Neutral point of view

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“”The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.

—John F. Kennedy's loose paraphrasing of a passage in Dante's Inferno

Neutral point of view (NPOV) is a non-fiction writing style in which all aspects of a subject are discussed without expressing the view of the author, or drawing a moral or political conclusion on the subject. Treatment of the subject typically includes balanced discussion of significant and noted attitudes and opinions to it; no view is emphasized unduly over others. NPOV is rarely used in essays, which are usually intended to prove a point or reach a conclusion on a given subject, but is widely used in factual resources such as encyclopedias.

NPOV on Wikipedia

NPOV is a Wikipedia foundational issue, and one of the five pillars of Wikipedia. It is a central feature of Wikipedia's encyclopedic style, and extensive project page space is given over to outlining what NPOV means and how it should be implemented, addressing possible objections to it, and tutoring editors to write in neutral wording. Naturally, every editor has opinions, and some may attempt to express them in Wikipedia content. However, such biased content is liable to be removed or amended by other editors to maintain the NPOV balance. Editors who wish to make additions to articles and see them remain in place must learn to write factually in a NPOV style, verifying all assertions with citations and references. In this way, the Wikipedia community is (at least partially) self-regulating in terms of editorial neutrality. However, on some subjects, Wikipedia is willing to accept that the majority point of view is probably right and there's no need for false equivalence between kooks and experts: this includes fringe vs. mainstream science.

NPOV on Substack

Substack provides a platform for newsletters, including by subscription. Following complaints that it was platforming antivax, white nationalists, anti-semites, neo-Confederates, and Nazis, the founders of the company (Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, Jairaj Sethi) issued a statement defending their decision to give a platform to Nazis, in part saying:

“”I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either — we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse.

While the Streisand effect is certainly a valid concern when trying to deprive harmful ideas of an audience, Substack's response was problematic at best ("we don’t like Nazis, we'd like to wish them away"). Furthermore, when looking at the bigger picture, Substack's response could be considered flat-out disingenuous, because Substack profits from at least some of these extremist groups, as was already known before the statement was issued. Substack has had a minimalist and disdainful approach to content moderation, essentially leaving the main task to unpaid labor ("we will stick to our decentralized approach to content moderation"). In response to ongoing protestations by non-Nazi writers on Substack, the company agreed to remove a handful of openly Nazi accounts. Some of the writers, such as software engineer and cryptocurrency critic Molly White, dismissed this as a feeble response:

It’s honestly insulting, both to writers and readers on the platform, that they think they can shut up those of us who have serious concerns with such a meager gesture.

Casey Newton, who covers platform moderation, wrote:

The Nazis did not commit the only atrocity in history, but a platform that declines to remove their supporters is telling you something important about itself. If it won’t remove the Nazis, why should we expect the platform to remove any other harm?

RationalWiki and NPOV

See the main article on this topic: What is a RationalWiki article?

RationalWiki articles tend to avoid NPOV on the grounds that they are not encyclopedic in nature. These articles and their authors are uncompromising in their point of view that science and reason are superior methods for generating knowledge, ignorance and undue credulity are harmful and should be vehemently dispelled, and there is virtually no circumstance in which accepting a crank's views as valid is a good use of anyone's time, money, or brainpower. However, this is not a rejection of covering facts equally and giving due weight to conflicting opinions when they are valid and relevant. Indeed, the objection to NPOV is mostly in response to the dry and humorless tone developed by Wikipedia in the name of neutrality.

Conservapedia's criticism of NPOV

Conservapedia, a conservative, Christian wiki that considers itself a better alternative to Wikipedia, maintains that "Bias gets in the way of reliability" but also that "Neutrality may not be an antidote to bias". This does not explain how the path to reliability can be achieved, or why neutrality is not an antidote to bias, since the opposite of biased is unbiased. However, this seems to be the only explicit criticism of the concept of neutrality. Most of Conservapedia's criticism of Wikipedia focuses on its claim that "Despite its official 'neutrality policy', Wikipedia has a strong liberal bias". Since "Neutrality may not be an antidote", Conservapedia counters the perceived liberal bias in Wikipedia with flagrant right-wing fundamentalist bias and propaganda throughout its own pages.

Most, if not all, of Conservapedia's examples of 'liberal bias' within Wikipedia do not stand up to scrutiny, and they tend to show a basic inability (deliberate or otherwise) to comprehend the concepts of NPOV and verifiability. Many are simply examples of the kind of hardline conservative claptrap trotted out on Conservapedia itself, with the suggestion that Wikipedia is biased for not forming the same outrageous moralising conclusions. For example, Wikipedia has a 'liberal bias' in that it does not insinuate that Barack Obama's career is the result of racial quotas and affirmative action, characterise homosexuals as violent and promiscuous, or postulate that atheism leads to meanness and suicide. Furthermore, Wikipedia is accused of 'promoting' suicide, in that it objectively mentions suicides in a high number of articles and biographies.

International Olympic Committee

International Olympic Committee (IOC) was formed as a non-governmental organization in Switzerland in 1894. Its stated goals are to support international sporting events and the Olympics specifically, to act against any form of discrimination in the Olympics, and to encourage women in sports. While not explicitly neutral, there is the implication of neutrality in its statement, "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement."

