User:Ed Poor/Neutrality and consensus

Although Wikipedia is dedicated to neutrality in the abstract, when it comes to certain controversies, groups of like-minded writers have been able to make articles take sides.

This is most notable in what some conservatives call "liberal" positions on the big issues of evolution, intelligent design, global warming, etc. But it even comes up in obscure issues like cold fusion.

Instead of a majority of writers exalting NPOV and insisting that the article treat each side of the controversy fairly, a bloc of writers who want their own viewpoint to prevail over the article; see Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles#Multiple_editors. Once it is owned by them, they can use "consensus" to enforce a non-neutral view of their choice. Any attempts to insert "well-reference information" which opposes the "consensus" view is deleted with reference to "undue weight".

One question this essay raises is whether it is always undue weight to explain the reasoning of a minority. Is there a way to describe a minority view when the overwhelming majority of Wikipedia writers working on an article regard one side in a dispute as "right"?

It may be possible to label a minority view in such a way that does not give the impression that the view has more adherents than it really does. For example, among biologists, 99.8% accept the theory of evolution; that is, only 1 biologist in 500 disagrees.

One problem that Wikipedia has not addressed satisfactorily is how our writers can reliably estimate the proportion of people in general, or experts in a field, who support or reject a position on an issue. It would be useful to create a guideline, possibly involving surveys, polls, petitions, literature searches, etc. This can be problematic, too, becasue Wikipedians as well as "outside partisans" disagree about the meaning of these. Is the survey accurate? Was the petition authentic or compromised?

Another open question is the weight to be assigned to professional organizations. Are privately-financed, self-governing assocations (like the AMA) to given more weight than government-financed or -controlled groups? Or should international bodies, such as those created under the auspices of the UN, be considered more "objective" and "non-partisan" than national bodies, universities, or independent resarchers?

While it may be simply just to list all endorsing bodies and individuals and let the reader decide whom to trust, many contributors are not satisfied with this. They feel Wikipedia has an obligation to educate its readers. Some have said that a Scientific Point of View (SPOV) should be adopted. This leaves open the question of how Wikipedia writers are to determine precisely what the "scientific" viewpoint is on controversial topics.

The system is rife with opportunities for abuse. In some cases, a group of Wikipedians can WP:OWN an article and make it say that a given issue is "not a controversy" among scientists. Then they will suppress any information which contradicts the "no controverys" POV, such as a paper (peer-reviewed orn not) by a scientist expressing a view contrary to the mainstream.

The rules on undue weight need to be clarified or possibly changed. How shall Wikipedians determine what is the SPOV when some referenced sources say that there is a controversy (e.g., "the science is not settled") and other sources say there is a scientific consensus? Should Wikipedia endorse the scientific consensus? Should it say that partisans disagree over whether scientists are in consensus?

In most cases, fortunately, there is no significant disagreement, so all a writer has to do is report what external sources say. In history, one consults history books, and in science there are science textbooks as well as peer-reviewed journal articles.

When all sources say the same thing, information on a topic can be stated as fact. References can be supplied, but typically will be minimal or of the "further information" sort.

When all but an insignificant minority say something - the classic flat earth example - then the regular article on the topic (the Earth, 92KB) need not make any mention of the minority view. In case of historical curiosity or other reader interest, an article on the dissenting view may be written (flat earth, 55KB). Such an article will generally include information debunking it, based on the mainstream view.

A more common case is when the overwhelming majority belief in something - like the Holocaust - while a not inconsiderable number of people disbelieve it. The main article (Holocaust, 131 KB) is accompanied by two others about the controversy: Holocaust denial (113 KB) and Criticism of Holocaust denial (31 KB). Generally, attempts are made to quantify the relative proportions of mainstream and minority, as in, "the preponderance of Western historians agree that the Holocaust took place, while a significant number of Muslim or Arab scholars or officials deny that it took place".

Unbiased writing is especially difficult in the following cases, which are mostly hotly debated current events type of controversies, which includes political or scientific disputes of the last 3 to 5 decades.

• For the last 18 years, the global warming controversy.
• Zionism is racism Accepted by most UN members as of 1975, then around 1991 repudiated by most UN members
• Communism and mass murder - is it genocide? Debated hotly as far back as the 1950s, and still no end in sight.
• Various environmental issues concerning pesticides, air & water quality, radiation & chemical exposure, etc. DDT is still a problem (to write about here).
• Issues where parties disagree over the Philosophy of science. This special category concerns only Evolution and Intelligent Design.

One problem with the above group is the tendency of writers here to "talk past" each other, or simply to ignore what other contributors say and just accuse them of bias and POV writing.

Another problem is writers deleting source material which "supports a POV" on the grounds that the source is biased. One side will say this makes the article better, while the other side will say this is censorship.

This brings up the issue of undue weight. It is not easy to determine whether a minority view is significant enough to be mentioned in an article. This may be due to lack of clarity in the guidelines, or the mere numerical difficulty of ascertainingn what proportion of lay people or experts in a field support a certain position.

• Can we rely on polls? Surveys? Petitions?
• How do we interpret polls? Is their selection bias in surveys or petitions?