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This page is considered an official policy on the Aerican Empire Wiki. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy. |
Neutral Point of View is a fundamental principle of the Aerican Empire Wiki. In short, all articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly and without bias, with some exceptions.
Neutral Point of View
The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted. All significant points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It should not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.
As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. It is a point of view that is neutral - that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject.
Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. Detailed articles might also contain the mutual evaluations of each viewpoint, but studiously refrain from stating which is better. One can think of unbiased writing as the cold, fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate. When bias towards one particular point of view can be detected the article needs to be fixed.
Neutral Point of View is not a license to add original research to the Aerican Empire Wiki. All content must be attributable if any dispute about its validity arises.
Fairness
To characterize disputes fairly, editors should present competing views with a consistently positive, sympathetic tone. Many articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting both points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization – for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section.
Instead, editors should write articles with the tone that all positions presented are at least plausible, bearing in mind the important qualification about extreme minority views. Present all significant, competing views sympathetically. Write with the attitude that such-and-such is a good idea, except that, in the view of some detractors, the supporters of said view overlooked such-and-such a detail.
Exceptions to NPOV
There are some cases where articles on the Aerican Empire Wiki may be allowed to be slightly biased, subject to community consensus. This means that articles, or more specifically, limited sections of some articles, may be written from a point of view that indicates bias towards a certain view of a topic, so long as the community as a whole supports tis bias. This should be approached carefully, however, and articles should not be written as advertisements.
For example, the Aerican Empire article, as the main topic of this entire wiki, may have certain sections written that may seem to indicate slight bias, so long as the section does not specifically promote a specific idea in an advertorial manner. Text indicating that "the Aerican Empire is widely recognized as having the world's largest population of Silinists" may be included, even if it is not directly verifiable, because the community at large would tend to agree that most Silinists are Aerican citizens.
However, it would be seen as a violation of Neutral Point of View for the Mars article to state that "Mars has the Empire's largest population of Silinists." This is because citizens of another colony, such as Northern Plutopia, may argue that it is incorrect. The only way such a statement would not be a Neutral Point of View violation is if editors could attribute the statement to a reliable source, such as the most recent Census.
Similarly, a statement such as "the Aerican Empire is the greatest country ever!" would not be allowed on any article, because it is a promotional statement that would qualify the article as being written as an advertisement.