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Phrasing for inequality RFC segment.

Note: this section is being returned from the archive pending RFC closure, and because it is referred to by section wikilinks in the sections below. EllenCT (talk) 18:13, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

You could just update the links to archived versions or old permalinks instead of filling up a massive chunk of the talk page with a sprawling discussion that has been since been subsumed by both my posting of new source evidence and the new RFC you started below. Having a defunct discussion on the same topic on the page could easily be confusing to readers. VictorD7 (talk) 09:56, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is clearly a legitimate controversy here, and all sides seem to have sources to support their views. The prevailing sense seems to be that the sentence "The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate" (option B) is certainly accurate, but needs to be expanded upon, possibly with some phrasing from the options marked "A". A good option would be to have a paragraph starting with that sentence that would then present the two sides of the debate with all the sources presented below. One of the sentences presented as option A could certainly follow in the part of the paragraph displaying that side of the debate.--Aervanath (talk) 20:16, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

---

I had to start this section because the above one falsely labels Ellen's preferred text "RFC-approved" at the top, when the RFC closer went out of his way to say the material was allowed "in some form", clearly not a rubber stamp approval of her phrasing. Also, I proposed the broader, neutral alternative text during the RFC discussion, not after it, and the above section omits some sourcing involved.

Proposal A	Proposal B
Growing income inequality and wealth concentration have resulted in affluent individuals, powerful business interests and other economic elites gaining increased influence over public policy.	The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate.

References

The sources were consolidated into two references with internal breaks to save space in the article.

I made the alternative proposal as a way to include Ellen's sources while avoiding a POV and niche topical skew, particularly one based on a few avante garde, cutting edge, highly subjective research papers of the type we should always be cautious about using as sources. Proposal B deals with the inequality issue in a broader way more appropriate to this article's detail level, neutrally covering opinions on it from all angles, including from a number of established, notable experts. It also includes Ellen's material in a closed way that requires no further expansion, while Proposal A would spark the addition of counterpoints and other controversial talking points deemed of interest to various editors, leading to dramatic article bloat in a page already deemed too long by most and likely contentious edit warring.

A fair discussion can't take place in the above section, where Ellen admits she was pissed off, which may have warped its construction, so I'll ask EllenCT, C.J. Griffin, Casprings, RightCowLeftCoast, Capitalismojo, Mattnad, and anyone else who has participated in this discussion or wants to to do so here. Let's iron out a consensus phrasing. Do you favor one of the above proposals? A modified version? Do you have an entirely different proposal? VictorD7 (talk) 21:46, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Strongly prefer B and oppose A for reasons given. VictorD7 (talk) 21:47, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

How many times do you think you can keep calling a new vote while you're losing? I propose including the Wall Street Journal's recent graphic. EllenCT (talk) 22:40, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Just establishing a fairer baseline. BTW, how many visuals do you want in the Income section, lol? VictorD7 (talk) 02:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Do you know where to get the time series for the data on pages 12 and 13 of [2]? It might also be good to present that along with asset ownership by demographic categories from the triennial FRB consumer survey as we had discussed doing elsewhere. EllenCT (talk) 16:30, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

So you're advocating having at least three and maybe four images in the Income section alone? No, I don't think we should be adding any new images now, especially overly detailed ones on such selectively niche topics. There are multiple editors having a completely separate discussion above about the Income section being way too long and advocating cutting it to maybe a sentence or two. Don't stretch the rubber band too far or you may not like where it lands when you let go. VictorD7 (talk) 17:49, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I prefer A in a copy edited for or this one if not edited. But I also support adding the additional source Ellen provides.

What type of copy editing did you have in mind? And what do you mean by "this one" if not edited? VictorD7 (talk) 02:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd prefer to see some slight modification:

"Increased income inequality and the concentration of capital have resulted in growing individual affluence and created a select economic force, giving business interests more influence over public policy.[1][2][3]"

But I could live with the original text for now if I had to.--Mark Miller (talk) 17:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Don't you think Proposal A should at least be attributed as opinion rather than presented as fact in Wikipedia's voice? And would you support other editors expanding the broader inequality discussion to include views like those from the well credentialed experts I cited above? VictorD7 (talk) 17:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

No, I believe that statement A is sourced correctly with expert academic journals. It could be expanded with opinion sources like editorials in support (which in turn would need balance of opposing opinion), but how much weight should be given to opinion or editorials can be very difficult in short summary like this. These do appear to be correct and accurate trends recorded and documented in a number of ways. We could add more supporting primary sources such as the CBO reports and a vast amount of work and research by a number of editors on this subject. I once went to DRN over this subject and the way it was being presented. My main concern is the encyclopedic tone, but the facts were well established in the DRN by two other editors.--Mark Miller (talk) 18:54, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Mark, you realize that much of what appears in academic journals is opinion, don't you? This topic in particular isn't hard science, and these aren't long established, consensus expert conclusions resulting from a mature discussion. Have you read these articles? These are tentative, recent, cutting edge articles with conclusions that just happen to line up with the authors' political agendas. They're subjectively constructed (being a humanities topic) and filled with speculative assumptions other researchers don't share. What's more, they acknowledge this. Gilens himself states that (564), "Here—in a tentative and preliminary way—we offer such a test, bringing a unique data set to bear on the problem. Our measures are far from perfect, but we hope that this first step will help inspire further research into what we see as some of the most fundamental questions about American politics." Gilens even acknowledges that much of the empirical evidence and many scholars disagree with his views: (page 565) "..a good many scholars—probably more economists than political scientists among them—still cling to the idea that the policy preferences of the median voter tend to drive policy outputs from the U.S. political system. A fair amount of empirical evidence has been adduced—by Alan Monroe; Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro; Robert Erikson, Michael MacKuen, and James Stimson (authors of the very influential Macro Polity); and others—that seems to support the notion that the median voter determines the results of much or most policy making".

Bartels even admits that he hasn't proved the causal link asserted in Proposal A (29-31): "It is important to reiterate that I have been using the terms “responsiveness” and “representation” loosely to refer to the statistical association between constituents’ opinions and their senators’ behavior. Whether senators behave the way they do because their constituents have the opinions they do is impossible to gauge using the research design employed here. It is certainly plausible to imagine that senators consciously and intentionally strive to represent the views of (especially) affluent constituents. However, it might also be the case, as Jacobs and Page (2005) have suggested in the context of national foreign policy-making, that public opinion seems to be influential only because it happens to be correlated with the opinion of influential elites, organized interest groups, or the policy-makers themselves." Like Gilens, he goes on to state "There is clearly a great deal more work to be done investigating the mechanisms by which economic inequality gets reproduced in the political realm", and conceded "the significant limitations of my data and the crudeness of my analysis" meant more work is needed.

