Neutral point of view - Revision history

Lunaverse: /* External links */ links links

2005-05-21T20:08:29Z

‎External links: links links

Lunaverse: /* There's no such thing as objectivity */ fixlinks

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‎There's no such thing as objectivity: fixlinks

Lunaverse: /* An example */ fixedlinks

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‎An example: fixedlinks

Lunaverse: /* A simple formulation */ fixed links

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‎A simple formulation: fixed links

Lunaverse: /* What is the neutral point of view? */ fixed link

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‎What is the neutral point of view?: fixed link

Lunaverse: /* Why should Wikipedia be unbiased? */ fixed links

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‎Why should Wikipedia be unbiased?: fixed links

Lunaverse: /* The original formulation of NPOV */ fixed link

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‎The original formulation of NPOV: fixed link

Lunaverse: /* Introduction */ fixed link

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‎Introduction: fixed link

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Show changes

Sept1c tank at 06:55, 21 May 2005

2005-05-21T06:55:21Z

New page

Think of yourself as a historian. Strive for facts, but reporting opinions of others can sometimes provide additional insight to an article. Attempt to credit others' opinions and avoid including your own.

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 == External links ==
 * [[MeatBall:AssumeGoodFaith|AssumeGoodFaith]] and
-* [[MeatBall:NeutralPointOfView|NeutralPointOfView]], both on [[MeatballWiki]].
+* [[MeatBall:NeutralPointOfView|NeutralPointOfView]], both on [[WikipediaMeatballWiki|]].
 * [http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/6/mooney-science.asp Blinded By Science: How &#8216;Balanced&#8217; Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality] - Chris Mooney, Columbia Journalism Review. A valuable warning to Wikipedians about how attempts to balance the coverage can lead to biased, inaccurate and misleading reporting.

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 ''Everybody with any philosophical sophistication knows that. So how can we take the "neutrality" policy seriously? Neutrality, lack of bias, isn't possible.''
-This is probably the most common objection to the neutrality policy. It also reflects the most common ''misunderstanding'' of the policy. The misunderstanding is that the policy says something about the possibility of ''objectivity.'' It simply does not. In particular, the policy does ''not'' say that there even ''is'' such a thing as objectivity, a "view from nowhere" (in [[Wikipedia:Thomas Nagel]]'s phrase)--such that articles written from ''that'' point of view are consequently objectively true. That isn't the policy and it is not our aim! Rather, we employ a different understanding of "neutral" and "unbiased" than many might be used to. The policy is simply that we should characterize disputes rather than engage in them. To say ''this'' is not to say anything contentious, from a philosophical point of view; indeed, this is something that philosophers are doing all the time. Sophisticated relativists will immediately recognize that the policy is perfectly consistent with their relativism.
+This is probably the most common objection to the neutrality policy. It also reflects the most common ''misunderstanding'' of the policy. The misunderstanding is that the policy says something about the possibility of ''objectivity.'' It simply does not. In particular, the policy does ''not'' say that there even ''is'' such a thing as objectivity, a "view from nowhere" (in [[Wikipedia:Thomas Nagel|Thomas Nagel]]'s phrase)--such that articles written from ''that'' point of view are consequently objectively true. That isn't the policy and it is not our aim! Rather, we employ a different understanding of "neutral" and "unbiased" than many might be used to. The policy is simply that we should characterize disputes rather than engage in them. To say ''this'' is not to say anything contentious, from a philosophical point of view; indeed, this is something that philosophers are doing all the time. Sophisticated relativists will immediately recognize that the policy is perfectly consistent with their relativism.
 If there's ''anything'' possibly contentious about the policy along these lines, it is the implication that it is ''possible'' to characterize disputes fairly, so that all the major participants will be able to look at the resulting text, agreeing that their views are presented sympathetically and as completely as possible (within the context of the discussion). It is an empirical question, not a philosophical one, whether this is possible; and that such a thing ''is'' indeed possible is evident simply by observing that such texts are being written daily by the most capable academics, encyclopedists, textbook writers, and journalists.

