Wikipedia:Let the facts speak for themselves

Let the facts speak for themselves

Between 11 August 2003 and 7 August 2009 the following quote (and later the added editorial comment) were part of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy. It was removed after an RfC because the majority of the participants in that RfC considered that it could be misunderstood and used to exclude from a Wikipedia article opinions properly attributed to reliable sources. However, as an aid to help understand the policy it is still useful:

Karada offered the following advice in the context of the Saddam Hussein article:

You won't even need to say he was evil. That is why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man"—we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.

Resist the temptation to apply labels or moralize—readers will probably not take kindly to being told what to think. Let the facts speak for themselves and let the reader decide.

See also

• WP:ASF, a former section of NPOV called "A simple formulation" said, "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but don't assert opinions themselves."
• WP:LTRD, Don't consider a statement neutral just because you agree with it
• WP:FAPO, content accepted by Wikipedians to be factual takes precedence over content that is contended to be opinionated
• Res ipsa loquitur (Latin for "the thing speaks for itself")