Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view

idea: if roughly more than 20% of serious, credentialed academic authors in a field hold a minority view, that view should be attributed, not be omitted or overly minimized

I think Wikipedia has been possibly overzealous with excluding or overly minimizing some views on the basis of FRINGE. I'm coming out of a discussion about for example, should articles on ancient religious figures present a dominant view of the history and archeology to the exclusion of other perspectives that are less popular in current academia, or about the extent that environmental determinism in population genetics studies of intelligence is a closed book consensus. Both pretty controversial areas with plenty of open issues that Wikipedia tends to gloss over to present the majority as the consensus view of academia, despite minority views in RS that aren't obviously pseudoscientific or misinfo, but aren't accepted by most, but not all, but not 99% either. More like 80%. WP:RS/AC demands an explicit academic consensus and it should already require other RS, not simply an editor's opinion, to exclude a minority POV. But what about a rough rule of thumb to put a little bit of an impetus on editors to remember how to write for the opponent and address some of the criticism that NPOV has become weak as the consensus side has stopped throwing a bone to the loyal opposition. To my mind 20 vs 1% is a meaningful distinction. Though I could see 30% or 1/3 also working. Andre🚐 00:53, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Setting a numerical threshold is a recipe for long arguments over exactly who should be counted and on which sides they should be counted. I don't see how this solves any problems. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks(?) for reminding me that I should check in on Talk:Cass Review again, where we have editors persistently saying things about "the whole world" when talking about sources applicable to mostly WEIRD countries where less than 20% of the world's population live. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:16, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree with other editors that numerical thresholds are prone to bad applications and gaming. For better or for worse, Wikipedia needs people to intelligently evaluate and discuss an issue case-by-case. But I agree with the principle that if something is repeatedly picked up in multiple reliable sources, it should be covered. If it's a more controversial claim that is covered in multiple situational or dubious sources, then it should be covered from the careful lens of the most reliable sources with a reputation for fact checking and accuracy (or not covered at all). Shooterwalker (talk) 17:02, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Concur that numerical thresholds are suboptimal. But suggest that a viewpoint which is supported by 20% of "serious, credentialed academic authors" in a relevant field, clearly meets the non-numerical thresholds as described at WP:DUE and WP:BALASP. Rotary Engine ^talk 02:23, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I was trying to think of a way to explain this idea without using an actual number. Basically I want to remind editors to explain the diversity of views on controversial topics rather than selecting which one is the majority view and minimizing other views. There is a difference between a fringe view, like aliens or never went to the moon hoax POVs, and a minority view: either an older view, a newer revisionist view, or just the main opposition camp. In some cases this is about the traditionalists versus the modernists, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes there are just different views. Wikipedia tends to favor modernism. For almost any controversial topic there is an evolution of views, in some cases a very recent one. So editors should be reminded to look for opposing viewpoints and explain the landscape. In some cases like climate change, yeah, almost no climate scientist disputes that there is anthropogenetic climate change. But that is an unusually clear-cut case. Andre🚐 03:23, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

In the case of views changing over time, then it should be possible to just say that views changed over time. Modernism (in the sense of art), for example, appears to have been preceded by Renaissance art and 18th-century art, and it appears to have been followed by contemporary art and post-modern art. That's not exactly "opposing viewpoints".

One of the more difficult areas is when scholarly views are X, but the subject isn't inherently (or entirely) scholarly. Freud would have been considered a "serious, credentialed academic author", but that doesn't automatically mean that a psychotherapy patient's perception of his situation is always wrong if it differs from Freud's.

In particular, one doesn't want to protect "serious, credentialed academic authors" from criticism. It's December, so it's time for complaints at Talk:Santa Claus. The experts say children aren't harmed by parents telling stories about Santa Claus, but individuals say they were harmed. Who's right? Parents say that children will be harmed by the Wikipedia article, but experts say they won't be. Who's right? The answer to that question probably depends on whether you think an evening of unscheduled emotional labor on the parent's part constitutes "harm" or not. The parental POV doesn't have to be supported by "serious, credentialed academic authors" to be real. (I am hoping that the warning I installed at the top of that talk page last week will cut down on the think-of-the-children complaints.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:07, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

I didn't mean modern art versus older art periods or periodizations. Creating a periodization for a movement can itself be part of an art historiography. I meant when there are different scholarly schools of thought. For example, in quantum mechanics, there are Copenhagen, Many Worlds, etc. interpretations. In Historiography of World War II there is an Orthodox view, a Revisionist view, etc. So if we wanted to apply that to art maybe the aesthetic expressivism versus formalism. They aren't so much different schools in terms of later or earlier periods but they have attitudes and perspectives about what things mean or what things are important. I don't think this concept really applies to whether Santa Claus is real or not. I think the parental POV can be safely ignored or relegated. I am referring to scholarly, published, academic, reliable schools of thought. Andre🚐 08:27, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

You are referring to scholarly, published, academic, reliable schools of thought. But:

• Not everything we write about has any scholarly, published, academic, reliable schools of thought. Including only scholarly, published, academic, reliable schools of thought would result in an empty article.
• Some subjects have one or more scholarly, published, academic, reliable schools of thought and also non-scholarly, non-academic but WP:YESPOV-relevant POVs. Including only scholarly, published, academic, reliable schools of thought would result in a biased article.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

OK, I'll buy that and not purely for the sake of argument. There are many schools of thought or notable POVs from other entities such as NGOs, governments, popular non-academic writers, or other things like say, a poet who writes graveside inscriptions, or a local zine, or an influential graffiti artist. But, WP:BESTSOURCES has language that implies for topics which have an academic context they should prefer academic sources, meaning books and journal articles primarily, which I think work out to many or most encyclopedic topics, because academics study most everything under the sun. Including your point, how would you translate that to a broadening or an improvement here? Because we could probably cover both the academic-schools and total-POVs together. Unless that isn't really what you meant. Andre🚐 22:04, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

It's complicated. You do want to say that most people alive today believe in ghosts; you don't want to say that ghosts are real. The subject need not be inherently scholarly for scholarly sources to exist (e.g., academic papers about celebrities).

