User:Stephen Bain/Content policy

This is the beginning of an essay on what should be done about our content policies. For starters, I'll cover my view of where our content policy comes from, what the key principles at its heart are. From there, I'll eventually proceed to what content the policy statements need to cover, and to what form those policy statements should take.

Comments are welcome on the talk page.

Where does our content policy come from?

In this section, I'm going to look at what the key principles of our content policy are, and try to identify where they come from.

It all starts with this statement: Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Or to put this in a longer form - and I'm borrowing the ArbCom's expression here - Wikipedia is a compendium of established knowledge.

Neutrality

NPOV

=

Portray all significant POVs, with no undue weight.

We have one absolutely fundamental, non-negotiable piece of content policy and that is that all articles must be written from a neutral point of view. That is, they must fairly portray all significant points of view on a subject, in accordance with their prevalence. To put this another way, a Wikipedia article is simply trying to describe all significant current thought on a subject.

The obvious corollary of positively requiring the expression of a neutral point of view is that we prohibit any undue emphasis in favour of any given point of view. Our objective is not to give equal validity.

Original thought

Portray all significant POVs, with no undue weight.

↓

No original/novel POVs.

As a corollary of the idea that an article should try to describe all significant current thought on a subject, it follows that we are not in the business of producing original thought. For an article to reach a conclusion of any kind, or to advance a novel theory, or synthesise existing points of view into a new point of view, would be to produce something that does not represent a neutral point of view.

To include original research is to present something which is not a representation of all significant current thought on a subject; to distort a neutral point of view representation in favour of a novel theory is just as bad as distorting such a representation in favour of any existing theory. Of course, Wikipedia articles may present established knowledge on a subject in a form that it has not been presented in before, but this is not original research.

The place of truth

Portray all significant POVs, with no undue weight.

↓

Don't present any one POV as "the truth".

but

Only one significant POV?

↓

No need to present anything but that.

It is by now an established maxim of Wikipedia policy that the standard of inclusion in Wikipedia is not whether something is true, but whether it is verifiable/attributable to a reliable source. In recent weeks this maxim has been challenged, but like the prohibition on original thought, it must be an essential part of our content policy.

We cannot, in a Wikipedia article, present something as being truth, to the exclusion of all else. This would not be consistent with our mission to present a neutral point of view, because it would necessarily involve denying all other points of view.

What we can do, however, is to present something as being seen as true in the consensus viewpoint, should there be consensus. If there is only one significant point of view on a subject, then the neutral point of view requires nothing of us other than to state that point of view.

Sometimes we might not even go to the lengths of explicitly saying "X is the only significant point of view on this subject", we might just say X and cite our sources. But it's important to remember that we're not thereby asserting the truth of X, just implicitly asserting that it's the only significant point of view on the subject.

Accuracy

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia.

↓

Wikipedia aims to be a reliable and accurate source of information.

↓

Include only reliable and accurate content.

and

When portraying a POV, do it fairly.

↓

Be accurate in the description of POVs.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and like other encyclopaedias, it aims to be an accurate and reliable source of information. Translating this into a principle of content policy, we get the idea that we only include reliable and accurate content. This means that we base our material on reliable sources, and we use those sources accurately.

The goal of accuracy is also implicit in the idea that pursuing a neutral point of view requires us to fairly represent extant points of view. Fairly presenting a point of view involves not exaggerating or diminishing it (ie, not giving it undue weight), and representing it accurately from its sources.

The mechanism

Portray existing thought.

↓

Attribute all material to some extant source.

+

Be accurate in the description of POVs.

+

Include only reliable and accurate content.

=

Attribute all material to some extant reliable source.

So we have the neutral point of view, and derived from this we have the idea that we're not in the business of producing original thought, nor are we in the business of asserting any given point of view to be true. We also have the goal of accuracy and reliability of content, which in turn is related to elements of the neutral point of view. But how exactly does this operate to create content?

We have the genesis of a mechanism to implement this in the simple statement that we are representing extant points of view. They have to come from somewhere - they have to be attributed to some source.

When describing points of view on a subject, we thus do so by building together statements or partial statements of a point of view, or statements of fact believed by those who ascribe to the point of view, which are attributable to a source. And because we strive to faithfully represent points of view, and because we strive for accuracy, we use only reliable sources.

The question of what is a reliable source always depends on context, and there can never be an exhaustive definition of what sources are reliable or unreliable for every case. Nevertheless, we can say that reliability is essential.

Summary so far

We aim to achieve a neutral point of view, fairly representing all significant existing points of view on a subject, in accordance with their prevalence. As corollaries of this:

• we exclude original thought,
• we exclude exaggerated or diminished representations of any one line of existing thought, and
• we don't present any one point of view as being true,

although if something is the only significant point of view, then nothing more is required of us than to present that point of view.

We also have the goal of accuracy and reliability, which informs our approach at every stage, and we have the general mechanism by which this is to be achieved: attribution of material to reliable sources.

Whatever form the content policy takes, it needs to cover these principles. The next stage is to translate these principles into key ideas, concepts and standards which need to be presented and explained by policy.