Talk:Frank Rizzo

This article needs major cleanup

This is still very POV and even when it is not, there are a lot of claims that while likely true, cite no sources. A few examples:

• "While heavy-handed and headline grabbing in some of his tactics, Philadelphia did not suffer the same kind of racial violence during the long, hot summers of 1966-1968 that saw Detroit and Los Angeles burn." Dramatic, no context or link to descriptions of racial violence in Detroit or LA in 1966-8, and no source to verify whether this is true.
• "The radical group lived in disgusting and deplorable conditions," etc. for the whole paragraph. Likely true, but no sources
• "One member, Delbert Africa was beaten by frustrated and grieving officers while trying to escape." POV, no quote by any officers claiming frustration or grief, though this is also likely true
• "The Cop Who Would Be King... is widely considered the most authoritative account of Frank Rizzo's rise to power. Sal Paolantonio's book Rizzo: The Last Big Man In Big City America is the current definitive biography..." Contradictory - authoritative and definitive mean the same thing.
• "Philadelphia's nightmare was finally over." Extremely POV

Basically, I have no idea how this has a B on the quality scale. 199.89.180.65 (talk) 15:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

This article is biased and blatantly ignores some of Frank J Rizzo's worst offenses against African Americans and the Philadelphia community. The section about the MOVE organization is particularly incorrect. THe fact that Frank J Rizzo decided to actually bomb the people living in the MOVE house is ignored, along with the fact that only two people escaped the bombings, and several hundred were left homeless. This article should not receive a positive rating because it gives the reader the idea the Frank J Rizzo was unfairly accused of racism and harsh policies throughout his career, when in fact such accusations were perfectly justified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.123.234.192 (talk) 15:40, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

New Entry

(Note: entry above has two MOVE incidents confused. The bombing occurred under Mayor Wilson Goode. Not big fan of how Riz handled MOVE, and not a big fan of MOVE either, but facts are facts. Goode dropped the bomb, long after Riz left office.) Also: As a journalist who covered Frank Rizzo during his last term in office, the description of the man here is unrecognizable to me. I had respect for Mayor Rizzo, but this article is a D- at best. It is inaccurate in fact and tone. While there is much good to be said about the mayor and his terms, suggesting that he was a healing agent in the racial conflict is at best very weird. I spent nine months covering his campaign, 7 days a week and never once did we visit a black ward. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran negative series on him when he first took office? Sure missed that one. Annenberg on the other hand supported him and promoted him. How about the civil rights investigation of the police department in the late 1970's by Carter's justice department? Poorly spoken and clumsy in his speeches? The guy had more charisma than any politican I've ever covered, and than includes a few presidential campaigns. I'm not arguing that this is a fawning presentation of the mayor (though a lot of it does seem to be.) I'm not saying he was racist. I'm just saying whole entire portions of this is wrong, wrong, and double wrong. Some stuff is interesting here and may well be correct if certified (the black patrolman stuff, for example.) Otherwise, I'd take this sucker down and start from scratch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rrfrump (talk • contribs) 05:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

post mayor?

the post mayor section makes no sense. what was he running for in 91? mayor? how can that be? he was already mayor twice....Dirk Pitt 19:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

A mayor of Philadelphia is limited to two consecutive terms, but not to just two terms. A former mayor may become a candidate for mayor again, and even serve two more consecutive terms, after someone else serves for four years, which is what Frank Rizzo attempted to do as a Republican, losing by about 2% in the first try, and dying before the second try election. See:

Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, §3-400. Mayor.

The Mayor shall serve for a term of four years beginning on the first Monday of January following his election. He shall not be eligible for election for more than two successive terms; and he shall not during his term of office be a candidate for any other elective office whatsoever. Should he announce his candidacy for any other office, he shall be automatically disqualified to continue to serve as Mayor, and the office shall be deemed vacant.

http://www.urbanblight.org/resources/codes/_DATA/TITLE_CH/CHAPTER_4_TERMS_OF_OFFICE/3_400_Mayor_.html DThomsen8 (talk) 00:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)Dthomsen8