I've thought for a couple of years that BESTSOURCES needs a complete re-write, but I've not figured out what I think it should say.

Additionally, unless the Gaza genocide dispute has already died down, now's probably not the time for me to be saying that non-scholarly POVs should be included, too, because I made that argument there, too (namely that the existence of non-scholarly POVs should be acknowledged as existing, at the end of the introduction). WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:38, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

On including non-scholarly POVs, I think this is about standards of evidence, like original research versus verifiable reliable sources in the era of 'citizen journalism.' There are already groups who try to use expertise to do geolocation and other aspects of 'open-source reporting,' and some of them have a good enough reputation to be quoted in reliable sources - and the field can be expected to grow in the future. Definitely something good to watch and consider. --Edwin Herdman (talk) 20:53, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I think many Wikipedia readers would be concerned to hear that views with < 20% support are excluded by policy. Outside Wikipedia, "fringe" implies more like 5% support or lower. - Palpable (talk) 22:47, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

It seems that in some cases at present we might even omit 40%. Andre🚐 23:31, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Which is unfortunate, but occasionally real. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:35, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Example? Guy (help! - typo?) 20:31, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Well as I started at the outset, biblical historiography and archeology is one where I'd say the split in the field is probably 50-50 or 60-40 minimalists/traditionalists or maybe a balance that includes in-between, but if you think about the weight of sources and the fact that many biblical archeologists do consider biblical historiography to have value yet aren't religious apologists, and the fact that until recently, minimalism was considered a radical revisionist position, many articles do not explain the change over time or portray the split, or the extent of traditional/maximalism is some primary source stuff as opposed to academic work that simply is from the school of thought that biblical historiography is probably somehow historically useful in certain periods and contexts. Wikipedia has a mixed record on it. Another example could be Modern Monetary Theory. There's a growing minority of adherents yet we consider it a heterodox theory relegated to the footnotes, fringe essentially. Or the view of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. A substantial minority of experts in nutrition science believe the link between dietary cholesterol and saturated fat and heart disease is largely nonexistent. However, the prevailing medical view in 60-80% of MEDRS still believes there is one. Andre🚐 21:59, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

That is the area probably more prone to motivated reasoning than any other. It is dead easy to find scientific shroudies, for example, but there is absolutely no reason to give their beliefs parity with the empirical facts we already have. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:13, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I wasn't proposing parity. I think the articles should portray the extent of the landscape and explain what the splits are in scholarly views, and characterize minority positions, such as those at 20% adherence or 40% adherence, rather than excluding or completely minimizing them. But parity was never mentioned or proposed, and is an obvious non-starter. Andre🚐 22:57, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Looking at WP:FRINGE, I don't see a major problem here. If a theory is "fringe" but there is a good discussion including reliable sources that try to be NPOV and avoid undue weight, then it is likely safe to add at least a brief discussion of it. For example, Hollow Earth refers to a theory that could be called fringe or even extinct, but it has been thoroughly discussed and meets all quality standards. On the other hand, if I had some a Hollow Earth-related theory that wasn't meeting notability or verifiability standards, that would not be admissible to Wikipedia - even if I believe or know something to be true, that alone doesn't make the fact admissible. --Edwin Herdman (talk) 20:41, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

How would you apply that to something like surgeons telling all of their patients not to eat or drink anything beginning at midnight on the day of their surgery (e.g., 8 hours if the surgery is scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m., and 16 hours if it's at 4:00 p.m.)? This is a very common rule, but researchers say that it's wrong. (The real answer depends on multiple factors, including the type of anesthesia, the body parts involved in the surgery, and the person's overall health, but research supports a fasting period as short as three hours for clear liquids.)

Is that approach "fringe" because it's non-evidence-based, or "mainstream" because it's very common? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I think reliable sources can do the heavy lifting here. I think you probably can find reliable sources describing that as a 'mainstream' practice, but if you find reliable sources calling it a 'fringe' view I would say that is noteworthy. While I have my own view on what the allusion of 'the fringe' implies, I have no problem with following the lead of reliable sources when a term is used, especially in a specialist context with a specialized vocabulary. If it's not clear enough what is meant, that would be a reasonable grounds for further discussion and research. Of course, if reliable sources avoid terms like 'fringe' or even 'mainstream,' we may do well to follow their example. Sometimes 'fringe' sounds hostile or dismissive, after all, and a reliable source may well avoid that on purpose. --Edwin Herdman (talk) 01:03, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

I think you're right that some reliable sources avoid 'fringe'-type language. For example, skeptic.com has 32 ghits for "fringe", and Science-Based Medicine has almost a thousand, but a typical medical textbook has zero. PubMed has just three for "fringe theory" out of 39 million records ("fringe" itself appears in more indexed articles about, e.g., fringe projection or Fringe genes, so it's not a good search term there).

For the most part, editors have to make a determination, as we have to know whether WP:FRINGE applies, and we usually have to do this without a source using the word fringe. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

They don't have to use the exact word fringe, but they do have to indicate in aggregate that the perspective is discredited, or something that means something along those lines, wouldn't you say? Andre🚐 04:48, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Returning to your original idea: If we can find reliable sources saying that a particular view is held by x% of the relevant field, then applying UNDUE seems to be trivial, right? So I suspect that the real problem here is what to do when we have to guess about how many adherents a view has - or, alternatively, when sheer headcount isn't really relevant because popularity doesn't determine truth of a fact. But I think that just takes us back to the original replies - it's hard to make those judgments and I think it's valuable to give editors some leeway to make good judgments without being overly rulebound. --Edwin Herdman (talk) 05:26, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

is it trivial? Can you outline what you would find and how to apply UNDUE and what each different case looks like, and how that is guided in the guideline? Or is that a piece of practice that isn't codified? Andre🚐 05:45, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Maybe something like a high-quality survey of relevant experts would work. Imagine an academic paper that said that 96% of computer scientists believe that quantum computing will not be meaningfully commercialized during the current decade, or that 85% of primary care providers regularly recommended chiropractic care as an effective treatment for back pain, or that 98% of economists thought the economy was in a recession in 2008, or that 92% of school administrators said that students are less prepared for university-level math than they were in 2010. That would make those POVs be "mainstream" and the opposite probably be FRINGE.

