Talk:Nuclear power/Archive 2

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DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between May 19, 2005 and May 22, 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.)

Please add new archivals to Talk:Nuclear power/Archive03. Thank you. Benjamin Gatti 02:07, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Secondary and tertiary pollution

Nuclear reactors directly contribute radioactive gases - that can be sourced. they require processing which could be done from cleaner power but isn't i suggest the article ought to confine itself to what is. and processed fuel is intrinsic to nuclear power. mining etc requires vehicles usually diesel, and very big ones. this is intrisic. perhaps it requires less than coal - this is comparative and addresses the unstated question - what is the carbon budget of nuclear v. coal. what doesn't matter is how the energy is consumed - unless, as in the case of wind, so much transport is required that much energy is simply lost as heat. - so transport is primary, consumption is not chargable to the producer.

Benjamin Gatti 18:57, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

I quickly counted the occurences of pro and con opinions as prefixed:

11 instances Proponents Argue, Also Claim, Maintain, Argue, They Argue, Also claim, contend, contend, point out, point out, point out 3 instances Critics assert, point out, Opponents claim Yes this is clearly unbalanced but thats not the point. This article should be about facts rather than stakeholders opinion for or against.

Maybe we could create a new article titled 'Nuclear Power Proponents and Opponents Points of View'.

This is "one of those articles" that has absolutely no chance on ever converging on text that is acceptable to all partisans. There are some pro-nuclear people (NOTE WELL: I did not say "all pro-nuclear people"!) who can't accept any criticism of their favorite technology (and, prehaps, livelihood). And there are some anti-nuclear people (same note!) who can't accept that there are any situations where nuclear power might ever emerge as the best possible answer from among a set of unpallatable alternatives.

So the article will continue to swing wildly back-and-forth as the partisans on either side alternately impose their POV and are reverted by partisans from the other side.

I suspect the only way this would ever settle is if Wiki, for certain topics, simply supported two articles. For example: Nuclear power (as described by pro-nuclear partisans) and Nuclear power (as described by anti-nuclear partisans); if these both existed, then there might be hope that an article with a neutral point of view could also exist.

I agree with you but many of the websites, used in the past as a citations, are not facts but 100% marketing and advocacy. Since the facts are in dispute we need to state clearly who is alleging what, and even more basically, convey which facts are actually in dispute. For example I just removed "proven technology" from the intro since that can't be true and is marketing phraseology regardless. zen master T 16:47, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Note: I do not agree to any of the article splitting or framing that you propose. Neutral point of view means including all sides. zen master T 16:49, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia infact has a specific polocy against POV forking, and it can be grounds for deleting an article on VFD. The point here is to write a single article which represents all sides of a contraversial subject (see WP:NPOV). Dalf | Talk 21:10, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Then we might as well punt this whole article right now because this topic will NEVER converge on a single acceptable text. The only thing that will render it stable is the exhaustion of one side or the other, and that's not going to happen soon. :-( There are far too many partisans on both sides.

Atlant 22:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Don't get too discouraged. There are many issues more contentious and more intractable than this one that have over time developed into decent articles. Though I do admit that it is frustrating. On the other hand I have learned a lot about several such issues by reading the talk pages in question. You would be amazed at the coverage you can get on the various points of view on some issues by reading through how the debates have progressed over time. Dalf | Talk 23:06, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Nuclear power greenhouse emissions

http://www.oprit.rug.nl/deenen/

http://www.afeas.org/greenhouse_gases.html

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:gVNRnsSRKK8J:www.nuclearpolicy.org/NewsArticle.cfm%3FNewsID%3D2268+%22Nicholas+Kristof%27s+article+%22Nukes+are+Green%22+is+incorrect%22&hl=en

Various sources associated with info on the following link

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12835747^12332,00.html

nuclear power produces only three times fewer greenhouse gases than modern natural-gas power stations.

-In the US, where much of the world's uranium is enriched, including Australia's, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 50per cent of global warming.

