controversial articles and neutrality problems
For some it's intuitive and commonsense I guess. That said, most people learn behaviors and skills from their peer group, and their peer group's expectations and approaches. The point I'm making is that even difficult disputes like Palestine-Israel that reflect very troubled real-world issues, are resolvable in article terms. We have the tools. We just aren't using them fully.
To summarize these are the tools likely to be sufficient for most disputes like that.
- A substantial population of users whom we can broadly trust to edit with good understanding and regard for core Wikipedia editing principles on any article (including self management of COI and interactive behavior).
- A very clear understanding of NPOV, including that NPOV does not aim to solve the academic or real-world dispute, but only to fairly represent it.
- (Optional but useful) a couple of specialists or experts (or experts on both sides), who, while not involved in the dispute, can be used as external resources to help where needed (eg source material, identifying major/fringe views in the field, etc).
- The ability to remove all editors who don't have this kind of proven community recognition of their editing approach to the talk page, so that those who do can listen to them, consider the views represented -- and then act and discuss to a high standard the points arising.
In other words, global Wikiprojects (and their ability to identify and collect expertize)... trusted/senior users... core editing principles applied strictly... and a formal dispute resolution agreement (eg Arbcom or community decision) to let these users deal with the content for a few months, long enough to work it out and let issues stabilize, with others restricted to the talk page. After 3 or 4 months, review and decide if the restriction should be relaxed.
I think you'll agree all are within our reach. I can't say if we have the will to solve them, but they are achievable. I don't see any reason to make excuses why we can't resolve these disputes. We have the means to do so without changing our current ethos. We just aren't using them fully.