It's harder if you have sources that say "One group...but another group..." or "Most say X, but some say not-X". That might represent two equally mainstream POVs or one mainstream and one FRINGE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

"Fringe" is not necessarily the opposite of mainstream - I think mainstream to not-mainstream is like a one axis of a plot, and dogmatic to fringe is another. YMMV of course.

On UNDUE: I agree my 'trivial' isn't the whole picture. My example considers polling sources, which can cause bad bias. But bias can also mean practicing values, and Wikipedia has some discriminating values. I believe verifiability is not merely a matter of counting sources. Wikipedia does not conduct original research, but we do try to make value judgements based on quality criteria - if necessary, separating popularity from scientific verifiability (falsifiability if you insist on being Popperian).

For a scientific topic, we might find the majority of reliable sources cover a non-scientific discourse. I wouldn't begin the article with a summary of non-scientific discourse and the most prominent advocates or theories in that sphere. "Verifiability" can mean judging what was actually said, but it can also mean guessing whether something is likely to be true. Of course, some topics generally considered non-scientific have their own articles despite being considered falsified by the majority of the scientific community, but commentary and interwiki links are often handy to take you from crop circles or demonology to relevant scientific principles. That is not hostile to believing that the scientific consensus may be inaccurate; it's hostile to the notion that scientific process could be considered generally irrelevant to a topic.

If I could have some more relevant examples of a controversial topic where the system has failed, I could try and see if my rant applies there. --Edwin Herdman (talk) 21:23, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

If you want an example of an unresolvable dispute, then whether Gaza genocide should have a different name (e.g., Gaza genocide allegations) is an obvious one.

My scale runs from "mainstream" to "legitimate minority" to "fringe". The opposite of dogmatic is undoctrinaire or open-minded. People who hold fringe positions are often dogmatic; that is, they are absolutely certain that their view is correct and that the rest of the world is wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

So our coverage should depend on how many scientists dark money can buy? Guy (help! - typo?) 19:27, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I mean what about the Monsanto ghostwriting? Does that give some pause? Andre🚐 00:39, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Are "academic authors" even "reliable sources" for opinions, or just "one source of opinion"? I think the assumption here is that those authors are expressing their own opinion, and your 20% figure is a way of determining how minority that opinion is by counting academics who hold it. A different kind of academic source might document public opinion via polling, or might be a genuine attempt at (or hopelessly biased rant) describing the various academic opinions held by different parties, factions or groups. These are all different kinds of sources of opinions. An opinion held by an academic might be more valuable because of their expertise in the field they are talking about (if they are talking about their field and not off topic), but might also be weakened if their academic career is dependent on promoting some point of view and rubbishing another.

Consider the raising of flags on lampposts in the UK as documented in Operation Raise the Colours. This is a significant cultural event and shift: in the UK, we don't normally fly flags outside of major sporting events or royal celebrations, and even then, not on this scale on public infrastructure. It is recent, so there's no long-term view of 2025. All the sources are newspapers, not academic journals. So how do we weigh opinion that this is "fill[ing] the skyline with unity and patriotism" or "the far right marking territory"? Does it even make sense to gauge academic consensus/split on this? Who even cares what academics personally think on the matter, when perhaps for such a cultural shift, it is more important what the public think? Or important to document what those doing the flag raising (or flag removal) think, or say they think. Other countries might regard their own flag flying on lampposts quite differently, so it isn't like there is a universal view on flag flying.

Assuming editors found articles in academic journals, if the political views of those few such journals aligned with one side alone, we'd have a bias that doesn't perhaps reflect a wider scope of opinions. There is a danger, which I have seen on some topics, that editors push "academic opinion" as though that is "fact" from a "reliable source". But for opinions, the reliability is just that they reliably document what Professor Smith personally thinks. And Professor Smith's opinion piece might have a tiny readership in an obscure journal, vs an editorial in a major newspaper.

On the other hand, academic opinion on the merits of vaccination seems very appropriate to me, as it is likely to be based on evidence based medicine and/or on well researched ideas about how to present public health information and persuade populations to make sensible medical choices while dealing with the consequences of occasional ill effects. Do we have a feeling which topics "academic opinion" is more valuable or where it is "just the opinion of some random person in some random university published in a journal few read but is indexed by a search engine"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin (talk • contribs) 10:10, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

The views of people who have academic training in a relevant field are going to be more important than some random person. The important part is 'in a relevant field'. The opinion of an academic in political science who has published major, well respected, works on the political life of the UK would be more relevant than some vox pop. The flag craze is current, but in twenty years if academic works have been written about the current situation then those won't be just opinion and should be given more weight than current news reporting or opinion polls. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:49, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I wonder whether we're using "academic" to mean different things. "Professional in the relevant field", perhaps? That would include medical and legal experts, which I think we intend to include, but it might reach down into the trades. If the question is whether professionals believe that duct tape is useful for sealing ducts, you don't need an ivory tower-type academic; a plumber's trade association or a building codes expert could give you the right answer (i.e., they prefer HVAC-specific foil tape over duct tape). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Makes me think of the wording at SPS, maybe "expert in the relevant field" is better wording. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:05, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Then we can fight over "the relevant field". Is Hilary Cass, a pediatrician, in "the relevant field" for pediatric gender care, or should we prefer someone who specializes in gender care, albeit for adults? At Gaza genocide, is the view of a lawyer specializing in war crimes in "the relevant field", or should we prefer someone who studies sociological aspects of genocide? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Editors will argue other the wording of any policy, but at least that would be other whether the specific person was an expert in a relevant field and not dismissive of the entire concept. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:26, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