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 ===An example===
-[[Wikipedia:User:Karada|Karada]] offered the following advice in the context of the [[Wikipedia:Saddam Hussein]] article:
+[[Wikipedia:User:Karada|Karada]] offered the following advice in the context of the [[Wikipedia:Saddam Hussein|Saddam Hussein]] article:
-:You won't even ''need'' to say he was evil. That's why the article on [[Wikipedia:Hitler]] does not start with "Hitler was a bad man" &mdash; we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the [[Wikipedia:Holocaust]] dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and [[Wikipedia:Cite sources|cite your sources]].
+:You won't even ''need'' to say he was evil. That's why the article on [[Wikipedia:Hitler|Hitler]] does not start with "Hitler was a bad man" &mdash; we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the [[Wikipedia:Holocaust|Holocaust]] dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and [[Wikipedia:Cite sources|cite your sources]].
 ==Objections and clarifications==

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 We sometimes give an alternative formulation of the non-bias policy: assert facts, including facts about opinions &mdash; but don't assert opinions themselves. There is a difference between facts and values, or opinions. By "fact," we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." In this sense, that a survey produced a certain published result is a fact. That Mars is a planet is a fact. That Socrates was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to ''assert'' as many of them as we can.
-By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is some dispute." There are bound to be [[meta:borderline case|borderline cases]] where we're not sure if we should take a particular dispute seriously; but there are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions. That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion. That [[Wikipedia:the Beatles]] was the greatest band is a value or opinion. That the United States was wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a value or opinion.  That God exists ... this can be a troublesome one. Whether God exists or not is a question of fact, not a question of value. But as the fact is essentially undiscoverable, so far as anyone knows, whether God exists will usually be couched in terms of opinion or value. To state as a fact that "the existence of God is an opinion", while seeming to be sensitive to the issue, implies that there is no fact being discussed ([[Wikipedia:postmodernism]] or [[Wikipedia:strong agnosticism]]), or that it is relatively unimportant ([[Wikipedia:secular]] bias).
+By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is some dispute." There are bound to be [[meta:borderline case|borderline cases]] where we're not sure if we should take a particular dispute seriously; but there are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions. That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion. That [[Wikipedia:the Beatles|the Beatles]] was the greatest band is a value or opinion. That the United States was wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a value or opinion.  That God exists ... this can be a troublesome one. Whether God exists or not is a question of fact, not a question of value. But as the fact is essentially undiscoverable, so far as anyone knows, whether God exists will usually be couched in terms of opinion or value. To state as a fact that "the existence of God is an opinion", while seeming to be sensitive to the issue, implies that there is no fact being discussed ([[Wikipedia:postmodernism|postmodernism]] or [[Wikipedia:strong agnosticism|strong agnosticism]]), or that it is relatively unimportant ([[Wikipedia:secular|secular]] bias).
-Cacheopedia is devoted to stating facts and only facts. Where we might want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by ''attributing'' the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band", we can say, "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which is a fact verifiable by survey results, or "The Beatles had many songs that made the [[Wikipedia:Billboard Hot 100]]," which is also fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we "convert" that opinion into fact by attributing it to someone. It's important to note this formulation is substantially different from the "some people believe ..." formulation popular in political debates.  The reference requires '''an identifiable and subjectively quantifiable population''' or, better still, '''a name'''.
+Cacheopedia is devoted to stating facts and only facts. Where we might want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by ''attributing'' the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band", we can say, "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which is a fact verifiable by survey results, or "The Beatles had many songs that made the [[Wikipedia:Billboard Hot 100|Billboard Hot 100]]," which is also fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we "convert" that opinion into fact by attributing it to someone. It's important to note this formulation is substantially different from the "some people believe ..." formulation popular in political debates.  The reference requires '''an identifiable and subjectively quantifiable population''' or, better still, '''a name'''.
 In presenting an opinion, moreover, it is important to bear in mind that there are disagreements about how opinions are best stated; sometimes, it will be necessary to qualify the description of an opinion or to present several formulations, simply to arrive at a solution that fairly represents all the leading views of the situation.  (Theological and philosophical debates are particularly hard to frame in a non-biased way; this very page bears that out, as it posed in a previous incarnation as an example of an opinion, "God exists".)