Actually these studies are garbage, full of methodological flaws pointed out by me and others elsewhere in previous discussions, but that's beside the point. It's not about whether they "appear to be correct and accurate" or not to you and me, but whether they represent the expert consensus, and the articles themselves admit they don't. The authors are nowhere near as certain as you're suggesting we be with Proposal A. The material should certainly be attributed if it belongs here at all. VictorD7 (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

That was very extensive, and yet it still doesn't come close to disproving the claims or that the sources do not contain the facts being summarized.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Did you read the part where Bartels says his method can't prove that economic elites have greater influence over public policy, completely undermining the factual claim asserted in Proposal A? VictorD7 (talk) 20:34, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with a lot of what you are assuming and a lot of the direction you are taking in regard to the sources but again, you have not demonstrated that they do not support the claims. This argument about academic journals is old is not entirely accurate or we would be removing every journal used to source facts.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:51, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

You didn't answer my question, and I'm assuming nothing. I'm also not calling for these sources to be deleted. I'm just saying if we're going to use them we should faithfully represent them, along with other good sources. VictorD7 (talk) 22:15, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

A "capitol" is a building in which a legislature meets. EllenCT (talk) 22:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yep. LOL! Good catch. Capitol is derived from Capitoline Hill.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• It's 2015. Anyone seriously considering adding the statement "The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate" to this article is engaging in outright denial. We know the extent and relevance of income inequality in comparison to other countries. This is not seriously in dispute by anyone other than fringe sources. Viriditas (talk) 19:21, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

• This discussion isn't about "income inequality in comparison to other countries." Try reading more closely, including the sources added from experts who don't share your politics. They're certainly not "fringe". VictorD7 (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The discussion is just about improving the article and Viriditas' point seems valid. It would appear like denying facts to use "B".--Mark Miller (talk) 20:28, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

You're saying there's no debate on inequality, lol? How then do you explain all the sources posted by both sides saying there is a debate? It helps to actually read the sources, even the ones your political ally posts. Talk about denying facts....VictorD7 (talk) 20:31, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

VictorD7, you are intentionally attempting to manufacture doubt about inequality in the U.S. We know there is income inequality in the U.S. and we know about its impact. By continuing to manufacture doubt about income inequality you are engaging in denial. Viriditas (talk) 20:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Your vapid name calling is a poor substitute for intelligent, substantive discourse, Viriditas. I manufactured nothing. I quoted expert sources. In fact I appear to be the only one here who's even willing to read Ellen's sources all the way through. No one denied "there is income inequality in the U.S." or indeed in every country. Fortunately. Can you imagine how stifling and terrible the world would be if there wasn't any? But that has nothing to do with this discussion. VictorD7 (talk) 22:15, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Describing your edits as an attempt to manufacture doubt and cast uncertainty on income inequality is not "name calling". For the record, you are the only one who has engaged in personalizing the dispute here in this thread, referring to "experts who don't share your politics" when I have not discussed my politics and referring to other editors who don't agree with you as "political allies". Instead of manufacturing doubt and casting uncertainty on the subject, what you are doing is trying to politicize this discussion by casting doubt and uncertainty on the motivations of participating editors. So when you are not busy manufacturing doubt and uncertainty about income inequality, you try to do the same thing to editors. Yet, here you are accusing others of "name calling"? I'm sorry, Victor, but you aren't playing fair nor are you being reasonable. Viriditas (talk) 22:47, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

You engaged in false personal characterizations, and totally dodged the specific substance which I've posted above in abundance. By contrast my description of various editors' politics is accurate, as is my point about you repeatedly not even grasping what this discussion is about (hint: it's a lot more specific than "inequality in the U.S.", and isn't about international comparisons, which are already present elsewhere in the section). I'm being extremely fair and reasonable. Worry less about my motives and focus on actually reading the article, proposals, and sources involved. Think critically about them too. Pay especially close attention to the material I quoted and bolded above. VictorD7 (talk) 00:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

• Proposal A The evidence is very clear and backed by multiple sources. The "debate" is similar to the "debate" on global warming. Casprings (talk) 00:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Did you actually read the sources? Because, as I quoted above, even they disagree with your assertion here. Gilens explicitly says "many" (his word) researchers disagree with him, Bartels concedes his method can't prove that economic elites have greater influence over policy, and they both describe their methodology as "tentative", and "crude", calling for more research. In short, they don't support the phrasing of Proposal A. Why would any honest, competent editor oppose attributing this claim as opinion to the authors used as sources, while acknowledging the alternative views even those sources admit exist? VictorD7 (talk) 22:15, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• Proposal B Proposal A, to the extent it's not just a truism, has a bad connotation (that we worry when "business interests" seem ascendant, but not the bureaucracy, academy, etc.), and the sources backing it are insular (two of the three carry Princeton's imprimatur), jargonistic and mathematical (making the argument with labels and mathematical givens, rather than a more accessible historical narrative), and rife with questionable assumptions (that labor unions speak for the workingman, when it's repugnance at labor's tactics—its legal and physical strong-arming, and its corruption—that have cost union jobs, as much as anything). Proposal B is too bland (there is considerable debate on this point) and its sources have their own problems (mockery of liberal academics, but not the authors of the first three papers; aggregation of articles from the Journal, Financial Times, etc., but not direct links to the newspaper articles themselves (probably behind paywalls), and too-laudatory introductions of the authors (this being source 6, Free Beacon something), etc.). But better to say too little than too much that is questionable, and Proposal B does give a more complete array of sources. Dhtwiki (talk) 02:53, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I definitely view B as a lesser evil. VictorD7 (talk) 19:04, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

• Proposal A, perhaps as the basis for further elaboration or details on who says what, which parts are controversial, and so on. Proposal B is a non-statement and would never be acceptable wording under any circumstances. --Aquillion (talk) 00:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

New source evidence directly contradicting Bartels and co.

Does Less Income Mean Less Representation?, PDF, Brunner, Eric, Stephen L. Ross, and Ebonya Washington, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy: Vol. 5 No. 2 (May 2013), DOI: 10.1257/pol.5.2.53 - Study directly criticizes the methodology used by Bartels and similar researchers and employs its own methodology that contradicts their conclusion; "We assemble a novel dataset of matched legislative and constituent votes and demonstrate that less income does not mean less representation." Study finds partisanship is more important than income in explaining correlation between office holder policy votes and constituent views.

How Poorly are the Poor Represented in the US Senate?, Robert S. Erikson Professor of Political Science Columbia University, Yosef Bhatti Department of Political Science University of Copenhagen, Chapter prepared for Enns, Peter and Christopher Wlezien (eds.): “Who Gets Represented”, New York: Russell Sage Foundation (2011) - While not claiming to directly disprove his thesis, their study failed to replicate Bartels’ findings using a larger sample set and more recent data, indicating the issue is more complex than some may have thought, and sought to correct some methodological flaws in Bartels' work. They found no significant evidence that higher income people are more represented than lower income people, in part because ideology tracked more closely together across income groups within a particular state than in the older data Bartels used.

The Macro Polity (especially Chapter 8; also read this PDF with ideas adapted from the book), Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. Mackuen, James A. Stimson, Cambridge University Press, 2002 - Finds that policies largely reflect the views and mood of the median voter, especially over time; Gilens called this work "very influential", and it better represents the established mainstream scholarly view than the three avant garde primary research papers in Proposal A above. VictorD7 (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

New proposals

It's also worth noting the quotes from EllenCT's own sources in the above section where Gilens concedes "a good many scholars" (his wording) disagree with his conclusion (he also admits there is significant empirical evidence supporting the other views), where Bartels concedes his method hasn't proved a causal link (meaning actual "influence" per Proposal A's wording) between economic elites and policy outcomes, and where all her sources cop to the "tentative" and "crude" nature of their methods, calling for more research. I'll add that Hayes (her third source, which I didn't get around to quoting above for space reasons) makes these same concessions, and also produces results that contradict those of Bartels (and the AEJ study above for that matter) in finding that Democrats are more responsive to the wealthy while Republicans are more responsive to the middle class (like Bartels, he finds neither is responsive to the poor, a finding contradicted by the new sources posted here).

