which is why I believe it would be better to require verifiability and NPOV while leaving the news on the suburb talk page, or just make a suburb news subpage or something with those criteria. But the issue is partially of quality control and moving to the talk pages removes quality control of any sort.--karek 09:57, 11 July 2007 (BST)

Revive points are kinda unique in many ways though, one of them being that they can be reported in a neutral way. Just mention that zombies are being frequently revived in square xx,yy and you basically have just announced a Revive point without all of the POV crap, just redesign how they are reported instead of removing them. Something like a barricade plan can't be done in such a way.--karek 09:57, 11 July 2007 (BST)

• You are really taking the barricade plans to extremes. Barricade plans have a lot of information for about half the players. Just because they provide information that is aimed at only half the players doesn't make them POV as long as they are accurate indication of what to expect in the game. If not it should be removed.
• The message sytem is the main point for my POV concerns. In both the current system as with swiers system the amount of freedom will lead to a large amount of bias. I'm for standardized factual messages, that are easily verified.
• As for revive points, Everybody calls them revive points. zombie and survivor alike. I've never had the order to place my brainrotter in that place "where zombies are being frequently revived in square xx,yy" so that the workings of that place would turn more infrequent. No it's "clog up that revive point at xx,yy" Revive points should be listed at the List_of_Revivification_Points before put up on the suburb page. I do agree that all "maintained by XXXX messages" should be limited as much as possible in all cases.

You'll always keep more information for survivors on the page because survivors simply aren't as self supporting as zombies. They need far more infrastructure to function and that infrastructure breeds information. Excluding that info would be POV as well as survivors would be incompletely informed about their resources in the suburb while zombies would. -- Vista  +1  11:10, 11 July 2007 (BST)

How about having suburb-sub pages for quasi-POV issues? Like say, SUBURBNAME/Barricade Plans, and SUBURBNAME/News? Then we could set specific guidelines that apply for those pages, slap them into a template, and put the template on each of the 100 applicable pages. A nice nav bar / box template could be made up and put on each suburb page, linking to its sub pags. _. ^. _{. swiers} 12:21, 11 July 2007 (BST)

Barricade plans should soon have their own pages, if they don't already; e.g., Havercroft Barricade Plan. But they needn't be formatted as sub-pages, and the suburb page itself should be allowed a link to the plan page. -- Atticus Rex ^{mfu pif} Δ 14:47, 11 July 2007 (BST)

Link yes, but it shouldn't have the plan openly displayed on it. That is POV and it is never right so there is no point. It's like if the RRF put their DoHS maps on the suburbs it would be POV barricade plans are the exact same thing except they don't even show barricade status or anything they just show what a very specific group of survivors wants everyone else to do.--karek 03:13, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Actually I'd love to have an adaptation the DoHS maps on the suburb page. It has reasonably accurate information for telling where there the barricades are and aren't. It's highly useful for both sides. The "owned by" part would be a bit to much (just like the provided by XXXX part of barricade p[lans.). The home-owners association (of which I'm a sleeping member) would probably want that as well. (I wouldn't want all those visitors that come calling at all hours know where I live...:)

Point is of course that you're confusing information only usuable for one side with POV. If I've just arriveed in Old Arkham for the first time as a zombie I'll know what to do. I'm pretty sure I know every barricade plan for every suburb as a zombie. I'm also pretty sure everybody already knows the barricade plan for zombies of each and every suburb. And I'm pretty sure almost noboy knows more then 1 or 2 barricade plans out of a hundred for survivors. (and a lot won't even know a single one) So if you remove the survivor barricade plan under "POV" , you're creating a imbalance in information. Your NPOV is "must be useable by both sides" but as zombies need a lot less information then survivors need merely to function it'll always lead to a information inbalance in favor of zombies. A bit selfserving and resulting in a far more unbalanced suburb page.-- Vista  +1  11:05, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Not really, and for a few reasons. Barricade plans providing no real time or useful data is a big one, and new players expecting something to be a certain way and it not being that way(have yet to hear of a barricade plan ever followed to a T) causes more problems then not having the information at all. My NPOV is must not be the views of one person or group, in the case of Barricade plans it is always the views of one person or group, and even then the UBP policy, which is used in almost all barricade plans, means that they are done a very specific way and a visual guide isn't needed. Just announce on the page that users are encouraged to follow the UBP, with a link to the UBP page, a visual map of barricade plans isn't even needed, and one on the suburb page most definitely isn't because as I said it is the views of a very small amount of people in almost all cases, hell in all cases because barricade plans are, in the end, made by one person and approved by the group not the community as a whole. Make a note of it and link to it, but don't put it on the page itself is what I'm saying.(and make sure the link is NPOV, something like group xx is attempting to maintain this barricade policy with a link to the policy).--karek 11:17, 12 July 2007 (BST)