We aren't comparing to "some random person" or to a "vox pop" (is that even a thing any more?), but to other people who get their work published in reliable sources. At this point in time, the flag raising issue is "current affairs" so arguably a newspaper journalist, who gets off their backside and interviews people on both sides, is probably the best source. An opinion columnist who doesn't bother interviewing and just gets paid to bloviate rather than do journalism, probably isn't "important" unless their offensive comments in turn become newsworthy. An editorial in a widely read newspaper may be "important" because it is widely read. Some academic, who publishes an opinion piece in a so called academic journal? That could well be quite deeply unimportant. Plenty journals dabble in "news" and "opinion" among their more scholarly work. The idea that all articles in a "peer reviewed academic journal" are equal, or even peer reviewed, is a major source of confusion among some editors. The readership may be tiny. The opinion merely chosen to align with journal ethos. It really depends if that academic is basing their piece on their expertise, or their hard graft, or just sitting on the sofa knocking out some rant that happens to appear in an academic journal. I've read opinion pieces in journals that are lazy unfocused nonsense and I've read proper journalism in newspapers that are balanced thoughtful works.

The opposite of a "vox pop" is a serious opinion poll by a reliable organisation. These can determine, with caveats, general public opinion, which in the end is actually what matters wrt flag raising. If, for the sake of argument, the UK population reclaims their flags from racists, and really does fly them out of unity with anyone who happens to make the UK their home, regardless of colour or the origins of their parents, then we'd view the raising of them in public spaces quite differently. That will be determined by the population as a whole, and to some degree by the influence of politicians and journalists and other media figures. I can say quite categorically it won't be determined by the opinion of academics writing in journals. Deeply unimportant other than to other academics. Whereas, I hope, policy on childhood immunisation is influenced by academics writing in journals, and much much less on popular opinion. At the moment, our P&G seems to weigh both academic opinions the same, and I don't think that's right.

Where I agree is that in three years time, it would be better if our article on flag raising was sourced to something putting it in cultural perspective, rather than of the moment. And that might be a journal or a book. -- Colin°^Talk 08:53, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

I would much rather use a non-UK academic on the meaning of such a change than the people involved in it. What the subject of an article thinks about themselves is far less important than the writings of an external observer. Yes that academic won't determine the outcome of the change, but Wikipedia documents the output rather than effecting the change itself. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:23, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

I think you've got things upside down. That external observer, if their writing is of any value whatsoever, has to be documenting what "the subject [the UK population] thinks about themselves [the flag raisers and those who have to put up with flags in their streets]". Anyone attempting to record "the meaning of such a change" based on their own foreign opinions about flag flying is deeply deeply irrelevant. Remember this topic is about academic opinions and when their are minority or important. I think this is an example of where personal academic opinion is entirely irrelevant. Cultural values and beliefs (e.g. that flying flags in the street is a symbol of unity for all vs is a symbol of racist and anti-immigrant sentiment) is not something that is ever ever determined by academics or scientists. Whereas the utility of antibiotics or the merits of randomised control trials are. So polling academic opinion, as proposed here, is misguided, for some topics, imo. -- Colin°^Talk 09:16, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Here's an example. If a US academic wrote "Seeing the the Stars and Strips flying in the street fills me with pride and unites our nation. The sooner the Brits get over their hang-ups wrt misappropriation of their flag by racists, the better. The flag flying I saw when I visited the UK in summer 2025 is a wonderful symbol of national unity". Assuming this comment wasn't widely discussed of itself, and appeared in some US academic political journal, what weight would this be given to support the idea that flag flying in the UK is a symbol of national unity? Seems far more appropriate as an example some other secondary source could use to document how the US and the UK are very different culturally and don't understand each other. -- Colin°^Talk 09:53, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I think that this ignores the fact that many academic topics are opinion-based. And that many academics do write about social topics that are less clear-cut than the utility of antibiotics. Academics can weigh in on their opinion of the merits of a historical periodization, or the meaning or importance of something, or whether they believe this event in history is inevitable, or what-have-you. There are many topics where there isn't a right or wrong answer just a different school of thought that does ultimately come down to a professional opinion, and a qualified academic opinion is given more weight than a lay person or a popular commentator. These POVs don't strictly need to be external or neutral to be notable. Andre🚐 18:55, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

When there are different schools of thought, what we expect from a reliable source is something that says "According to this model, flying flags represents..." or "Semi-structured interviews showed that..." We're not really looking to them for opinions in the common meaning of the word. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

The right term for them is POVs, but opinion means kind of the same thing, but we don't mean a value judgment like X is cool or my favorite color is green. But, there are implicit value judgments in academic work. Read papers in historiography, sociology, anthropology, and so on. They are different from works in genetics or biochem or pharmacology. For example, take "The debate over the role of lachrymosity in Jewish history" Salo Baron's, the preeminent diaspora Jewish historian of the 20th century, anti-lachrymose view became very influential and started what David Engel has termed a "neo-Baronian school." Engel and Adam Teller have challenged the view and added nuance or argued that it is overapplied. These things sometimes ebb and flow like the tides over time. There may be a long-term tendency but for stuff that is ultimately a judgment call: how best to frame and interpret historical narratives? Do we want a framework A or B? People do not always say "according to this model." Sometimes the model is just what anchors the analysis and it falls to others to decide which camp they fall into. Our job in determining weight of sources should in part involve sorting and clustering them to ensure that all notable camps are reasonably represented somehow. Andre🚐 01:02, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Antibiotic use (and over use, and routine use in farm animals) is controversial and opinionated, not just a "they're a good thing because science" issue. I know there are many fields that are essentially a bunch of opinions, not a hard fact in sight, and various schools of thought. What I'm trying to see if we can separate, is that there are some areas, and I think cultural values and some ethical questions and some beliefs are among them, where the personal opinions of academics are deeply unimportant, but are falsely elevated as such by our P&G.

Let me try an example I hope looks ridiculous. A lot of people are vegetarian. "I should not eat meat" is a personal opinion. It might extend further to "Nobody should eat meat". Many hold this view for religious reasons and many for ethical ones. I'm sure there is scholarly analysis of this and we would cite that. The most reasonable position is to accept this is one area where we all agree to disagree, and it very unlikely one view will prevail. We aren't all going to become vegetarian any more than we are all going to become Anglicans.

