User:Distributivejustice/Local NPOV maxima

In mathematics, maxima and minima, known collectively as extrema (singular: extremum), are the largest value (maximum) or smallest value (minimum), that a function takes in a point either within a given neighbourhood (local extremum) or on the function domain in its entirety (global extremum).

Local NPOV maxima are states of an article or section in which WP:NPOV has been maximized within the domain of marginal edits. A local NPOV maxima may not be the global NPOV maxima, and the local and global maxima may be separated by a deep minima in the space of edits. For this reason, WP:BOLD edits may be required to refactor even a good article or section towards the global NPOV maxima. For contentious topics, the effort required to coordinate a transition to a higher maxima may not be feasible. This phenomena will tend to reduce the quality of controversial articles.

A local NPOV maxima may be reached by an iterative consensus editing process in the same way that mathematical functions reach maxima.