Essay on editing Wikipedia
| This page in a nutshell:
Individual editors, and even groups of editors, are sometimes wrong. Consensus at a given article may be at odds with the will of the community at large. Strive for "rightness".
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As Wikipedia has matured, the inevitable development of
policies
,
guidelines
and
manuals
has proliferated to the point that newcomers often find the experience of editing on Wikipedia to be
overwhelming
. Wikipedia has tried to combat the growth of bureaucracy and elitism by instituting a number of policies which are intended to make it possible for a
community of editors
to coexist peaceably with a variety of
interests
,
perspectives
, and
philosophies about how Wikipedia should work
.
However, ultimately, the goal of writing a reliable
encyclopedia
is one that cannot be left to the arbitrary
consensus
of whichever editors decide to let their voices be known.
Tendentious
and
disruptive
editors too often are given a pass without those accommodating them keeping the best interest of
verifiability
,
reliability
, or
neutrality
of Wikipedia in mind. In the interest of maintaining harmony, the fundamental goal of writing an encyclopedia is compromised.
For example, if three editors of an article say that the
National Enquirer
is a
reliable source
for biographical information, that does not make it so, even if only one editor opposes them. The
National Enquirer
sometimes gets it right, and sometimes gets it wrong. It is the inconsistency that makes it inherently unreliable. In the absence of
a policy recognizing expertise
, there is no way to decide which situation is occurring. Some users will inevitably exploit this, finding ways to
disrupt the project
by advocating for edits to the encyclopedia that belie the fundamental premise of an accurate, reliable, neutral, and in-depth reference work.
A tongue-in-cheek example of how wrongness can frustrate experts on a topic was provided by
Wired
contributor
Lore Sjoberg
:
For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment.
[1]
Wikipedia does not explicitly say that a point of view is "wrong", but Wikipedia does pass value judgements in other ways. For example, Wikipedia does not obscure that a view held by a minority is, in fact, a minority view. It does not try to present such a view as "equal" to more popular views.
[2]
Many editors, especially new ones, forget this aspect of the core
Neutral Point of View
policy, often interpreting "neutral" as "no judgement". Wikipedia founder,
Jimmy Wales
, stated early in the project development that presenting all views as equal is not the goal of Wikipedia:
NPOV does not require us to present all these views as if they are equal! This is one of the things that's hardest to remember about NPOV. If a view is the majority view of a broad consensus of scientists, then we say so. If a view is a minority view of some scientists, scientists who are respected by the mainstream that differs with them on this particular matter, then we say so. And if a view is held only by a few people without any traditional training or credentials, and if that view is dismissed by virtually all mainstream scientists, then we can say that, too.
[3]
The approach of presenting views as equal to avoid bias is probably familiar to readers. It's a practice often used in journalism. However, according to Wales, it is not Wikipedia's approach:
There's a popular view of bias in journalism, held more in practice out of laziness I think than held as an actual theory of bias, that the way to be unbiased is to present both sides of an argument without prejudicing the discussion for or against either one. "Some say that the earth is round, others say that it is flat."
Our approach is more sophisticated, I think.
[3]
Wikipedia prejudices the discussion by
weighing
viewpoints, giving greater weight to those that are more reliable and those that are more prominent. It is a sophisticated valuing of viewpoints, with no hard-set conclusions of "wrongness", but it does favor "rightness". Officially, Wikipedia supports verifiability, not truth,
[4]
however a certain type of truth is discovered through verifying the facts on a topic ? how many people agree with a particular view.
While NPOV prohibits us from saying a particular view is "wrong", in many cases it is our duty to point out that few people believe the view is "right". Neutrality also prevents us from defending minority views, or elevating them to a position they haven't earned on their own, as neutrality simply means "not taking sides in a dispute". As Wales pointed out, when a topic is correctly covered, the discussion is prejudiced towards "rightness".
In the absence of a consistent system for Wikipedia to figure out when an editor is right or wrong, and given the consistent resistance toward making such determinations, the best we can hope for is that editors who are right will
ignore all rules
and find a way to thwart those who are wrong. This is leaving the situation up to risky chance, for both the content and the editor, but it is the best we can do for the time being.
Ignoring the "rules" in this case really means ignoring a particular narrow
interpretation
of the rules; that is, the interpretation that a micro-consensus among a group of editors at a given article somehow protects it from the greater consensus of the community at large. Often, a small group of editors at an article may develop an internal consensus that isn't compatible with the overall goals of Wikipedia to be a reliable encyclopedia. Too often, small groups attempt to
own
the article, claiming consensus protects it from
bold
edits by "outsiders". Ignoring
their
rules is not the same as ignoring the principles, policies, guidelines and goals of the larger Wikipedia community, the macro-consensus.
Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, can not over-ride community consensus on a wider scale.
[5]
The macro-consensus of the Wikipedia community as a whole overwhelmingly supports creating a
verifiably
accurate and
reliable
compendium of information. Micro-consensus at any given article to include unreliable information does not over-ride the will of the community at large to exclude sources that do not meet our collective
reliable sourcing
criteria. The micro-consensus at the article is subjugated by the macro-consensus of the entire community to enforce reliable sources policy.
This is unfortunately of no help when the macro-consensus also supports the occasional exception
[6]
of compromising with the RS criteria to admit sources that are on a rational basis unreliable. In cases such as these, one can
substantiate
the inclusion with facts about the source. For example, point out that a source is a
tabloid
magazine when such information is pertinent to determining the reliability of the information. It is important, however, to be
bold
in enforcing reliability, to enforce macro-consensus, especially in
biographies of living persons
.
WP:BLP
is official Wikipedia policy, with a higher reliability standard.
The following are clues that you may be wrong and may want to rethink your position.
- Your friends agree with you, but no one else does.
- Most of the people agreeing with you seem to lack the intelligence of those who disagree with you.
- Your opponent has well-reasoned arguments. Even you don't buy the rationale your friends are using to agree with you.
- Your opponent cites policies and guidelines. You can't seem to find any policies or guidelines to support your position, even in a
loophole
sort of way.
- You rely on loopholes.
- You learn that your major supporter has a
conflict of interest
.
- An approach you take at a minor, less trafficked article seems to go over well. You try the same approach at a higher trafficked article and encounter a great deal of resistance. It's possible, then, that the approach you took wasn't right at the minor article either, just no one was around to call you on it.
- If you're wondering whether you are wrong, then likely there's a reason for thinking you might be. Assume that you are wrong and ask for an outside opinion.
Be
bold
in correcting any "wrongness" that hinders Wikipedia's ability to be a
verifiably
accurate and
reliable
encyclopedia. However, if you encounter more opposition than you can bear on your own, Wikipedia has a
dispute resolution
(DR) process designed to remove the dispute from a micro-level to a macro-level, away from any potentially wrong internal consensus and into a forum where it comes under the scrutiny of the community at large. If you are right, a greater consensus will develop that supports you at the micro-level. If you are wrong, well, rethink your position and try to work with the overall goals of Wikipedia in mind. Editors are sometimes wrong. It's possible you didn't know you were and DR will help you discover that.
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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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