There have also been numerous criticisms of the methodologies and political biases of Gilens, Bartels, and Hayes in past discussions here, including contrived definitions, cherry-picked poll (polls can easily yield contradictory results with different question wording) and policy selections, skewed interpretations, disputed assumptions, etc., and Bartels calling anyone with an income over $40k a year "high income" (Hayes uses anyone over $75k a year), hardly what most readers imagine when they see the phrase "economic elites".

Given all this, we'd have to either keep the broad Proposal B (with the new sources added), or at least implement only a modified version of Proposal A that includes the qualification that only some academics believe that, with "many" (Gilens' own word) disagreeing. I suppose we can call the latter Proposal C. The advantage of B is that it would be closed off, while a modified version of A (aka C) would likely lead to article bloat through further expansions and point/counterpoint edits on this and related issues.

Better yet would be to simply delete the entire segment as undue weight for this article and more trouble than it's worth. This is clearly not a mature research field with a firm consensus. There isn't even a consensus on how to approach or define all the pertinent concepts on this issue, let alone consensus results. Indeed there are recent primary research papers producing results that are all over the place. If the various views have to be laid out, that should take place on other, more topically dedicated articles and all significant views should be laid out fully and neutrally.

If there's strong opposition to deleting the segment based on EllenCT's RFC, I'll initiate a new RFC. This would be justified given the new source evidence, the fact that her RFC started with a bizarre apples/oranges false dichotomy that confused respondents, and the fact that her RFC didn't include discussion about what the sources actually said. I'll add that her RFC also failed to mention the previous discussions on this talk page soundly rejecting proposals to include this material. While EllenCT's RFC only saw 8 editors participate, two other recent discussions rejecting the proposed Bartels/Gilens/Hayes material in various forms included at least 12 editors in one and 10 in the other. VictorD7 (talk) 22:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• Support RFC outcome -- Victor is simply continuing his campaign to oppose the RFC outcome, and his advocacy of WP:WEASEL wording which has been soundly rejected by senior editors (although there do seem to be editors who have no history with this article suddenly in support of his anti-RFC drive.) EllenCT (talk) 09:59, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

  How do you think we should incorporate the alternative academic opinions in the new sources I provided above? VictorD7 (talk) 02:34, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

By all means add them as additional references saying that the statements agreed to be added are not unanimously accepted, but not as an alternative to the broader results agreed in the RFC outcome. EllenCT (talk) 17:13, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

That would require tweaking Proposal A (the wording of which was not endorsed by the RFC close anyway) so that it's not asserting the views of a few cutting edge primary researchers as unchallenged fact in Wikipedia's voice, to allow room for the disagreement. VictorD7 (talk) 18:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Just restore the edits you reverted and add the challenging references, putting the opposing statements in the authors' voices. That is the "some form" you want. However, I noticed that at least one of your characterizations of the references you found is misleading, so we will need to work on the text. EllenCT (talk) 07:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Nothing I said is misleading, and your suggestion doesn't work because the text you want restored simply states the conclusion of Bartels and his two friends as fact in Wikipedia's voice, without attributing that view to them. The sources directly contradicting them (which you apparently didn't know about when you crafted that wording, or until I posted them) obviously make that untenable, but so do your own sources, who acknowledge that they don't represent the consensus view. We'd need to make that clear even if we were only using your sources. VictorD7 (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

What is the sell-by date of RfC outcomes that are sparsely attended, evenly divided, whose closings are equivocally worded, and where few editors defend, or can even define, the RfC in Talk, other than to say it gives them carte blanche? Dhtwiki (talk) 19:38, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Every attempt to reverse the RFC has resulted in clear consensus that its outcome should be upheld. EllenCT (talk) 17:13, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

You're ignoring the multiple discussions here I linked to here where your material was explicitly rejected in discussions involving more editors than your quietly attended RFC pulled, as well as the fact that the RFC only said the material could be included "in some form", and didn't endorse your wording. VictorD7 (talk) 18:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

You are ignoring the vast majority of admins and users who have since endorsed the RFC outcome and rejected your attempts to disrupt it, including with proposal to topic ban you which seems to be quite popular with admins. What is it going to take for you to ease up on the POV pushing? EllenCT (talk) 07:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be talking into a mirror here, but since you posted this as a reply to me I'll point out that even fewer people supported your wording in post RFC discussions so far than supported the inclusion of the material itself in the RFC ("in some form"; some of that support even explicitly called for changes to your wording like attribution), and no one has endorsed your wording since I posted the new sources directly disputing your segment. I'll also note that on Casprings' latest ridiculous attempt to have someone who disagrees with his politics topic banned (I've been his latest fixation for a while), there are currently more "oppose" than "support" votes, so it doesn't appear his proposal will gain consensus support. At least one uninvolved person already tried to close it but Casprings reverted. As for POV pushing, I don't even know what to say to that. It's like being accused of irresponsible behavior by Lindsay Lohan. I'm the one opposing POV pushing here. I'm not even the one trying to add items to an already bloated article. I just want to make sure what does get added accurately rather than selectively represents the sources. VictorD7 (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I haven't seen the clear consensus supporting the RfC. When I reverted, I did so on the basis of not having seen agreement comporting with Ellen's additions. When I asked to be enlightened as to what the RfC, whose closing found "no consensus to support the reversion" or something seemingly equally equivocal, was meant to authorize, I received no clear direction as to what inference I had not fathomed. The follow-on discussion hasn't indicated that there was a consensus to do much of anything. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:37, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

You just completely made that quote up out of wishful thinking, didn't you? Some of us care about accuracy. EllenCT (talk) 07:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Here's the quote verbatim, from here:

There was no consensus at Talk:United States/Archive 67#Proposal to revert section Income, poverty and wealth to to 13 January version for this revert making the following change, because seven editors supported the 8 February version but only three supported the revert.

Is that not the RfC you're talking about? What were you defending there? Your additions seemed to be outside of merely enforcing either of the texts listed below the closing statement. Dhtwiki (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but that was the opening statement, not the closing. Each of my inclusions was and has since been discussed above. EllenCT (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

• Specific excerpts from proposed new references: It took me a long time to read Erikson and Bhatti (2011) and Brunner et al. (2012), netiher of which contradict the existing sources. Erikson and Bhatti's book chapter was not peer reviewed. They say, "Bartels finds that rich constituents are substantially better represented by the legislators in the US Senate than their poorer counterparts. In fact, the poorest third of the population is not represented at all. While we do not find evidence directly contradictory this result, we add some complications." The complications agree with Bartells and the other sources from the RFC, too. Erikson and Bhatti went to great lengths to pose arbitrary hypotheses which came in just over p<0.05 significance, so that they could say that they can't find "statistical evidence." For shame! Brunner et al say, "Republicans more often vote the will of their higher income over their lower income constituents; Democratic legislators do the reverse," which is in contradiction to Hayes (2012) which states, "the major political parties seemed to have recently switched roles as the Democratic Party has become responsive to the wealthy, while Republicans are responsive to the middle-class." While I propose inclusion of those two excerpts on Politics of the United States, they do not rise to the level where they should be summarized in this article. Gilens and Page (2014) address all of the points raised in the 2011-2 papers. Therefore, I continue to support the verbatim RFC outcome. EllenCT (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

• False. First, your own Gilens source cited Macro Polity as representing what it calls the views of a good many scholars who disagree with his thesis: ""..a good many scholars—probably more economists than political scientists among them—still cling to the idea that the policy preferences of the median voter tend to drive policy outputs from the U.S. political system. A fair amount of empirical evidence has been adduced—by Alan Monroe; Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro; Robert Erikson, Michael MacKuen, and James Stimson (authors of the very influential Macro Polity); and others—that seems to support the notion that the median voter determines the results of much or most policy making." So you're essentially attacking the reliability of your own source here. And that and your other two sources emphasize that their own work does not represent the established scholarly consensus, but rather is "tentative" and "crude", the issue requiring much more study before firm conclusions are drawn, as I quoted in the above section.

