PESWiki:Point of view

From PESWiki

This page describes the PESWiki policy on editing. For other articles on POV, see Point of View.

PESWiki articles must be written from a point of view (POV) based on fact and reasoning, representing information that is verifiable. For guidance on how to make an article conform to the point of view, see the POV tutorial.

A point of view is a fundamental PES principle. This page, PESWiki:Point of view, is one of PESWiki's three content policies. The other two are PESWiki:Verifiability and PESWiki:Original research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which these policies are based are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Their policy pages may be edited only to improve the application and explanation of the principles.

Explanation of the point of view

The point of view

A factual point of view is a means of dealing logically with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented factually and logically. it should not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions from the facts.

As the name suggests, the factual point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints or positions. It is a point of view that is based on facts. Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. Detailed articles might also contain the mutual evaluations of each viewpoint. One can think of this writing as the cold, fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of the topic.

Bias

See also the articles Bias and Media bias

POV requires views to be an logical and factual represention of all available information. All editors have biases, pending thier collection of facts that they use. A bias is a prejudice in a general or specific sense, usually in the sense of having a predilection for one particular point of view or ideology. One is said to be biased if one is influenced by one's biases, such as by omitting facts and data. A bias could, for example, lead one to accept or not accept the validity of a claim, not because of the strength of the claim's facts, but because it does or does not correspond to one's own preconceived ideas.

Types of bias include:

• Scientific bias, including bias in which one scientific viewpoint is given preference over others.
• Political bias, including bias in favor of or against a particular political party, policy or candidate.
• Religious bias, including bias in which one religious viewpoint is given preference over others.
• Class bias, including bias favoring one social class and bias ignoring social or class divisions.
• Commercial bias, including advertising, coverage of political campaigns in such a way as to favor corporate interests, and the reporting of issues to favor the interests of the owners of the news media.
• Ethnic or racial bias, including racism, nationalism and regionalism.
• Gender bias, including sexism and heteronormativity.
• Geographical bias which may for example describe a dispute as it is conducted in one country without knowing that the dispute is framed differently elsewhere.
• Nationalistic bias: favoring the interests or views of a particular nation.
• Sensationalism, which is bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary. This includes the practice whereby exceptional news may be overemphasized, distorted or fabricated to boost commercial ratings.

A simple formulation

Assert facts, including facts about opinions. There is a difference between facts and opinions. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to assert as many of them as we can. PESWiki is devoted to stating facts in the sense as described above. Where we might want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. The statemennts require an identifiable and objectively quantifiable set or, better still, a name (with the clear implication that the named individual should be a recognised authority). In presenting an facts, moreover, it is important to bear in mind that there are few disagreements about how the facts are best stated; sometimes, it will be necessary to qualify the description of views or to present several formulations, simply to arrive at a solution that fairly represents all the leading views of the situation. But it is not enough, to express the PESWiki POV policy, just to say that we should state facts and not opinions. When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about competing opinions. It is also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.

Situations and handling

POV forks

Main article: PESWiki:Content forking

A POV fork is an attempt to evade the POV guidelines by creating a new article about a certain subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive facts. This is generally considered unacceptable. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major Points of View on a certain subject are treated in one article.

Undue weight

POV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints, such as those from verifiable source. Now a qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, but may not necessarily include tiny minority views at all. We should attempt to represent disputes held by the minority as much as a majority view, but views that are held by a tiny minority does not need to be represented (besides articles devoted to those views). To give undue weight to a significant minority view, or to include extremely tiny minority view, might be misleading. PESWiki aims to present factual views among "experts" on the subject and among concerned parties. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well. None of this is to say that minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can give them on pages specifically devoted to them. PESWiki is not paper. But even on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it should not be represented as the truth.

See: PESWiki:Original research and PESWiki:Verifiability.

A vital component: good research

Disagreements over whether something is approached the factual Point Of View (POV) way can usually be avoided through the practice of good research. Facts (as defined in the A simple formulation section above) are Points Of View in and of themselves. A good way to build a point of view is to find a reputable source for the piece of information you want to add to PESWiki, and then cite that source. This is an easy way to characterize a side of a debate without excluding that the debate has other sides. Find the best and most reputable sources you can. Try the library for good books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. A little bit of ground work can save a lot of time in trying to justify a point later.

Remember, though, an important consideration is that sources might contradict. The core of the POV policy is to let competing facts of the same topic exist on the same page: work for balance, that is: divide space describing the opposing viewpoints. And, when available, give precedence to those sources that have been the most successful in presenting facts.

Fairness of tone

If we are going to characterize disputes factually, we should present competing views with a consistently fair and sensitive tone. Many articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting both points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts, an article can still radiate an implied bias through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization — for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section. Write articles with the tone that all positions presented are at least plausible (keeping in mind the qualification about extreme tiny minority views). The presentation of all significant, competing views should be done unemotionally. Write with the attitude that such-and-such is a certian way, but, in the view of some detractors, the supporters of said view overlooked such-and-such a detail.

Characterizing opinions of people's work

PESWiki articles about art, artists, and other creative topics (e.g., musicians, actors, books, etc.) that lean toward the effusive is out of place in an fact based resource. It is important to describe how some artist or some work has been received by the general public or by prominent "experts". Providing an overview of the common interpretations of a creative work, preferably with citations or references to notable individuals holding that interpretation, is appropriate. Note that determining how some artist or work has been received publicly or critically might require research — but once determined, a clear statement of that reception (unlike an idiosyncratic opinion by a PESWiki article writer) is an opinion that really matters.