What I wouldn't expect is Wikipedia to determine the weight it gives to vegetarian issues based on what proportion of scholars are themselves vegetarian. Would we really do some count of authors in academic journals to determine if 20% are vegetarian? Or even would you expect some editor to push our articles to include attributed pro-vegetarian opinions because "This is a highly reliable academic source, which Wikipedia considers the best". Maybe the vegetarian academic is writing in the British Medical Journal and we'd have an editor say they have a MEDRS source that demands we included a pro-vegetarian opinion in our article on breast cancer. I hope that sounds ridiculous, but I'm afraid that is what I've seen on culture-war and controversial ethical issues. That editors demand an opinion is pushed (often as the only correct one) because they found a journal article by an academic who believes a certain thing they agree with. Elsewhere we might go "Don't be ridiculous, that's just someone's opinion, and being an academic doesn't make their vegetarianism any more reasonably held or importantly repeatable on wiki than being a lorry driver". -- Colin°^Talk 08:59, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

And what if only 10% of the scholars are vegetarian? Would we never mention the subject (except in a dedicated article)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Am I understanding that the argument generally is that we should not consider the moral opinions of academics with more weight than the moral opinions of non-academics? In essence that academics are not more morally authoritative than non-academics? --Kyohyi (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Maybe, but what if the article's subject is a moral one? Maybe a moral philosopher actually is more authoritative on a moral subject like Legal ethics or Human cloning than a non-academic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Aren't they? If you are an ethical expert or someone who writes books about morality or gives speeches about it, doesn't that make your opinion more notable and encyclopedic than a lay person? Andre🚐 18:21, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

And if broader society does not follow the philosophers moral framework? From a descriptive point, yes the moral philosopher is authoritative on describing their moral philosophy. But the contention becomes more is this moral framework actual societal knowledge or not? --Kyohyi (talk) 18:32, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Going back to the vegetarian thing. Being a vegetarian isn't itself a school of thought. But there are ethical vegetarian philosophers who attempt to justify or explain vegetarianism. It's more than being a vegetarian but taking a side in the debate on its merits. For example, the influential philosopher John Rawls largely excludes animals so you might think he isn't that relevant to the vegetarian debate. However, that doesn't stop articles like or referencing things like "Rawlsian-influenced ethical vegetarianism espoused by Mark Rowlands." This is clearly academics in an area having an informed debate and not just a survey of people's dietary habits. Andre🚐 18:46, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

A philosopher is a special case of an academic who's focus of study is opinions themselves, on ways of forming or thinking about such opinions. So that's a bit meta. And I'm not trying to exclude academics who do a good job of explaining the opinion topic and why people hold opinions or listing the merits of sides. I'm concerned with the academic's own opinion. I don't think this is solely about morals or ethics even though those could be examples where a population develops a collective opinion. Flag flying isn't really something with a universal answer that would be discovered if you followed some philosophical framework.

There was a time when most of the population in my country went to church. Now, most don't. Some countries differ from that and still have high attendance. Academic's personal opinions on whether they themselves should attend church are utterly irrelevant. Church attendance as a "thing to do on a Sunday" is entirely dependent on cultural group opinion. The most an academic really can do sensibly is observe and record. Their own view on the matter isn't important. And there must really be no end to a list of such topics for which the degree of adherence to that idea is determined by a population, not some elite group of thinkers. -- Colin°^Talk 19:26, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

But there are academics who study that: why do people adopt religion or irreligion, push and pull factors, how migrations influence religious beliefs, how media consumption influences attitudes in society. For example, Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge's Religious Market Theory, Stig Hjarvard (da; fo)'s Mediatization of Religion, Peggy Levitt's concept of Social Remittances, Peter L. Berger's Desecularization or Post-Secular theory. Andre🚐 21:15, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if we're talking about different ways to "hold a view".

We don't want to say that 20% of people think churchgoing important enough to do it regularly, but only 10% of academics, and therefore churchgoing is a minority POV among academics and shouldn't be included in relevant articles.

We might want to say that church attendance has declined in Europe compared to a century ago and that academics have differing views about the cause: e.g., x% think it is due to economic changes, y% think it is due to urbanization, z% think it due to the rise of the dual-income family, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

WP:SUSTAINED and due weight

Whether WP:SUSTAINED coverage exists is frequently used as a measure of the amount of weight something is WP:DUE; however, strictly speaking, WP:SUSTAINED is a notability criteria - it does not apply within articles. (I actually only just realized this myself, immediately after citing it in another context.) That said, I think that it is a useful criteria in many contexts, and that we should formalize this (and perhaps redirect WP:SUSTAINED to a more general essay or page that covers its usage outside of just the context of deletion discussions.) Obviously it cannot be a universal red-line criteria; sometimes, when we have to cover something recent, sustained coverage cannot exist, and even in other cases, other sources of weight might apply. But I think it's reasonable to say "this is a flash in the pan relative to the total amount of coverage the topic has received, and, absent some other argument, the weight due to it is therefore low." And people normally use WP:SUSTAINED as the wikilink when making that argument, which suggests to me that it should point somewhere broader than just the notability criteria. More generally, I should say - it is hard to find objective measures of due weight, short of measuring every possible available source (which is not always feasible with high-profile topics.) While it has to be weighed against other factors, I feel that the durability of coverage is a good criteria because it is trivial to determine it at a glance ("all these sources are from the same two weeks, this seems undue") and trivial to rebut when it doesn't apply ("nope here's some serious coverage over the next few months.") --Aquillion (talk) 21:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I have long felt that DUE needs some type of temporal element, in that far more weight should be given to sources written long after events in question, compared to those written simultaneously or in the very short term, particularly for anything that involves subjective evaluation and is based on a contentious topic. Writers are human, and easily can write material sways by emotions and feelings, very often inadvertently or unintentionally, and may not be writing with the full picture in view, so we should be very wary of trying to do balance of opinions under DUE based on the short-term coverage. This would include the burst of coverage that happens at an onset of a major event (its why reaction sections in most event articles are useless) But the long-term opinions, far after an event where writers have access to the full picture, and are less likely to be driven by emotion, are in a far better place to be able to assess, and basing what is DUE on those viewpoints is far better for an encyclopedia. This doesn't mean the short term opinions should be ignored, but they should not be considered when making a DUE assessment of what viewpoints to present and other NPOV aspect. Masem (t) 13:11, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• After thinking about this a bit, I realized the issue may be broader than just SUSTAINED, and wrote an essay, WP:DUENOTABILITY, that is partially intended as a critique of WP:NNC as it stands today. --Aquillion (talk) 17:29, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

