User:Ezlev/Don't act neutral

Neutral point of view (NPOV) is one of Wikipedia's five pillars and three core content policies. It's at the core of our efforts to build an encyclopedia, and people who can't understand it or choose to ignore it don't last very long here. Based on the widespread respect for and use of the NPOV policy in reference to on Wikipedia, it is sometimes argued that we should strive for neutrality in all areas of the wiki – that is, that we should avoid frank discussion of our own opinions and biases. There is no reason why this should be the case. In fact, being aware of and transparent about our own biases is a critical part of ensuring that our actions as editors are neutral and appropriate, and of holding one another accountable when we fail to do that.

NPOV applies to content, not contributors

The NPOV policy explicitly applies to encyclopedic content. That means articles. It doesn't state that contributors to Wikipedia must be neutral, which is a good thing, because if it did then none of us would be allowed to edit and no articles would ever get written. (Our conduct policies don't require editors to be opinionless, either.)

Biases are real even if we don't say them out loud

Just 'cause you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. Every editor on Wikipedia has biases – political ones, implicit ones, et cetera. Wikipedia certainly isn't the place for debate about those things, but does that really mean the best course of action is to act like they don't exist? There's an abyss of difference between

Silence harms the wiki

x

Specific relevant areas

You can win if you run a smart, disciplined campaign, if you studiously say nothing — nothing that causes you trouble, nothing that's a gaffe, nothing that shows you might think the wrong thing, nothing that shows you think. But it just isn't worthy of us, is it, Toby?

Jed Bartlet, from The West Wing's "Manchester" (2001)

Requests for adminship

...yeah

The Signpost

In March 2022, following the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Signpost released a piece from its editorial team, reassuring the community that "The Signpost team stands in solidarity with the communities–those directly affected in Ukraine and all others who work to protect access to free knowledge". An expression to the community that The Signpost recognizes the difficulty of the situation, and its impact on a group of our editors. But the article received pushback from the community for explicitly taking sides in an international conflict, citing NPOV. Somewhere along the way of trying to build an encyclopedia without bias—something we all aspire to—we internalized the idea that editors who expressed a bias against injustice were antithetical to the project as a whole. It doesn't need to be that way.