• (Not really...at all) Almost all information on the page will fit that description 15 minutes after posting even when backed up with screenshots. According to that way of reasoning no suburb pages could be made at all Whe'd just should use a map. And even newbies are smart enough to know that barricade levels change per moment.
• My NPOV... or group has the same effect as removing all information that isn't supported by both sides. And again I refer to my point in the comment above "as zombies need a lot less information then survivors need merely to function it'll always lead to a information inbalance in favor of zombies. A bit selfserving and resulting in a far more unbalanced suburb page". You haven't adressed that problem yet. Should we withold information just because there is only one side that needs that information? My NPOV is: "Giving all players as much relevent information as is possible while mainting an unbaised tone. personally I believe that is a more functional version of NPOV for this wiki. we're not a encyclopedia.
• (and even then the UBP policy...the policy) These are some rather strange assertions. They lack legitimacy because the visuals are only made by one person/group, and they're unneeded because they are almost all using the same method. If the method is such widespread it's easy to see that the method itself is legitemized by it's widespread usage and that makes the the fact that the visuals are made by only one group or person irrelevant. The same goes for uisage with in the suburb, if enough people use the method, the original of it is not important anymore. But I could very well live with making every survivor BP according to the UBP and doing away with group based ones. The visuals bit's however is silly, as they are the most effecient way of presenting information. We are an informatial wiki, either we include the information in the most effecient way, are we simply exclude it. Obfuscating it is senseless.

My idea so far for the suburb will follow below-- Vista  +1  12:49, 12 July 2007 (BST)

"My NPOV is: "Giving all players as much relevent information as is possible while mainting an unbaised tone. personally I believe that is a more functional version of NPOV for this wiki. we're not a encyclopedia."

EXACTLY!

i'm a newb to this game. and as such, i have certain disadvantages and certain ignorances. but, i also think i possess the advantage of seeing this game from, well, a newb's perspective. and from a player's perspective, in particular. not the perspective of someone who's been enmeshed in hardcore metagaminhg and wiki wars and whatnot for ages. not saying that everyone here is like that, or biased because of it... but... but it does seem like some of you are losing sight of the critical fact that this wiki is a gaming tool -- for a collectively written and experienced fictional RPG world. it is NOT an academic reference. therefore, applying the wikipedia's standards of NPOV is just NOT appropriate. weeding out mere propaganda, blatant bias and in-game drama is one thing; weeding out useful game information is another matter entirely and should not happen. it shouldn't even be on the table!

now as for barricade plans, they are not standardised, far from it. UBP may be widespread, but it is far from universal. UBP is more of a guideline than anything, it specifies standards to be followed, but also allows for local and situational deviations. and the local deviations are VERY common. and survivors need to know about these deviations. for example, if such-and-such burb sets libraries or clubs are VS+2, and 2 out of 4 hospitals are regulary at EHB -- well survivors need to know this kind of stuff! it BELONGS in the suburb's wiki IMO.