You could use the same argument for solar enenrgy not being green energy: to make those solar panels from plastic and silicone required energy from some possibly coal power plant as well as water, and other resources. But this is going into a gray area. I think if we start counting all indirect relations the list could go on and on infinitely. --Berkut 06:55, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Yea, the argumet that Nuclear power uses fossil power by proxy is a bit weak. If the power stations that powered the mines were Nuclear as well for example. Also the electricity created by the plant could be used to produce greenhouse gasses. However, neither of these thigns are intrensic to Nuclear power. That is they are not necessarry for it to work, and ideal could be eliminated. Dalf | Talk 07:33, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Disagree - we ought rightly to distinguish between the resources consumed to create the energy versus the use of electricity unless the use is intrisic in the plant - as it was to some extent in Israel intended for desalination. Processing, mining pollution and energy consumption all have a noteworthy effect on energy payback time, and net environmental impact. Benjamin Gatti 07:49, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Economy section of this article

I've reinstated this, as I only posted it TODAY, so I don't consider it ready for archiving just yet --Sgkay 21:02, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Economy section of this article is laughable. It's completely pro-nuclear after Ultramarine's recent edits. The majority of my edits have been purged from the article, such as the point that the UK Department of Trade+Industry consider nuclear too expensive compared to other solutions. [1] I don't want to get into a edit war, so could someone else take a look and consider reinstating some of the earlier economy points, or add new content? --Sgkay 16:28, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Please read. That point and link is in the article. The problem with your POV is that you have very little facts but many emotions. Do not complain when claims without any bases are removed. Ultramarine 16:32, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

So given the UK government consider Nuclear Power too expensive to use, and I quoted a link to the UK government news article about this, in what way was this a claim without base? Sgkay 21:06, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

What are you trying to say? I have not removed this link or statement. Ultramarine 21:09, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Experimental Status

Actually the pebble bed reactors have something of a history (one was operated in Germany for long enough to be decommissioned). South Africa which in terms of energy economics could be called developing is doing some of the most research and new developments in this area and is hardly authoritarian. As far as I know the Indian government does not operate on a caste system (though I could be wrong), and I have not heard of any references to the caste system in India being used to suppress opposition to nuclear power. Dalf | Talk 07:15, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Risks of Leukemia from proximity to nuclear power plants

My contribution in the 'Risks' section, where I highlighted the confirmed risk of Leukemia by living near to a nuclear power station (see Wikipedia note at Leukemia#Radiation), has been removed by user Ultramarine and replaced with links to World Nuclear Association [2] and an outdated (and since retracted) conclusion from scientist Richard Doll [3]

Faced with growing evidence of the scientific untenability of his virtual dismissal of causes of cancer other than smoking and lifestyle, coupled with damaging revelations of conflicts of interest, Doll has suddenly retracted his long-standing dismissal of environmental causes of cancer. [4]

Actually, virus is an environmental cause of cancer. Ultramarine 16:31, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Here is a summary of studies [5] Ultramarine 16:54, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Price Anderson Act

Wiki needs a whole article dedicated to Price Anderson. Google covers it pretty well, and it can be read in its original forms and well as in the proposed wording of buses "Energy Bill" which proposes nuclear as safe and clean.

Price Anderson "limits" the liabiity in the case of a nuclear incident to some predefined and ridiculously inadequate number. In personal terms it would be like the government saying if you speed, while high on crank, and drive a school bus into a train, killing thousands of schoolgirls you can only be liable for the cost of a broken taillight. - and because you have a history of crank and speeding - your cost of insurance to drive a schoolbus is in the millions - but with this provision, it is reduced to the cost of a bus ticket - that is a wealth transfer. You are the payee, and all the other people who are paying full fare for their insurance - including uninsured, health, final expenses, life insurance, and unemployment insurance necessary to cover the costs of such an accident are the payors.

Benjamin Gatti 08:10, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

The undisputed fact is that the Price Anderson exists. And that without it, investors would not invest, insurance investors would not invest in the risk. Apparantly there are not enough investors who believe nuclear is as safe as you say that it must be. How can you be so sure nuclear is safe, and still not find a gaggle of insurance investors willing to put their money where their mouth is? Investors will not touch nuclear with without absolution by the state. These are undisputed, NPOV facts. How shall we agree to express them?

