Wikipedia:Add wikilinked sections to balance NPOV

This essay, Add wikilinked sections to balance NPOV, describes a technique for resolving the age-old question: How can an outrageous claim (from a source) be mentioned, in an article, while also defusing all the wild implications of that claim?

In general, an article can be expanded to provide more balance, in accordance with policy WP:NPOV, by wikilinking to sections which elaborate the details about "The Rest of the Story". As an example, consider the handling of some highly controversial topics within a hypothetical crime article.

Main Star 1

Main Star 1a

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Top billing, for both of 2 film stars, has been given in 2 locations by placing the 2nd name as further left, and hence, horizontally ahead of the first name, listed vertically above the 2nd. By such placement of names, both stars were given top billing together and separately.

Suppose that reliable sources, for a crime article, had reported an extreme viewpoint, of the house seeming "thoroughly cleaned with bleach" but then an article immediately countered that extreme claim, by linking an opposing section, such as "Claims of bleach refuted at trial ". That structure (of point-of-view-1 refuted by point-of-view-2) allows both ideas to appear, side-by-side, as similar phrases, but also connects to a detailed explanation: listing all the details of the trial testimonies, where perhaps 2 housekeepers said the household bleach had remained unused, with no smell of bleach, and investigators found no chemical trace of bleaching or bleach-spots on fabrics at the scene. Luminol testing found no wide areas wiped with bleach, only bare footprints or smaller splotches in separate areas, such as might occur by stepping in spilled fruit juice, or walking through shower cleanser. Such a dedicated section of specific details could be used to provide the NPOV balance, without cluttering the article's text at the phrase where the idea of bleaching was initially mentioned.

Sometimes a one-phrase extreme claim could only be fully rebutted by several sentences, and so an equal word-count view, of the overall balance, tends to thwart adding all the necessary details to refute a claim, for an adequate neutral (NPOV) coverage. Instead, a one-phrase extreme claim can be followed by a wikilinked sub-section title which, in much more detail, will then offset the impact of the original extreme claim. For example:

• "Aristotle believed that the Earth is flat, while Plato contended the Earth is a sphere (however, see below: #Aristotle view of Earth as pie plate rotating on edge)."

The initial phrase "the Earth is flat" gives the impression that Aristotle was clueless about the Earth's rotation. However, that would be refuted in the wikilinked sub-section: "Aristotle view of Earth as pie plate rotating on edge". The initial sentence is very short, but all the details would be elaborated in the linked section, of how Aristotle wrote of the Earth as a flat pie plate, standing on edge, rotating on edge (once per day), while Plato, holding 2 opposing views, stated (1) the Earth was a sphere, and (2) the sphere did not rotate (the cosmos spun about the sphere). Once those details are provided, then Aristotle seems a lot smarter, in recognizing the Earth as rotating on an axis, from Ancient Greece circa 330 BC. Again, the technique is to offset-by-wikilink: state an extreme claim, followed by an opposing section title (containing the details). This technique would lead to a similar offset-by-wikilink, in a hypothetical crime article, such as the sentence:

"They suggested the event began as a sex-game (however, see below: #No evidence of sex-game found)".

Using that tactic, for every time the text must mention "sex-game" then immediately link to the total rebuttal as section "No evidence of sex-game found" (containing perhaps 15 sentences about exhaustive searches which found no sexual items used at the scene). To fully offset an outrageous claim of sex-game, it must be stated that no sex books, no photos, no condoms, no restraints, no lotions, no aphrodisiacs, no wine, none of them, were found there. That is a versatile technique to offset highly extreme claims (which were totally refuted in detail), and offset them every time when mentioned, to sustain a neutral NPOV balance.

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Aristotle view of Earth as pie plate rotating on edge

Aristotle wrote of the Earth as a flat pie plate, standing on edge, rotating on edge (once per day), while Plato, holding 2 opposing views, stated (1) the Earth was a sphere, and (2) the sphere did not rotate. In Plato's view, the entire Cosmos spun around the sphere, fixed in the center.

No evidence of sex-game found

Despite the unfounded claim, publicized for more than a year, claiming the suspects had met for a supposed "sex-game" (Italian: gioco sessuale or gioco erotico), no evidence was ever found of any sexual items used at the scene. Italian police and CSI investigators found no sex books, no photos, no condoms, no restraints, no lotions, no aphrodisiacs, no drugs, no wine, no alcohol, none of them, at the scene, which was searched twice, 6 weeks apart. The first search of the scene occurred on 2-3 November 1896, and the second search occurred on 18 December 1896. The autopsy revealed no trace of drugs or alcohol either. There was no evidence of a sex game, of any form.

See also

WP:Advanced article editing WP:Advanced footnote formatting WP:Advanced table formatting WP:Advanced template coding WP:Advanced text formatting WP:Thinking outside the infobox WP:Pruning article revisions WP:Overlink crisis

WP:Alert WP:About translating German Wikipedia WP:Authors of Wikipedia WP:Avoiding Wikipedia quirks WP:Avoiding difficult users WP:Accepting other users WP:Wikimedia Foundation error WP:98 percent table width anomaly