but you know what really bugs me? the utter useless of most of the News entries -- not whether it's NPOV or not. do i care if a week, or a month ago, some hospital or other was broken into? or a 48 hour old report on zed numbers outside? well, sure, these are facts, but they're useless facts. Whereas an FU "press release" biased though it might be, declaring e.g. that their move into Whittenside is a total suvivor route, overviewing their acheivements, etc... now that is useful, even if not strictly NPOV.

oh... just to conclude... anyone who uses newspapers as a model of NPOV is a bit misinformed. nothing is without bias, most certainly not the media. and the appearance of "objectivity" is often the greatest form of bias and distortion of the truth possible. just a parting thought.....

and... the whole idea about the wiki presenting more information of use to humans/survivors than to zombies. well, uhhhmmmmmm... humans will be reading the wiki, not zombies. because zombies aren't real, kids. humans who are trying to orient themselves in-game -- whether they're playing survivors or zambahz -- use the wiki. try to keep that in mind.

--WanYao 08:02, 24 July 2007 (BST)

I liked all of what you said (apart from the pointless smartarse remark at the end). Gaming information should be kept, presentational bias should be lost. If a particular piece of information benefits one side over the other, that's due only to the inequality of zombies and survivors in the actual game itself.

My problem with barricade plans on any sort of non-opinion page is simple. Even if they don't explicitly use the word, a barricade plan essentially says "this is what the barricade levels should be." And since only survivors can build barricades, that essentially says "you should play a survivor". Sure, zombies could post their own counter proposal in every area where survivors are allowed this propaganda (that's effectively what it is), but its gonna be the same (very obvious) info every time, and will get filtered as noise. _. ^. _{. swiers} 13:09, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Swiers kinda expressed my views in a way better than I can, but I'll shoot anyway.(was edit conflicted.)--karek 13:17, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Barricade plans are not necessary information and are not useful information because they don't provide any real information. They are an ideal that is never going to be met and causes assumptions of what is in the suburb when it isn't like that. UBP isn't universally accepted and was used as an example because it has been spammed onto the most pages, not for the sake of it being accepted or legitimacy. That is very much an answer to your question. It's not needed, it's not efficient, it's not useful(it's even harmful). The reason why your first point doesn't apply is the difference between blatantly temporal information and supposedly timeless information. Barricade plans are timeless but almost never occur and even then can be altered dangerously in 2 AP by 2 users or 3+ by one user, suburb news is Temporal information which is blatantly temporal, giving time of the report and information at that time, you can't do that with barricade policies(although you could/can do that with the DoHS map). I'm not saying block necessary or important information, I'm saying that UBPs aren't necessary, aren't important, and aren't helpful enough to disregard their POV especially because that POV helps make it not meet those three requirements.--karek 13:17, 12 July 2007 (BST)

barricade plans DO provide useful information. this is coming from a PLAYER. who makes use of posted the plans. is it perfect information? no, certainly not. but they ARE information of value and use, most certainly. --WanYao 07:44, 24 July 2007 (BST)

OK, in many suburbs at any given moment a barricade plan is not adhered to absolutely because of break-ins or overbarricading. That does not make the information useless. Quite the contrary; the information is valuable because someone is going to rebuild the cades when the zambahz have eaten their fill and moved on, someone is watching to make sure that ambulance docs and revivers can get back inside, someone is looking for the usual entry points or a potential safehouse in a new suburb. If you can get past your erroneous assertion that no one needs barricade plans, then as Vista said above, "[Barricade plans] are the most effecient way of presenting information. We are an informatial wiki, either we include the information in the most effecient way, are we simply exclude it. Obfuscating it is senseless."

Removing information that "survivors need and zombies don't" =/= NPOV. Rather, the insistence that barricade plan graphics should not be visible on a suburb page because only survivors can build barricades itself reflects a bias. Only survivors can search for supplies; suburb maps reflect which buildings can be searched for which supplies. Should we then decree that suburb maps should not be visible as well? Or maybe suburb maps should show only which blocks are empty and not empty?

