Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial

Everybody has a point of view. Ninety-nine percent of the world may see something exactly the way you do, but your view is still just one of many views that are possible in theory. What makes the sun rise? Some have said it's Apollo in his charriot. How many people need believe this before Wikipedia's article is obliged to grant these people space to publish? Answering is not so hard: One person with an Internet connection is enough. Don't worry, though. There are many ways to give popular solar system views all the respect they deserve while still providing space for more idiosyncratic beliefs. How is this done? Just write neutrally. The following tutorial aims to provide some guidance on how to do this.

Avoiding conflict

A good start in avoiding conflict is to recognize you have a point of view and to pin-point where it comes from. "It's what everybody I know believes," is a start. But in co-writing an article with someone who believes differently, it can be handy to have the evidence at hand.

This does not mean that Apollo theory and modern solar theory start on equal footing and flip a coin to see who starts first. If everybody believes something, it probably deserves to go first, and a writer need not lay out an elaborate case in its favor. The contending view, though, should present its credentials. After that, a little counter-evidence in favor of what most people believe is appropriate. It would be not just unfair but inaccurate if an article were to leave readers with the impression that evidence for the minority view had not been challenged.

The sun example represents an extreme and relatively easy case, of course: one in which a reasonable person who holds the minority view is likely to be willing to concede that it is just a point of view and an underdog at that. But while more equal match-ups may indeed require a flip of the coin or equal billing in the first paragraph, the recipes for dialogue and achieving neutrality are much the same.

Word ownership

A common source of obstinateness in NPOV disputes is the belief that one group "owns" a word and has sole authority to define it: "'Sun' is a word from the science of astronomy. Astronomers are the experts on the sun, and not one astronomer alive believes the sun is Apollo and his chariot." Many words have multiple meanings. And it's not just that one person sometimes uses "sun" to refer to the bright ball in the sky and sometimes the yellow circle in a child's drawing. Sometimes it means that different people mean different things when they say the same word.

Ancient Greek ideas about the sun aren't covered by any senses provided in the dictionary. Neither are the traditional ideas of contemporary indiginous peoples, nor the ideas of many people you might meet at a Rainbow gathering. But in an encyclopedia, ideas that a lot of people believe or once believed deserve not only mention but respectful treatment.

Many of these problems can be solved through what we call disambiguation.

Neutral language

Assertions written in neutral language, are objectively true. Only a profound of skeptic--someone who sees a consensus of opinion among mainstream news media as flimsy evidence for anything--should be able to disagree. One such a neutral assertion is this: "In 1989, Drs. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman of the University of Utah shocked the world by reporting they had discovered a means to tap energy from nuclear fusion at near to room temperatures." Even though very few scientists believe Pons' and Fleishchman's report was accurate, let alone responsible, probably none would disagree with the assertion made in the previous sentence.

As a political example, take the status of Jerusalem. The government of Israel considers it the nation's capital, but many other governmentss do not, and have gone so far as to place their embassies elsewhere. The issue what city is the captial of Israel caused heated arguments on Wikipedia. But the facts as stated above were ones that all could agree on. The solution? Stick to the facts.

When a fact is not common knowledge, or when the information being related is a subjective assessment, like the result of a particular poll, the information should be attributed and cited.

Attribution and citation

To attribute means to specify who stands behind a claim. In this example:

"According to most Australians that The Beatles are the best rock music group ever [Rock and Roll Survey 1998]"

the sentence attributes to "most Australians" the claim that the Beatles are the best group ever. A citation tells readers where they can look to verify that the attribution is accurate. The underlined section above is the citation.

Generic attributions ("Critics say ...") are frowned upon as weasel words because they can hide POVs. Try to be as specific as possible when attributing claims and citing them.

Whose view matters?