POV

POV all over, and terrible grammar. Cleanup plz? Kthx. -- RegBarc 21:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed, a user that has added some dubious pov to similar articles has done the same to this one as well. I'll be the first to admit, i am no rizzo fan, but this aticle looks like nothing but a bashing, making lot of claims, yet not making any kind of good sourcing of it. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 05:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I've done some reorganization, wikification, and copyediting. Some of the copyediting was intended to improve NPOV, but most was just for clarity. I hope this helps. John Broughton 19:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Hi, I grew up in Philly during the 1970s, so I thought I would take a stab at rewriting the Frank Rizzo article. It turned out to be a little longer than I thought, so I wanted to have other editors look at it. Because there a lot of changes and a POV check template on the article now, I put it on a subpage (Frank Rizzo/rewrite) rather than on the main article page. There aren't many quotes in the article, I was thinking of creating a Frank Rizzo Wikiquote page and linking to it from the article. RockinRob^Talk 21:13, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the rewrite to a subpage of this talk page (/rewrite), to avoid it showing up as an "uncategorised page", and such like. But is it actually "active", anyway? Alai 20:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I think he was more controversial/corrupt than either article implies

My recollection of Rizzo, from living in the Camden area 1972-1974, is that he was fully "in bed" with the then highly corrupt Philly PD (has it improved since?) and continued in that vein through his terms as mayor. Cronyism was second nature to him, and he saw nothing wrong with rewarding (via jobs/government contracts) supporters and harrassing (via police and other government agencies) those who disagreed with him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danhicks (talk • contribs) 12:34, August 19, 2006

I would support replacing current article with rewrite

I've lived in the Philadelphia area for 40 years, so I have some first-hand idea of Rizzo's record and impact. The rewrite piece is nicely balanced and isn't just a recitation of the negative. He did have a good record on public works, with the Gallery and the rail tunnel built during his tenure.

I think the issues of his at least appearance of racism, corruption and cronyism, including the "Rizzo Lied" incident are well and fairly covered in the rewrite.

This statement in the existing article makes little sense: "During Rizzo's terms as mayor, construction started on The Gallery shopping mall and the Center City Commuter Tunnel, although Rizzo was not an economic development-oriented mayor." First is a partial list of his achievements, then a declaration that somehow they were an abberation. This is only true if one is intent on writing a piece that is uniformly negative. These projects didn't happen without his support.

There are two points about Rizzo that are often overlooked in general, and might want to be pointed out in the rewrite:

1. He handled basically the exact same MOVE situation as Wilson Goode, with far better results in terms of preventing loss of life and property damage.

2. In the period he was police commissioner and mayor, cities like Chicago, Detroit, and even nearby Wilmington, DE suffered major, widespread riots. Philadelphia's racial and socioeconomic environment was no different than these cities, but did not have significant riots in the same period. One could argue that the presence of a feared authoritarian as a leader prevented civil unrest.

These two things taken together have to draw to a conclusion that Rizzo, whatever his faults in corruption or respect for civil rights, was an effective law enforcer and kept the peace. His real contribution to Philadelphia may be simply that it never burned.Meersman 05:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

On point number two concerning riots. I think you have to take into consideration that the Phila. Police Dept., controlled by Rizzo from 1968 till leaving office as mayor, rode roughshod over the black community. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.119.107.106 (talk) 09:06, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I remember quite well the race riots. I personally witnessed civil rights marches in Philadelphia, walking right past the end of my street, to be met by the PPD and be beaten three blocks further down the road. I also have heard many, many stories of him when he was a lieutenant and chased my father, when my father was the runner for the craps games on the street. His job: Grab the dice and paper money and run, return them later for some money, as dice were hard to get then. My father dutifully grabbed the dice, paper money AND change, keeping the latter and being 10 years old at the time, quickly outran Frank Rizzo and his men. So, it wasn't only blacks he rode roughshod over, it was anyone who he personally did not approve of, especially political opponents. He was far from a saint, but he WAS a born leader. And right or wrong, he had strong opinions that were nearly impossible to sway.76.98.121.196 (talk) 15:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

There was a reason he became mayor

My father was involved in Philadelphia politics during the Rizzo years. I agree with the last post that Rizzo had many desirable qualities to go along with the corruption that was so endemic to his administration. The article is not complete without a discussion of MOVE. Why are the Panthers included but not MOVE? It seems that is unbalanced as Rizzo was much maligned for his treatment of the former and maybe not enough praised for his handling of the latter -- only one person, a police officer, died in MOVE I.

