Trouble is, NPOV is often in direct conflict with the “reputable sources” and “no original research” rules. In areas where reputable sources are mostly unbiased and disreputable sources are mostly crackpots, everything’s fine. However, in those where respectable opinion is nowadays remote from reality, reporting what reputable sources say is not going to produce a NPOV account, and if editors attempt to make sense of the available information on their own, this becomes illicit “original research.”
Also, it can be misleading to note the contrast between the modern seemingly neutral academic tone and the tone of the old scholarly works that strikes the modern reader as unabashedly opinionated, as you have noted about the old Britannica. What looks like neutral and dispassionate tone in modern academic and reference works is often every bit as opinionated and biased, except that this is achieved in more underhanded ways. And frankly, I prefer the old-fashioned open and explicit way.
Trouble is, NPOV is often in direct conflict with the “reputable sources” and “no original research” rules. In areas where reputable sources are mostly unbiased and disreputable sources are mostly crackpots, everything’s fine. However, in those where respectable opinion is nowadays remote from reality, reporting what reputable sources say is not going to produce a NPOV account, and if editors attempt to make sense of the available information on their own, this becomes illicit “original research.”
Also, it can be misleading to note the contrast between the modern seemingly neutral academic tone and the tone of the old scholarly works that strikes the modern reader as unabashedly opinionated, as you have noted about the old Britannica. What looks like neutral and dispassionate tone in modern academic and reference works is often every bit as opinionated and biased, except that this is achieved in more underhanded ways. And frankly, I prefer the old-fashioned open and explicit way.