Brunner's peer reviewed journal article most certainly does contradict Bartels, and does so explicitly: (intro) "We assemble a novel dataset of matched legislative and constituent votes and demonstrate that less income does not mean less representation.... Differences in representation by income are largely explained by the correlation between constituent income and party affiliation." (2, 3) "Bartels (2008) regresses the DW Nominate score, a summary measure of the liberal/conservative leaning of a United States senator’s voting record, on the mean liberal/conservative leaning (seven point scale) of lower, middle and upper income survey respondents in the senator’s state. He finds that the ideology of the highest income group enters with a significantly larger coefficient than that of the lowest income group; he concludes that higher income state residents are better represented than their lower income counterparts. Bhatti and Erikson (2011) revisit Bartels’ analysis to address a weighting issue and sample size limitations. While in most specifications the authors find that the liberalness of higher income voters enters with a larger coefficient than that of lower 2 income voters, the difference is not statistically significant. In contrast to Bartels, these authors conclude that higher income constituents are not better represented.1" They go on to conduct their own study also contradicting Bartels' findings.

As I said above, the scholarly book chapter (by Erikson and Bhatti, Columbia and University of Copenhagen political scientists, published by the Russell Sage Foundation) stated that they failed to duplicate Bartels' findings. You left out the portion almost immediately following: "Second, we replicate Bartels’ findings in two recent datasets with larger sample sizes and hence less measurement error. We cannot find statistical evidence of differential representation."

Whether you feel that Bartels has adequately addressed the various criticisms (not that you've made a convincing case for that, or much of any case for that at all) is beside the point. The methodology of Bartels, Hayes, and Gilens has been ripped to shreds by knowledgeable editors here who point out even more fundamental flaws than these contrary sources do. What matters here is that there is strong disagreement among the sources, with even your own three sources conceding that they don't represent the established scholarly view. Frankly none of them belong in this article at all, since we're supposed to be reflecting stable, mainstream, scholarly positions, and not cutting edge recent research involving high degrees of subjectivity and controversy, but I respect the RFC closing, despite it being barely participated in, poorly framed (with a false dichotomy), and introduced with virtually no discussion or attempt by you to find opposing views like those I produced above. However, that RFC closing was intentionally vague, only allowing the inclusion of the material "in some form", which means it was not an endorsement of your wording, wording which the new evidence produced here clearly shows is untenable. Your wording would violate core Wikipedia policies that trump a single RFC outcome anyway. The current sentence is an appropriately broad summary for this article's detail level, referenced by sources from both sides. Best to just be happy that you got your sources and the debate into this article at all, and stop pushing to purge disputing sources or alter the wording to make specific, unattributed claims in Wikipedia's voice that fail to acknowledge the dispute. VictorD7 (talk) 01:13, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

"Ripped to shreds" how? And by whom? The results of the RFC have been confirmed four times now. EllenCT (talk) 02:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Even before I posted scholarly sources disputing it, your proposal to include the Bartels and friends material was rejected on this very talk page twice (at least 12 editors participated; at least 10 editors participated), and despite that you ignored these results and kept pushing the material over and over again. Your RFC finally got it into the article (despite only 8 editors participating and there being no preliminary source or other discussion), but since I posted the scholarly sources disputing yours no editors have supported your particular wording (which is untenable given policy) and multiple editors have opposed it. And I and others have posted more detailed criticisms of the methodology employed in your sources on other talk pages, though I won't spend time digging those discussions up now since it's beside the point. VictorD7 (talk) 22:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Your "scholarly" sources aren't in disagreement with the original three sources. If you say water is wet, and I say I don't have any information to the contrary, but by including ice and steam in sampling I can't confirm your findings statistically at the p<0.05 level, do you think I have somehow disproved you? Or even added anything worthwhile to the conversation? EllenCT (talk) 00:54, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

One explicitly stated that it contradicted your source's findings while another criticized your source's methodology and failed to replicate its findings using what it considered to be a superior methodology. And it's amusing that you place "scholarly" in quotes. VictorD7 (talk) 19:19, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, the peer reviewed literature reviews on the topic are in agreement, opposed to your non-peer reviewed book chapter and article with it's cherry-picked data set. The subsequent peer reviewed literature addressed and disposed with all of the issues they raised. Why do you constantly suggest that Wikipedians should consider your paid advocacy, non-peer reviewed, and primary source original research to be scholarly? That has never been the standard on Wikipedia, but it is often if not usually the standard of those who wish to introduce bias to advance their personal positions. EllenCT (talk) 19:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

To what "paid advocacy" and "original research" do you refer? Not only did I introduce you to peer reviewed articles that dispute your sources' findings, but I showed that even your own sources cite numerous scholars who disagree with their conclusion and make it clear that their own "crude", "tentative" methods don't represent the established expert consensus. Even if we just used your own sources your wording would be untenable because it fails to faithfully represent them. VictorD7 (talk) 20:08, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The several advocacy organizations you repeatedly cite expressing opinions in favor of supply side and trickle down economics. You can't find any support for them in the peer reviewed literature reviews, because they are wrong, so you try to pretend that ad agencies are "scholarship." EllenCT (talk) 01:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. "Ad agencies"? Name them. Nothing I linked to above has anything to do with ad agencies. Also, you should refrain from referring to sources as "paid advocacy", since on Wikipedia paid advocacy refers to paid editing, which actually your posting history shows you already knew (e.g. - you participating heavily in the policy discussions on paid editing, and repeatedly using "paid advocacy" to refer to editors being paid to edit [3], [4], [5], [6]). I'm sure you'd hate for any observers to mistake your meaning, conflate the two accusations, and think that I was being described a paid editor, given the seriousness of that charge here (illustrated by your own strong sentiments in the linked quotes). VictorD7 (talk) 21:13, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Whether you personally are paid to edit or not, you know full well that the so-called think tank sources you try to insert as authoritative scholarship are paid to represent their point of view. That is their only reason for existing, to advocate the positions of their donors. Because one of their most prolific and incorrect topic areas is supply side trickle down economics, they belong in the encyclopedia just as much as homeopathy. They are WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE in almost any encyclopedic context, other than that of describing them and their activities. By constantly championing their fully discredited views, you play the role of a paid advocate whether you are one or not. EllenCT (talk) 01:22, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