The article also does not go far enough in showing the enigma that Rizzo was. For example, as Police Chief he innovated partnering a black and white cop together on patrols, yet he is regarded generally as being racially polarizing. He was obviously corrupt, yet his administration achieved a great deal. He even brought horses back to the Philadelphia Police, an innovation emulated elsewhere. Paz9 13:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

NPOV?

This article has been tagged for NPOV since December, 2007, but there have been considerable rewriting and updating since then. Is there still a problem with the point of view? --DThomsen8 (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Definitely still issues with NPOV, should be re-tagged. For example, "It was during Rizzo's tenure as deputy commissioner that black and white officers assigned to the city's black neighborhoods worked in tandem in an attempt to reduce friction between civilians and police forces" what does this have to do with Rizzo? Not only is the source is paywalled, so the claim is unverifiable, but it's implying that Rizzo was somehow responsible for this initiative as deputy commissioner. Given Rizzo's overt racism and subsequent discrimination lawsuits, this claim is extremely questionable. "the Black Panthers had declared war on police officers nationwide" - this is a direct quote from a highly biased biography, framing events in an un-arguably non-neutral way. There's no major news outlet which confirms this description of events. Clearly my POV differs from User:Chsh who has been revising my edits. I think we can work together to come up with more neutral language to describe this obviously polarizing individual. Aaron Buaman (talk) 20:39, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The main reason I started to revert those edits was the peculiar timing. Given the recent events (i.e., statue defacing that hit newspapers hours prior), the edits started to skew the article from one spectrum to the other. I agree that the article was originally very pro-Rizzo and I can't really comment on that, but a number of brand new Wiki accounts started to remove sourced material that cast a positive light on Rizzo while at the same time subtly changed the language throughout the article to make it more negative. I left in a lot of the sourced material that you added—lawsuits, policy hiring data, etc.—but I think there's a case to be made that recent edits either purposely or unconsciously shifted the tone since the article was getting a lot more traffic.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to create a "Controversies" section to highlight the biased claims that you mentioned in contrast to more liberal portrayals of Rizzo.

chsh (talk) 15:29, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

"Controversies" would make a lot of sense, where Rizzo's polarizing personality and tactics could be explored outside of his career timeline.

I am also interested in probing some of the source material, because a number of items I followed up were either extremely biased and opinionated which the article re-framed as factual or journalistic reports; or sources which simply didn't support the statements made in the article. I'm not clear about Wikipedia policy around these kinds of issues.

Maybe it makes sense to wait a bit on these changes, until Rizzo fades from the news cycle a bit? Aaron Buaman (talk) 15:42, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

which term of Mayor Tate?

This shows up in the comments about Rizzo being elected to 1st term as mayor (which happened in 1971):

"Toward the end of the term of Mayor James Tate, Tate publicly announced, ..."

Presumably it refers to the 2nd full term of Tate (which leads up to Rizzo assuming the office), but should be reworded to make this clear. Tate was mayor for just under 10 years; he moved up from president of city council (when Richardson Dilworth resigned to make unsuccessful run for governor), then was elected to full terms in 1963 and 1967. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 20:38, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Early life

In addition to its other flaws, this article has absolutely nothing about its subject's early life: it begins in the 1940s, when he was in his 20s. What about his parents, siblings, education? Did he have other influences or formative events? Surely, a person as well-known as Frank Rizzo didn't hide all that from the media. Even I know his brother was fire commissioner. To omit all these facts makes the author(s) look lazy, or even worse, particularly when the citations include biographies. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 21:02, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Rizzo Mural.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Since the Rizzo Mural.jpg has been nominated for deletion from Commons, I have replaced it with a substitute. Woodlot (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Killing/Murder of George Floyd

There's been some back and forth on this.

"Murder" is a legal term, generally requiring intent. Floyd's death was ruled a "homicide", which merely states that the killing was by another person. The terms are not interchangeable. Murder, assisted suicide, legal execution, death by accident, etc. are all homicides, some may or may not be murder.

