User:Raul654/Civil POV pushing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents


The Problem

Wikipedia, and specifically the dispute resolution process, have a difficult time dealing with civil POV pushers. These POV pushers tend to exhibit some or all of the following behaviors:

The arbitration committee 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 it requires someone with knowledge of the topic to identify PCCTL. (One very 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. As such, the committee has difficulty dealing with "civil" POV pushers (people who are civil - or not-quite-uncivil-enough to merit sanctions). The problem is compounded because it often takes the form of long-term behavior that cannot accurately be summarized in a few diffs.

Topics affected by this problem include (but are not limited to):

  • Evolution/Creationism
  • Complementary and alternative medicine
  • Global warming
  • Parapsychology
  • The September 11 attacks
  • Racial topics
  • Pseudoscience
  • Marginal or idiosyncratic scientific speculation

As a result of the arbitration committee's failure to deal with these issues, the committee has effectively abdicated the responsibility for taking care of these articles 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 keeping it free of PCCTL. 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 be sanctioned by the arbcom for incivility. (Mongo comes to mind)
  • The patient ones tend to go more-quietly - they become disillusioned from the never-ending problems, and the lack of support, and stop editing on these topics or quit the site entirely.

It has become clear to me that this is an untenable situation, and I believe the arbitration committee is gradually realizing this as well. I recently suggested, in the strongest language, that they use the DanaUllman 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 me, in private, that I should come up with such a list of principles and remedies. The purpose of this page is to provide such a list.

Principles

  • Civility is not limited to superficial politeness, but includes the overall behavior of the user. A number of behaviors may be superficially polite, but still uncivil. Examples include politely phrased baiting, frivolous or vexatious use of process, ill-considered but politely phrased accusations, unrelenting pestering, abuse of talk pages as a platform to expound upon personal opinions unrelated to specific content issues, and so forth. (Suggested by MastCell and Jim62sch)
  • Just as WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR cannot be applied in isolation, WP:CIVIL, while a core policy, should not be interpreted or enforced in isolation or without reference to other behavioral guidelines and policies. Civility is important, but it does not excuse violations of other core behavioral and content policies. (Suggested by MastCell)
  • Using Wikipedia as a vehicle for advocacy, or to advance a specific agenda, is damaging to the encyclopedia and disruptive to the process of collaborative editing. Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs. Regardless of whether such behavior is superficially civil, it is inappropriate and just as harmful to the project, if not more so, than incivility. (Suggested by MastCell)
  • WP:AGF is not a tool to wear down those editors who may have a differing viewpoint. 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. (Suggested by Baegis, with help from Shoemaker's Holiday)
  • PCCTL is described with promotional bias by its advocates, typically in the following media:
    • Dedicated websites (normally registered under a .com or .org -- rarely under .edu though there are occasions where this may be possible)
    • Dedicated periodicals
    • Self-published sources
    • Publications made outside the typical scientific presses
    • In-house journals (not to be confused with academic journals)
    • Occasional peer-reviewed articles -- often in more obscure journals, such as those not appearing in the ISI Citation Index
    • Propaganda published by groups with promotional agendas (such as think tanks funded by those in opposition to scientific consensus)
These sources may be used for only describing what PCCTL advocates say they believe. They may not be used to establish the factual basis for such claims. (Suggested by ScienceApologist and Raul654)


  • Civility does not mean that editors cannot disagree -- Academe is well-known for spirited debates and disagreement, and such debates and disagreements often point the way to a reliable representation of reality. However, the key principle should be to "stay on topic"; that is to say, arguments should be ad rem not ad hominem, and editors should bear in mind that a disagreement with their point is not an attack on their honour. •Jim62sch•dissera! 19:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • An "involved administrator" (as defined by arbitration committee sanctions for the purposes of allowing uninvolved administrators to impose sanctions on problem users) is someone 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 reverting someone on the same article (but a different matter) does not make someone involved. (suggested by Raul654) 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 simple incivility at the expense of more complex and long-term behavior. (last two sentences suggested by Arritt)

