Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2025-2026/Global Trends/Common global standards for NPOV policies/Analysis of Neutral Point of View Policies across Wikipedias

Analysis of Neutral Point of View Policies across Wikipedias

Summary

Purpose: The goal of the research is to create an overview of neutral point of view (NPOV) policies across all Wikipedias. The aim is to make it easy to grasp, so that we can better communicate how Wikipedia ensures neutrality across the board. This provides an opportunity for peer learning across project communities.

Scope: While neutrality guidance and neutrality related policies exist across wikiprojects, the research has focused only on Wikipedias to facilitate comparative analysis across languages in a similar content setting. The analysis is centered around the NPOV policy in particular, as it is the cornerstone of neutrality guidance in most Wikipedias.

Content: The report consists of sections highlighting different aspects of the NPOV policy landscape:

General context of the status of neutrality related policies and NPOV policy in particular across Wikipedias.
Key data regarding policy creation provides some historic background regarding when the NPOV policies have been created on projects, also in connection to their launch.
Quantitative NPOV policy overview categorizes NPOV policies according to their size across Wikipedias.
Qualitative NPOV policy overview highlights key content areas across NPOV policies and provides a few high level case studies to highlight differences in approaches.

Every section has a highlight box with key findings to provide a short summary of the section.

General Context

Key findings

About 44% of Wikipedias do not have clear and easily accessible neutrality guidance.
About 42% of Wikipedias have only basic guidance on the neutrality pillar.
About 37% of Wikipedias have more detailed guidance on the NPOV policy.
About 78% of Wikipedias do not have the main neutrality related content policies (i.e. neutrality pillar, neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research, citing sources, reliable sources, biographies of living people).

Neutrality or writing from a neutral point of view is one of the core elements of Wikipedia and is also included in the fundamental pillars. These pillars exist in 145 Wikipedias from a total of 342 languages. While the neutrality pillar constitutes the most clear and robust neutrality guidance across languages, 57.6% of Wikipedias do not have that guidance.

While the neutral point of view is mentioned in the title of the pillar text, references are made to some other core aspects of neutrality, which ground other key Wikipedia content policies: verifiability, no original research, citing sources, reliable sources, and biographies of living people.

Overview of core neutrality related content policies across Wikipedias shows that only 75 projects of 342 (21.9%) have all the mentioned policies.

Fundamental pillars Q4656249	Neutral point of view (NPOV) Q4656487	Verifiability Q79951	No original research Q4656524	Citing sources Q642335	Reliable sources Q4663914	Biographies of living persons (BLP) Q4663389
145	127	98	85	108	76	75
42.4%	37.1%	28.6%	24.8%	31.6%	22.2%	21.9%

NPOV policy currently exists in 128 Wikipedias out of 342 projects (37%).

Additionally, in 43 projects (13%) the concept of “neutrality” is covered in pillars and in further 17 Wikipedias (5%) in other rulesets.

Overall, this means that 153 Wikipedias out of 342 (45%) don’t have easily accessible guidance on neutrality.

Key data regarding policy creation

Key findings

In most of the Wikipedias with an NPOV policy it has been created in the first five years following the launch of the project.
There was a notable peak of NPOV policy creation in the years 2004-2007, overlapping with a peak of new language project launches.

Regarding NPOV policy creation on Wikipedias across calendar years, there is a notable peak between years 2004 - 2007, with almost half of the policies created around that time (61 of 128, 48%).

Across other years the distribution is rather even, with years 2019-2021 standing out with no NPOV policies created across projects.

In most projects where NPOV policy exists, it has been created within 5 years from the launch of the project, with a rather even distribution between policy being created the 1st year, 2nd year or years 3-5.

However, there are examples of Wikipedias where NPOV policy has been created 6-10 years and even 10+ years following the launch of the project.

Quantitative NPOV policy content overview

Key findings

About 76% of existing NPOV policies on Wikipedias have core, extended or detailed levels of content .
The longest NPOV policies can be found in Balkan region, South Asia, parts of the Middle East and East and South East Asia.
Many indigenous languages either do not have the NPOV policy or have a stub policy.

The size of the NPOV policies varies remarkably across Wikipedias.