Can we get to a real consensus on what is and ain't POV, or is this discussion going to simply perish, having accomplished little other than to give one person the idea that he has license to rewrite the wiki to reflect his own biases under the guise of making suburb pages "NPOV"? -- Atticus Rex ^{mfu pif} Δ 21:51, 19 July 2007 (BST)

Atticus read before you insult people. There is already a more efficient way proposed to deliver all the information a barricade plan could ever provide, the DoHS map. The information that matters is the state of things here and now not what some group wants it to be like in the future. The DoHS map provides the information in the here and now and does it in a way that happens to be unbiased(again unlike your barricade plans you're fighting so hard for.). So in that sense I guess Barricade plans are essentially obsolete and unneeded information, they lack the significance to say they deserve a spot when matched up against a DoHS style map and they lack the functionality.--Karek^maps?! 22:13, 19 July 2007 (BST)

Dunno who I've insulted, and please don't assume for a moment that I haven't read this entire discussion. For the reasons given above, though you may believe barricade plans are obsolete and unnecessary, a lot of people are gonna disagree with you. If the current status of a building's barricades is important information -- and I don't dispute that -- that's entirely different information that the level at which a consensus of survivors believes that status should be under normal conditions. Don't insist on an "either/or". -- Atticus Rex ^{mfu pif} Δ 02:18, 20 July 2007 (BST)

To swiers, while trying to rebut me you also make my point. Zombies have a barricade plan, it's just so easy it's common knowledge. They don't have it listed, because they don't need to. Everybody already knows what the most functional state of zombie barricade level is. And it's one they don't need to have construction for.

No barricades for any building.

So your point is partly mistaken. It isn't propaganda it's an admission of a weakness. They have 3 states of barricade to take into account for about 6000 buildings. But people generally look at it wrong, the survivor situation is so complex that they need help at solving a weakness that zombies simply don't have. And your fear of propaganda would be easy to solve by making it more easily indentifiable to as purely keyed to survivors. I've tried to do so below. But it must be possible to make it even more clear that barricade plans present a weakness in survivors instead of representing the natural order.-- Vista  +1  14:16, 12 July 2007 (BST)

By propaganda, I mean simple press. It may be an admission of weakness, and a needed tool, but "any publicity is good publicity". (Your own signature and mine affirm this basic fact DOES apply to the wiki.) Meanwhile, zombies, by not needing to "fix" any "weakness", get no publicity. Coupled with their in game anominity, zombies become an unpopular play choice simply due to lack of exposure to the elements that go into playing them. Have you noticed how many people assume that zombies are NPC's??? _. ^. _{. swiers} 15:40, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Replies from (other)

Come on, don't make me the only one. Anybody can do it! _. ^. _{. swiers} 15:46, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Replies from Revenant

Okay Swiers, you talked me into it.

karek said: Link yes, but it shouldn't have the plan openly displayed on it. That is POV and it is never right so there is no point. It's like if the RRF put their DoHS maps on the suburbs it would be POV barricade plans are the exact same thing except they don't even show barricade status or anything they just show what a very specific group of survivors wants everyone else to do.

Read the Wikipedia entry on NPOV again. From the intro: "neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views". (Emphasis in original.) In the context of Urban Dead, the two most significant viewpoints in the game are the survivors and the zombies. Thus, if both general groupings have barricade plans for a suburb, it is taking the neutral point of view to include them both. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 16:02, 12 July 2007 (BST)

No, it's not, unless said barricade plan is blank, doesn't represten zombie views. There is a reason we aren't using the wikipedia specific definition and that is because it can't apply here. And I'm not suggesting suppressing the view, it just doesn't belong on that page, it's not significant because the information the barricade plan would provide that is significant is already provided by the DoHS map, and in a better way.--karek 16:12, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Actually no Karek and swiers are right on that, that would just be double POV as the zombie barricade plan, (no baricades anywhere) is not that significant. Everybody already knows it. It's an automatic feature from the game mechanics. Presenting both and thinking your done with it would lead to POV. There are two different views on excluding the survivor BPs. One that merely including them is automatically biased. And that the survivors BPs are, just like the zombie BP, not significant. as Revenant just said when he edit conflicted me...-- Vista  +1  16:17, 12 July 2007 (BST)