Suggested remedies

  • 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 may 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 single-purpose advocacy. (Suggested by MastCell)
    • Corollary: When less-than-clear-cut cases of abuse arise, admins generally err on the side leniency, preferring to let a potentially problematic editor off the hook, rather than risk blocking or banning an editor unjustly. However, in cases involving SPAs and/or editors with histories of tendentious editing, this bias can (should?) be attenuated or even reversed. (Suggested by Yilloslime)
  • Alternatively there should some general anti SPA rule: accounts which make more than 10% of edits to a given article or more than 50% to a given category should be put on 1RR for those topics (a bot could find and do that) or even periodically given forced respites from the topic (e.g. a respite holiday of 200 edits by other people every 5 edits they do). This deals with the "civil" part of the problem otherwise this turns into business as usual.
  • Where consensus cannot be attained through normal wiki processes, the arbitration committee can 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. (Suggested by CorticoSpinal; modifed by Raul654)
    • Corollary: When consensus is achieved by the "lead" editors, the article in question would be dubbed the "expert stable/consensus" version that can be used as a reference point when a) locking the page in question and prevent possible wrong versions and/or b) used in cases where a subsequent edit war, POV push (including civil), vandalism or any other act that undermines the stability, reliability, validity of the article and/or directly or indirectly harms the spirit of the project. (Suggested by CorticoSpinal)
  • 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 shall be pointed to the previous discussion, warned, restricted and ultimately blocked by any uninvolved administrator. (Suggested by Baegis; modifed by Raul654)
  • Similar to some diagnostic methods, an editor, seemingly engaged in a civil POV push violates/breaches "x" amount of the principles or examples (listed above) would in trigger an automatic review by a panel of admins to determine whether or not core policies have been breached, to what extent and how often. These could be used, in whole or part, to determine the appropriate sanctions on editors who would then be given specific probationary terms to follow to maintain their contributory status (Suggested by CorticoSpinal)
  • One of the biggest contributions to reducing this sort of conflict would be to rename WP:NPOV. The problem is, the word neutral appearing in the title of WP:NPOV invites misinterpretation. Even Jimbo gave a speech at one point mentioning this (at one of the Wikimanias? I forget where it was and do not have a link; sorry). I think if it was renamed it would help. For example, what about Describe The Dispute as a title ? So one could have WP:DTD instead of WP:NPOV. Alternatively, we might have Describe the Controversy, or WP:DTC. How about Expert View Integration or Reliable Source Weighting or Reliable Source Integration? How about Relative Weighting of Reliably Sourced Views or Relative Weighting of Expert Views or Proportional Weighting of Expert Views or Proportional Integration of Reliable Sources? Another suggestion might be Conflict and Controversy Exposition, or WP:CACE. A conflict or controversy that is very mild or even nonexistent would be classified as a degenerate conflict or controversy. Other suggestions are welcome. (Suggested by Filll)
  • Institute probationary periods for new administrators of 6 months or so. During this time, new administrators will be required to report to a mentor for advice and suggestions, as well as complete a number of training tasks and exercises (such as view or participate in the lectures and classes being compiled at Wikipedia:Lectures, or try exercises similar to User:Filll/AGF Challenge). At the satisfactory completion of the mentorship and training, the administrator can be promoted to a regular administrator, required to undergo further training or to give up their administrative tools. There are a nonvanishingly small number of administrators who do not understand Wikipedia policy very well, particularly in areas dealing with controversial topics and FRINGE subjects. Poorly trained and ignorant administrators can be damaging to the project. There are also a substantial number of administrators who have little experience in dealing with conflict on articles dealing with controversial topics, who nevertheless are full of advice and unwarranted confidence. Exposing more administrators to a wider range of experiences during a period of training would be beneficial. Eventually, some sort of quota system that set aside some fraction (like 1/4) of the administrative positions for those candidates with experience in controversial areas would be very beneficial. What we do now is to discriminate against any candidates with experience in editing controversial articles, and then expect the administrators we do appoint to learn on the job, with no direction and no training. It is ridiculous to expect that this will work well, and it does not (Suggested by Filll).
  • Produce a rating system that rated RfA candidates by their editing experience with controversial articles. During RfA, exhibit these ratings so that candidates with more experience in contentitious areas are recognized and given extra credit for this contribution (User:Filll is working on such a rating system now) (Suggested by Filll).
  • Require more extensive questioning of candidates during RfA to probe their reasoning ability and knowledge of Wikipedia policies, such as those represented by the User:Filll/AGF Challenge (and the other 30 or so exercises currently under preparation by User:Filll). (Suggested by Filll).
  • You might want to use me as an example of burn out type two. The Potassium dichromate talk page is the primary reason I slowly dropped away. We all have far better things to do with our time. David D. (Talk) 17:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Split NPOV into two separate policies. Neutral Point of View would mean that the article would not include negative phrasing or negative views that were unsourced. Proportional View Weighting, the policy to be split off from NPOV, would include the statement "views in proportion to their promimence" (Suggested by Filll).

See also