Benjamin Gatti 09:39, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Re-adding my comments which were in reply to the first paragraph above:

Then we should include this information in the article instead of all that nonsense about "wealth transfers", ofcorse while including it we should leave out any conclusions as to the adequacy of liability numbers; including the actual numbers would be nice then people can decide for themselves. Again how you describe the degree of a nuclear accident is subjective. What is the measuring rod? Are we to use only past incidents? If so then Chernobyl was the end all be all worst case. Are we to use theoretical possible damages? If so then nothing sort of total destruction of the bio-sphere is even more than minor. I suspect if we were endeavoring to say what is moderate and what is serious and what is minor we would have to find documentation of probability studies and failure scenarios and there would be lots of contentious stiff there. Personally I have read from several sources that in the new types of reactors being built an accident on that scale is impossible in every way, and that it is nearly the case for all the running reactors as well. I will not be surprised if you disagree but then that disagreement is the crux of the problem. Your number on the cost of a Chernobyl sized disaster is I think enough that the readers can look at it and decide for themselves and I don't see why we have to characterize the event as moderate or serious etc. It was what it was and as there is no agreed classification system I think trying to classify it as if there were is POV.

The acts existence is fact but YOUR POV as to the significant and implications of the act are not undisputed (in fact I am disputing them). Also some of the above is about the discussion of your wanting to characterize Chernobyl as a "moderate" disaster. However that too is your POV, if you can find some sort of official and generally agreed upon scale for rating nuclear accidents then you could reference it in the article otherwise it is original research which is not allowed. We should restrict our inclusion of information about the act to the facts. The details of the act, and such that we cannot disagree on and we should let the readers make up their own minds instead of implying that there is no conclusion for them to make other than to agree with whatever POV. Dalf | Talk 21:06, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Introduction paragraph

Am I wrong in my thinking that the paragraph above the TOC should be an abstract of the article?

No, you're not wrong. And it would be nice if we could at least settle on that text. :-(

Atlant 19:38, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Just me or is there too much coal this and wind that and anything but Nuclear Power here

I recommend eliminating all comparative references - or moving them to a Nucular Power compared to ... Page

This is an encyclopedia and should reflect information advertised. how for example are coal advocates to be informed that their oxe is being gored on the nuclear power page. coal should be described under coal. As to the "Debate over which fuel is better" that does not belong on the pages of properly sourced assertions of the parties. Benjamin Gatti 21:00, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, the reason (not necessarily a good reason) is that people tend to think that nuclear power is messy and dangerous and we should use something else instead; the first is true, to some extent, but you don't really have any standards to judge how dangerous and how messy unless you compare it to the alternatives. There already is environmental concerns with electricity generation to do an environmental comparison of various types.

I think, when people look at the hazards, environmental and otherwise, of nuclear power, that it is appropriate to provide them with some standard by which to judge it - how does the Chernobyl accident compare to the Bhopal disaster? How does radioactive waste compare to global warming and radioactive contamination from coal? --Andrew 21:17, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Vote on Moving this article to Nuclear Debate

For reasons stated throughout - this article is a mishmash of comparisons and opinions. It ought to properly named as such and this space used to describe the characteristics of nuclear power alone. a page on Churchill is not the place to describe Hitler. Benjamin Gatti 21:21, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

The remaining article would contain these referances to nuclear - but remove referances to alternatives except in the see also section As opposed to a POV fork - proposed is a topical fork in which the debate is seperated from the descriptions of the parties to the debate.

Benjamin Gatti 21:25, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

A new article for the controversy sounds nice. --Yath 21:58, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

This is just another attempt by opponents of nuclear power to censor this article since they have little real arguments. An article that only states risks but is not allowed to mention comparative benefits like economic costs is ridiculous. Similarly, it can be argued that all articles about renewable eneryg should remove all statements that they pollute less than than fossil fuels since this is a comparison. Neither should any article about renewable energy be allowed to compare alternative fuels with gasoline, or compare waste issues or accident risk with nuclear, or state that renewables contribute less to global warming. Ultramarine 22:23, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Except that the move is for purposes of isolating the parties - coal should not be peppered through a page on Nuclear except perhaps to point out that coal is burned to power the processing of the required uraniam. 'Opponents' as you say - who probably call themselves 'parents' who happen to care more about the health of their kids than providing enough power so Bush and Schatzanegger can drive around in strtch hummers - are being censored in this article already - look at the history - every mention of the radioactive offgassing is purged - actual science is being deleted by the irrationally exhuberent. Benjamin Gatti 22:19, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

