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Neutral point of view (NPOV) is one of Wikipedia'sfive pillars andthree core content policies. It's at the core of our efforts to build an encyclopedia, and people whocan't understand it orchoose 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.
The NPOV policy explicitly applies to encyclopedic content. That means articles. It doesn't state that contributors to Wikipedia mustbe 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. (Ourconduct policies don't require editors to be opinionless, either.)
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. Wikipediacertainly 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
x
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?
...yeah
In March 2022, following the recentRussian invasion of Ukraine,The Signpost releaseda 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 thatThe 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 weall 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.