This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: A guide for editors and readers who want to fix the bias of an article on Wikipedia. |
Sometimes, you will come across a Wikipedia article that seems to have a serious point-of-view problem. It reads as a biased diatribe against the subject of the article. Or perhaps it reads as a biased diatribe in favor of the subject and against critics. Either way, you want it changed. Well, if you don't want your edit reverted or your talk page complaint ignored out of hand, there are a few things you should do first.
Before making any attempt to address bias in any article, you should first understand how Wikipedia and other encyclopedias treat neutrality. In general, we do not hold to the principle of giving equal weight to all points of view.
In journalism, neutrality is generally seen to be met by giving all sides of an issue equal treatment. This is the view that has come to be held as the most neutral view by the populace at large as well, due to the fact that the larger population is exposed more to journalism than any other form of documentary media. The reason journalists use this form is because it removes the writer from any 'side' of a controversy, while allowing them to craft a compelling story. Without conflict, after all, you can't have a story. An often-used shorthand for this approach to neutrality is to say that a truly neutral work is one in which you can't tell which side the author supports.
For an encyclopedia however, this approach to neutrality has a number of problems. Encyclopedias are a compendium and summary of accepted human knowledge. Their purpose is not to provide compelling and interesting articles, but to provide accurate and verifiable information.
To this end, encyclopedias strive to always represent each point-of-view in a controversy with an amount of weight and credulity equal to the weight and credulity afforded to it by the best sources of information on the subject. This means that the consensus of experts in a subject will be treated as a fact, whereas theories with much less acceptance among experts, or with acceptance only among non-experts will be presented as inaccurate and untrue. The best shorthand for this is to say that try as you might, you'll never prove the author wrong.
The use of encyclopedic neutrality often results in encyclopedia articles appearing to take a side. This is rarely the primary purpose of such articles (though sometimes, editors will create articles for that very reason), but rather the side effect of the consensus of the sources used. For example, our article on the flat earth does not lend any credibility to the claim that the earth is flat. It clearly takes the side that flat earth theories are incorrect, and that those who advocate for them are wrong. This is because the shape of the earth is a subject of scientific inquiry, and there is absolutely no scientific support for the flat earth hypothesis. In evaluating the sources available to us, there were none which lent any credibility to the notion of a flat earth, whatsoever. As a result, to someone who either believes in a flat earth or who supports the use of journalistic neutrality, this article will appear to be biased against the flat earth hypothesis. But in fact, this is as neutral as the article can be. It states facts (such as "the earth is an oblate spheroid") as facts, clearly and emphatically. It does not present opinions as facts, and it does not give as much credit to the ideas of a non-expert as it does to the ideas of experts.
If we were to write our articles using journalistic neutrality, we would have to reduce the presented evidence that the earth is actually an oblate spheroid until it matched the evidence purporting to show that the earth is flat. We would have to remove criticisms of the evidence purporting to show that the earth is flat, such that both sides are given equal weight. We would have to diminish or even fail to report on the credentials of those scientists who have spoken out against the flat earth hypothesis, such that their depiction was similar to the non-scientists lacking meaningful credentials who advocate for the idea. In short, we would have to re-write our article to deceptively imply that it was an open and serious question as to whether or not the earth is flat, when the truth is that it is not. This is -quite obviously- counter to the very purpose of an encyclopedia. Implying false equivalences between educated theories and ignorant navel-gazing is very close to the opposite of what an encyclopedia should do, and suppressing accurate information about a subject is the exact opposite of what an encyclopedia should do.
Before you even begin to try to raise the issue at a talk page, you should ask yourself "Is this article really biased, or does it accurately reflect the views of authoritative sources about this subject?" Do some research. Read the sources used by the article and find other reliable sources on the subject. Do they present the subject as controversial, or do they tend to take a side? If there's a clear controversy, what field of study would impart expertise on this, and what side do people who work in that field tend to take? Do the claims made by the article match the claims made by the sources? Depending on the answers to these questions, the article may not be biased at all.
The following steps will help you maximize the chance your complaints are taken seriously:
Identifying reliable sources | This is a page all about how to find reliable sources and determine if a source is reliable. |
Reliable sources/Noticeboard | This is a place to discuss the reliability of sources. If you have doubts about a source's reliability, start a thread here. |
Talk page guidelines | Article talk pages are used for discussing changes to our articles. Following these guidelines will help ensure that your comments don't get erased. |
Neutral point of view | This is our policy on the neutral point of view. If you think an article is not neutral, you should read this policy before saying so. It may be that the article is neutral in the way that matters to this project. |
Neutral point of view/Noticeboard | This is usually the place to go if there's a discussion that can't come to a consensus on the article talk page. |
Fringe theories/Noticeboard | This may be the place to go if the subject involves a fringe theory, or if someone believes that fringe material is being given undue weight. |
Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard | This may be the place to go if the content in question concerns a specific living person and might cause them personal harm. |
Systemic bias | This page outlines real, useful information about systemic bias on Wikipedia. We are aware that we have biases, and we do what we can to combat them. |
One against many | This page gives advice for dealing with situations where one editor wants to make a change but multiple editors oppose the change. |
This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: A guide for editors and readers who want to fix the bias of an article on Wikipedia. |
Sometimes, you will come across a Wikipedia article that seems to have a serious point-of-view problem. It reads as a biased diatribe against the subject of the article. Or perhaps it reads as a biased diatribe in favor of the subject and against critics. Either way, you want it changed. Well, if you don't want your edit reverted or your talk page complaint ignored out of hand, there are a few things you should do first.