The first view of bias is simple to solve. If the information is significant for the survivor part of the game it should be included, period. We then must concetrate on finding a way to minimize the bias in presentation. It's all about significance. I feel they are significant, not because they depict the situation at hand. But because they are used consistantly as a resource by survivors and survivor groups in planning their defense against the offense of zombies. In a way that zombies have no need to copy for themselves due to game mechanics. However as both me and Karek are philosophizing and giving impressions instead of using data it's been ground into a stale mate. We really should determine a concensus on a way to see how we can judge the survivor BP's on significance.-- Vista  +1  16:22, 12 July 2007 (BST)

This isn't that hard....

I'm just a newb, but there is a LOGICAL answer to this issue... I just hope I'm not repeating other people's points. If I am, think of it as chiming in on that side.

First of all, I am assuming we're talking about the "historical" and descriptive part of the entries on the suburbs. The "Talk" portions are something totally different and ought not to adhere strictly to NPOV, they can't, by definition.

Pre-infection backstories are probably no source of trouble. Post-infection "history", however, HAS to include a mention of major active groups in the area, don't you think? Otherwise it's actually not only NPOV, but totally fallacious and misleading and bad journalism. Such mentions must be quite neutral and should do no more than name the groups and describe them (briefly) some of their activities and maybe ideologies, etc.

Here's an example, on the other hand, of what's NOT acceptable, a description from Whittenside where I have a character active: "Whittenside is doing good for survivors these days with lots of building under survival control. The survivors are slowly retaking the suburb..."This is neither neutral nor accurate.

Anf finally, and most importantly..... we must understand what the point of the suburb entries are: They are references for GAMERS. About a GAME. They are not academic articles. GAMERS will be searching these pages for GAME INFORMATION, which includes active groups, revivication points, barricade plans, etc. etc.. That's what they are there for. If you take the game information out of the pages, you're totally shooting the GAME in the foot. In Ridleyville, for example, the article should read something like, "There are two competing and mutually exclusive Barricade Plans for this suburb, one proposed by the RFF, the other by the survivor factions..." etc. etc.

All of this is pretty obvious IMNSHO and a little bit of reason and critical thinking ought to put it into a pretty clear perspective. --WanYao 05:28, 20 July 2007 (BST)

I disagree. NPOV mean "Neutral Point of View," not "Neutral Except The Parts That Arn't View." I don't come to this wiki to be "entertained." I come here for basic information. News, by its very nature, is POV. So, not only should it not appear on the page, it should also be left out of talk pages. Forums were established for this game: they need to be used. Stop cluttering talk pages so they can be used for something useful.

Also, all "humorous" portions of the wiki (which sadly are in abundance in this wiki) are also POV because humor requires an opinion on a subject. Thus, I submit that any humor on this wiki should be removed due to it's counter-productivity to NPOV. --Indio65 22:45, 15 August 2007 (BST)

There is nothing wrong with humor, the issue is providing information useful to both sides while not making neutral pages dominated by one side, as they currently are. Barricade plans are one method that gives too much survivor control and overtones to the page. NPOV isn't humorless, it isn't flavorless, these are mistakes people commonly makes. There is good samples of NPOV that is funny and provides good information throughout the wiki. Hell, in most cases the things that aren't Neutral are usually insulting, degrading, and unamusing. Even NPOV isn't the real issue here, the issue here is too much POV, a little POV is fine as long as it is controlled, but more often than not it crosses the line, by a lot.--Karek^maps?! 23:32, 15 August 2007 (BST)

Show me specific examples of humorous NPOV articles on this wiki, and perhaps your argument may hold up to these proceedings a bit better. At any rate, if what you say about the current issue is true, then we need to make a separate discussion about overuse of POV and get back to the original issue of defining NPOV on the UD Wiki, which still has not reached consensus, on this talk page. --Indio65 00:24, 16 August 2007 (BST)

