User:Thebiguglyalien/But climate change is real

According to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, editors should not state uncontested facts as opinions, nor should they present opinions or seriously contested assertions as facts. When editors hold strong opinions on a hotly debated issue, they may present the opinions as uncontested facts. If you inform them that other stances have to be given weight, some editors present a false equivalence, comparing their stance to one that has overwhelming academic support.

This is an essay on the Neutral point of view policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

This page in a nutshell: One claim being in wikivoice does not guarantee another claim can be, even if you believe both to be true. Be wary of arguments that compare seriously contested assertions to ones that are more universally accepted in reliable sources.

For example, an editor insists that heat death of the universe will happen and edits ultimate fate of the universe to present this as fact. You challenge the edit, saying there are other opinions from reliable sources and we can't present one as factual. They will then respond with something like this:

"But climate change is real! Should we give weight to the opinions of climate change deniers too?"

This argument allows one to borrow the credibility of an objective, widely-accepted scientific fact and apply it to a more subjective position or one that is debated among academics. It reframes opponents to present them as a fringe group like climate change deniers, allowing the editor to invoke WP:FALSEBALANCE and write their position in wikivoice. The example subject can be anything that's been settled in the academic community. Besides climate change, you might see "But the Earth is round", "But vaccines work", or anything of the sort.

In another example, the false equivalence could be between two subjective claims, but with a different level of agreement. An editor might argue that gun control should be described in wikivoice as authoritarian. When challenged on this, they may say something like this:

"But we call book censorship authoritarian! Should we give equal weight to people who say it's not?"

Editors might use a false equivalence knowingly to strengthen their position, or they might do this inadvertently because they genuinely believe their opinion is the only one worth considering. They may even be right. But so long as the claim is still contested by reliable sources, it cannot be said in wikivoice, and editors only weaken their own position when they try to justify a contested claim by comparing it to an uncontested claim.