Let the facts speak for themselves

A simple piece of advice in the context of various articles is, "You won't even 'need' to say something is evil. That is why the article on Big Oil will not start with "The 'oil conglomerates' are evil and bad institutions' — we don't need to, thier deeds convict them a thousand times over. Just list the facts of the free energy suppression dispassionately, and the technology will arise afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary". Please do the same on other articles and cite your sources. Readers will probably not take kindly to moralising. If you do not allow the facts to speak for themselves, reader can be alienate and may turn them against a position.

Attributing and substantiating statements

Sometimes, a statement can be reframed into an factual POV statement by attributing or substantiating it. When encuntering an expression of opinion, a way to make it suitable for PESWiki is to change it into a statement about someone whose opinion it is. As those statements are correct and can be verified they are acceptable. The goal here is to attribute opinions to some subject-matter "expert", rather than to merely state it as only true or being the "truth". A different approach is to substantiate the statement, by giving factual details that back it up. Instead of using the vague words, this statement spells out a particular way in which is covered. Sometime a solution is found in rephrasing biased or opinionated statements with qualifying and quantifying words: "Many people think ...". Statements of this form are subject to obvious attacks, though. By attributing the claim to a known set, or substantiating the facts behind it, you can avoid problems.

Rationale

PESWiki is a general resource, composed of free energy knowledge at various levels of generality. But human beings disagree about specific cases; for any topic on which there are competing views, each view represents a different idea andis composed of a different set of facts that dictate what the truth is, and insofar as that view contradicts other views, its adherents believe that the other views are false and therefore not knowledge. Where there is disagreement about what is the "truth", there is disagreement about what constitutes knowledge. PESWiki works because it is a collaborative effort; but, while collaborating, how can we solve the problem of endless "edit wars" in which one person asserts that x, whereupon the next person changes the text so that it asserts not-x?

A solution is that we accept, for the purposes of working on PESWiki, that "free energy knowledge" includes all different significant theories and technologies. We are committed to the goal of representing free energy knowledge in that sense, surely a well-established meaning of the word "knowledge". What is "known" changes constantly with the passage of time, and so when we use the word "know," we often enclose it in so-called scare quotes. Europeans in the Middle Ages "knew" that we were the center of the universe; we now "know" otherwise. To avoid endless edit wars, present each of the views factually and not assert any one of them as correct. To write from a factual point of view, one presents controversial views without asserting them; to do that, it generally suffices to present competing views in a way that is more or less acceptable to their adherents, and also to attribute the views to their adherents. Disputes are characterized in PESWiki; they are not re-enacted.

To sum up the primary reason for this policy: PESWiki is an resource of data and facts, a compilation of free energy knowledge. But because PESWiki is a community-built, international resource, we cannot expect collaborators to agree in all cases, or even in many cases, on what constitutes knowledge in a strict sense. We can therefore adopt the looser sense of "free energy knowledge" according to which a wide variety of conflicting theories constitute what we call "knowledge." We should, both individually and collectively, make an effort to present these conflicts fairly and factually.

There is another reason to commit ourselves to this policy, that when it is clear to readers that we do not expect them to adopt any particular opinion, this leaves them free to make up their minds for themselves, thus encouraging intellectual independence. Dogmatic institutions and totalitarian regimes everywhere might find reason to oppose PESWiki, if we succeed in adhering to the data and facts: the presentation of many competing theories on a wide variety of subjects suggests that we, the editors of PESWiki, trust readers to form their own opinions. Texts that present multiple viewpoints factually, without demanding that the reader accept any particular one of them, are liberating. Facts and data subverts dogmatism. Nearly everyone working on PESWiki can agree this is a good thing.

Common objections and clarifications

See PESWiki:Point of view/FAQ for answers and clarifications on the issues raised in this section

Common objections or concerns raised by newcomers to PESWiki's point of view policy include the following.

Balancing different views

• Giving "equal validity"
  I find the optimism about "real science" vs. "dogmatic science" to be baseless. History has shown that dogmatic science can beat out facts, as those who rely on dogmatic science use lies, slander, innuendo and numerical majorities of followers to force their views on anyone they can. If this project gives equal validity, the result is that it will (inadvertently) legitimize and help promote that which only can be termed "incorrect".
• Morally offensive views
  What about views that are morally offensive to most Westerners that some people actually hold?
• Protoscience
  How are we to write articles about protoscientific topics, about which majority scientific opinion is that the protoscientific opinion is not credible and doesn't even really deserve serious mention?

Editorship disputes

• Dealing with dogmatic contributors
  I agree with the fact-based policy but there are some here who seem completely, irremediably dogmatic. I have to go around and clean up after them. What do I do?
• Avoiding constant disputes
  How can we avoid constant and endless warfare over neutrality issues?

Other

• Other objections
  I have some other objection - where should I complain?

Other resources

• POV tutorial
• Category:Articles which may be nonfactual
• Understand Bias
• List of controversial issues
• Words to include
• PESWiki:Positive tone
• Guidelines for controversial articles
• Subject-object problem
• Consensus reality
• PESWiki:Avoid weasel words
• {{POV}} - message used to warn of problems
• {{POV-section}} - tags only a single section as disputed
• {{POV check}} - message used to mark articles.
• {{POV-title}} - when the article's title is questionable
• {{POV-statement}} - when only one sentence is questionable
• {{noncompliant}} - When the article as a whole fails to abide by the content policies of PESWiki
• One-sided argument
• PESWiki:Criticism
• PESWiki Facts Project
• POV Disputes