  I've made some copyedits, which you should feel free to accept or revert as you prefer. I submit this as evidence that I read every word of your new essay. ;-) I have the following thoughts:

  • Rejecting someone's view merely because they used the wrong WP:UPPERCASE in an informal discussion (including, e.g., RFCs), even though you can readily glork their meaning from context, is not a helpful, supportive, collaborative, community-building behavior.
  • But: Some editors (especially newbies, English language learners, people with social communication disorders, people with rigid thinking styles, pedants [me]) will sometimes find the "wrong" UPPERCASE confusing or irritating.
  • Therefore, I believe that the policies, guidelines, help pages, etc. should be written to use the 'correct' words, and even in some cases to avoid even alluding to a well-known UPPERCASE (e.g., this policy should never use the word notable for any reason other than a reference to Wikipedia:Notability, and instead should use a word like importance).
  • To facilitate my goal of making our written ruleset not confuse editors, it may be helpful sometimes, especially in discussions about changing policies and guidelines, to post clarifying comments or to push back against casual not-exactly-right use of UPPERCASE. For example, "I think you mean that it's important, and not that it's notable in the WP:N sense, right?" or "Not WP:SUSTAINED in the context of WP:N, but the same idea applies here".

  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § Introducing the Revise Tone Structured Task

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § Introducing the Revise Tone Structured Task. Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 21:59, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

RfC: When is it due to mention that an article subject has a minor planet named after it?

When is it due to mention that an article subject has a minor planet named after it?

Some options, as well as important additional information, can be found in my initial comment below. Renerpho (talk) 22:47, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Many people, as well as some places, have a minor planet named after them. These names are official, assigned by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). New names are announced regularly in a dedicated scientific journal (the WGSBN Bulletin; or the Minor Planet Circulars before 2021).

Some of those people and places are notable and have their own Wikipedia article. And some of these articles mention that their subjects have a minor planet named after them. For the past decade, the unspoken assumption among many Wikipedia editors seems to have been that the existence of such a minor planet is notable (that is, its addition is due) by default. It neither requires specific coverage in reliable sources beyond the initial announcement of the naming by the IAU, nor a connection between the article subject and astronomy. I myself have for some time operated under the assumption of "notability by default", and have made changes to articles that I had otherwise little or no interest in (example diffs: MS Zaandam; Hofheim, Hesse; and Martha Argerich). Whether this was relevant to the article subject, or consistent with WP:DUE or WP:NPOV, never crossed my mind at the time. I was primarily interested in astronomy, not in the specific subject I was editing. I suspect I am not the only one who did it that way, and I am now wondering if that's a problem.

While there are too many named minor planets (25,713 as of today) to check all their Wikipedia articles, I checked those with minor planet numbers between 10000 and 10150 (see List of minor planets: 10001–11000), to get an idea of the status quo. There are 29 named minor planets in this range whose subject has a Wikipedia article. From my personal experience, this sample is representative of the situation at large. I am noting since when the minor planet is mentioned in the article:

Many years ago, a rule was implemented at Wikipedia:Notability (astronomical objects), that most minor planets themselves are not notable, and should not have a dedicated Wikipedia article, unless they are covered in sources that are both specific and substantial (see #Establishing notability). Being listed in an astronomical database -- the guideline specifically mentions the JPL database -- does not make such an object notable; neither does having a name. This is the only clear guideline, as far as the notability of minor planets is concerned, and it doesn't really help with the present question. (EDIT: Although the question isn't about WP:NOTABILITY, I was hoping to at least find some guidance in those policies. 04:11, 18 November 2025 (UTC))

Most of the article subjects in my survey, like the Scandinavian villages, are fairly obscure. On the other hand, a lot of the more "important" articles from the number range I surveyed do not mention their named minor planet. Examples for this include the physicists Augustin-Jean Fresnel and Matthias de l'Obel, as well as Rudolf Diesel, Erich Maria Remarque, Thucydides, Rembert Dodoens and Paul Gauguin, and the articles about Paraguay, Uruguay, and Palermo. A lot of the articles about astronomers also don't mention them, like James W. Head, Hiram Perkins and Jaymie Matthews. Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle mentions the lunar crater that is named after him, but not the minor planet.

This means that option 5 below ("consider on a case-by-case basis if the mention is due and meets WP:NPOV, based on whether the subject of the article has a connection to science or astronomy") is precisely what we are not doing at the moment. Judging from my survey, the subjects who are thematically related to science or astronomy are exactly those whose articles are the least likely to mention "their" minor planet.

I estimate that about one third of all Wikipedia articles whose subject has a minor planet named after them currently mentions that fact. This rarely entails more than a single sentence, of the form "In 2025, asteroid X has been named in their honor." Sometimes it also includes a quote from the naming citation published by the IAU for every newly named asteroid, and/or some additional detail, like at Matt Parker.

To my knowledge, the assumption that this is notable by default has never received explicit consensus, and the question of when this is due has never been discussed. This has become more acute in recent years, when the number of named minor planets has increased dramatically (that number has doubled since 2005, to over 25,000 today). I believe that further guidance is necessary.

Options:

1. A link to the minor planet's entry in our List of minor planets, like at Digne-les-Bains, is enough. No citation is required.
2. Any reliable source that verifies the name, like the JPL database entry linked at Lärbro, is sufficient.
3. A link to the official naming announcement, like at Sophie (musician), is necessary and sufficient.
4. To establish that a name is notable requires significant news coverage, like the ABC News article cited at Ghillar Michael Anderson.
5. Require a citation (please specify which of the above), but also consider on a case-by-case basis if the mention is due and meets WP:NPOV, based on whether the subject of the article has a connection to science or astronomy.