Before making any attempt to address bias in any article, you should first understand how Wikipedia and other encyclopedias treat neutrality. In general, we do not hold to the principle of giving equal weight to all points of view.
In journalism, neutrality is generally seen to be met by giving all sides of an issue equal treatment. This is the view that has come to be held as the most neutral view by the populace at large as well, due to the fact that the larger population is exposed more to journalism than any other form of documentary media. The reason journalists use this form is because it removes the writer from any 'side' of a controversy, while allowing them to craft a compelling story. Without conflict, after all, you can't have a story. An often-used shorthand for this approach to neutrality is to say that a truly neutral work is one in which you can't tell which side the author supports.
For an encyclopedia however, this approach to neutrality has a number of problems. Encyclopedias are a compendium and summary of accepted human knowledge. Their purpose is not to provide compelling and interesting articles, but to provide accurate and verifiable information.
To this end, encyclopedias strive to always represent each point-of-view in a controversy with an amount of weight and credulity equal to the weight and credulity afforded to it by the best sources of information on the subject. This means that the consensus of experts in a subject will be treated as a fact, whereas theories with much less acceptance among experts, or with acceptance only among non-experts will be presented as inaccurate and untrue. The best shorthand for this is to say that try as you might, you'll never prove the author wrong.
The use of encyclopedic neutrality often results in encyclopedia articles appearing to take a side. This is rarely the primary purpose of such articles (though sometimes, editors will create articles for that very reason), but rather the side effect of the consensus of the sources used. For example, our article on the flat earth does not lend any credibility to the claim that the earth is flat. It clearly takes the side that flat earth theories are incorrect, and that those who advocate for them are wrong. This is because the shape of the earth is a subject of scientific inquiry, and there is absolutely no scientific support for the flat earth hypothesis. In evaluating the sources available to us, there were none which lent any credibility to the notion of a flat earth, whatsoever. As a result, to someone who either believes in a flat earth or who supports the use of journalistic neutrality, this article will appear to be biased against the flat earth hypothesis. But in fact, this is as neutral as the article can be. It states facts (such as "the earth is an oblate spheroid") as facts, clearly and emphatically. It does not present opinions as facts, and it does not give as much credit to the ideas of a non-expert as it does to the ideas of experts.
If we were to write our articles using journalistic neutrality, we would have to reduce the presented evidence that the earth is actually an oblate spheroid until it matched the evidence purporting to show that the earth is flat. We would have to remove criticisms of the evidence purporting to show that the earth is flat, such that both sides are given equal weight. We would have to diminish or even fail to report on the credentials of those scientists who have spoken out against the flat earth hypothesis, such that their depiction was similar to the non-scientists lacking meaningful credentials who advocate for the idea. In short, we would have to re-write our article to deceptively imply that it was an open and serious question as to whether or not the earth is flat, when the truth is that it is not. This is -quite obviously- counter to the very purpose of an encyclopedia. Implying false equivalences between educated theories and ignorant navel-gazing is very close to the opposite of what an encyclopedia should do, and suppressing accurate information about a subject is the exact opposite of what an encyclopedia should do.
Before you even begin to try to raise the issue at a talk page, you should ask yourself "Is this article really biased, or does it accurately reflect the views of authoritative sources about this subject?" Do some research. Read the sources used by the article and find other reliable sources on the subject. Do they present the subject as controversial, or do they tend to take a side? If there's a clear controversy, what field of study would impart expertise on this, and what side do people who work in that field tend to take? Do the claims made by the article match the claims made by the sources? Depending on the answers to these questions, the article may not be biased at all.
The following steps will help you maximize the chance your complaints are taken seriously:
Identifying reliable sources | This is a page all about how to find reliable sources and determine if a source is reliable. |
Reliable sources/Noticeboard | This is a place to discuss the reliability of sources. If you have doubts about a source's reliability, start a thread here. |
Talk page guidelines | Article talk pages are used for discussing changes to our articles. Following these guidelines will help ensure that your comments don't get erased. |
Neutral point of view | This is our policy on the neutral point of view. If you think an article is not neutral, you should read this policy before saying so. It may be that the article is neutral in the way that matters to this project. |
Neutral point of view/Noticeboard | This is usually the place to go if there's a discussion that can't come to a consensus on the article talk page. |
Fringe theories/Noticeboard | This may be the place to go if the subject involves a fringe theory, or if someone believes that fringe material is being given undue weight. |
Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard | This may be the place to go if the content in question concerns a specific living person and might cause them personal harm. |
Systemic bias | This page outlines real, useful information about systemic bias on Wikipedia. We are aware that we have biases, and we do what we can to combat them. |
One against many | This page gives advice for dealing with situations where one editor wants to make a change but multiple editors oppose the change. |