The lengthiest policies can be found in Balkan region (e.g., Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Croatian), South Asia (Bengali, Konkani, Assamese, Odia, Marathi), parts of Middle East (Persian, Turkish), and East and South East Asia (Malay, Vietnamese, Thai).
English Wikipedia NPOV policy, one that is most referenced on other projects, ranks 13th in terms of length.
Overall, policies can be distributed into 5 categories based on their size in characters and the level of content they include:

NPOV POLICY CATEGORIES
Category	Size	Description	Some examples
Stub or redirect	0-600 characters	Policy is either incomplete, just a redirect, or a very basic definition of neutrality.	Chechen, Gan, Greenlandic, Hausa
Minimal policy	601-1800 characters	Policy has an articulated leading paragraph, sometimes with an example of neutrality.	Bhojpuri, Corsican, Mongolian, Urdu
Core policy	1801-7000 characters	Policy includes substantial core components, including elaborated definition of neutrality and essential practical guidance for achieving neutrality	Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Telugu, Ukrainian
Extended policy	7001-20000 characters	Policy includes extended definition of neutrality and goes into detail with guidance for implementing neutrality	Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai
Detailed policy	20001-50000 characters	Policy includes detailed definition of neutrality, adds further detail on implementation and provides examples across a wider spectrum	Bengali, English, Malay, Persian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Turkish, Vietnamese

About 76% of the NPOV policies on Wikipedias have core, extended or detailed levels of content, including conceptual definition of neutrality and practical guidance for editing. About 24% of the existing NPOV policies on Wikipedias only have basic content or are stubs or redirects not providing sufficient guidance for managing neutrality of content.

Qualitative NPOV policy content overview

Key findings

Most NPOV policies have a leading paragraph with a general definition of neutrality.
The core components of more extensive NPOV policies include conceptual elaboration, practical elaboration, and some guidance regarding controversial topics.
The guidance on controversial topics is mostly focused on pseudoscience, religion, and avoiding content forks.

Core content structure
Leading paragraph	➼ Provides high level definition of the “neutral point of view” ➼ Often stating the policy to be fundamental principle and non-negotiable ➼ Often connection is made to other core policies: “verifiability” and “no original research”
Conceptual elaboration	➼ Definition of neutrality and neutral point of view (sometimes from several angles, i.e. basic, extended, and even negative definitions) ➼ Encyclopedia as representing human beliefs in a balanced way ➼ Elaboration of the importance of the NPOV policy
Practical elaboration	➼ Guidance on how to put NPOV into practice Naming of articles Article structure Weighing and balancing points of view Tonality and style Guidance on sourcing and attribution Importance of research
Controversial topics	➼ Guidance on managing controversial topics Overall guidance Guidance on pseudoscience Guidance on religion Guidance on content forks In some policies 2001 case study on abortion
Clarifications	➼ Further clarifications and specifications, usually in FAQ format Dealing with contextual, local or regional bias Collection of common questions regarding neutrality
Historical references	➼ In many cases initial framing from Jimmy Wales is referred to ➼ Some policies present historical overview of development of NPOV

Brief case studies

Balkan region (South East Europe) language Wikipedias (Macedonian, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Croatian) have the most extensive NPOVs, however on their projects issues with neutrality have still incurred.
- Interesting fact: Bosnian Wikipedia NPOV is really short. Objectively it is the regional Wikipedia with the fewest active editors. At the same time, it might be cultural, as also Arabic Wikipedia NPOV policy is very short.

Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia NPOVs are rather short, providing mostly overview and not so much practical guidance.
- Interesting fact: Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia NPOV is longer and more detailed than Classical Arabic Wikipedia NPOV policy.

Spanish Wikipedia NPOV policy needs to deal with multiple dynamics within one language project and hence has a dedicated call for collaboration and guidance on how to navigate differing viewpoints considering the context.

Russian Wikipedia NPOV policy really stands out in the mix with its emphasis on scientific writing and examples over theory.
- Some Wikipedia projects in proximity follow the example of the Russian Wikipedia (e. g., Belarussian and Bashkir Wikipedia). Others seem to have intentionally taken the approach or building on the English Wikipedia NPOV approach (classical Belarussian and Ukrainian Wikipedia).