User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior

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This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline, it simply reflects some opinions of its authors. Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page.

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Some observations on behavior on the Wiki, interspersed with recommendations on how to deal with it.

1. When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good.

    

2. Many people, leaving the project, blame the project, or the people working on it, rather than recognizing that it is normal in life for one's enthusiasm to wane. It does with all things that we once found exciting. This is neither pessimistic nor tragic: one needs always to find new exciting things to do. All things in life change and end, and this includes one's involvement with Wikipedia. "He who catches the joy as it flies/lives in eternity's sunrise." Enjoy it while you are here, and enjoy what you do after you are gone.

    

3. Troublesome editors waste far more of the community's time than vandals. One who sometimes has good edits, but endlessly bickers, insults, whines, and is eventually banned, will have taken a hundred hours from other users who would have better spent that time building the encyclopedia. This is in part due to people's fascination with conflict. Efficiently managing troublesome editors is one of the best ways to improve the project, but also one of the most difficult.

    

4. People who have the insatiable need to retaliate for perceived wrongs should be removed from the project as quickly, but gently, as possible.

    

5. Since mid-to-late 2005 there has been an increasing focus by Wikipedians, especially new Wikipedians, on designing pretty user spaces rather than contributing content. This is probably not a good trend, but it is unlikely to change. The best content contributors often have undeveloped user spaces, and vice versa.

    

6. Any logged-in user whose first edit is vandalism of a user page, or a nasty personal attack on a talk page, should be immediately and permanently blocked, without comment.

    

7. If a user's first and second edits are creations of their user and talk pages, devoid of content, their third edit will be vandalism, a personal attack, or another form of trolling.

    

8. Logging in as an anonymous IP or sockpuppet, in order to vandalise a user page or leave a nasty personal attack, is a particularly despicable form of cowardice. If you have a problem with someone, work it out in the open.

    

9. Single-topic editors are rarely, if ever, either interested in or capable of NPOV. Additionally, if you look closely you will often find a conflict of interest.

    

10. The more extreme and unencyclopedic the viewpoint, the greater the likelihood of it attracting sockpuppet support.

     

11. If an editor is truly writing from a neutral point of view, it should be impossible to tell from that person's edits what his viewpoint is. This is most obvious in political articles, but applies everywhere.

     

12. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The primary job of Wikipedians is to write it. Everything else is secondary.

     

13. As the primary job of Wikipedians is to write the encyclopedia, any user whose principal activity is to interfere with the writing should be removed from the project, as painlessly as possible. The best way is to persuade them that they will be happier elsewhere, and to wish them well; the worst is to beat them up and make them angry: but however it happens, it must be done.

     

14. It is impossible to enumerate all the kinds of vanity. (La Rochefoucauld, No. 506)

     

15. Wikipedia's worst enemies are those whose vanity has been wounded. They may be moderately notable people, such as Daniel Brandt, who failed to control the article on himself; or they may be people who worked hard on an article which was deleted by the community; or they may be people who attempted to push a POV which was rejected by the community. Usually they invoke a higher moral principle in support of their campaign against the project, such as censorship, free speech, conspiracy against them, or whatnot, as their own vanity prevents them from recognizing that vanity itself is the source of their displeasure.

     

16. Some trolls and POV-pushers are best fought with a time delay. Let them make their edit; then change it an hour or two later, or even the next day. Trolls are easily bored, and are more likely to go away if you hold your fire for a bit. (Blatant vandalism of course needs to be reverted immediately.) This tactic is especially useful with the Stormfront or Free Republic types, or versus any group that pushes a POV and is specifically looking for a fight.

     

17. There IS a cabal. It's a core group of editors united by the belief that the encyclopedia must protect itself against jerks, and against people who write junk.

     

18. As soon as someone attacks the community, or any portion of it, by writing a rant on their user page, Act V of their Wiki Tragedy has begun. It will end, inevitably, with their departure or expulsion from the project.

     

19. RFC, RFArb, and increasingly, the Administrator's Noticeboards, are like galleries of spectacular freeway crashes, slowing traffic in both directions as everyone cranes their head around for a better view. Contributions to the encyclopedia decline every time there is a new wreck.

     

20. One of the less-noticed reasons for the increase in conflict in the project overall is that almost all of the articles on important subjects are written. There is less "exciting" work to do, such as creating from scratch an article on an important topic, and conflict is the most usual substitute excitement. The early days of the project are over, and just as in a relationship, the truly hard work comes after the initial excitement has faded.

     

21. No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains. (La Rochefoucauld, No. 451)

     

22. People who announce, immediately when they join the project, that they want to be admins, probably shouldn't be. Adminship is better approached as a duty taken on by an established wikipedian, than as a trophy for a newbie to aspire to.