Long story short: The target article, Killing of George Floyd is the place to hash this out. The language here should reflect the title of that article. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:45, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

White supremacist

There's been some back and forth on this one.

Any individual editor's opinion as to whether or not Rizzo was a white supremacist, white nationalist, white separatist, racial realist, ardent racist, casual racist or any other term you would care to use is immaterial. "Evidence" based on what he said or did or what individuals said about him or did because of him is also immaterial.

If independent reliable sources directly state that he was a white supremacist, Wikipedia can and should say he was a white supremacist. If the sources do not say it, Wikipedia should not. If the sources say/do not say he has a cheese sandwich, Wikipedia should say/not say he was a cheese sandwich. That you, John Street or anyone else says he was or was not two pieces of bread with cheese in the middle is immaterial. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:52, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

The article is still slanted

Reading the comments in this talk section shows this issue goes back ten years. As it currently reads, half the lede is about racism, as if the editors wanted to emphasize that subject. For example, the lede currently says he was a "strong opponent of desegregation" when the US Supreme Court ordered schools desegregated seventeen years before Rizzo became mayor. The majority of the police commissioner section is on the same topic, before getting to Rizzo's terms as mayor. I won't put an NPOV tag on this but it deserves one. The first section of the lede should simply be scrapped; it presents a conclusion like someone waving a flag before the biography even begins. The second section should be either significantly trimmed or moved to a later part of the article. It is far too easy for anonymous editors (all over wikipedia, not just here) to criticize someone they did not know and an era in which they did not live.Polkadreamer (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Before addressing the specific issue, a few red herrings to remove:

- That anyone complains about anything or for how long they complain is irrelevant. Flat Earthers, for example, have been complaining loudly for a long time, which doesn't mean they're anything other than crazy.

- That you see content as "negative" is irrelevant.

- That something was "ordered" by courts does not mean the work is ever done.

- Yes, the lede will present conclusions. The lede summarizes the rest of the article. If the rest of the article indicates Frank Rizzo was a cheese sandwich, the lede should state "Frank Rizzo was a cheese sandwich." (Independent reliable sources in the article, of course, would need to support that in the body.)

- Whether editors are anonymous, have been editing steadily for over 14 years, or show up ever 8 or 9 months over the course of a decade to make a few edits to talk pages is irrelevant. A well-sourced, relevant addition by someone who has never edited before and never edits again is a well-sourced, relevant addition. Random, unsupported claims of bias -- whether from anonymous once-and-done editors or experienced admins -- are random, unsupported claims of bias.

- Someone who knew Rizzo should be identifying themselves as a conflicted editor and editing accordingly. Someone who lived through the era should be similarly aware that they are inherently biased in their views of the topic. (A distant acquaintance of mine who was connected to several prominent issues in the city over time (including both MOVE confrontations) for example would likely have difficulty even noticing his biases re Rizzo, Goode, MOVE, the PPD, etc.)

Now I'm looking at the article.

I must admit, I'm not entirely clear that your argument against the "strong opponent of desegregation" bit makes much sense. Yes, "the US Supreme Court ordered schools desegregated seventeen years before Rizzo became mayor." The opposition to desegregation, however, is quite reliably sourced (WHYY is Philadelphia's PBS station and they're interviewing a relevant academic who has researched Rizzo). The article directly states, "...ferocious resistance to desegregation of the city’s school system, and largely successful efforts to prevent public housing — at that time, almost exclusively populated by African-Americans — in majority white neighborhoods." (That's opposition to segregation on two fronts: schooling (cf. Brown v. Board of Education) and housing (cf. the Fair Housing Act in the late 1960s).) Yes, the court decision and federal law both pre-date Rizzo's first term as mayor. An academic in a relevant field and the PBS affiliate interviewing him cannot possibly be unaware of Brown v. Board of Education and the Fair Housing Act. Any reasonable examination of the second half of the 20th century would make clear that SCOTUS decisions and federal laws never changed the world overnight.

Stepping back from that, the charge is well-sourced, but doesn't seem to be a summary of the rest of the article. It seems to me the article and material sourced to it should be moved into the body.