You failed to name any sources, and certainly none of the sources I've supplied above are "ad agencies" or "think tanks" (two very different things, btw), so this appears to be a pointless diversion. Your contention that I "play the role of a paid advocate" "whether (I am) one or not" shows you're happy slapping that label on me even if it's false (as you did with your earlier blunt, unqualified assertion above), a clear violation of WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, and WP:HARASS policies. Again, for the record, as I've told you many times before, I am not a paid advocate. I suggest you drop insinuations otherwise. VictorD7 (talk) 08:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The Heritage Foundation content supporting supply side trickle down economics which you've repeatedly relied upon and have been trying to insert is worse than the vast majority of paid advocacy. Attempting to insert or rely upon it here is equivalent to a direct attack on the reliability, usefulness, reputation, and quality of the encyclopedia, is equivalent to an admission of a lack of WP:COMPETENCE in creating an encyclopedia, and is equivalent to an admission that the editor repeatedly trying to insert it after being informed of their mistake is WP:NOTHERE to write an encyclopedia, choosing to use Wikipedia as a political forum instead. EllenCT (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Nothing I posted above is from the Heritage Foundation or any other think tank. I cited a peer reviewed journal article, a scholarly chapter prepared by multiple academics that includes a study they conducted, and an academic book cited in your own source as being "very influential". That said, The Heritage Foundation is one of the nation's most prominent think tanks and a perfectly legitimate source in many circumstances (RS is context specific). You again failed to link to an example, but if it's the home size fact currently sourced by Heritage in the article that's based on easily verifiable government stats and isn't disputed. Think tank sources, mostly leftist ones like Think Progress, CBPP, Brookings (which I've also added), and EPI (featured prominently in the same section you're alluding to), litter this article and others. You've personally sought to add a wide array of much lower quality sources to this and other articles, like this obscure advocacy group called Insight: Center for Community for Economic Development ([7], [8]), a lobbying group seeking special benefits for minorities, and of course hotly disputed tax rate charts from the lobbying group Citizens for Tax Justice. Given all this, perhaps the rest of your paragraph is a simple case of projection. VictorD7 (talk) 18:40, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Courtesy section break

If we ban the pro-homeopathy advocacy organizations, does NPOV require that we also ban those opposed to homeopathy? EllenCT (talk) 22:29, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Since I've never supported including anything about "homeopathy", I assume this is an abstract hypothetical question. Your "advocacy organizations" are the fringe ones, though I never suggested banning them per se. RS is always context specific. The problem with your specific proposed inclusions have been that they were inappropriate for a particular article or section, misrepresented the sources, and/or were contradicted by all the other (more) reliable sources. I only mentioned your own inclusion of "advocacy" groups to drive home how bizarre your off topic complaints about me here are. VictorD7 (talk) 22:40, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Let me put it in concrete terms for you. If we exclude sources with no support in the peer reviewed secondary literature, does NPOV require that we also exclude sources with peer reviewed secondary support? EllenCT (talk) 23:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I already answered in concrete, far more pertinent terms in my last post. The sources aren't as you characterize them. VictorD7 (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

So are you claiming that there is support for supply side trickle down economics in the peer reviewed secondary literature, or that the Heritage foundation isn't paid to push supply side trickle down economics? EllenCT (talk) 00:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

You mean like how your Citizens for Tax Justice and CCED sources are paid to lobby for tax increases and for special benefits for minorities, respectively? Of course there's enormous support for supply side economics in scholarly literature (e.g. like numerous studies showing lower tax rates boost growth), but that has nothing at all to do with this discussion. I don't even recall if I've ever mentioned "supply side economics" in a Wikipedia edit, and "trickle down" was a partisan Democrat epithet from the 80s. VictorD7 (talk) 01:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

If you are referring to the OECD, yes, those sources have support in the peer reviewed secondary literature and thus should be favored. The Heritage Foundation and other proponents of supply side trickle down economics should be excluded from any encyclopedia to the extent it is reliable, except to report on their activities. EllenCT (talk) 02:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I said nothing about the OECD. You pulled that non sequitur out of the blue, unless you confused that with CCED, the abbreviation for the Center for Community for Economic Development advocacy group you've used as a source in articles that I just referred to. And no, your material was not "peer reviewed" and has nothing to do with peer reviewed literature. As for you wanting to exclude sources you politically oppose while adding far more obscure sources (like CCED) you politically agree with, I guess you'll have to fight that battle next time it comes up. BTW, it's fascinating that while you're carrying on this discussion you're simultaneously pushing in another section for the inclusion of a column citing a "study" by the Hamilton Project, a subgroup of the left leaning Brookings Institute (a think tank within a think tank) launched in 2006. Barack Obama spoke at the group's launch and most of its leaders have worked for the Obama administration and/or his campaigns at some point. So much for "peer reviewed secondary sources". VictorD7 (talk) 02:33, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean the "Insight Center for Community Economic Development" in Oakland? They also advocate demand side economics and thus have support from the secondary peer reviewed literature, unlike your supply side trickle down POV pushing. Again, Brookings is centrist and the largest think tank in the world. EllenCT (talk) 06:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

All major economic schools of thought have support in the peer reviewed literature. Heck, the Austrians you always rail against have even collected a boatload of Nobel Prizes, solidifying their "expert" status for Wikipedia sourcing purposes. Wanting special benefits for minorities has nothing to do with peer reviewed analysis. It's just a subjective political preference. And the CTJ tax chart you tried to introduce throughout Wikipedia has no corroboration whatsoever, and direct contradiction by other, more reliable sources (e.g. the CBO, Brookings' Tax Policy Center, the Tax Foundation). My expansive reply to your misleading Brookings claim is in the other section. Its ideology is irrelevant to the fact that the study you're pushing isn't "secondary peer reviewed literature", undermining your purported fixation on that sourcing requirement, but I'll point out here that Brookings is liberal and between 2003 and 2010 97.6% of its members' political donations went to Democrats. However, I'm glad to see that you're now a fan of the think tank, and no longer label it "right wing" as you used to when I cited its TPC tax chart to refute your CTJ figures. VictorD7 (talk) 19:54, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Not all major economic schools of thought have support in the WP:SECONDARY peer reviewed literature. Most are firmly opposed by the peer reviewed literature reviews and meta-analyses. My "purported fixation" is due to the fact that as tertiary sources, encyclopedias are required to defer to the secondary literature over primary and original research. If your claim had merit, it could be a lot less expansive. You don't need to convince me that you are far enough to the right to think Brookings isn't centrist. EllenCT (talk) 16:48, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

As much as I'd love to debate the nuances of economic theory with someone who just claimed elsewhere on this page that Obama was president in 2006, none of this has anything to do with this talk page section. VictorD7 (talk) 16:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I said it's not surprising that a President would speak at the most oft-cited think tank in the world, not that he was President when he did. EllenCT (talk) 16:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Well that makes a lot of sense. VictorD7 (talk) 16:56, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Strongly prefer A B is a non-statement that says nothing, and it violates the previous RfC close. Darx9url (talk) 13:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Continued attempts to contravene RFC outcomes

I object to this edit by VictorD7, who continues his relentless campaign to reject the conclusions of four RFCs and their confirmations (or is it five now?) without any serious administrative oversight. EllenCT (talk) 19:21, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

For one thing you tried to sneak in material not even mentioned in the RFC, namely the productivity, gender pay gap, and erosion of safety net stuff in a second segment below, as your own link helpfully shows. Please avoid misrepresenting edits in edit summaries. As for the phrasing of the first segment, again, the one RFC that's gone your way here explicitly avoided endorsing any phrasing as "consensus", stating that the material was allowable "in some form". There was no consensus phrasing. Period. That became even more true after that RFC close when I provided the scholarly sources above contradicting your sources, along with quotes from your own sources showing that even they acknowledge they don't represent the established expert consensus. Even your attempt to go to a noticeboard to have your "reiteration" section closed resulted in you being informed that a closure on this issue wasn't possible, spread across various sections as it was. If you really want to impose your preferred wording, which states your own views in Wikipedia's voice while omitting the sources who disagree, then it will require a fresh attempt specifically focusing on wording and arguing why the sourced alternative views (which you've now been made aware of but didn't know about earlier when crafting your preferred phrasing) should be excluded. We've established elsewhere that the phantom "four RFCs" you mention don't actually exist, but I'd advise you to not ignore the last three, very real overlapping RFCs you've flooded this page with that all resulted in the community totally rejecting by strong consensus your attempts to shove POV "inequality" talking points into this article ([9], [10], [11], and to desist from your ideological WP:SOAPBOX crusade here. VictorD7 (talk) 19:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I did include the causes of inequality including the productivity "stuff" as proposed and discussed at length. I also propose replacing the graph that used to illustrate the decoupling of median incomes from productivity growth in the early 1970s. (1) This RFC outcome was endorsed (2) unanimously here, (3) here, and (4) above. EllenCT (talk) 16:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Only your first link is to an RFC (which, again, didn't endorse any specific wording, indeed even some supporters had issues with your wording). Your second and fourth ones were to brief, informal discussions with only a few editors and in each case multiple editors opposed you. Your third link is to your call out section against me and only the two of us participated. When you sought closure via noticeboard the result went against you. "Confirmations"? "Unanimously"? All your proposals have been significantly and sometimes unanimously opposed, and the productivity graph was appropriately removed by another editor. It's amazing that even you concede some of the EPI chart's major shortcomings below even as you try to reinsert it in via your latest RFC. VictorD7 (talk) 23:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Graph