     

23. All the virtues and vices shown by humanity as a whole can be found on Wikipedia. Anyone who runs from the community because they cannot tolerate its vices, divisions, and politics, will have to face the same vices, divisions, and politics again elsewhere in life.

     

24. Anonymous edits to articles on traditional encyclopedic topics, especially during school hours, are far more likely to be vandalism than edits to popular culture topics.

     

25. Vandalism in the form of trolling and nasty personal attacks spikes on Friday and Saturday nights, local time. Look at the bright side: at least they're not driving drunk.

     

26. If a vandal insults you, it is a reliable indicator that you are doing something right.

     

27. One of the commonest kinds of vandalism is an assertion that something, someone, or somewhere is "gay". This is a reflection of the common, indeed unavoidable, sexual insecurity of male adolescents, who make up most of Wikipedia's vandals. It's as universal a part of maturing as acne; revert and ignore.

     

28. Any new article with exactly the same name as its creator can almost always be immediately deleted as CSD A7. "Userfying" – moving these pages to the new user's user page – is a slightly more compassionate approach, but it doesn't work as often as it should.

     

29. Good people leave the project all the time. Fortunately, good people join the project all the time as well. Bad people come and go as well. The project survives in spite of all these arrivals and departures.

     

30. Many of our best contributors began with a few shabby edits. Be nice to newbies, even though it is a test of patience to see the same mistake hundreds of times over several years. Patience is one of the most underrated of the virtues, and in our present attention-deficit-disorder age it is one of the most rare.

     

31. People who loudly accuse the community of some vice are almost invariably guilty of, but blind to, that vice, or some variant of it, themselves.

     

32. If you've been blocked, it's because you did something wrong. Instead of complaining about abuse of power, censorship, or whatever, just behave in such a way that you don't get blocked. There are thousands of editors who have contributed enormously to Wikipedia without ever getting blocked. It's not that hard.

     

33. When someone's first edit is reverted, and they are sufficiently angered by this that they leave several paragraphs of invective on the reverter's talk page, it is highly unlikely that that person is suited to become a Wikipedia editor. Hard as it is, we need to leave our egos at the door, or as much of those egos as it is possible to unload. Not only can anyone edit, but anyone does edit, and reversions of good-faith edits are all part of a day's action here.

     

34. Whenever a group of people, particularly if they are administrators, gets together and agrees on something, there will inevitably be one or a handful of vocal detractors who oppose because they see something sinister in any group which is in agreement – especially if they perceive that group as having power over them. See WP:CABAL.

     

35. It's good to let your ego be punctured once in a while. Most of us, after several years and tens of thousands of edits, start to put a lot of our egos into our work here, more than we originally either intended or anticipated. While it's natural for this to happen, the unintended consequences include feelings of ownership over one's contributions and a quickness to react in poor faith, and even with arrogance. Someone reverted your edits with a sarcastic edit summary? Let it go. Someone called you a bad name somewhere? Don't retaliate. Let it go. While it hurts at first to let these things go, being able to do so is the true test of strength and maturity. You only gain in the long run. Retaliating not only brings you discredit, but it increases your anger, and corresponding risk of over-reaction, as the number of related provocations rises.

     

36. When you are angry, it is extraordinarily difficult to differentiate between a good-faith edit and the other kind. Postpone that decision until you are no longer angry. The consequences of reverting a good-faith edit with a vandalism-reversion tool or "rvv" edit summary are unpredictable, and unlikely to win you friends or trust. As a general rule, do not edit when you are angry. Wait until the feeling has passed, and you are yourself again.

     

37. When someone screams about "admin abuse", it's most likely true – they're probably abusing admins again. If there's a block involved, expect to see a battalion of sockpuppets in short order, making even more shrill cries of admin wrongdoing.

     

38. Try to be as tolerant as you possibly can regarding edits by established contributors. Should you need to revert one, leave as polite an explanation as possible, with room for compromise: and if they're simply wrong, don't rub their nose in it. The risk of losing long-established contributors due to avoidable conflict is one of the greatest the project faces. People who have been here a year or more, and made thousands of contributions to the project, are its greatest asset, and this cannot be overstated.

     

39. While it feels bad to be attacked by one of the persistent, nasty, obsessive trolls, it is helpful to remember that some of these people are profoundly miserable. They are really suffering; life is hell for them: often they are neither in control of their impulses, nor completely sane. A little compassion can help, although one's initial impulse is to strike back. Don't. It's a sign of strength not to retaliate, and a peaceful response may actually do some good.

I'm as prone to vanity as anyone, and posting these observations is not an attempt to imply that I am above these behaviors myself.