Actually, there's a lot more to source to that article, and that brings me to the overall question of charges of racism: "...racially polarizing political career as well as his history of heavy-handed police tactics", "The onetime mayor’s populist appeal was specifically targeted to residents of segregated white rowhouse neighborhoods. Rizzo pitched himself as a symbol of white identity politics, and didn’t often go to black neighborhoods during his 1970s political campaigns", "Lombardo said the question of whether Rizzo was personally racist isn’t the right one to be asking. It draws focus away from the actual policies he pursued, which were extremely racially divisive.", "...ferocious resistance to desegregation of the city’s school system, and largely successful efforts to prevent public housing — at that time, almost exclusively populated by African-Americans — in majority-white neighborhoods.", "...Rizzo’s platform of white identity politics and racially charged appeals", etc. The entirety of the source points to a politician who was racially divisive and frequently leveraged the division during his term in office, an idea amplified by his apparent attempt to distance himself from that image weakly while in office and as a device in his final attempt at another term. The majority of our article repeatedly hits in this same area, with frequent statements, allegations and claims relating to racial divide (which various sources discuss in different terms). Supporters (and Rizzo) are cited defending his policies and actions with regard to race. They're specifically talking about his opinions regarding race. Opponents are cited with allegations regarding race. Various issues and battles are discussed regarding race. A fair summary of all of that -- which is what the lede section should include -- simply must discuss race. Whether or not it's a lot of smoke from a raging fire or all smoke with no fire isn't something we can determine, but the article certainly discusses all the smoke and the lede should make that clear.

Based on that, my changes would be to move the desegregation statement into the body and clarify the lede to make it clear that much of the article is discussing Rizzo re race/segregation/racism/white-identity politics/etc.

If the body of the article is unfairly slanted toward issue of race, you'll need to be a lot more specific, detailing things the article says that you feel the sources cited don't support, material in the sources you feel we under- or over-emphasize, sources we haven't included, sources we've included that you feel don't meet our reliable sources criteria, etc. I'm not particularly interested in deconstructing an entire article based on what you've presented so far. - SummerPhD^v2.0 21:48, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The concerns made by polkadreamer seem valid. If our goal is consensus, then editors who mentioned the POV tone of the article ten or fourteen years ago, along with the above comments last month, are relevant. Suggesting the phrase "red herring" while comparing these concerns with the Flat Earth Society seems to be, in itself, a red herring. It also seems interesting that SummerPhD assumed polkadreamer thought the article was "negative," when he or she merely wrote "slanted." Confusing the words negative and slanted suggests that the article is - in fact - slanted. On another point, it would appear that polkadreamer's objection was to the adjective "strong" when used with "opponent," as it still reads today in the lede. I do not know if the schools in Philadelphia were still segregated in 1970, but it seems unlikely. Thus, saying Rizzo was a "strong opponent" of desegregation at the time seems to be POV, fifty years later. Lastly, polkadreamer wrote that the editors of Wikipedia, not those mentioned in the citations, did not know Rizzo, and thus may have an latter day agenda in writing the article. The early use of that phrase "strong opponent" in the article supports that concern. As stated above, it is easy for anonymous editors on Wikipedia to bash someone they did not know, who cannot defend themselves, long after the fact, so I think we have a legitimate role in guarding against that tendency. NobelSavage (talk) 16:44, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You seem to be misunderstanding WP:CONSENSUS. That someone a decade ago was concerned that the article was biased is not an issue. Yes, this article is biased. EVERY article on Wikipedia is biased. It does, however, represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. WP:NPOV if that editor a decade ago, polkadreamer or you disagree with that, you will need to explain which sources are being over-emphasized, omitted or mischaracterized. That the article says good or bad things about Rizzo is immaterial.

Yes, I did interpret polkadreamer's complaints of slant as saying the article was too negative. They explain the slant as being heavily about Rizzo's racism. I interpret racism as being negative. YMMV.

I have no idea how you decided their opposition was to the modifier "strong". In context, their issue was saying he was a strong opponent of desegregation when the schools had been ordered desegregated seventeen years before he became mayor. If they were merely opposed to the adjective, over half of that sentence was pointless and a far more direct approach would have been far clearer.