An article about Churchill that does not mention Hitler would be strange indeed. Ultramarine 22:15, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Mention would be appropriate - but this page is pepper with coal this and fossils that.Benjamin Gatti 22:19, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Details of Proposed Move:

1. Move this section to "Nuclear debate"
2. Redirect this page to Nuclear Reactor - which is an award winning page
3. encourage stakeholders to merge science with Nuclear reactor, leave "proponents say" and such blither in the debate section.

Benjamin Gatti

Observe that votes like this has no power. Wikipedia requires consensus on issues like this. Ultramarine 22:17, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

This just looks like an end run around no POV forking. I do agree that an article such as Nuclear controversy would probably be worth making. There is a lot of history here especially if you include the last few years where a number of environmental groups such as The Sierra club changing their stances on the issue. However moving or re-directing this article would need a consensus perhaps even a VfD. The fact of the matter is that an article on Nuclear power is a not an article on Nuclear reactors and also an article on nuclear power would be incomplete without discussing the controversy. Dalf | Talk 04:33, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Move Completed

Perhaps a bit drastic, but those parts of the page which are NPOV are redundat and the POV stuff belogs in a debate page.

Another amazing tactics, after spamming the article with statements without sources and censoring the talk page. I have notified the administrators. Ultramarine 22:49, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Dear Anon: (Ultramarine) You're accusing people of "censorship" and "spamming" which are simply perjorative words for "adding and deleting" both of which you are more than happy to do youself - and in fact are the very point of Wiki.

I have added material with a source (See Atoms for Peace) and some items such as "the Price Anderson Act" are self-referencing.

This page has devolved into debate on any topic remotely touching nuclear power, and i find it far less authoritative than the redundant article Nuclea reactor. I propose the change, votes were made, the ayes have it. You reverted it - fine that's wiki. but here's the point i made changes which i felt improved the goals of this project - and i think you did as well. Accusations - made by people unwilling to sign their name are trite and inflamatory. Benjamin Gatti 23:25, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

While I don’t agree with describing you as a vandal or spammer, I am going to have to agree with Ultramarine here, your edits to the article were for the most part one piece of fact three pieces of editorial declaring what the fact meant (usually in place of actual content describing the fact). Your behavior on this talk page has also been to do everything in your power to avoid actually defending your position with facts but instead to try and censor myself and other editors (even one who appears to agree with you on a number of issues). I do not actually think you did this in malice I suspect that you are just new so it is not as bad. However, at the same time you are proving VERY resistant to acknowledging that deleting arguments you can’t effectively respond too is not ok. Instead of trying to remove the comments about talk page etiquette I will just ask you to read them carefully. I don't think you are a vandal or a spammer and I don't think using either of those words is helpful but I do think that you should really re-read the complaints about how you are conducting yourself with a mind open to the possibility that the complaints were made in good faith. Dalf | Talk 04:44, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Added back section removed by Benjamin Gatti

Recent archiving bordering on vandalism

Archiving a talk page to remove the arguments of people who disagree with you in an ongoing content dispute after trying to outright remove the posts is probably not appropriate Wikipedia behavior. If you have a look around you will see that almost no talk pages conform to some sort of hierarchy or structure. More to the point you do not archive contents on the page that are still relevant to a discussion at hand. You wait until the discussion is resolved and new issues are being discussed. Only then do you remove the historical stuff. Furthermore when archiving a page you archive whole discussions, you do not move the old discussion to the archive then take the parts of it you agree with and put them back on the talk page as if they are the only word on the issue. The result is trying to frame the discussion is a biased way. On a personal note I do not appreciate nearly all of my comments being archived off the main talk page and the ones that are left being left with no context as to the conversation they were part of. Context carries a meaning of its own and it is easy to misunderstand or intentionally mischaracterize someone statements when they are removed form their context especially when written as part of a moving discussion as is the case here. I am not sure how much work would have to go into undoing all of this and am not inclined to risk messing up other peoples comments that have happened since then so I am going to try and comment within this framework but please in the future do not archive active discussions, and specifically if you are going to archive any of MY comments in a section where you intend to leave your own comments on the issue please reconsider. Dalf | Talk 20:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

