From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"WP:SEALION" redirects here. For the more specific sense of stonewalling via disruptive demands for "help", see
WP:You can search, too
.
Essay on editing Wikipedia
| This page in a nutshell:
Civil POV-pushers argue politely and in compliance with Wikipedia civility principles, but also with bad faith, which discourages or upsets the other contributors. In a discussion, blame is often assigned to the person who loses their temper, which is even more frustrating for good-faith contributors trapped in such discussions.
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Wikipedia, and specifically the dispute resolution process, has a difficult time dealing with
civil
POV pushers. The
Arbitration Committee
(ArbCom) has a mixed record in dealing with such problem users. The Arbitration Committee has chosen to avoid focusing on content, because admittedly they are not subject experts, and often these issues are complicated enough that knowledge of the topic is necessary to identify pseudoscience, crankery, conspiracy theories, marginal nationalist or historic viewpoints, and the like. (One important reason for this is that oftentimes there is a great deal of misinformation surrounding these topics.) Rather than focusing on content the Arbitration Committee has focused on behavior. The problem is compounded because it often takes the form of long-term behavior that cannot accurately be summarized in a few diffs. As such, the committee has difficulty dealing with "
civil
" POV pushers?editors who repeatedly disregard or
manipulate
Wikipedia's content policies but are superficially civil, or not-quite-uncivil-enough to merit sanctions.
As a result of the Arbitration Committee's failure to deal with these issues, the committee has effectively abdicated the responsibility for ensuring
neutrality
,
verifiability
, and other content standards to a few users (mostly, but not entirely admins) who patrol these articles and attempt to keep them free of disruption. These users are generally very knowledgeable about the subject and committed to Wikipedia's policies on
proper sourcing
and
appropriate weight
. Unfortunately, they tend to burn out. Usually they burn out in one of two ways:
- The impatient ones tend to become angry as a result of the seemingly never-ending problems these articles cause, become uncivil, and get sanctioned by ArbCom for incivility.
- The patient ones tend to go more quietly. They become disillusioned by the never-ending problems and the lack of support from the Wikipedia community, and stop editing on these topics or quit the site entirely.
This is an untenable situation.
On occasion the Arbitration Committee acknowledges the existence of this problem. In response to suggestions that ArbCom use
a related arbitration case
to set down some "far-reaching, well-written, solid, effective principles for dealing with POV pushers who are civil" it was suggested to formulate a list of principles and remedies. The original impetus for this page was to provide such a list, though in the end ArbCom declined to address the issue.
Behaviors
These are editors who are superficially polite while exhibiting some or all of the following behaviors:
Locality
Neutrality
- They attempt
to water down language
,
whitewash
, unreasonably exclude information, push views beyond the requirements of
WP:NPOV
, or give
undue weight
to
fringe theories
such as pseudoscience, crankery, conspiracy theories, historical revisionism, etc.
- They frivolously request
citations
for
obvious or well known information
.
- They argue endlessly about the
neutral point of view policy
and particularly try to undermine the
undue weight clause
. They try to add information that is (at best) peripherally relevant on the grounds that "it is
verifiable
, so it should be in".
- When they are unable to refute discussion on the talk page against their point of view, they will say the discussion is
original research
.
Editing
Discussions
- They repeatedly use the talk page for
soapboxing
, and/or to re-raise the same issues that have
already been discussed numerous times
.
- They hang around forever, wearing down more serious editors and become an expert in an odd kind of way on their niche POV. They outlast their competitors because they're more invested in their point of view.
- They often make a series of frivolous and time-wasting requests for comment, mediation or arbitration, again in an attempt to
wear down other editors
.
- They will often misrepresent others or other discussions in an attempt to incriminate or belittle others' opinions.
- They will attempt to label others or otherwise discredit their opinion based on that person's associations rather than the core of their argument. See
ad hominem
.
- They will use inconsistent logic across discussions, applying an argument or standard in one situation but using a contradictory one in the next discussion if it suits them.
- They may participate in
articles for deletion
discussions, keeping articles that support their beliefs and deleting articles that do not, even if the articles otherwise have similar
notability
.
Sources
- They argue for the inclusion of material of dubious
reliability
; for example, using commentary from partisan think tanks rather than from the scientific literature.
- They argue that reliable sources are biased while their own preferred sources are neutral.
- They ignore their
burden to demonstrate verifiability
, insisting attempts be made to find reliable sources for dubious claims before removing them from an article.
- When pressed for reliable sources, in lieu of honoring the request they:
- use a source to verify claims outside its author's expertise. For example, a foreword to an electrician's handbook is used to verify a statement of historical fact;
- engage in
cherrypicking
; and
- cite non-English language sources most people can't read, or obscure books that most people can't find.
Examples
Topics affected by this problem include:
Principles
- Civility is not limited to superficial politeness but includes the overall behavior of the user. Superficially polite behaviors still may be uncivil. Some examples are politely phrased
baiting
,
frivolous or vexatious
use of process, ill-considered but politely phrased accusations, unrelenting pestering, and
abuse of talk pages
as a platform to expound upon personal opinions unrelated to specific content issues.
- Just as
WP:NPOV
,
WP:V
, and
WP:NOR
cannot be applied in isolation,
WP:CIVIL
should not be interpreted or enforced without reference to other guidelines and policies. Civility is important, but it does not trump other core behavioral and content policies.
