User:Lionelt/Countering liberal bias

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales talking about NPOV

This essay will assist editors in identifying liberal bias in Wikipedia pages and provide strategies for countering liberal bias. Wikipedia has been frequently criticized as having a liberal bias. Even Jimbo Wales has speculated that the Wikipedia community is left-leaning. All pages on Wikipedia must conform to the Neutral point of view policy (NPOV). While editors should be bold in addressing NPOV issues, they must observe the Bold-revert-discuss cycle.

Criticism of Wikipedia's liberal bias

Further information: Criticism of Wikipedia § Liberal bias

A criticism of Wikipedia is that a politically liberal bias is predominant. Liberal bias can be described as systemic bias. According to Jimmy Wales: "The Wikipedia community is very diverse, from liberal to conservative to libertarian and beyond. If averages mattered, and due to the nature of the wiki software (no voting) they almost certainly don’t, I would say that the Wikipedia community is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population on average, because we are global and the international community of English speakers is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population. There are no data or surveys to back that." Andrew Schlafly created Conservapedia because of his perception that Wikipedia contained a liberal bias. Conservapedia's editors have compiled a list of alleged examples of liberal bias in Wikipedia. In 2007, an article in The Christian Post criticised Wikipedia's coverage of Intelligent design, saying that it was biased and hypocritical. Lawrence Solomon of the National Review considered the Wikipedia articles on subjects like global warming, intelligent design, and Roe v. Wade all to be slanted in favor of liberal views. In a September 2010 issue of the conservative weekly Human Events, Rowan Scarborough presented a critique of Wikipedia's coverage of American politicians prominent in the approaching midterm elections as evidence of systemic liberal bias. Scarborough compares the biographical articles of liberal and conservative opponents in Senate races in the Alaska Republican primary and the Delaware and Nevada general election, emphasizing the quantity of negative coverage of tea party-endorsed candidates. He also cites some criticism by Lawrence Solomon and quotes in full the lead section of Wikipedia's article on its rival Conservapedia as evidence of an underlying bias.

Neutral point of view

NPOV policy

Building a neutral encyclopedia is of the utmost importance. Bias in articles negatively affects the reputation of the project. The NPOV policy was instituted to ensure that content is written from a neutral point of view:

All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia... This policy is nonnegotiable and all editors and articles must follow it.

Minority viewpoints

When viewpoints expressed by opponents and critics of liberal ideology are in the minority, they must still be given appropriate weight. From the "Due and undue weight" section (WP:UNDUE):

Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views.

Opposing views

When a liberal point of view is challenged or contradicted by a reliable source, that opposition must be reflected in the article. From the "Balance" section (WP:BALANCE):

when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance. This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources...

Editor bias

Every editor comes to Wikipedia with their own biases. The NPOV tutorial says "Everybody has a point of view. Though 99% of the world may see something exactly the way you do, your view is still just one of many possible views that might be reasonably held." And in the "Neutral point of view/FAQ" we find: "There's no such thing as objectivity. Everybody with any philosophical sophistication knows that."

Criticism sections

Further information: Wikipedia:Criticism

Criticism sections generally are to be avoided. The "Article structure" section (WP:STRUCTURE) of the NPOV policy states: "Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative, rather than isolating them into sections."

How to counter liberal bias

The BOLD-revert-discuss cycle

The NOV Policy recommends using the "best and most reputable authoritative sources available" in order to "prevent NPOV disagreements". According to "Search engine test", Google may suffer from bias. Consequently the editor striving for neutraility should not rely solely on Google. Alternative references and search engines such as the Western Center for Journalism search engine can be found at "WikiProject Conservatism/References". The References page is also invaluable for adding reliable sources to express minority viewpoints and add opposing views. If you find liberal bias in an article that needs to be corrected the NPOV Tutorial recommends that you "Be bold in editing pages that are biased." The recommended method for achieving neutral text is to rewrite it. The NPOV FAQ says, "Especially contentious text can be removed to the talk page if necessary, but only as a last resort, and never just deleted.". If your changes are reverted, per the BOLD-revert-discuss cycle you should avoid edit warring and start a discussion on the article talk page in order to form a consensus. In order to attract more attention to the issue or request an expert opinion you can post a neutrally worded message at WikiProject Conservatism. Occasionally editors at the talk page fail to reach a consensus. Good faith content disputes can be referred to the Dispute resolution noticeboard. Where editors engage in disruptive editing, or stonewalling on the talk page, dispute resolution may be viable option.

Common issues

Further information: Wikipedia:Words to watch and Wikipedia:Coatrack

Liberal bias (hat, coats) obscurring a coatrack

Issue	Remedy
stating opinion as fact	add inline-text attribution
criticism section	fold debate into narrative
quote from participant in heated debate	replace with summary written in an impartial tone
fundamentalist, controversial, anti-gay	remove contentious labels unless supported by reliable sources (WP:LABEL)
many state, most believe	rewrite or use {{weasel}} (WP:WEASEL)
so-called, alleged	use called (WP:ALLEGED)
claimed, asserted	replace with said, stated, described (WP:CLAIM)
tangentially related bias	trim off excessive biased content while adding more balanced content (WP:COAT)
scare quotes	remove (WP:BADEMPHASIS)
other bias	rewrite; if especially contentious move to talk (WP:NPOVFAQ)

BLPs

Issue	Remedy
negative allegation--single source	remove immediately (WP:WELLKNOWN)
material irrelevant to notability of non public person	remove immediately (WP:NPF)
harmful statement about a small group--poor source	remove immediately (WP:BLPGROUP)

Templates

See also: Wikipedia:Template messages/Disputes

General NPOV

• {{POV}}—message used to warn of problems
• {{POV-check}}—message used to request that an article be checked for neutrality
• {{POV-section}}—message that tags only a single section as disputed
• {{POV-lead}}—message when the article's introduction is questionable
• {{POV-title}}—message when the article's title is questionable
• {{POV-statement}}—message when only one sentence is questionable
• {{NPOV language}}—message used when the neutrality of the style of writing is questioned
• {{ASF}}—message when a sentence may or may not require in-text attribution (e.g., "Jimmy Wales says")

Undue-weight

• {{Undue}}—message used to warn that a part of an article lends undue weight to certain ideas relative to the article as a whole
• {{Undue-section}}—same as above but to tag a section only
• {{Undue-inline}}—same as above but to tag a sentence or paragraph only

Balance

• {{Unbalanced}}
• {{Unbalanced section}}
• {{toofewopinions}}
• {{Lopsided}}

Miscellaneous

• {{Coat rack}}
• {{Criticism section}}
• {{Peacock term}}
• {{Attribution needed}}
• {{Partisan sources}}

User warning

• {{subst:uw-npov1}}—Not adhering to neutral point of view (Level 1)
• {{subst:uw-fringe1}}—Inserting fringe or undue weight content into articles (Level 1)

See also

• Wikipedia:Controversial articles
• Wikipedia:Systemic bias
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias
• Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing
• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard

Articles

• Media bias in the United States#Liberal bias
• Higher education in the United States#Political views, discusses liberal views of professors

External links

• WCFJ search engine, search engine by Western Center for Journalism designed to selectively search "alternbative" media sources
• SurgeUSA search engine, search engine designed to selectively search "alternative" sources
• Yippy, Yippy is a family friendly search engine
• Searchasite, tool to search within a specified URL, e.g. www.foxnews.com