'nough said. There were whole paragraphs with strikeout lines and irrelevent drivel about style. This topic is operating under a duress flag - I'm beginning to think some prefer it that way and are happy to raise redherrings - such as "What about the pollution caused when the energy is used?" as if it that were a good way to describe a method of generating electricity. I think the subject should be resolved to the point where we can agree that the article itself is NPOV and quibbling about style isn't progress. I proposed we sweep the decks and list our differences. That's all - now move on to the issues already.

If you actually read the comments regarding the air pollution—which from your statements it is clear that you did not—then you will see that the comment about pollution from the use of the power was specifically meant to show the absurdity of including secondary and tertiary contributions. My point was that this article is about Nuclear power and should include things that are either intrinsic to nuclear power or constantly associated with it globally and with significant impact.

The strike out lines were again to maintain transparency. I understand that you are new (explaining why you tried to delete the whole talk page) so you may not have seen this much, but people do not like for people to remove things from talk pages. Even things that you wrote yourself. If you follow Votes for Deletion you will see people using strikeout when they change their vote rather than simply editing the original vote. It is about keeping the history of a conversation in a place that is accessible. Dalf | Talk 17:28, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Ad Hominem Attacks to be Deleted

Please take up any personal issues with me or anyone else on their own talk page. It is not censorship to restrict this discussion to matters of substance.

Proponents vs Real Sourcing

I agree with those who have pointed out that "proponents" is not a source.

This subject being highly researched - there is little excuse for including 'original research' which is unverified. The opinions of "proponents" amounts to original research.

I propose to strip out all claims attributed to undefined parties.

Any objections? Benjamin Gatti 02:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Discuss what you want to remove. if you again delete or change my comments on the talk pagei will request blocking for vandalism. Ultramarine 02:36, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

To the Point - who is it that speaks for Proponents, who defines critics and defines their goals? If this is intended to to be a catalogue of debate - perhaps it should be - especially because there are plenty of primary sources available.

I propose all representations of ambiguous groups be removed and replaced by representations of actual - self-defined groups. Benjamin Gatti 03:55, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

On THIS SUBJECT, if you don't remove your all caps - I will. If you don't move ad hominem attacks to personal user pages - I will. If you resort or threaten to resort to higher ups - you are undermining the democratic nature of the forum. If you are sucessful in imposing authoritarian control of this topic, you will have admitted defeat on the goal of an open and cooperative environment. Your threat in short is worse than the disease. Benjamin Gatti 03:55, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Self-defined groups? Are you trying to say that only environmental groups should be allowed? No group should be allowed to state something as facts without scientific studies. Changing and selectively archiving the comments of others on talk page is considered vandalism. I have been lenient until now, but if you continue I will and must to protect Wikipedia ask the "higher ups" to intervene. Ultramarine 04:06, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Again I think you Ben are missing the point. The nouns proponents and critics in the article are NOT sources. Go read the abortion article, or any of the longer articles on [Category:NPOV_disputes], that construct is used when proving something as fact is not possible. There are reputable sources that say Nuclear power is pollution free, there are others that claim that it pollutes on comparable levels to coal or some such. In such a case saying one or the other (which you seem to support as long as the one that is being said is what you agree with) is POV. Saying that supporters of the technology claim one thing and opponents another is a fact, and in a case like this sometimes it is the best we can do. For some details we can agree on compromise wording. If you look back in the history the line in the opening paragraph about air pollution use to say that nuclear power caused NO air pollution, someone 2 weeks ago changed it claiming that it actually polluted to the same levels as coal. After they were unable to support their claim on the talk page other than a few arguments about secondary and 3rd or 4th order effects we changed it to the more moderate wording as a compromise. That is how these things work its a discussion, give and take, your simply deleting peoples arguments in this context is abusive and it is vandalism, at first it was done in ignorance and we were patient about it. But, now you know and you really do need to stop. Dalf | Talk 04:53, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Anon (Dalf), Do we agree this page in not currently NPOV? I think it is no small group which believes in the cannon of research - including real historic events like cherny and TMI - that nuclear has a substantial and negative impact - it may occur over time in large and rare bursts - but it is there are it is substantial. Others want a source of power which is clean, safe, and free, and because they cannot find that with something else, they have latched unto nuclear with the full conviction of a true believer. I am interested in the truth. a few months ago i would have been nearer the later category - maybe its ok, now i'm more in the let's really explore the alternatives first category. as you say i have not been one-sided about anything. And as for drastic - if an article is NPOV - it deserves drastic - no apologies.

