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Is this sentence in Baalbek SYNTH?

"Baalbek is a stronghold of the militant organization Hezbollah, and its tourism sector has encountered challenges due to conflicts in Lebanon, particularly the 1975–1990 civil war, the ongoing Syrian civil war since 2011, and the Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present)."

Three people think it's not. Two people (including me) think it is. Arguments are in here: Talk:Baalbek#Requesting_explanation_for_revert. FunLater (talk) 22:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A similar issue previously came up at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 453#Are these reliable sources for Baalbek -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:17, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand this issue correctly, no one disputes these three items: (1) Baalbek is a Hezbollah stronghold; (2) the tourism industry has had struggles and challenges; (3) RS attribute the tourism industry's struggles and challenges to military conflicts that have occurred. The dispute is over whether in the absence of an RS that explicitly ties the fact that Baalbek is a Hezbollah stronghold to the military conflicts that are one source of problems for the tourism industry, it is SYNTH to tie the Hezbollah-strongholdiness of Baalbek to the tourism problems. If I got all that right, I agree that it is SYNTH. Novellasyes (talk) 13:32, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like the sentence just needs to be split in two. Add a full stop after the part saying it has been a Hezbollah strong hold, that could use some additional details anyway as the sources for that go back decades and aren't just related to current events. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:58, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Before there’s any chapter, the first paragraphs in the article show no reference. Hadjnix 07:38, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The lead of an article are meant to summarise the rest of the content, so it's not necessary to have to references in the lead. Instead those details should have references found in the main body of the article, which the lead is then summarising.

Leads sometimes have references, usually if a particular detail is controversial, but that's not the norm. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The question is, if a source takes the position that having to pay postage when returning a ballot is a constructive poll tax, is this a sufficient basis for claiming that this is a form of voter suppression?

To be clear, there is no claim that every form of voter suppression is illegal, just that there is no "line to draw" as to what constitutes voter suppression and that anything which has a tendency to discourage voting, by definition, constitutes voter suppression to a greater or lesser degree.

Here's the pertinent part of the original discussion from Talk:Voter suppression in the United States#Reconsidering the gist of this article:

I understand from what you are saying here that you do not believe that it is WP:OR to decide that the meaning of the term "voter suppression" is self-evident and does not require further definition. I do believe that it is WP:OR but of course I could be wrong.

The specific ask is presumably that there must be a source which explicitly states that having to put postage on the return envelope may discourage some people from voting (i.e. that this would in fact constitute voter suppression), while my contention would be that this is implicit, particularly when there is no assertion of any countervailing benefit, e.g. in terms of reducing voter fraud. Fabrickator (talk) 15:42, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• The term “Original Research”, as used on Wikipedia, refers to statements, arguments or conclusions not directly stated in any external source (but instead originating on Wikipedia). So, the question here is very simple: is the conclusion that postage constitutes voter suppression found in a source? If so, then it is not OR … if not, then it is OR. Blueboar (talk) 18:17, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Flat-out OR. EEng 19:00, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Blueboar and EEng: What about a source stating that the postage requirement imposes a "burden on the right to vote"? Does that also fail to support the claim of "voter suppression"? Fabrickator (talk) 20:44, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  To be clear, I think ballot envelopes should be postage-prepaid, because who the hell has stamps around the house anymore? But it's not for us to make the jump from "burden" to "suppression". I think you'll find the examples at WP:SYNTH on point. EEng 21:16, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  If the source says “burden” we should say “burden”.

  Indeed, I would say that “burden” is actually a stronger word, since rain on Election Day can “suppress” the vote. Blueboar (talk) 13:16, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oil paint contained an assertion that "For several centuries the oil painting has been perhaps the most prestigious form in Western art[...]". To better comply with WP:NPOV, I changed it to "For several centuries, the oil painting was considered the most prestigious form in Western art[...]"; however, I could not find a source for a claim like this anywhere in the article and I am unsure if there are sources to back up the idea that this was the consensus in the past. Any help sorting out this dilemma would be appreciated. Thanks, Tarhalindur (talk) 22:57, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see how your edit brought any improvement, especially removing the "perhaps". I don't think either statement has NPOV issues - market prices alone would bear this out. Johnbod (talk) 04:12, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do WP:RS say, when going through the history of art, that oil painting was the most prestigious, etc.? Maybe. But that doesn't seem like a very interesting thing to say so I wonder if art historians actually bothered saying that. They might have been more inclined to observe that oil was the preferred medium for many renowned artists throughout history or that many iconic works in the western tradition were done in oil. For example this long history of oil doesn't mention the prestigiousness of oil but mentions what are to me more interesting summaries of why it mattered. Novellasyes (talk) 14:57, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and removed that pretty egregious OR; I've also gone through and removed a handful of other OR or peacocky terms in the article. It'll still need a bit of improvement but it's (in my eyes) a bit better for now. CoconutOctopus talk 11:11, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An editor continues removing content from the lead at Centre-right politics because they believe that the sources are fake and written by leftwingers. Can we get some more input here? Talk:Centre-right politics#Wording of the lead Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:31, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note that if the Sfn sources don't match anything in the references list, it's because the editor is deleting those too. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:01, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following sentence in dispute contains original research not supported by the sources at hand:

Polling throughout the election cycle showed that after his indictments began Trumps poll numbers saw an immediate rise which would remain throughout the rest of the election cycle,^[1][2] and after his conviction in New York, polling among republicans showed that the conviction made 34% of them "more likely" to vote for Trump.^[3]

The first half of the sentence was reverted by myself, as the two sources for the claim did not state that "Polling throughout the election cycle" showed that after his indictments "Trumps poll numbers saw an immediate rise which would remain throughout the rest of the election cycle". The sources cannot make this claim, as they were both published in 2023, over 1 year before the end of the election cycle in 2024. My removal of this was reverted by TheRazgriz, who claimed there was no original research. BootsED (talk) 01:46, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Being tactful in my reply here to add the following:

In the referenced text, there are three references, two contemporary citations to the polling "bump" post-indictment in Nov 2023, and one which notes polling post-conviction in June 2024, more than half a year later, and elsewhere in the page is already reference to exit polling support almost a full year from initial reference (in addition to the obligatory links to the main 24 POTUS election page with more focused data/info).

My rebuttal is that it is OR to make authoritative statements with no RS to validate the substance or merit of the statement, but it is not OR to cite RS sources containing and explaining datasets and make a statement of fact based on the data cited. If needed, further citations can easily be found to continue to validate the claim, for example HERE which show any variation from Nov 23-Jun 24 as within margin of error, but my approach on WP is that there is very rarely a valid reason to cite more than 1 or 2 sources to validate a claim that is not a serious point of contention. That is my $0.02(USD). More than happy to participate more if needed or requested. Thank you. TheRazgriz (talk) 02:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First, the third source does not make the claim that because of Trump’s indictments, his polling numbers remained up throughout the election cycle because of the indictments. It is also published in June of 2024, still before the end of the election cycle.

The new source you provided in your comment above was not in the sentence at hand, and does not even say that Trump's indictments resulted in a polling bump. It instead reports on people's opinions on the indictments, not on Trump’s overall poll numbers. The poll is based on the question, not his overall polling numbers. It is also a primary source rather than a secondary source, so using that source to make broader claims is synthesis. It is also published in June, so it still wouldn't satisfy your claim that his poll numbers went up throughout the election cycle because of his indictments. BootsED (talk) 15:10, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with BootED that some OR is involved in the sentence, "Polling throughout the election cycle showed that after his indictments began Trumps poll numbers saw an immediate rise which would remain throughout the rest of the election cycle." A couple of factors to notice: (1) the indictments didn't all happen at once; if it is really true that his poll number experienced an increase after "his indictments began" you'd have to go back and pick up the first indictment and see what happened to his poll numbers starting then; this, however, would then make a complicated claim to draw all the way through to November 2024 since at that time he was still seeking the Republican nomination and polls were about his standing versus other Republicans; (2) his polling numbers vacillated during the general election season and experienced a dip after the Harris nomination; (3) to the extent that some Republicans looked on him more favorably because of the indictments (this is born out in some polls), I don't see an RS that supports that idea that his relatively robust poll numbers which Harris was only briefly able to interrupt was because of the indictments. It would be good to not confuse correlation with causation and not to imply it unless RSes do; but even the correlation seems like OR. There probably are some valuable or interesting sentences that COULD be included about the impact of his indictments but the way it is said now rolls way too much up into one OR overarching claim. Novellasyes (talk) 15:48, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I feel it is important to not misconstrue what the article as written actually says. The wording is:

"Polling throughout the election cycle showed that after his indictments began Trumps poll numbers saw an immediate rise which would remain throughout the rest of the election cycle."

