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 | This page in a nutshell: How is editing on Wikipedia governed? What happens when content disputes 'boil over' into accusations of bad conduct? |
This article describes the editing environment on Wikipedia (WP), as described in various documents on Wikipedia, with links to the appropriate articles governing its jurisdiction. Described in particular are the facts aboutarbitration. This information can be helpful to WP contributors in understanding the editing process on WP, and the role forguidelines and policies.
There is no attempt here to assess the merits of how editing disputes are handled on WP, nor even whether in fact disputes are handled according to the precepts laid out by the WP documentation. The object is to present the situation as WP describes it, without intruding opinion or a particular point of view. The hope is that, by reading the following, a contributor will be able to handle controversy with a clear idea of what to expect.
This discussion is based entirely upon documentation from the English language version of Wikipedia. Its applicability to other language versions have not been taken into consideration.
Wikipedia articles can be edited anonymously by anyone, and contributed by anyone with an account (and anyone cancreate an anonymous account). A variety ofpolicies, more specificguidelines, and less establishedessays are intended to "describe its principles and best-known practices", but are not "hard-and-fast rules". In fact, one of the policies of Wikipedia isIgnore all rules, which says: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it."[1] That may sound liberating, but it is a freedom most safely exercised by the experienced. There is also aBe bold guideline that says "Just do it", but adds "...but please be careful".
It is encouraged that nontrivial changes in content of articles be discussed on the article Talk page to iron out wrinkles without huge numbers of changes back and forth on the Main page. Some behavioral rules are intended to protect the main page, the most obvious one being thethree-revert rule that blocks contributors that engage inedit warring. Discussion of content is guided in part by the policies"What Wikipedia is not" and theFive "pillars" of Wikipedia. Cautions to control the temperature on Talk pages are provided: such asNo personal attacks,WP is not about winning,Polling is not a substitute for discussion, and so forth. A behavioral guideline is provided to outlineTalk page good practices andunacceptable Talk page behavior. The general concepts of Talk page politeness are subsumed underWikiquette. Content disputes sometimes can be resolved using thenoticeboard, or byformal resolution includingmediation.
Although wise, these admonitions and processes do not always suffice, and content issues become mixed up with conduct issues. Talk pages may use policies as weaponry in battles over changes, exchanges calledwikilawyering, that is, insisting upon the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit or underlying principles. In the heat of debate, policies and guidelines can end up being used pejoratively to describe opposing viewpoints assoapboxing, as parochialPOV (point-of-view) forks,original research,fringe theory, employingunreliable sources, orsynthesis of sources to support conclusions they do not contain verbatim, or violating a precept of Wikipedia to"present facts, not to teach subject matter". Tempers rise and contributors lose sight of the goals of WP, instead to engage in duels of self-importance and gang enforcement. Impatience over content may lead to claims of bad conduct by one or the other disputing party. When conduct is seen as the issue, appeals forarbitration by Administrators or forarbitration by the Arbitration Committee result, requesting that the opposing parties be sanctioned. Once arbitration is invoked,content is no longer the issue, onlyconduct matters.[2][3]
Although almost anyone can edit articles on Wikipedia, sanctions result in exceptions: certain individuals are blocked partially or completely, temporarily or permanently, through actions of the Wikipedia administration fromWales on down. These blocking or banning actions tend to be hotly contested, and frequently are sought by contributors that have run into irresolvable conflict over content, or over personalities. It then falls upon individual Admins, or upon a consensus of Admins, or possibly upon ArbCom, to invoke aban orblock. It does occur that such decisions are arrived upon by conversations among Admins or ArbCom members not open to the public, or are made by individual Admins upon their personal assessment, and the results announced with only broad-brush explanation, and next to no attempt to provide a "legal" basis for the action based upon theWikipedia policies and guidelines. These governing rules are held to be not hard-and-fast, but are to be handled with "common sense".[4][5]
According to WP:
In principle, this authority extends only to certain subject areas,[7] but in practice it is used more widely, for example, using an Administrator's personal assessment of having achieved"community consensus" on theAN/I noticeboard.[8]
Besides this source of sanctions, a formal arbitration procedure exists. As shown to the right, the number ofrequests for formal arbitration cases has declined steadily with time, and the number of cases accepted for hearing has dropped to about a dozen per year. The reason for the declines are unclear. One explanation is that both arbitrators and litigants are becoming disenchanted with arbitration cases. In any case, the decline in arbitration cases, which use a formal proceeding, means that more reliance is placed upon the large number of bans/blocks exercised by individual administrators without formal arbitration. (In the first six months of 2012, Administrators applied an average of 350 blocksper day on English Wikipedia.[9])
The role of policies and guidelines is described by Wikipedia:
The liberty for Admins to exercise "common sense" and theIgnore all rules policy relieves rulings from strict requirement that they be based upon guidelines or policies. In other words, administration is not a "rule of law".[11] In addition, no requirements exist to insist upon in-depth explanation of rulings, and requests for clarification can be ignored.[11][12]
Appeals to Admins or to ArbCom do not result necessarily in narrow consideration of direct issues at hand. Rather, the scope of deliberations may be enlarged, or even diverted to interests of Admins and of ArbCom quite apart from community concerns. Wikipedia describes its concept of arbitration as follows:
| Arbitration is not a court case (Italics in original documentation.) |
As a result, rulings and actions are free be taken that have no bearing upon the original matter brought for adjudication and instead, to the amazement of those making the appeal, result in actions concerning other issues entirely, never envisioned by the litigants. When ArbCom introduces issues of their own, these are entertained outside theformal framework that safeguards fact finding and organized discussion. In particular, ArbCom may focus their ruling upon their own ideas of "a person's general manner" and/or the "impressions of them by reasonable people",[11] quite apart from community opinion and not necessarily tied to specific events.