Benjamin Gatti 19:18, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

POV sections

Creating sections with the idea that "This section should be for POV (A) and this section should be for POV (B) which it seems at least one recent editor would like to do is not any more acceptable a solution than creating a POV fork. Wikipedia is not a soapbox!!!! This is official Wikipedia policy! ALL sections of the article should be POVNPOV (BG), it is not about giving each side their own place to put their POV and it is not even about giving equal time, it is about being neutral. That means in the intro we go with a few slightly hedged generalizations and then we elaborate on them in their respective sections. It does not mean that the sections on the dangers or perceived dangers of nuclear power should be written by opponents of nuclear power and the advantages section should be written by supporters and other irrational exuberant as it was put in one edit summary. It means that both views should be represented to whatever extent they can support in each section, and where possible compromise wording should be used. Dalf | Talk 05:07, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Dalf, Seperating viewpoints is discouraged, POV forking may be prohibited. What we have now is Proponents this and proponants that - it is one big pro-nuclear POV with renewable POV fully and repeatedly censored. The User does not benefit from a page which is admittedly POV.

This page, because of its low thesauras number, ought to state only conclusions of sources which are substantial and named - ie NRC Greenpeace WEC etc... The page for "Proponants hope it is the cure all" is on some other longer titled page. This page is simply a hijack of the topic and being used to promote nuclear power - by the use of unsupported claims attributed to anonymous sources. Benjamin Gatti 16:40, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

While I disagree with you about the facts (regarding Nuclear power and your statements about what this article is) you did not address my comment above directly. I was simply stating that splitting the article up into "this is the place for this view and this is the place for that view" is a poor choice and would not result in an article that meet wikipedia standards. I think (as you have suggested as well) that we should take the article bit by bit and work out what we can all agree on. I think it might also be useful to add:

to the top of the article in place of the NPOV tag (or perhaps in addition to it) as soon as we start making progress on a compromise version. That will help in keeping new editors from coming and inflaming the debate by changing things that had reached consensuses. In the spirit of consensus and since the talk page for that template seems to indicate that the template itself is a little controversial I decided to ask here what everyone though of that tag and placing it at the top of the article either in place of or in addition to the NPOV tag? Dalf | Talk 22:02, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

NPOV = requires removing unsupported citations to an ancillary article

From NPOV

From Jimbo Wales, September 2003, on the mailing list:

A. If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; B. If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; C. If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

Some examples may help to drive home the point I am trying to make.

1. An encyclopedic article should not argue that corporations are criminals, even if the author believes it to be so. It should instead present the fact that some people believe it, and what their reasons are, and then as well it should present what the other side says.

2. An encyclopedia article should not argue that laissez-faire capitalism is the best social system. [...] It should instead present the arguments of the advocates of that point of view, and the arguments of the people who disagree with that point of view.

Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so. If this strikes you as somehow subjectivist or collectivist or imperialist, then ask me about it, because I think that you are just mistaken. What people believe is a matter of objective fact, and we can present that quite easily from the neutral point of view.