Generally speaking, it is acceptable to include points of view of recognized experts on a subject. Who is or is not an expert is a matter of debate. Wikipedia tends to favor including almost all verifiable theories and opinions somewhere as long as there is some logic and reasoning behind them. Whether they may be included in the main article on a subject depends on a large number of criteria, including:

what the standing of the expert is
whether the expert uses the common methods of the field or completely different ones
whether the expert has or has not failed to respond to criticisms
whether the expert's claims have been undeniably refuted (i.e. no other considers them to be true anymore)
whether the expert is part of a defined set of people whose points of view might be discussed in an entirely different article (e.g. evolution vs. creationism)

Striking a fair balance

Wikipedia articles are considered constant works in progress. However, they should look balanced and neutral at any given time. Only including one POV in an article, but doing so in proper NPOV form, is a symptom of incompleteness more than it is a sign of NPOV violation. An informed author might write a lot about a specific POV -- when he does so in a neutral fashion, the material does not necessarily have to be removed. However, authors are encouraged to make a reasonable effort to write balanced articles. That means that when they are aware that another POV exists, and is widely held, they should try to include it at reasonable length.

Different views don't need to be given equal space; rather, the amount of space depends on the nature of the claims, the extent to which they have been responded to, and the amount of noteworthy things that can still be said about the subject.

Overall tone

There are many ways that an article can fail to be neutral:

The article can express viewpoints as facts.
The article can selectively include only some relevant facts.
Some viewpoints, although not presented as facts, can be given undue attention and space compared to others.
The text and manner of writing can insinuate that one viewpoint is more correct than another.
The subject or title of the article can imply a particular point of view.

NPOV is a continuum, not black-and-white. It's possible to take an article that has fairly neutral tone and make it even more neutral.

POV terms

Emotionally "loaded terms" should be avoided, especially in attribution. Take this sentence as an example:

"Duane Gish believes that the Earth was created by God and that the theory of evolution is an insufficient model to understand the origin of life."

This is a perfectly NPOV statement as it is. Now substitute the word "believes" with some other verbs:

explains
points out
states
claims
insists
responds
says
argues
realizes

These words all have different connotations. "Claims" has connotations of there is significant controversy about this, and he may well be wrong. "Insists" has connotations of he's been told many times why he's wrong but also he's very courageous in defending his point of view. "Points out" often implies this pretty much answers the question. Any of these words may be appropriate in a certain context -- but when there is significant controversy about a matter, you will want to avoid the ones with strong connotations. Try to read a sentence from the opposite POV, and if you cannot agree with it, there may well be something wrong with it.

Avoid emotional language in the regular course of an article. "Remarkable", "ironic", "alarming", "excellent" and so forth should almost never be used without attribution. Terms like "terrorist" and "dictator" can also be problematic -- always try to be aware of controversies about the language regarding the subject you write about. (For more on terms to watch out for, see Wikipedia:Words to avoid.)

NPOV tests

There are some general tests which have been proposed in order to verify whether an article is written from the neutral point of view. One such test is to ask, "Would a reader suspect that this article was written by someone who was trying to push a particular agenda or point of view - either subtly or not-so-subtly?"

Note, however, that when there is a large disparity between the public opinion about a subject and the published facts about it, this test may not apply. Take the example of someone who has been branded a criminal by the media and later conclusively been proven innocent. The public opinion might be clearly set against him still, even if the facts are on his side. That does not mean that an article which reports these facts is in violation of NPOV just because people will feel that it is based on their perception of what the facts should be.

NPOV is a continuum, not black-and-white. It's possible to take an article that's fairly neutral and make it even more neutral.

The most important lesson

Much more important than immediately grasping all the finer points of NPOV your willingness to work with those who are trying to move towards it. Be bold in updating pages which are biased, be bold in asking for help, and do not be alarmed when others edit your articles.

When you find bias, try to focus on the article, not on the person who wrote it. There is virtually no reason to attack a person for writing biased articles -- you will make them less likely to change their mind, you will harm your own reputation, and there is an established procedure for dealing with users who consistently violate policies.

Try to educate instead of attacking. Always consider the possibility that you, too, may be wrong and may have a POV that can slip into your edits. The more cooperative you are when correcting other people's mistakes, the less likely they will attack you personally when you make one.