On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Jonathan Walther wrote:
Believe it or not, NPOV requires the facts to be presented wherever possible, instead of opinions.
One important reason for the neutrality policy is precisely that people disagree--have different opinions--as to what the facts are. And those people of differing opinions are being asked to work on the same project. The neutrality policy is what allows those people to maintain peace.
Alternative formulation of the policy: assert facts, including facts about opinions--but don't assert opinions themselves
We sometimes give an alternative formulation of the nonbias policy: assert facts, including facts about opinions--but don't assert opinions themselves. By "fact," on the one hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." In this sense, that a survey produced a certain published result is a fact. That Mars is a planet is a fact. That 2+2=4 is a fact. That Socrates was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So Wikipedians can feel free to assert as many of them as we can. By "opinion," on the other hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is some serious dispute." There's bound to be borderline cases where we're not sure if we should take a particular dispute seriously; but there are many propositions that very clearly express opinions. That God exists is an opinion. That the Beatles were the greatest rock and roll group is an opinion. That intuitionistic logic is superior to ordinary logic is an opinion. That the United States was wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an opinion.
For determining whether something is fact or opinion in this sense, it does not matter what the actual truth of the matter is; there can at least in theory be false "facts" (things that everybody agrees upon, but which are, in fact, false), and there are very often true "opinions," though necessarily, it seems, there are more false ones.
Wikipedia is devoting to stating facts and only facts, in this sense. Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "God exists," which is an opinion, we can say, "Most Americans believe that God exists," which is a fact, or "Thomas Aquinas believed that God exists," which is also a fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing it to someone. In presenting an opinion, moreover, it is important that we bear in mind that there are sometimes even disagreements about how opinions might be best stated; sometimes, it will be necessary to qualify the description of an opinion or to present several formulations, simply to arrive at an overall characterization that fairly represents all the leading views of the situation.
But it's not enough, to express the Wikipedia nonbias policy, just to say that we should state facts and not opinions. When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about competing opinions, and to do so without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It's also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them. (It's often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.)
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Larry