Replies from armareum

Just 2 points to start off with:

1. As a zombie player I don't find the barricade maps completely useless - the information held in them does not just aid survivors. I use it to decide which VS+2 TRPs I want my team to attack first.
2. Current Events/News is always from a POV (as there is information only from a limited source, not a wide scope). As long as the information is presented without bias, then it's fine. Personally, I can't stand to see survivors shouting for help in the Current News. A great example I saw recently is Pitneybank. Whilst I saw a perfectly acceptable POV statement on Jensentown, due to no bias. 'arm. 23:35, 19 July 2007 (BST)

Proposed Suburb Page Layout

Talk

The setup below looks ok, apart from a few points. First the news format. I don't think a headline for date in the news section is a good idea, as it can result in a very long TOC. And second as mentioned, a "barricade status map" takes way to much effort to keep updated. - Whitehouse 14:07, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Removed headers, and while I agree the barricade status map is unlikely, perhaps there be a way to implement it in the future. I'll leave it up for no here for discussion purposes.-- Vista  +1  14:18, 12 July 2007 (BST)

I actually like the Option of the DoHS based map, which can easily be updated by one or two active people in the suburb(DoHS maps kinda are maintained by about 2 people). But the Survivor Information and the Zombie Information speak of double POV. The zombie/survivor groups are already standard and have a place to be put, and the two groups sections and stuff just strike me as a way to provide an excuse for adding survivor information that would be removed under NPOV back, it's the same thing because as you said, Zombies don't need much information, as a matter of fact they don't need any information other than the news information. Which is pretty much the same for survivors cause only one strategy even requires suburb wide barricades, and that would be barricade strafing strategies, the DoHS type map would solve those problems cause in reality only a handful of barricades even matter and those are the ones on resource buildings, specifically Malls, NTs, PDs, and Hospitals which are never more then mabey 10 buildings in a suburb, survivors don't need barricade plans, they just need to know where they can get in, and the DoHS map, slightly modified, provides for that extremely well(better even than Barricade Plans do.). Modifications would be simple, just set aside a third color with the sole purpose of identifying HB^ buildings, that way enterable, nonenterable, and ransacked buildings would be identifiable(you don't need to show unbarricaded buildings even, just ransacked ones because ransack is what matters to both sides in this case.)--karek 14:48, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Hell, I could have a modified and better working version of the DoHS for suburbs to use soon, I'm actually working on something(Second map on the page) that could be easily implemented into suburb pages for that purpose soon and can be designed in a player neutral, editor friendly, fashion.--karek 14:51, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Would it be possible to use this map? If it was given a template like the suburb block I think it could work. I really don't know though. Any comments?. - Whitehouse 16:30, 12 July 2007 (BST)

Forget my map. It would be easier to just actually use the suburbblock map and make a few new templates for the colours. - Whitehouse 21:22, 12 July 2007 (BST)

We've got to say, since the NPOV police got heavy, several suburbs suddenly stopped reporting news. At all. Ever. Also, it seems clear that certain 'popular' suburbs get away with more than less (wiki) 'popular' suburbs. OK, we've been in various dodgy wiki wars on the West Boundwood pages, but the mods (and others) should lighten up on basic reporting enthusiasm in general, and not be so heavy handed (gage, Jedaz, at various points) in their censorship. We think we've said it before, but, this is a BLOODY GAME had for FUN and reporting encyclopaedic reports of news is NOT ALWAYS FUN, and sticking to the standards demanded by some is oppressive. Which is why a lot of players stopped bothering. Lighten up! The suburb page news sections are now often underused resources because of such heavy handed bureaucracy!--Crabappleslegalteam 02:12, 14 July 2007 (BST)

Really now, cause the way it is currently is very regime like if you dislike the pages or you dislike some of the survivor globbidy glarb certain areas are polluted with. No one is saying stop fun, they are saying stop having fun in a way where not everyone can, they are saying stop excluding groups on a page meant for everyone. You can have fun, but do it in a way that isn't POV, it's not really hard to do at all making things NPOV, just takes five seconds thinking over your change before making it.--karek 03:35, 14 July 2007 (BST)