What is being communicated to the reader? Trump had X% polling before his first indictment, just after the first indictment those numbers saw an immediate Y% increase to Z%, and that Y% gain remained for the rest of the cycle. It is not asserting that his numbers remained at Z% for the rest of the cycle, just that the Y% increase remained, i.e. he never saw X% after that point.

Here is an equal but opposite question: Did Trumps polling in the 2024 election cycle post-indictment 1 ever get at/near/below his polling pre-indictment 1? The answer is plainly no, based on all available data, at every stage of the election.

But to the point of OR, this really feels like a mistake seen time and again, summed up as "If a RS can not be quoted as saying a specific thing, then it is OR to say that thing at all in WikiVoice." WV is not a quotation method, it is used to give a summary based on RS. It is not OR to summarize the data and RS. RS verify the assertion (again, the Y%, not the Z%), and further RS citations can and are easily obtained which reinforce this. If the issue is "Needs more/better citations", that is achieved within a half hour, but we must keep in mind WP:OVERKILL and be reasonable about it. How many RS are needed to reasonably validate the claim? Do we need a poll from each month of the entire cycle? Every quarter? TheRazgriz (talk) 16:52, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need a poll from every month, you need one reliable secondary source published after the election that directly makes the claims you admit you made based on your own interpretation of data. BootsED (talk) 03:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it is bluntly false to claim SYNTH to the other citation. That was such a wild assertion to make. Its an Emerson College poll. What in the world is primary about this? Explain the leap to asserting it is SYNTH here. TheRazgriz (talk) 16:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The polling data universally verifies this summary. It shows Trump at X% pre-Indictment 1, it shows a significant Y% increase post-indictment 1 to Z% ratings, and confirms that at no point did the Y% "go away" over time, instead remaining for the rest of the cycle, proven by the fact that he never returned to X% levels afterward. If the summary/assertion had no data to confirm, and was simply ripping bits and pieces of RS to cobble together the assertion with no actual underlying foundation of RS/proof for the assertion itself, that would be SYNTH. That is not the case here. The case here is that RS data verifies the assertion, Trump never saw his numbers go back down to where they had previously been. That is a fact, clearly apparent by the data itself. It is not OR to state numbers went up and cite the data, it is also not OR to state they did not return to previous levels and cite the data.

What concerns me more is the combined assertion you've made that using Emerson College polls as a citation is somehow "primary source" to this. How? I sincerely am curious how you arrive at that conclusion. Everything is primary to something, but how this poll is primary to this discussion is inconceivable to me. TheRazgriz (talk) 19:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not with the pollster. Primary versus secondary sources is best described by WP:SECONDARY. The primary source you pointed to does not make the claim you say it does. BootsED (talk) 03:11, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The claim is one of data. "Data shows X". Every source I have provided is in support of that claim, and does indeed strengthen that claim.

SYNTH would be:

Source 1- "Immigrants are pouring across Southern border in record numbers."

Source 2- "Record numbers of illegal drugs flowing across Southern border."

WIkiVoice summary- "Immigrants are bringing record numbers of illegal drugs across the Southern border."

That is SYNTH.

Again, the WV assertion here is not that. It is "X% increased by Y% to Z%, and the Y% remained". Every source cited strengthens that claim. You have yet to provide RS that disputes that claim. I can continue providing RS to strengthen my claim, as every poll after that point never showed Trump return to levels at/near/below his pre-indictment level, and showed most fluctuation up or down within margin of error. Exit polling also showed he won the PV, still maintaining his increased %, and these polls are already citied elsewhere on the "main" page so I know you aren't pretending those aren't also there. As a bonus, HERE, yet another collection of polling data, this time during Trump v Harris timeline, still showing his polling numbers at approx the same as they were from every other poll post-indictment. But I am sure you will once again have some sort of issue with this, and once again your issue will be to insist it is all OR, and again you will provide not a hint of a RS to disprove the assertion.

So here is my final answer: This is about as basic as it gets, telling the reader a factual summary of what can be verified from multiple RS, specifically within the context of the section within the article page it is being stated in. The assertion is a fact, it is verified by multiple RS confirming the same data result to be true, it is presented within the context of the section topic, and you have provided no substantive counterargument to actually address any of this and instead choose to argue past the point. That is your decision and right to do so. Mine is to choose to stop engaging past the slightest hope of productive, constructive conversation. I leave the rest to the gods of chaos, i.e. other Wiki users. Thank you. Razgriz, the Red Wizard (talk) 04:36, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]