That you do or do not know if schools were still segregated is irrelevant. As explained above, the reliable sources are unambiguous about his "...ferocious resistance to desegregation of the city’s school system". Would I characterize that as being a "strong opponent"? Yes, I would. That you find what the independent reliable sources say to be unlikely is irrelevant. The statement is verifiable and neutrally reported. If you'd prefer, we can make it a direct quote, stating his "ferocious resistance to desegregation".

The independent reliable sources regularly and repeatedly discuss racism. That this article discusses racism is, IMO, a reasonable, inescapable product of that. That editors here did not know him is irrelevant. No one editing Wikipedia knew Julius Ceasar, Sdach Korn, Mary Magdalene or Gustave Eiffel either. If you'd like, I can certainly look up some material from Larry Kane, who certainly did know Rizzo. A lot of it is scattered, isolated stories, but he probably has some biographic info as well as discussion of Rizzo's use of Palumbo's as a mob-secured, wire-tap free command center.

Long story short: You have several approaches available to you. If you don't think we are accurately summarizing what a particular source says, say which source and point to the discrepancy. If you think some of the sources are not reliable sources, spell out which ones specifically fail the criteria at WP:RS and how. If you think we are missing some reliable sources, identify them. The only specific you identified was "strong" when used with "opponent". I hope you found the explanation to be satisfactory. It seems to me to be a neutral reading of a reliable source. - SummerPhD^v2.0 18:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Three editors have said the article is either slanted, negative or biased. The article Wikipedia:neutral point of view says that encyclopedic content should be written "fairly, proportionately, and without, as far as possible, editorial bias." Thus, stating that an article is biased is exactly what the policy discourages, and by definition an article cannot be both biased and neutral. I originally suggested the article emphasizes race too much, which would be disproportionate, and another violation of Wikipedia:neutral point of view as defined in the quote above. I do not suggest all mention of race be removed, I suggest the emphasis on race is disproportionate to the article as a whole.Polkadreamer (talk) 05:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Virtually nothing on Wikipedia is decided by a vote. If a posting on reddit brought in several dozen editors (as often happens in other articles) demanding that Martin Luther King, Jr. state that he was a racist and one editor said, "We don't have independent reliable sources saying that" the !vote ("not a vote") to exclude the statement would carry the day.

Yes, the article can be "biased" and reflect Wikipedia's neutral point of view. Independent reliable sources frequently agree on a "negative" assessment of a subject: labeling someone a white supremacist; totalitarian dictator; Internet troll; serial rapist or whatever. They are "biased" against the subject.

Wikipedia does not try to provide a false balance to this by emphasizing what little there is to say about the subject that is nice. We don't say "Though he launched a genocidal campaign that killed millions, he was really nice to his dog, playing with him frequently, sleeping cuddled up next to him every night and giving him his favorite food even when it was difficult to find in a country ravaged by a war he started."

WP:NPOV, one of Wikipedia's core policies, does indeed say, "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias". You are missing the context, however, of that phrase. In context, you will find that Wikipedia aims to "{represent) fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."

The sources in the article say what the article says. We represent those sources "fairly" by accurately summarizing what they say.

We represent them "proportionately" by recognizing all significant points of view with WP:WEIGHT proportionate to their coverage in reliable sources (thus, an article about the hypothetical dictator would certainly reflect the thousands of sources discussing his genocidal program and massive war killing millions with a substantial discussion of that, while random asides about him giving his dog bacon would likely not merit anything more than a mention, if that).

We represent those sources "without editorial bias" by not selecting sources based on what they say. We could write an article about that dictator, presenting him as nothing but someone who loved his dog by selecting sources and sections of sources dedicated to just that. NPOV, however, guides us to not bias the article like that.

Long story short: Whether it's been three of you over several years or dozens of you over a couple of days, demonstrating bias here demands that you provide independent reliable sources presenting a POV not shown in the article. I don't see such sources.

What material in the article do you feel is not supported by a fair reading of the sources present? What material missing from the article do you feel is supported by a fair reading of sources and where are those sources? - SummerPhD^v2.0 17:40, 12 September 2020 (UTC)