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 Bias need not be conscious. For example, beginners in a field often fail to realize that what sounds like common sense is actually biased in favor of one particular view. (So we not infrequently need an expert in order to render the article entirely unbiased.) To take another example, writers can, without intent, propagate "geographical" bias, by for example describing a dispute ''as it is conducted in one country'' without knowing that the dispute is framed differently elsewhere.
-The policy of having a neutral point of view is not to ''hide'' different points of view, but to show the diversity of viewpoints. In case of controversy, the strong points and weak points will be shown according to each point of view, without taking a side. The neutral point of view is not a "[[Wikipedia:separate but equal]]" policy. The facts, in themselves, are neutral, but the simple accumulation of them cannot be the neutral point of view. If only the favorable facts of a point of view are shown in an article, the article will still be non-neutral.
+The policy of having a neutral point of view is not to ''hide'' different points of view, but to show the diversity of viewpoints. In case of controversy, the strong points and weak points will be shown according to each point of view, without taking a side. The neutral point of view is not a "[[Wikipedia:separate but equal|separate but equal]]" policy. The facts, in themselves, are neutral, but the simple accumulation of them cannot be the neutral point of view. If only the favorable facts of a point of view are shown in an article, the article will still be non-neutral.
 ==The vital component: good research==

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 ===Why should Wikipedia be unbiased?===
-Cacheopedia is an encyclopedia.  While it covers a niche topic, Geocaching, it still means this is a representation of human [[Wikipedia:knowledge]] at some level of generality. But human beings disagree about specific cases; for any topic on which there are competing views, each view represents a different idea of what the truth is, and insofar as that view contradicts other views, its adherents believe that the other views are ''false'' and therefore not ''knowledge''. Where there is disagreement about what is true, there's disagreement about what constitutes knowledge. Wikipedia works because it's a collaborative effort; but, while collaborating, how can we solve the problem of endless "[[Wikipedia:edit war]]s" in which one person asserts that ''p,'' whereupon the next person changes the text so that it asserts ''not-p''?
+Cacheopedia is an encyclopedia.  While it covers a niche topic, Geocaching, it still means this is a representation of human [[Wikipedia:knowledge|knowledge]] at some level of generality. But human beings disagree about specific cases; for any topic on which there are competing views, each view represents a different idea of what the truth is, and insofar as that view contradicts other views, its adherents believe that the other views are ''false'' and therefore not ''knowledge''. Where there is disagreement about what is true, there's disagreement about what constitutes knowledge. Wikipedia works because it's a collaborative effort; but, while collaborating, how can we solve the problem of endless "[[Wikipedia:edit war|edit war]]s" in which one person asserts that ''p,'' whereupon the next person changes the text so that it asserts ''not-p''?
 A solution is that we accept, for the purposes of working on Cacheopedia, that "human knowledge" includes ''all different'' '''significant''' theories on all different topics. So we're committed to the goal of representing human knowledge in ''that'' sense. Something like this is surely a well-established sense of the word "knowledge"; in this sense, what is "known" changes constantly with the passage of time, and when we use the word "know", we often use so-called [[Wikipedia:Quotation mark#Emphasis and ironic quotes|scare quotes]]. In the Middle Ages, we "knew" that demons caused diseases. We now "know" otherwise.
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 We could sum up human knowledge (in this sense) in a biased way: we'd state a series of theories about topic T, and then claim that the truth about T is such-and-such. But again, consider that Cacheopedia is an international, collaborative project. Nearly every view on every subject will be found among our authors and readers. To avoid endless edit wars, we can agree to present each of the significant views fairly, and not assert any one of them as correct. That is what makes an article "unbiased" or "neutral" in the sense we are presenting here. To write from a neutral point of view, one presents controversial views without asserting them; to do ''that,'' it generally suffices to present competing views in a way that is more or less acceptable to their adherents, and also to ''attribute'' the views to their adherents. Disputes are '''characterized''' in Cacheopedia. They are not re-enacted.
-To sum up the primary reason for this policy: Cacheopedia is an encyclopedia, a compilation of human [[Wikipedia:knowledge]]. But because Cacheopedia is a community-built, international resource, we cannot expect collaborators to agree in all cases, or even in many cases, on what constitutes knowledge in a strict sense. We can, therefore, adopt the looser sense of "human knowledge" according to which a wide variety of conflicting theories constitute what we call "knowledge." We should, both individually and collectively, make an effort to present these conflicting views fairly, without advocating any one of them, with the qualification that views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all.
+To sum up the primary reason for this policy: Cacheopedia is an encyclopedia, a compilation of human [[Wikipedia:knowledge|knowledge]]. But because Cacheopedia is a community-built, international resource, we cannot expect collaborators to agree in all cases, or even in many cases, on what constitutes knowledge in a strict sense. We can, therefore, adopt the looser sense of "human knowledge" according to which a wide variety of conflicting theories constitute what we call "knowledge." We should, both individually and collectively, make an effort to present these conflicting views fairly, without advocating any one of them, with the qualification that views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all.
 There is another reason to commit ourselves to this policy. Namely, when it is clear to readers that we do not expect them to adopt any particular opinion, this leaves them free to make up their minds for themselves, thus encouraging ''intellectual independence''.