Productivity growth closely matched that of median family income until the 1970s, when income stagnated while productivity continued to climb. Source: EPI / Bureau of Labor Statistics.[1]

Commentary added:

This is a favorite lie told by the left. The St. Louis Fed said economists have long known that total compensation closely tracks productivity. Other government data shows that median family income, including government transfer payments, has risen considerably. References at Talk:Economic inequality#Inequality myths- U.S. and Are US Middle-Class Incomes Really Stagnating?

I like this graph, but it is now years out of date and the labels are unclear below 450 pixels width. Is there a better version? EllenCT (talk) 11:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

EllenCT waited until the discussion of this graph was archived. This graph is very similar to the graph shown by Hillary Clinton, and both are examples of how the left distorts information (lies). It has been thoroughly discredited by the St. Louis Fed, which said that economists have long known that total compensation, which includes non-cash benefits, closely tracks productivity. Also, "family" has changed over the almost three-quarters of century and now includes a significant number of single parent households. Adjusted for changes in taxation, family size, increased employer contributions to health insurance and other factors, median family income has risen about 37% over the last 30 years.[12] I think we should have a section showing how the left is using statistics to tell lies. That should also include the fact that social security is called a tax, but it is really a massive income redistribution program (a negative tax for most people).Phmoreno (talk) 23:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Median family income rose because people needed to move back in with their parents. EllenCT (talk) 18:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Show me a reference that says that legal adult age children living at home are counted as family in determining median family income. But you did point out something significant that is dragging down family income: more working age young people attending collage.Phmoreno (talk) 18:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

It's spelled "college." You can look up the definition of a household. EllenCT (talk) 22:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Why would we use a graph that's years out of date with unclear labels? Rwenonah (talk) 18:35, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Would you prefer something based on the graph here? EllenCT (talk) 22:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I prefer Martin Feldstein's analysis. Are US Middle-Class Incomes Really Stagnating? However, all of this discussion is outside of the scope of this article and far to complex to be discussed here. It needs to go to Income inequality in the United States. As I said below, your proposal is a Trojan horse to disrupt this article with edits like yours in Economic growth that created "a disorganized mess" and were called "crap", "not accurately representing the sources" and were subsequently deleted after editors wasted countless hours arguing with you. Phmoreno (talk) 23:28, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Our article describes Martin Feldstein, "as chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan (where his deficit hawk views clashed with Reagan administration economic policies)." The Manhattan Institute is a right-wing think tank known for paying writers to advocate the Institute's political points of view. As such, Feldstein's is an unreliable source. Furthermore, he is contradicted by the impeccably reliable sources [13], [14], and [15]. EllenCT (talk) 06:19, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

RFC on influence of elites again, with causes of inequality and graph

Revision A	Revision B
Growing income inequality and wealth concentration have resulted in affluent individuals, powerful business interests and other economic elites gaining increased influence over public policy. The lack of income increases commensurate with productivity, the gender pay gap, and the erosion of unemployment safety net welfare at living wages have led to the increases in income inequality.	The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate.

References

Which is the best version to include, and with what changes if any? 11:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• Revision A with the graph, as proposer. EllenCT (talk) 11:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
• Either B or neither (you should have added a C, since those aren't the only two options). First, "A" violates WP:NPOV policy because it's biased POV that omits the scholarly sources that disagree with your sources, and misrepresents your own sources by stating their opinions as fact in Wikipedia's voice when I've quoted in the above section where even they admit they don't represent the established expert consensus (and cite several of the scholars who disagree with them, along with at least one of the sources I list above, calling it "influential"). This is an extremely complex issue with different POVs and core Wikipedia policy requires we be neutral. Furthermore, this is a broad country summary article, not a focused economics article where this issue can be covered neutrally in depth. Your detail level is ridiculous and cherry-picked, and the statements are opinions involving causation that are extremely inappropriate in Wikipedia's voice. You also admit above that the graph, which is entirely the uncorroborated, original work of an obscure left wing think tank called EPI, is "years out of date and the labels are unclear". It was removed months ago by editors for being over detailed in a niche, cherry-picked topic and for conflicting with some other sources. This entire proposal is inappropriate for this article. This information belongs in more narrowly focused economics articles if anywhere, and even there with fuller, more neutral and accurate coverage than this. This merits rejection for the same reasons your last three RFCs trying to soapbox on "inequality" here were shot down ([16], [17], [18]). Since you failed to collaborate with me on wording before initiating this RFC, since I think there are more than the two options you present (which were crafted before I posted the contradicting scholarly source evidence), and given the non-neutral personal call out nature of the section in which you tucked this RFC, I also ask that you self revert it so we can discuss a fair way to construct it. Otherwise, I might initiate my own RFC on this topic. VictorD7 (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support B The first sentence of version A it totally unquantifiable and generally meaningless. How would one ever prove such a thing? Besides, this argument is as old as politics. The same types of things were said during the Gilded age, but despite the concentration of wealth then the average U.S. citizen earns over 10 times as much today, works far fewer hours per year and lives significantly longer. Also, the disputed tag needs to be removed from B. There is enough evidence on talk pages to show the statement is in fact the case.Phmoreno (talk) 00:59, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

• Revision B - I'm heartily sick of seeing another rehashing of this, but I went and read one of EllenCT's references I hadn't read before, the Tcherneva article, to see if there was anything convincingly new in its presentation. No. It's another restatement of the fact that there is growing income inequality (although I found it surprising that it's traceable to just after World War II, and has continued throughout the post-war period). The causes aren't addressed, but they can't be laid just at Reagan's feet. The solutions are vague nostrums, including "...a mechanism that links wage increases to productivity gains..." but without examining whether the productivity gains are due to increased worker excellence or are merely calculated by dividing the number of employees into revenue/profits of an increasingly automated firm. But I've said much of this before. This constant calling of RfCs, as well as the disruptive editing of the article, needs to stop. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
• Revision B, but extended - There's ample evidence on this talk page proving that B is the case. However, I think it would be worthwhile to summarize the conservative and liberal positions on income inequality in a couple of sentences and include both, thereby giving the reader some idea of that debate. Rwenonah (talk) 23:18, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support expanded B. I think a third option should be created that cites relevant sources and studies that counter the claims made in A and states that it's disputed. But to leave out these things completely as B does, is not fair to our goal of educating our readers. I think we should convey to our reader that there is some debate in this area. Immortal Horrors or Everlasting Splendors 14:15, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