If you have a better idea, feel free to add it to the list.

Thank you all for your time and consideration. Renerpho (talk) 22:47, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I am notifying the following users: Nrco0e, Kwamikagami, SevenSpheres, Tom.Reding, Urhixidur, Headbomb, Praemonitus, exoplanetaryscience, David Eppstein, Modest Genius. Renerpho (talk) 22:59, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I think that it's usually WP:DUE for people, not usually WP:DUE for places, but generally does not confer notability (noting that being due for inclusion and conferring notability are two completely different things), and can be based on any reliable source that verifies the name. I don't think it's different in this respect from any other natural or significant artificial feature that might be named after a person, like a town, a lake, or a road; we don't need to carve out a separate rule for this. If it's a person so famous that enormous numbers of things are named after them (Euclid) we might separate out this sort of mention into a list of things named after that person and filter that list by how prominent those things are; I don't think we should list all the Euclid Streets, and I would argue for removal of the seven already listed, but we do list two US towns, a creek, and a minor planet, and I think those listings are appropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:14, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Can you think of an example of what would make it WP:DUE for a place? News coverage? Renerpho (talk) 23:18, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on that issue. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:38, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I think at the very least it's good policy to cite something which explains the naming citation. JPL does not do this with early-named asteroids, but does for more recently named ones, so if nothing else we shouldn't cite just JPL for a name if the website provides no clarification if this is what the name is *actually* from, or just a different person/thing/place with the same name by coincidence. Beyond this, as an inclusivist I think this is a non-trivial thing to add to someone if you would add other awards and recognitions they've gotten in an article (which I think is a given for most people), so I would be personally in support of broadly allowing it to be added, but I think it's more of a matter of your broad opinions on the best level of inclusivism of particular details than any particular citeable policy. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 03:30, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I think (5) is irrelevant: a connection to science or astronomy does not make the naming notable, and lack of such a connection does not make it unnotable. Personally, I think Mr Rogers having an asteroid named after him is of more interest than Mike Brown having one. Brown discovered important TNOs that his name is now attached to as their discoverer, so who really cares about an asteroid with his name? But an asteroid permanently commemorating Mr Rogers somehow feels like a bigger deal. It will probably be of more interest to a reader of the article. So IMO the less connection to science or astronomy, the more notable it would seem to be. — kwami (talk) 04:41, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I never considered that these might be "negatively correlated"! Thanks for the new perspective. Regarding your examples: If anyone is interested, these are minor planets (11714) Mikebrown and (26858) Misterrogers. The latter is listed at Fred Rogers#Awards and honors, while Michael E. Brown#Honors, awards and accolades mentions the former. Renerpho (talk) 06:32, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I would expect a secondary source to make this assessment. Just because a minor planet has a name similar to a person doesn't necessarily mean it was *that* person it was named for, and unless there's an explanation, it becomes OR to make that jump. And even if that's briefly explaining in the registry, that so many people have planets named after them approches the level of trivia, so demonstrating that this bit of information is mroe than trivia is best shown through secondary sources. so this would be option 4 on the list above. Masem (t) 05:07, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

This reads like you haven't actually looked at the minor planet database entries like , which say things like "Named for the Greek mathematician Euclid, who lived in Alexandria about 300 B.C." There is usually no OR in identifying the subject the minor planet was named after, and more strongly, it is often the case that the minor planet listing gives a brief biography about the subject that for modern namesakes lists information that might be difficult to find otherwise. (In one case I remember finding the subject's high school that way, although once I had that name at hand I could then find other sources.)

It would seem strange indeed to link to these sources for other information but then somehow deliberately omit the main purpose of the source, the connection to the minor planet the subject was named for. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:44, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

it is often the case that the minor planet listing gives a brief biography about the subject that for modern namesakes lists information that might be difficult to find otherwise -- A concrete example: the source for the birth year of Lucie Green is the naming citation for minor planet (180932) Luciegreen. Renerpho (talk) 06:15, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Option 3 seems sufficient to me, but I don't have strong feelings about this - I'm commenting only because I was pinged. I see naming an asteroid after someone/something as equivalent to awarding them a minor prize or honour. In the latter cases, a reference to the official announcement is enough to include in e.g. a biographical article, without requiring more widespread media coverage. So by analogy, option 3 is enough for me. Modest Genius ^talk 11:50, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

• Option 3 is sufficient for verification, but whether a piece of trivia should be included should be based on secondary sources. Option 1 is insufficient, Wikipedia is not a reliable source and per the last sentence of WP:UGC "In particular, a wikilink is not a reliable source." I don't see why option 5 is relevant, if independent sources make the connection then whether they have a connection to science or astronomy is irrelevant. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:56, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
• (invited by the bot) First keep in mind that the use of the term "notable" above is using it in it's real world meaning, not the wikipedia meaning, which is very different. IMO there should be no categorical rule regarding this. But just having a minor-planet so named (by that society) is near-meaningless and not informative and best left out unless the reason for the naming is given and useful info for the article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:26, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
• Wikipedia is based on Option 2 and should always emphasize Option 2. But I believe that minimal amounts of primary sourced information are acceptable, making Option 3 fine if it doesn't become WP:UNDUE. When you get into Option 3, there is always going to be some editorial discussion and discretion about what's too much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shooterwalker (talk • contribs) 18:31, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
• Option 6. This surely has to be evaluated on a case by case basis, regardless of the subject's connection to science or astronomy. If many sources discuss in detail someone having a minor planet (or other things like species) named after them, it's due to include. If one source out of hundreds mentions it as a footnote, it's probably not due to include. I'm not sure it makes sense to have policy-level guidance for this - feels like instruction creep. Anne drew (talk · contribs) 19:30, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
• Option 6 See WP:NOTEWORTHY: "The notability guideline does not apply to the contents of articles...Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight, balance, and other content policies." There is nothing inherently noteworthy about having a minor planet named after someone. It's like someone owning dogs. The article about Elizabeth II mentions her dogs because they were signficant to her public image. That doesn't mean that every biography should mention someone's pets. TFD (talk) 04:08, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
• Option 6 Case by case for inclusion in the article. Option 3 would be sufficient for verification, but verification is necessary, but not sufficient, for inclusion. Rotary Engine ^talk 02:30, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