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 ''Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic is to write about ''what people believe'', rather than ''what is so''.  If this strikes you as somehow subjectivist or collectivist or imperialist, then ask me about it, because I think that you are just mistaken.  What people believe is a matter of objective fact, and we can present ''that'' quite easily from the neutral point of view.''
-''--[[Jimbo Wales]], Wikipedia founder''
+''--[[Wikipedia:Jimbo Wales]], Wikipedia founder''
 ===Why should Wikipedia be unbiased?===

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 The '''neutral point of view policy''' states that articles should be written without [[Wikipedia:bias]], representing all views fairly.
-The policy is easily misunderstood. It doesn't assume that it's possible to write an article from a single, unbiased, objective point of view. The policy says that we should ''fairly represent'' all sides of a [[Wikipedia:dispute]], and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct. It is crucial that [[Cacheopedian]]s work together to make articles unbiased. This comprises one of the great merits of Cacheopedia, and separates it from the [[Geocaching.com forums]].
+The policy is easily misunderstood. It doesn't assume that it's possible to write an article from a single, unbiased, objective point of view. The policy says that we should ''fairly represent'' all sides of a [[Wikipedia:dispute]], and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct. It is crucial that [[Cacheopedian]]s work together to make articles unbiased. This comprises one of the great merits of Cacheopedia, and separates it from the [[Geocaching.com forum]]s.
 Writing unbiased text is an art that requires practice.
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 To sum up the primary reason for this policy: Cacheopedia is an encyclopedia, a compilation of human [[Wikipedia:knowledge]]. But because Cacheopedia is a community-built, international resource, we cannot expect collaborators to agree in all cases, or even in many cases, on what constitutes knowledge in a strict sense. We can, therefore, adopt the looser sense of "human knowledge" according to which a wide variety of conflicting theories constitute what we call "knowledge." We should, both individually and collectively, make an effort to present these conflicting views fairly, without advocating any one of them, with the qualification that views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all.
 There is another reason to commit ourselves to this policy. Namely, when it is clear to readers that we do not expect them to adopt any particular opinion, this leaves them free to make up their minds for themselves, thus encouraging ''intellectual independence''.
 ==What is the neutral point of view?==