User:MjolnirPants/Academic Neutrality

Neutrality on the English Wikipedia is a tricky subject, especially for new editors. As one of the Five pillars of Wikipedia, it's important for everyone to understand what is meant by the term Neutral point of view (or NPOV). Our use of the term is different than many people expect, and we have a different standard of neutrality than most of the media people are exposed to.

Neutrality in the context of Wikipedia policy

Neutrality is an important policy here, but it's not the most important policy. Understanding this is a key to understanding neutrality.

The importance of neutrality

Neutrality is important, not just for the purpose of presenting our readers impartial articles, but for maintaining the accuracy of those articles. A non-neutral article can, without ever making a single inaccurate statement, present the reader with a view of the subject that does not conform to reality. A non-neutral article can also leave a reader with a poor impression of Wikipedia, as a place where advocacy trumps accuracy. Additionally, a reputation for non-neutrality can drive away potential readers.

The unimportance of neutrality

The very first pillar of Wikipedia is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. A part of that means that all the information contained on Wikipedia needs to be accurate and verifiable. Another part of that means that accuracy and verifiability are necessary, but not sufficient criteria for inclusion.

What this means for our neutrality article is that accurate and verifiable information which is highly pertinent to a subject must never be removed or downplayed for the purposes of neutrality. It also means that accurate and verifiable information which is not pertinent to a subject must never be included for the purposes of neutrality.

First and foremost, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That concern trumps all other concerns. When neutrality and encyclopedic content conflict, the content must win every time.

Neutrality in contexts other than Wikipedia

Neutrality is a very common concept that appears in a large number of contexts. The two concepts most analogous to an encyclopedia are "common sense" and journalism.

Neutrality in "common sense"

In common use, the word "neutrality" generally means "not taking a side". The result of this is people who attempt to maintain neutrality tend to disassociate with conflicting factions. For example, most people would agree that Access Hollywood is neutral with respect to Romanian politics, because Access Hollywood doesn't associate with Romanian politics in any way.

For obvious reasons, this doesn't work on an encyclopedia. We can't refuse to cover contentious subjects because being an encyclopedia means being thorough. There's also the more practical concern that many of the subjects people turn to Wikipedia for answers about are controversial subjects. Wikipedia would quickly cease to be a valuable resource if people couldn't use it for the things they want to use it for.

Neutrality in journalism

In journalism, there is a saying about neutrality. It goes something like "The reader should not be able to tell which side the author supports." This is an important principle in journalism. As journalists are reporters of the news, their job is to report on current events. In order to do this fairly, they need to remain aloof from any debates or controversial, no matter how minor. They can't write about how selfish and cruel a dictator is, and then expect to be granted an interview with said dictator. They can't deride an advocacy group as extremist and counterfactual, and then gain access to that group's records and members. Instead, they report on statements which are false with the same pragmatism with which they report statements which are true. They report on the violence committed by freedom fighters and terrorists with equal dispassion.

The reason this doesn't work on Wikipedia is that Wikipedia is not a news source. We don't send reporters into the field to convince public figures and groups to talk to us. In fact, with very few exceptions, Wikipedia doesn't care at all what public figures or groups think of us, or whether or not they will help us achieve our goals.

Wikipedia is also far more concerned with what a subject is than with what a subject does, and only concerns itself with the latter when it has some impact on the world outside of the subject. The motivations, doctrines, beliefs and prejudices of freedom fighters and terrorists are unimportant to a journalist, but they're of high importance to an encyclopedia.

Neutrality on Wikipedia

Here on Wikipedia, we have a somewhat (though not entirely) unique way of defining neutrality that serves our purpose as an encyclopedia well. We define neutrality as the position taken by the great preponderance of reliable sources on any issue of discussion. So long as we accept that the most reliable sources are accurate, we then arrive at the conclusion that the most neutral point of view is the point of view of reality. This is a position which is occasionally referred to as "Academic neutrality", because it is from academia that we get this definition.