The role of arbitrators is further described by Wikipedia:
In other words, ArbCom is at liberty to rule based not upon "who said exactly what in the past",[11] nor upon what is before them, but preemptively, based upon ArbCom predictions of hypothetical future behavior that could affect the project.[13]
"Administrators are not referees."[14] According to the WP articleWikipedia, in practice, the Arbitration Committee is:
An appeals process exists, but overturn is unlikely except in cases of blatant misrule. One might naïvely expect that among the hundreds of administrators, a disputant might find some Admin that would find their protests worth consideration. However, shopping for any opinion (even neutral opinion) is considered to beforum shopping,campaigning or possiblyvotestacking (selective invitation of favorable support), considered to be deliberate disruptions of dispute resolution that are frowned upon. Use of e-mail to solicit opinion is calledstealth canvassing and is "looked at more negatively" than contact via user talk-pages. Despite such restrictions upon finding support, it was found that indeed Admin support for litigants occasionally did occur, especially in cases of egregious abuse of authority. As a result of several wars between Administrators,[16] ArbCom passed anEnforcement Motion expressly to prevent any Admin from overturning a prior action by another Admin under the threat of immediate stripping of powers (deSysOpping). Consequently, any Admin protest over another Admin's actions is subject to a potentially tendentious review with a downside that strongly discourages such actions. That leaves a litigant with only aformal submission of an appeal to ArbCom or to Wales. It may be observed that ArbCom may be ruling upon an appeal of its own ruling, and Wales has little time to dig into disputes: "it is exceedingly unusual for him to intervene".[17]
Expert opinion may be, and often is, challenged on WP. Attempts by an expert to educate the unversedvia an on-line article Talk page possibly will require long discussion. Talk-page participants may become impatient with explanations important to the expert, but seemingly counter-intuitive or not of obvious significance to others, and that may lead toWikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, orWikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. Once there, the deciding Admins or ArbCom may view an extended Talk-page exchange not so much as the expert's patient attempt at education, but more as evidence of unduly stubborntendentious editing. This view is readily understood if one realizes that arbitrators are necessarilyblind to content,[2] being restricted to adjudicating only behavior; for example, claims that the expert "doesn't get the point, but just persists inbeating a dead horse". Imagine explaining a need for extended conversation to a panel of judges where content is explicitly set aside, and behavior is the focal issue![3][18][19][20]
Althoughedit warring in principle refers to Main-page editing, in practice it is considereddisruptive editing to argue too much on the Talk page as well, especially by contributors not inclined to discussion, or finding themselves on the short end. For example, an expert's effort to persuade the unversed editors that their consensus is misplaced might be viewed as an action that"prevents other editors from reaching consensus"[22] or as"continuing to edit in pursuit of a certain point despite an opposing consensus".[23]
A possible sanction that may be imposed is atopic ban, which limits an author's ability to contribute in certain subject areas.
Of course, a topic ban involves a judgement by some Admin(s) whether that topic has in fact arisen. Has a discussion ofLBJ's pulling his dogs' ears strayed into "politics"? Is citingThe Economist on the subject ofmen's fashion "economics related"? Is correcting a pre-existing typo a topic-ban violation? Discriminating between real and ersatz assertions of topic-ban violation requires subject-matter evaluation, a skill ArbCom explicitly disavows.[19]
The usual result of a topic ban is thatany objection that a violation has happened leads toANI, or to direct implementation of the sanction upon the sole judgment of an Administrator, without requirement for consultation or expertise. One may wonder how a matter of content can be determined like this, given the restriction that arbitration enforcement is set up only to address userconduct problems, not disputes aboutcontent.[24] However, WP isnot about rules.
It most often is wise to avoid the deliberations of Administrators, and simply abandon article improvement when faced with continued opposition.[20]
ArbCom hascarte blanche in adjudication, as indicated by the following freedoms: ArbCom is free to divert a case to any subject of their choosing.[25] They are empowered to rule preemptively based upon their conjectures about possible future activities.[26] They are free to ignore guidelines and policies in reaching a decision; their deliberations are articulated explicitly asnot based upon the "rule of law".[27][28] They can consider or ignore facts selectively, and are free instead to adopt the mere opinions of those whose judgment they happen to value.[29]
With neither built-in safeguards nor standards, proper administration of Wikipedia depends 100% upon the integrity, good judgment, and responsiveness of its Administrators, particularly those in ArbCom.
Arbitrators or Clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment.
Article content is not judged in arbitration cases, only editor behavior
Arbitrators are not subject experts and the Arbitration Committee avoids ruling on content disputes.
all actions and general conduct, not merely the direct issue, may be taken into account
Arbitrators focus on the risk and benefits for the future, not on past issues.
Arbitration is not a court caseRecently changed to read:Arbitration is not a legal process
The rules are principles, not laws, on Wikipedia. Policies and guidelines exist only as rough approximations...
A person's general manner, past actions or incidents, and the impressions of them by reasonable people, may all be used to guide the Arbitrators.
This article incorporates material from theCitizendium article "Wikipedia#Editing_environment", which is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under theGFDL.