 | This is anexplanatory essay about theWhat Wikipedia is not andNeutral point of view pages. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not beenthoroughly vetted by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia is not a venue for raising the visibility of an issue or agenda. Cooperate with other editors to neutrally summarize notable topics using reliable sources without advocating any particular position or giving undue weight to minority views. |
Advocacy is the use of Wikipedia to promote a person's or organization's beliefs or agendas at the expense ofWikipedia's goals andcore content policies, includingverifiability andneutral point of view. Despite the popularity of Wikipedia, it isnot a soapbox to use for editors' activism, recruitment, promotion, advertising, announcements, spreading awareness or other forms of advocacy.
Wikipedia is first and foremost anencyclopedia which aims to create a breadth of high-quality, neutral, verifiable articles and to become a serious, respected reference work. Some editors come to Wikipedia with the goal of raising the visibility or credibility of a specific topic, term or viewpoint leading todisproportionate coverage,false balance andreference spamming. When advocates of specific views prioritize their agendas over the project's goals or factions with different agendasbattle to install their favored content,edit-warring and otherdisruptions ensue.Wikipedia operates through collaboration between editors to achieve the encyclopedia's goals. Differences of opinion about neutrality, reliability, notability, and other issues are properly resolved throughcivil discussion aimed at facilitating aconsensus.
Advocacy is closely related toconflict of interest, but differs in that advocacy is a general term for promotional and agenda-based editing, while conflict of interest primarily describes promotional editing by those with a close personal or financial connection to the subject.
Some editors come to Wikipedia with the goal of raising the visibility or credibility of a specific viewpoint. It may be a hypothesis which they feel has been unduly dismissed or rejected by the scientific community; it may be alternate or revisionist interpretation of a historical event or personage; it may be additions to an article about an organization to portray it in a positive or negative light. The essential problem is that these goals conflict with Wikipedia's mission. Wikipedia isnot a venue toright great wrongs, to promote ideas or beliefs which have been ignored or marginalized in the Real World, or to be an adjunct web presence for an organization. Wikipediacannot give greater prominence to an agenda than experts or reliable sources in the Real World have given it; the failure to understand this fundamental precept is at the root of most problems with advocacy on Wikipedia.
If an editor appears to be advocating for a particular point of view, this can be brought to their attention with reference to theneutral point of view policy. If the editor volunteers information that confirms they are acting as an advocate, this information can be used to justify appropriate measures. Speculating on the real-life identity of editors is strongly discouraged to preventouting, a serious form ofharassment. When advocacy is not disclosed, it often manifests through behaviors such astendentious editing,hostility,stonewalling,argumentum ad nauseam, orignoring the opinions of others. When such behavior occurs over a length of time, advocacy is often the cause.
Something worth noting is that there is often a "fine line" between being an Advocate and being aSteward. While a Steward may have the best interests of Wikipedia in mind when editing an article, others may not view their edits and/or behavior in the same way. Be cautious when communicating with someone that might be an Advocate when they are actually a Steward or consider themselves one.
In particular, editors that appear to be advocating for a particular point of view may employpeacock terms,weasel words, and otherwords to watch. Useful ways to avoid advocacy include:
Polite advocacy can often be controlled by informing the editor of Wikipedia's mission and asking them to refrain from editing topics that they cannot cover neutrally.Disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point anddisruptive editing can provide the basis forblocking an editor. For long-term, low-level disruption, those engaging in advocacy may betopic banned by the Wikipedia Community or theArbitration Committee.
Advocates sometimes employ defenses, such as:
Good intentions do not excuse actual disruption. If a significant number of editors protest that an editor is biased, the editor should listen to feedback and either change their editing style, or refrain from editing topics where they cannot be sufficiently neutral.Ignorance of the law is no excuse, even if there areno firm rules.
An example of a good answer:"You might have all the best intentions in mind, but that doesn't mean your editing breaks WP:NPOV guidelines any less"
Wikipedia does not indiscriminately collect "true" information, but aims to synthesize such information into an accurate, proportionate representation of the state of human knowledge. Our responsibility is not just toverify material, but tocontextualize and weight it appropriately. Insisting on undue prominence for a true butminor or tangential viewpoint is a canonical violation of theneutral point of view.
Wikipedia isnot a platform for public relations campaigns, even for worthy causes. We're also not in the business ofrighting great wrongs. If information needs to be published, there are many media outlets. Once information has been published, it may be noticed by Wikipedia editors and utilized as a reference.
An oft-repeated argument holds that people whosubscribe to a particular viewpoint are those best qualified to write about it. This argument takes forms such as: "We need AIDS-denialist editors to write a good article aboutAIDS denialism", or"Who better?" than a Klansman to edit our article on theKKK, or "People who attended Tech University have no business editing State University." These arguments are perhaps superficially appealing, but fundamentally mistaken.
The best articles on Wikipedia are written by people who value the encyclopedia's policies onneutrality,verifiability, andoriginal research. Advocates of specific views prioritize their agenda over the project's goal of creating a serious, respectable reference work. Such advocates are unnecessary, and in fact distinctly counterproductive, to the goal of accurately and neutrally covering controversial topics.
Editors are not expected to have no opinions about a subject. The Community encourages editors with experience or expertise in particular topics to edit the relevant articles. Expertise alone is not advocacy, but if an expert consistently givesundue weight to a particular point of view, that can be a problem.
Advocates may place suggestions for new topics, content, or usefulreferences on articletalk pages. However, they must not disrupt the discussion or prevent formation of a consensus. The Wikipedia Community values transparency. Those who seek to advocate on behalf of causes are encouraged to disclose the nature of their activities on their user pages and when joining a conversation.