This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
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Facts Precede Opinions states that content accepted by Wikipedians to be factual takes precedence over content that is contended to be opinionated. This is a complement to NPOV.
When there are conflicting viewpoints among editors there are two options on how to proceed:
This policy reminds the editor that where possible, it is better to resolve the conflict and present the undisputed/factual resolution, than to present both/all opinions (attributed to their prominent adherents).
The dictionary definition of a fact is: 'Knowledge or information based on real occurrences', but for the purpose of editing, until one encounters a conflict one can define a fact as: "A statement that the editor considers to be true".
Thus, if an editor thinks it is true that the sky is blue, that editor can boldly go to SKY and write: 'the sky is blue'.
However, often two or more editors will disagree on what is true because one person's fact conflicts with another person's fact.
This can present itself as an edit dispute over a specific statement (For example, another editor comes along changes "the sky is blue" to "the sky is red", or as a dispute over the way that content is arranged, included, or omitted (the editor omits the statement that "the sky is blue" entirely).
When this happens, none of the editors may assume their statement to be fact, even if they think the opposing statement ludicrous.
For these editors to add their edits to the article they must take one of the following two approaches:
Facts precede opinions states that the former approach should take precedence over the latter whenever possible.