• Comment As the user who initiated this RfC, I'd like to say a few words: Firstly, I'd like to apologize for my confusing usage of the word "notable". Secondly, while the RfC is still running, I'd like to thank those of you who have commented, and those who might still add further comments below. It has been very interesting. At this time, some of my main takeaways are these:

1. There is probably no consensus for a categorical rule, or a change to the existing guidelines.

2. There is a wide range of interpretations of the existing guidelines, as it comes to minor planet names. Some see them as equivalent to prizes and honours, and consider their inclusion generally WP:DUE for people; others have compared them to potentially meaningless trivia, like someone's pets.

I think point 2 is worth noting. There is no consensus, on or outside of Wikipedia, what having a named minor planet actually means. It can be a significant honour (and I know accomplished people who consider it the biggest honour they have received in their lives); it can also be trivia (I know one or two "name recipients" who do consider it as such). In most cases, we don't know what the recipient themselves think. We can make judgement calls, but the outcome depends on our personal interpretation as editors of whether minor planet names are significant honours, or not.

At least as far as it comes to biographies of people, I personally agree with those who said that inclusion is usually due, and that options 2 or 3 are sufficient. However, I encourage others to be more critical about this, and to challenge cases where this, in their opinion, borders on trivia. I have never seen the inclusion of an asteroid name in an article being challenged, and I think that's a bug, not a feature. The variety of opinions presented shows that this tacit approval may not represent the consensus of the community. Renerpho (talk) 08:29, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

• Option 6, as we're calling it. Renerpho, I think you've got things a bit backwards on DUE. The question isn't "What's the minimum level of sourcing necessary to make this fact DUE?" "Minimum level of sourcing" is a fair concept for verifiability, but not for neutrality. The question for DUE is "What's the whole story with this subject, and of all the things we can verify in various reliable sources, which ones are important enough to mention?" If a person has received many honors or had many things named after them (see Category:Lists of things named after people), then a minor planet might not be DUE to mention. But if it's the only public recognition, or one of very few, then a minor planet might be obviously DUE to mention. In short, knowing the sources for the fact of naming is not enough to determine whether something's due. You have to compare those sources against the sources for other facts that could be added to that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

  Understood. Renerpho (talk) 10:11, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

POV applies to WP:CLOSE?

Should WP:CLOSE follow POV? The wording of POV is a bit strange. It's as if it doesn't apply to wiki procedures but only contents. Which is strange since WP:POV is one of the WP:FIVE.

For example, If I delete an article I don't like it's not a content issue (since it is procedural), but if I delete a sentence in that article it is?

The policy doesn't say anything about WP:Consensus, WP:Deletion, WP:Close, nor anything substantial is said of POV in those respective policy-guidelines. This is especially important regarding WP:Deletion.

Xpander (talk) 06:42, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

If a Wikipedia article exists/is undeleted, then that Wikipedia article, considered in isolation from everything else, is required to be "neutral". That means that the contents of that single article must not mispresent the overall balance of what reliable sources say, must not over-emphasize something unimportant to the sources, must not under-emphasize something that is important to the sources, must not pretend that viewpoints are evenly divided if they are not, must not pretend that one viewpoint is dominant if they are evenly divided, etc. Another way of saying this is that when editors are writing the individual, isolated article, they must not inject their own views and biases into the article; instead, they must behave neutrally towards the content of that individual, isolated article, by fairly representing what the reliable sources say, even if they personally dislike or disagree with what the reliable sources say.

This concept is only applied at the level of the individual article. Wikipedia as a whole does not have to be "neutral". Only the individual, isolated article must be "neutral". For example, Wikipedia has more articles about men than about women. Some people might say this is "biased" and therefore "not neutral". But this policy only looks at the contents of an individual article in isolation. It never cares about whether a different article is biased or whether another article is missing. If we have 10,000 articles about male athletes and just 200 about female athletes, that is a problem – but it is not a violation of this policy.

Similarly, this policy (which is about the contents of individual articles) has nothing to do with procedural fairness. Look elsewhere if you want a rule saying that editors or processes have to be fair. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

To be more precise, shouldn't WP:CLOSE follow WP:NPOV? i.e. shouldn't reading community's consensus be neutral? If I conclude a WP:AfD as delete just because WP:IDONTLIKEIT, (let's say since they are a woman and not a man athlete) then it's not against WP:NPOV?

WP:CLOSE mentions: "Many closures are also based upon Wikipedia policy. As noted above, arguments that contradict policy are discounted."

But WP:CLOSE is not a policy. Xpander (talk) 07:04, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

When someone is summarizing a discussion, that editor should summarize the discussion fairly, without adding their own view about what participants "should" have said. (When they add their own view, we call that a Wikipedia:Supervote.) Supervoting is bad behavior, but it is not a violation of this particular policy, because this particular policy applies only the contents of articles.

Given your AFD-focused examples here and at Wikipedia talk:Consensus#Admins will not decide content issues authoritatively? I assume that an article you wrote or liked has been deleted, and you felt like it should have been kept. In that case, I suggest that you go to Wikipedia:Deletion review and ask for a review, if you hadn't. (One common outcome is that arguments that I thought were strong seem to other editors to be weak ones – so I might say "The admin seems to have ignored Alice's strong argument, and relied on Bob's weak one", and other editors will say "What do you mean? The weak rationale is from Alice, and Bob's argument is stronger!")

More generally, I suggest that you not worry about what's labeled policy vs guideline vs essay. Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays is not usually important (except to editors who are inexperienced or who suffer from overly rigid thinking). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 11 December 2025 (UTC)