---

Suggestions from this authority - We use the word believe when describing assertions made by anonymous sources

We consider placing this article in a clearly identified page if it continues to violate the citing requirments of wikipedia. Benjamin Gatti 17:13, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Actually the sections you included here form NPOV are exactly what the article is doing. Since there are two POVs that are both prominent the article is written with the beliefs attributed to the relevant side. Unless ofcorse you are arguing that citations need to be given that there is a significant group of pro-nuclear power people, even among people who also support renewable energy sources (like myself). Beyond that I think the FACTS presented on the Pro side are actually better sourced in the article largely thanks to Ultramarine. Dalf | Talk 22:09, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes - I am suggesting that the standard of evidence for this article - because it is not ancillary falls into either category A or B above. We must name names on this page. If we cannot name prominent adherents then we should create a reference to an ancillary page for that factoid. Moving the entire article to Nuclear Debate solves the problem(If we redirect to some clean page as I did). That is ancillary enough for "some say this". That is what NPOV say we must do. We could ignore NPOV, but we should not rewrite the NPOV rules in the middle of a POV debate. Moreover, i suggest the numbers on either side are pretty close. EIA and DOE project very slight increase for nuclear energy over the next 20 years. That means they conclude the issue is dead, and my guess is that the computer model for comodity energy pricing doesn't suggest a market in which nuclear energy is competative in the near term - which might be due more to the incremental issue than to the mean COE. Benjamin Gatti 04:34, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

NPOV article

So you think that every argument no mater how generic of an argument should list the multiple thousands of people who hold that argument to be true? The excerpt you posted form the NPOV article does not support that. You seem to be implying that the EXISTENCE of supporters of Nuclear power needs to be documented, in cases of arguments that would be inherent to such a person.

I think there is a middle ground and you have convinced me that perhaps some of the arguments which represent logical extensions of the debate should be sourced more fully. In cases of general arguments which will have to be found throughout the article I think a footnote section pointing to studies supporting the argument is a good idea.

If we can get neutral/compromise wording on most of the article I think we should actually add a section on the debate and document the various stances there in much the same way that the abortion article has. Dalf | Talk 20:39, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

intermmittancy

one complaint about renewables is they are itermitant.

it is fair to point out that nuclear is intermittant with respect to pollution - some of the time it pollutes - other times it does not on balance it pollutes a great deal and many people are very sick or dead because of nuclear power

intro needs to provide interesting facts - which are supported in the article

Recently UltraMarine has decided to censor the Intro to promote her/his personal POV.

Removing all detail supporting critics, while retaining detail for proponents.

" is a better or more realistic energy source than alternatives." - is a detail in favor

removed was

"Once held to provide electricity which is "too cheap to meter", a history of tragic accidents has caused its use in human society to be controversial"

Which is detail supported by the article listing prominent facts shaping the subject.

I think it is clear that UltraMarine has a POV and is censoring other POV's - including NPOV Benjamin Gatti 20:09, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

indeed. Ultramarine : I'd be interested to hear your background. You're clearly quite knowledgeable on Nuclear Power. Do you work in the industry, hence your POV? --Sgkay 20:26, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I have no ties to the nuclear industry at all. If you look at my contributions, you will see that I contribute to a very broad range of articles. Regarding the intro, it is now completely neutral. Detailed arguments should go into the text. Ultramarine 20:30, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

"Nuclear power is energy generated from nuclear reactions or decay of an atom nucleus. Its use in human society is controversial. Opponents argue against it due to various risks. Proponents argue for it due to various reasons." Would be NPOV - the difference between that and what you have is bias. Now go add some interesting details to both side - or delete the interesting details from your POV. The intro should be more interesting - i'm fine with juicy details for both sides, or better from the NPOV side, but this is just one sided detailing clearly discouraged in the NPOV

Benjamin Gatti 20:36, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I think adding something into the introduction about its use not only being contraversial but significantly reduced in recent decades as a result of popular resistance form some quators resulting form accidents that have happened. The wording that starts with "Once held to provide electricity which is 'too cheap to meter'" I think is somethign we shoudl work into the intro because it is not only true but significant. During the golden age of Nuclear power if I may use that term Nuclear was held out as a stepping stone to huge advances in civilazations with Nuclear powered cars and elivators where energy was so plentiful and cheep that not even the power grid would be somthing to worry about. This obviously did not happen and was in many ways misguided and utopian thinking. However, I dont thinkt he appeals to emotion with words like tragic belong in an encliopedia article much less the introduction (and no I am not saying that people getting killed is not tragic). As such I am going to put the current version of the intro below here without editing it. Maybe we can work out the content here AND then get it written in a way that flows well. If we take the issues one at a time I think we might be able to work this out.