The advantages of academic neutrality come in terms of its support for the expression of factual claims that can't be formally proven, or which are highly unpopular.

Journalists rarely call a conspiracy theory out if it's insanely popular, because it sets them clearly on one side of the controversy. People using "common sense" neutrality don't call wildly popular conspiracy theories out because they risk alienating others. Conversely, Wikipedia is able to look at the evidence and arguments compiled by the best experts and to share their conclusions, regardless of how popular or unpopular those conclusions are.

By the same token, Journalists often tend to avoid applying labels like "extremist" to political groups, or "zealous" to religious groups because doing so clearly stakes out the position of the author as being in opposition to those groups. Users of "common sense" neutrality will avoid doing so because it alienates them from those who belong to those groups. But if the experts studying politics and religion are in agreement that a certain group is extremist or zealous, then Wikipedia can go ahead and say it, too.

If we didn't use academic neutrality, we would quickly find ourselves unable to cover even relatively uncontroversial and highly encyclopedic subjects like the moon landings, without distorting the facts by peppering the article with claims from moon landing conspiracy theories. We would not be able to state well-established facts about the size and shape of our planet, because some people believe in a flat Earth, and those people would surely object.

Neutrality in the face of major controversies

Academic neutrality obviously works great when dealing with fringe subjects. The creation-evolution controversy, or the latest round of vaccine controversies are great examples of how academic neutrality is a major improvement over other forms of neutrality. We can fully document both sides of the controversy without fear of overstepping and alienating one side, while at the same time we can state clearly that the MMR vaccine is safe and that evolution actually happened.

But how well does it work in the face of major controversies, such as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict or politics of the United States? To see that, we can take a test case like the current (as of the time of this writing) President of the United States, Donald Trump? The talk pages of the various articles covering Trump are full to the brim with heated arguments, trolling, insults and debates over the meaning, scope and applicability of our neutrality policy.

To that, there are no easy answers. Journalistic neutrality has gone out the window with respect to the subject. Almost every article written about Trump either defends or attacks him. "Common sense" neutrality is even more useless, as it often seems that nobody in the United States doesn't have either a positive or negative opinion of Trump. We can't simply follow the preponderance of sources, because the preponderance of sources are making judgements which are entirely subjective. The experts aren't saying "These policies are beneficial," or "these policies are harmful," but rather saying "I hate Trump," or -much more rarely- "I love Trump."

So what we end up with is a dry recitation of the facts. And that is exactly what we want. We can talk about his support base, we can analyze the election and draw conclusions from it. We can even cover the many racial controversies, because no matter how non-neutral it may seem to a Trump supporter to have such an article, no-one can deny that there is sufficient coverage of the subject to warrant the article, nor that the claims in it are verifiable.

The advantages of academic neutrality

So even in the worst case scenario, academic neutrality works. This is why Wikipedia uses that standard. Journalistic neutrality would have left us unable to document, or possibly even mention the many controversies. "Common sense" neutrality would have left us without so much as a complete article on the president, because so many basic statements of fact have become controversial. Only academic neutrality allows us to fulfill our mission by thoroughly and fairly relaying all of the relevant information to our reader.

It is often said by opponents, when Wikipedia takes a position and speaks from it that we should not do so, that we should simply state the facts and let the reader decide what to believe. And this is very, very good advice. The problem which confuses so many editors, both new and old, is that this is exactly what Wikipedia is doing, already. It is only by adopting the principles of academic neutrality that we can simply state facts like "Kent Hovind lied about the evidence for evolution", or "Andrew Wakefield falsified the data that linked the MMR vaccine to autism." After all, are we really simply informing our readers of the facts so that they can decide for themselves if we withhold facts about the individuals, organizations or claims of fact involved in the controversy? No, that's deception by omission, and it only hurts a reader's understanding of the subject. If what we want to do is to give our readers all the facts and let them decide for themselves, then we need to give our readers all of the facts.