  While I agree in principle, remember we need to do the educating in the right articles. This broad country summary article isn't the right place for a detailed exposition on this subtopic. If anything, the overwhelming sentiment from editors here in recent years has been that there's already too much detail on this page, and there have been countless complaints about things like load time for the massive article. That's why Wikipedia is structured the way it is, with links to other, more topically focused pages. While this is an important issue for some, there are potentially countless other topics that are important to other editors, from abortion to tort law, that they could argue deserve expanded coverage here with the same reasoning you cite. There are various more appropriate articles for this material dealing with economics and/or income in the US. I know the US Economy article, for example, already contains some of these same sources and text coverage of the "inequality" debate. VictorD7 (talk) 19:55, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

  Your bias here is belied by your use of quotations around the word inequality. There's definitely merit to inclusion of this in this article.... And you certainly haven't convinced me to change my vote. 2601:740:8103:81E0:1C29:3ADC:A7B2:B827 (talk) 20:42, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

  I only used quotes because "inequality" can refer to lots of different things. VictorD7 (talk) 20:19, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Two sentences, one outlining the generally conservative position, and one outlining the generally liberal position on inequality, wouldn't seem out of place. IMO, it's the focus of more political energy in the US than these other topics you mention, (as this talk page amply demonstrates). Simply saying "it's a matter of debate" is telling the reader almost nothing and is entirely a wasted sentence unless the respective positions are outlined, at least briefly. Wikipedia's strength compared to conventional paper encyclopedias is that it isn't bound by the space constraints enforced by books. Statistics have shown that readers are significantly less likely to look beyond an initial article for information by clicking on links; by not providing information in a widely-searched-for article like this one, we impair their ability to get information and thus their understanding of the topic they searched for, directly in contradiction of Wikipedia's goals. On balance, I think we're better including some info on the debate than omitting it for the sake of brevity. Rwenonah (talk) 21:31, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Abortion, immigration/border security, job creation/economic growth, foreign policy, national debt, 2nd Amendment/gun control, crime, drug policy, and some other topics are all much higher priorities and consume way more energy in American political discourse than income inequality does. Activity on this page isn't evidence of much relating to political energy in the US since Wikipedia editors are so unrepresentative of the general population, and since certain editors have disproportionate influence in shaping discussion topics through persistence. That said, your proposal isn't unreasonable and would certainly be light years better than what EllenCT is demanding. VictorD7 (talk) 20:19, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

This points out another issue: the influence of the spin doctors in managing the press/media and the overwhelmingly liberal bias of the media. The spin doctors' jobs are to deflect the public's attention away from more serious issues. Notice how whenever there's a scandal involving the administration the White House releases a press statement on Friday afternoon. Also notice how some unimportant topic gets in the headlines whenever there is s scandal and how the liberal press under reported the IRS targeting controversy and the 2012 Benghazi attack while hyping police killings of blacks without ever mentioning statistics of killings of police officers by blacks. And what about going around the constitution being ignored by the press, who are busy reporting on the phony war on women?Phmoreno (talk) 21:12, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

That's totally unrelated to what's actually under discussion and leads me to question your neutrality. Rwenonah (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

It's not as unrelated as you think. The statement discussing "affluent individuals, powerful business interests and other economic elites gaining increased influence over public policy" but it doesn't mention the media. And you do not see a statement regarding "affluent individuals, powerful business interests and other economic elites "as being biased?Phmoreno (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

It's undoubtedly a subjective and debatable statement, which is why I recommended we include the equally subjective and debatable conservative position on income inequality. Wikipedia can't spout the political orthodoxy of either side of the political spectrum; nor should its editors. Sadly, judging by your paragraph of Palinisms above, you're not in a position to give (or at least not likely to give) neutral input on improving the article. You literally sound like a GOP campaign manifesto excerpt above; WP editors are supposed to make an effort at setting their biases aside. Rwenonah (talk) 23:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, but why haven't you said that to EllenCT who proposed this? There is whole list of people who cited her for POV, misrepresenting sources and bad editing in general. As for this RFC, vote has been overwhelmingly for B. Phmoreno (talk) 23:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

If she makes a biased comment in a discussion I'm involved in, I'll do so. Right now, you're the only one who seems to be showing POV. And support has been three for B, one for A, and two for an extended B - i'd hardly call that an "overwhelming" endorsement of an unchanged version of B. Rwenonah (talk) 23:56, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

As I said, statement A is left biased, and inaccurate, so according to your criteria, it doesn't belong on Wikipedia.Phmoreno (talk) 00:09, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Nope, I never set out any such "criteria". I just called you out on the ludicrous level of partisanship you displayed above. Obviously I agree it's a biased sentence, thus the reason I didn't vote for it. Do you agree that both positions should be explained, or would you rather denude readers' of information?Rwenonah (talk) 00:15, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this article is the proper place to make statements of this nature, even if both sides are fairly presented. It's off topic. This article is supposed to be about the United States, not a list of every social and political issue and certainly no place for statements like A. There are a couple of other more appropriate main articles already listed where this type thing is discussed in much more detail. EllenCT keeps persisting with this issue just like she did in Economic growth#Income inequality. Other editors there finally had enough and removed most of her poorly written, biased and untrue edits. As for my bias, it's people like EllenCT that have given me such a bad opinion of the left. Phmoreno (talk) 00:34, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I would also add that EllenCT is using this proposal as a Trojan horse to introduce another whole line of discussion into the article. If she get some portion of her argument in, there will be more counter arguments and the whole thing will just continue to grow into a huge cancer. This is her standard mode of operation.Phmoreno (talk) 01:21, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Rwenonah, while I agree that people should edit neutrally, before you start looking for excuses to marginizalize or disqualify editors for making ideological talk page comments, you might want to avoid sayings things like your "Palinisms" shot. That crack says a lot about your own political biases. The truth is that every editor has his or her own set of biases. The key is to be self aware enough to not let that warp one's editing. VictorD7 (talk) 20:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

[[19]] - "the political philosophy associated with U.S. public figure Sarah Palin." Using that term to describe a totally-out-of-place rant about "liberal media bias" isn't indicative of bias, it's just an accurate characterization of those views. Also, I'm not "looking for excuses" to declare an editor non-neutral; when I see someone, with every appearance of seriousness, saying things like "the media is hyping police killings of blacks" or "the constitution [is} being ignored by the press who are reporting about the phoney war on women" or "people ... have given me a bad opinion of the left", I start to sense a political bias.

The truth is, the neutral decision to make here is to briefly summarize both political positions and let the reader decide for themselves which (or neither) they agree with. Excising any mention of income inequality from the article to make a bland statement saying it's "a matter of debate" is useless to the reader and leaves them with virtually no additional knowledge. Statistically, readers are unlikely to move on to broader articles with more details; therefore, when we leave out such information, readers don't get it. On balance, we should take advantage of wikipedia's lack of space constraints and include as much information as possible while maintaining clarity and easy navigation. One additional sentence won't have that effect. Rwenonah (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Except he didn't mention Sarah Palin, so you're the one associating a public figure you clearly don't respect with "a totally-out-of-place rant". Invoking her out of the blue like that to disparage his comments allows me to sense your bias, which, again, every editor has (it's like tossing out "Fox News" to disparage someone's comments when the news outfit hadn't been mentioned). There's also a difference between chastising an editor for getting too off topic and claiming one of his posts renders him unqualified to comment on a matter, especially, as Phmoreno correctly pointed out, in the context of this discussion occurring in the latest chapter of EllenCT's never ending soapbox crusade on "inequality".