You know, you don't have to report news every day. Sometimes when you do, the results are worse than they'd be otherwise. At some point, it's not even helpful, it's just blathering nonsense, usually role playing survivors, but often metagaming survivors using the wiki as their own private forum, and occasionally zombies talking about eating brains. Compare the top and middle news to the very earliest entries. They're still survivor leaning, of course, but short, important, and readable to everyone.--Insomniac By Choice 14:45, 14 July 2007 (BST)

Ha ha... bit lengthy, but at least you get some sense of urgency and narrative... compare to, for example, Quarlesbank - there used to be reasonably regular commentary here, but since NPOV has become more stringently enforced.... bit deadened, we reckon (although whether there have been clamp downs here specifically we don't know, to be honest). As for stopping fun for everyone, this refers to a)refusal to accept censored versions of reports referring to 3 out of 4 of the groups in the suburb, and, as far as could be told, non-aligned persons as well, on the basis of the reports being 'not for everyone' (can't have been many left!), and a regular non-aligned commentator (Arluc) being silenced in the middle of their entertaining, not wholly NPOV, but informative prime, for pure pedantry. It can quite quickly lead to fun for no-one but (and we realise the irony in saying this) rules lawyers --Crabappleslegalteam 03:15, 15 July 2007 (BST)

suburb example

Suburb of NPOV

Border Border Border Border NPOV Border Border Border Border

Update NPOV's Danger Level

NPOV's location in Malton. Resource Buildings in NPOV.

Latest EMR: z: ~2dzni: *** p: CFeb 30 Update EMR Phone Mast: (XX,YY) The Unknown Building Update Mast

Known groups in this suburb: *Group A Group B Key buildings in NPOV: Malls: NPOV MALL NecroTech Buildings: 1 Police Departments: 1 Hospitals: 1 Fire Stations: 1 Bulletin Boards: 1 Others:

Suburb Number: X

Please remember to keep this article neutral.

NPOV (aka "NPOV") is a suburb of Malton, located [e.g. in the west] of the city.

Short flavor history, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, NPOV, and NPOV.

Note: unless otherwise placed, the TOC will naturally sit here.

Tactical Resource Points

Note: to be updated to remove Fire Stations, Revive Points & Bulletin Boards, and to include Factories and Auto Repairs, in line with what TRPs actually are. See Template_talk:Trps

Fire Stations NPOV Fire Station (XX,XX)	Hospitals NPOV Hospital (XX,XX)
NecroTech Facilities NPOV Building (XX,XX)	Police Departments NPOV PD (95,0)
Malls NPOV Mall	Bulletin Boards NPOV Way (XX,XX)
Revive Points a cemetery (XX,XX) (must be listed at RP-page as active) NPOV Avenue (XX,XX) (must be listed at RP-page as active)

Recent News

Place most recent news at the top (& sign your posts!)

Please keep news entries NPOV for this suburb page.

• This is not a place to discuss tactics, call for help, or to give orders: use the talk page.
• This is not the place to talk up your own group, or badmouth an enemy: use the talk page or your own group page.
• This is not the place for reporting your own death or requesting a revive.
• This is the place for neutrally worded reports on the actual situation in the suburb.
• Any entry which doesn't follow these rules should be moved to the talk page, or at least the offending part.

News more than one month old can be found in the news archive.

Current Month, Current Year

Current Date^th

News formatted as per style guide.

Current Date^th

News formatted as per style guide.

Current Date^th

News formatted as per style guide.

Suburb Map

Suburb map visual.

Survivor specific information

Survivor groups must be listed at stats page

Barricade plan

Warning, this depicts the desired level of barricades for survivors, which may be based on the Uniform Barricading Policy. Actual level of barricades may well be different.

Either per visual or per link.

Zombie specific information

Groups must be listed at stats page