In 2019, Gian Franco Kasper, president of the International Ski Federation (an organization affiliated with the IOC) stated, “Dictators can organize events such as this without asking the people’s permission. For us, everything is easier in dictatorships.” Kasper later tried to walk back the statement, but it was already obvious to many observers that he was speaking the truth. Six Olympic Games have been held in dictatorships: Nazi Germany (1936), Soviet Union (1980), China (2008, 2022 summer and winter), and Russia (2014). The 2022 Olympics were known as the "Genocide Olympics" due to their occurring at the same time as the Uighur genocide in China. In the modern Olympics, an enormous amount of money is made through corporate advertising and sponsorship, thus profiting indirectly from human rights abuses at dictator-sponsored Olympics. The current IOC president since 2013, Thomas Bach, was involved with 3 of the dictator Olympics.

Alternatives to NPOV

Snarky Point Of View

SPOV is the style originally or historically encouraged on RationalWiki. Neutrality is all very well in its place, but certain assertions are so feeble or silly that they may provoke snarky response from those who think they are feeble or silly. Note, however, that snark is not a substitute for facts, reasoning, and sources.

MOPOV (My Own Point Of View)

This is a style widely used in many contexts, in which the author assumes that their own opinions are intrinsically more correct, valuable, or interesting than any other person's opinions, simply by the virtue of being their own. MOPOV expressions can be mildly indulgent, but if such behaviour continues unchallenged, or is even bolstered by the adulation of others, it can gradually lead the author to conclude that their word is infallible, or that they are in fact God. This state of affairs can bring a host of unwanted responsibilities. Fortunately, excessive MOPOV can be remedied in its early stages with judicial use of "snarkasm".

Stated Points of View

In which two or more sides of a debate are given freedom to present their case separately with the caveat that they state their axiomatic assumptions. Free editing of each point of view is allowed, but objections and edits to the arguments of POV-A may only be raised by people holding the same axiomatic assumptions. Other points of view, including criticism of POV-A, are to be presented on the pages of POV-B, along with the assumptions stated for the differing point of view.

Advantages for this approach include allowing more people to contribute more material, and more points of view, and more data can be harvested than with NPOV. In particular, experts may contribute according to their point of view without being overwritten by non-experts who disagree with them. A disadvantage is that while the format allows a limited region of disagreement and debate, much like a two-party system, it may not reflect the full range of opinions; for example, a format with Christian and atheist viewpoints may omit non-Western religious beliefs (and an article on the Eucharist that only gave Roman Catholic and Protestant views would miss the forest for the trees).

Example: the Wikipedia pages on the mental health condition "Dissociative Identity Disorder" are primarily dealing with the debate as to whether or not the condition exists. Those who do not believe it exists cite papers by those who do not believe it exists and those that do believe it exists cite their sources. NPOV enforces a stalemate position in the debate, leaving the site devoid of actual content material on the subject itself. Those who do have real content to contribute on the actual topic itself are closed out by the debate. What is lost is the possibility of harnessing the encyclopaedic knowledge of the variety of subtopics that could be written about by those who would write stating that they know it exists, have lived with the condition, and know how to successfully treat the condition. This knowledge is censored by those who have limited knowledge of the topic but remain editorially to keep the debate, and only the debate front and centre. The net result being that, if you actually want information on the topic in hand, Wikipedia is of very little use to anyone researching the topic.

Conservative Point Of View

For more information, see: Overton window

For more information, see: Censorship

Instead of seeking a balanced discussion of all sides of an argument, CPOVs often have a consensus that is reached by pushing an argument so far to the right that it cannot go any further. This frequently involves banning anyone with different opinions and removing their contributions. CPOV can also stand for:

• Christian Point of View
• Creationist Point of View
• Cranks' Point of View
• Crazy Point of View
• Cretins' Point of View.

The opposite, Liberal Point Of View, is seldom seen for some reason. Maybe liberals tend to have more respect for truth and facts.^{[citation NOT needed]}

The illusion of neutrality

Search engines and social media platforms have at times presented themselves as neutral, but the reality is that they can't be neutral. This is simply because they have to present things in an ordered sort of way, and the ordering requires ranking, and the ranking requires prioritizing some results over others. If they were totally neutral, one would just as likely get random results from looking for a chicken soup recipe and the top results are: quantum physics, chickenhawk, Chicken coop, and intelligent design. Who wants that kind of result, anyway? The reality is that results are dependent on an algorithm that is designed by a computer scientist: some human(s) has to decide what is important and what is not. Once there is an algorithm, some people will try to figure out a loophole for their advantage (e.g., search engine optimization), and others will complain that their crank ideas are not highlighted.

See also

• Argument from authority
• Balance fallacy
• Originalism — a legal theory that claims to be neutral with regard to interpreting constitutional law based on original intent or meaning, but is mysteriously only espoused by conservatives with an agenda
• Larry Sanger — co-founder of Wikipedia, and a NPOV extremist
  • Ballotpedia — a Sanger-inspired website with strict NPOV
  • Citizendium — Sanger's expert-driven wiki, now moribund
  • Everipedia — Sanger's blockchain-based Wikipedia-type wiki