Jump to content

Wikipedia:Not Wikipedia's fault

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia operates on a principle that articles should be written from a neutral point of view. In practice, this means giving due weight to all mainstream opinions on a topic, while avoiding giving preference to a particular point of view - or in other words, the article giving an opinion presented as a fact should be avoided. Even in articles about widely condemned events, people, and things, the article will not go out of its way to condemn the subject itself, instead stating the most widely held opinions on it - Wikipedia is a collection of summaries of secondary sources. Thus, even on articles which you as a reader have an opinion on you believe to be inherent and obvious, Wikipedia is not the place for expressing such opinions, and articles that take stances on things that are a matter of opinion are frowned upon, in addition to the use of Wikipedia to push a certain agenda.

In spite of these policies designed to keep Wikipedia encyclopedic, you may find some articles to either be outwardly opinionated or only present views on a certain side of a subject, whether mainstream or fringe. These articles should generally be reworked to give due weight to all mainstream opinions, or, in extreme cases, deleted. However, some articles that appear at first glance to be biased in the latter sense, (that is, they only seem to represent one side of the story) are often not opinionated at all, but are accurately representing all available sources on the subject. In this case, the fact that the subject is portrayed in such an ostensibly biased way is not Wikipedia's fault - we can't help that some governments' relations are stiflingly negative, we can't help that some TV shows are reviewed overwhelmingly positively, and we can't help that some towns are just terrible at mining.