You seem to be operating under a misunderstanding. There is already extensive coverage of income inequality in the article and no result with this RFC will excise it. The neutral thing to do would probably be to pare back our coverage of inequality, as it rarely appears in other country articles and many editors have rightly complained that it already receives undue emphasis here. Instead we're once again discussing expanding it. The additional change here is getting into subjective political views. While we briefly describe abortion (an extremely contentious issue involving life and death) with some salient facts, for example, we don't flesh out the subjective POVs on the matter or, last I checked, even mention that there's a political debate on the topic. Even the unexpanded "B" version on income inequality currently in the article goes further than we typically do with political issues in this article (though I think another "debate" or two have been mentioned at some point in the article's history), and includes sources from both sides if a reader is interested in learning more about that debate (the links are right there in the references, no need to even go to another article). While you can say Phmoreno got too off topic above, he did correctly raise some very widely held views that get absolutely no coverage in this article, but that might in the future if we make a habit out of doing this. It's an invalid argument to cite readers' supposed reluctance to click to subarticles as a reason for expanding detailed coverage of an issue in a broad country summary article. That logic would support the expansion of any segment. The bottom line is that Wikipedia is constructed in this format with articles and subarticles. Furthermore, space is very much constrained here. Wikipedia articles are much shorter than Britannica Macropedia articles, for example. Numerous editors have complained over the years about this article's length, and it is one of the longest country articles (probably the longest). This affects loading time on certain devices and readability. While I said your suggestion about a brief segment with one sentence each laying out the liberal and conservative views on economic inequality isn't unreasonable, I meant as a compromise, but let's not pretend that it's the ideal or most neutral solution from an article big picture standpoint. VictorD7 (talk) 21:24, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

"Statistically, readers are unlikely to move on to broader articles with more details" ...most likely because the have no interest in a sub-topic that doesn't fit in with the main article. Phmoreno (talk) 21:11, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Statement A needs to be checked against the sources to make sure it accurately reflects the sources. Same for the entire inequality section. EllenCT's edits removed from Economic growth were removed because they were not supported by the references. I wasted so much time reading her sources that I no longer bother reading them and just assume that her statements are either false or should come with a lot of qualifiers.Phmoreno (talk) 21:37, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd say the reason readers come to a summary article like this is so they don't have to wade through the technical detail of more specific articles. There's no way I'm reading, let alone responding too, the massive wall of text up there, so I'll just confine myself to saying that, barring a more decisive RfC result, the compromise solution may be the way to go. Incidentally, I wasn't disparaging Phmoreno's political positions; I was pointing out that they were more or less in line with Palin's, a politician whose positions are rarely called "neutral". Rwenonah (talk) 22:17, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

It was two paragraphs. If that's too much for you I don't know what to say. At least you apparently read part of it. His views are in line with millions of people's. Singling out one former politician who happens to be a bogeywoman of the left to compare them to is bizarre at best. Also, no one's political views are "neutral". Even moderates have views and policy preferences that amount to bias. Neutrality isn't an ideology, but means handling your biases in an appropriate way so they don't lead to warped editing. VictorD7 (talk) 16:06, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm assuming we agree ranting about "liberal media bias" and a "phoney war on women" while arguing against mentioning income equality on a website that demands neutrality from its editors isn't the way to do that. And no, it's not bizarre to compare right-wing views to a right-wing politician who says the same things - linking ideas to specific people who espouse them is kind of the basis of politics. Rwenonah (talk) 16:12, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

We agree his post got off topic, but most of his posts have been exactly on point and whether issues like media bias are appropriate to raise depends on context (sometimes they're extremely legitimate). And unless I missed it he didn't argue against "mentioning income equality". As for your use of "Palinisms", it seems like an attempt to marginalize and dismiss very widespread, longstanding views that certainly predate the single former politician you mention (and postdate her political career). Why not a Marco "Rubioism" or Charles "Krauthammerism"? These views are ubiquitous on the right, shared by much of the center, and accepted even by some on the left. They aren't espoused merely by a single famous person. I already gave the "Fox News" liberal rhetoric example earlier. Another would be the tendency of trial lawyers opposed to tort reform to refer to loser pay laws as "the English rule" in a subtle attempt to marginalize them, when actually they're embraced by the rest of the Western world. VictorD7 (talk) 18:23, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support A Enhanced - I was invited here randomly by a bot. I think A is more informative but should acknowledge the lack of academic and political consensus and include opposing positions. B is uninformative. Jojalozzo (talk) 00:35, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Have you read the sources and do they support the statements?Phmoreno (talk) 00:47, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

• Support B only because A is written with too much conclusion. Items like the Gender Wage gap are partisan points which are not clearly linked to income inequality as defined in other areas. One could also put in items about minority wage gap, education wage gap, etc. Since the topics are controversial and nuanced, we should not include it here so simplistically as written.Mattnad (talk) 20:14, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
• Support A; it seems to more closely reflect what the sources say. It could be worded a bit more carefully to make it clear who is saying what, but B is absolutely unacceptable -- "it is controversial" says nothing at all. Possibly some version of A with additional text noting that some dispute this conclusion, but B functionally omits the topic. --Aquillion (talk) 00:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
• Version A which is far more accurate and far more informative. Just because you don't like to read the truth about what extremist Capitalism and Republican extremism has done to the United States does not make the full details of the consequences of same some how magically stop being true. Insofar as WP:NPOV is concerned, the real world trumps complaints that something is "merely a matter of opinion." The details in Revision A aren't mere opinion, they are demonstrable fact and as such it would be a disservice to exclude details from anyone doing a legitimate, serious research effort. Damotclese (talk) 19:59, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Again, EllenCT uses Wikipedia:Synthesis. I did not see the sources connect "growing inequality / wealth concentration" to "elites gaining increased influence over public policy". Always read EllenCT's sources before wasting your time. Phmoreno (talk) 13:50, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

• Version B extended I like the neutrality of version B. Version A is completely biased and should not be in the article. However, Version B's problem is that it is too short a statement for such an important issue. While it should not even be a section, it should have a few sentences summarizing liberal and conservative opinions on the issue. Version B as it is now does a disservice to learning about the issue. Of course, the summary should not be too long as there are appropriate sub-articles for this discussion. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 21:53, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
• Clearly "A" has failed to gain consensus support, for very well founded reasons, with even some "A" supporters adding qualifications about representing the other side. "B" has stronger support, though some "B" supporters would like some type of expansion (if nowhere near as large as "A"). It my be decided in closing that such an expansion doesn't have consensus support, but it does appear to be close to where the epicenter of opinion lies. Given that, I'd suggest either leaving the segment as is or, if an expansion is decided on, adopting a compromise proposal along the lines suggested by Rwenonah, where two sentences are added, one briefly summarizing the liberal POV and the other the conservative POV. I had planned on working with him and other interested parties to develop the compromise expansion if it was decided that we go that route, but I may soon be unable to participate further, so I'll offer this input now and ask that others take the lead on that if required. If there is an expansion, please keep in mind that this is a broad country summary article that currently omits or barely mentions countless important controversies better covered on sub topic articles, not a forum for expounding in detail on a niche topic like inequality. Be fair, accurate, and neutral, and don't lose sight of the big picture. VictorD7 (talk) 19:15, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• I prefer Statement A but with the facts from http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html also included as supporting and clarifying. 75.148.42.9 (talk) 04:17, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• Statement A is more accurate and supported by academic studies.

  "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence." - Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.

  101.103.163.197 (talk) 10:42, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

If we're going to reopen this discussion then we need to add some information about kinship and marriage links of Obama administration personnel to ABC, CBS, NBC. 98.90.195.246 (talk) 02:11, 3 January 2016 (UTC)