- Using Wikipedia as a vehicle for advocacy, or to advance a specific agenda, damages the encyclopedia and disrupts the process of collaborative editing. Wikipedia is not here to
right great wrongs
. Even when such behavior is superficially civil it is just as harmful to the project, if not more so, than incivility.
- The requirement to assume good faith
is not an excuse for uncooperative behavior.
There is a limit
to how long good faith can be extended to editors who are continually shown to be acting in a manner that is detrimental to the growth and improvement of the encyclopedia. Nor is AGF defined as doublespeak for urging all editors to agree with a particular viewpoint and accept any changes that are advocated.
- Civility does not mean that editors cannot disagree. Academe is well known for spirited debates and disagreements and these often point the way to progress. The key principle is "stay on topic"; that is, arguments should be on the merits and not personalities. Editors should bear in mind that a disagreement with their point is
not
an attack on their honor.
Suggested remedies
- This is a type of behavior that is very easy to do; all it takes is a willingness to spend the time creating the necessary walls of text until the other editor(s) become frustrated, give up in disgust and go away. It is incredibly tedious to prove and almost as tedious to assess because by its very nature it requires many multiple diffs. You simply cannot prove it with 3 or 4; editors assessing the situation would have to then take the complaining editor’s word for it that this was being repeated over the course of a long wall of text. Because of this, complaints of sealioning/civil POV pushing about an editor who has been found to be exhibiting this behavior before should be taken seriously, and such complaints should not be closed until someone has been willing to investigate.
- Accounts which use Wikipedia
for the sole or primary purpose of advocating a specific agenda
at the expense of core policies and consensus-based editing
should be warned, restricted, or ultimately blocked by any
uninvolved administrator
. Care should be taken to distinguish
new
accounts from those with an established pattern of disruptive single-purpose advocacy. Likewise, this remedy is not meant to apply to editors who work within a narrow range of topics but adhere to Wikipedia's core policies.
- Where consensus cannot be attained through normal wiki processes, the Arbitration Committee could designate "lead" editors who have considerable expertise on that article or topic. Lead editors would be empowered to direct discussion, determine consensus and designate discussions as closed. However, the Arbitration Committee has done this only very rarely, and there is considerable opposition to it doing it at all: the committee is expected to deal with behavior, not content.
- If an editor insists on continuing to bring up an issue which has been discussed and decided, especially if they have no new information that can add to the issue, they should be pointed to the previous discussion, warned, restricted and ultimately blocked by any uninvolved administrator. An "involved administrator" (for the purposes of allowing uninvolved administrators to impose sanctions on problem users) is one who has a
current, direct, personal conflict with a problem user on the specific issue at hand.
Previous interactions on other articles or topics does not make one involved; previously editing the same article (but a different matter) does not make one involved. Broad definitions of "involved" that exclude administrators who have any prior experience with the article or editors in question are counterproductive. They result in overemphasis on superficial civility at the expense of more complex and long-term behavior. See
WP:UNINVOLVED
.
See also
More on civil POV pushing
Other relevant pages
Related arbitration cases
External links
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- Adminitis
- Akin's Laws of Article Writing
- Alternatives to edit warring
- ANI flu
- Anti-Wikipedian
- Anti-Wikipedianism
- Articlecountitis
- Asshole John rule
- Assume bad faith
- Assume faith
- Assume good wraith
- Assume stupidity
- Assume that everyone's assuming good faith, assuming that you are assuming good faith
- Avoid using preview button
- Avoid using wikilinks
- Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
- Barnstaritis
- Before they were notable
- BOLD, revert, revert, revert
- Boston Tea Party
- Butterfly effect
- CaPiTaLiZaTiOn MuCh?
- Complete bollocks
- Counting forks
- Counting juntas
- Crap
- Don't stuff beans up your nose
- Don't-give-a-fuckism
- Don't abbreviate "Wikipedia" as "Wiki"!
- Don't delete the main page
- Editcountitis
- Edits Per Day
- Editsummarisis
- Editing Under the Influence
- Embrace Stop Signs
- Emerson
- Fart
- Five Fs of Wikipedia
- Seven Ages of Editor, by Will E. Spear-Shake
- Go ahead, vandalize
- How many Wikipedians does it take to change a lightbulb?
- How to get away with UPE
- How to put up a straight pole by pushing it at an angle
- How to vandalize correctly
- How to win a citation war
- Ignore all essays
- Ignore every single rule
- Is that even an essay?
- Mess with the templates
- My local pond
- Newcomers are delicious, so go ahead and bite them
- Legal vandalism
- List of jokes about Wikipedia
- LTTAUTMAOK
- No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man
- No one cares about your garage band
- No one really cares
- No, really
- No sorcery threats
- Notability is not eternal
- Oops Defense
- Play the game
- Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you
- Please bite the newbies
- Please do not murder the newcomers
- Pledge of Tranquility
- R-e-s-p-e-c-t
- Requests for medication
- Requirements for adminship
- Rouge admin
- Rouge editor
- Sarcasm is really helpful
- Sausages for tasting
- The Night Before Wikimas
- The first rule of Wikipedia
- The Five Pillars of Untruth
- Things that should not be surprising
- The WikiBible
- Watchlistitis
- Wikipedia is an MMORPG
- WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!
- What Wikipedia is not/Outtakes
- Why not create an account?
- Yes legal threats
- You don't have to be mad to work here, but
- You should not write meaningless lists
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