Wikipedia:Differences between ordinary English and Wikipedia editor jargon

In Wikipedia-land, words sometimes take on different meanings to what they most commonly mean in ordinary English - or at least, it may appear that way to the casual reader. Sometimes words take on a more specific, constrained meaning due to the specific constraints defined in Wikipedia policies and guidelines; sometimes, as in the case of "editor", the meaning is simply different to what the casual reader might expect.

It is important to note that these distinct meanings are only used - and should only be used - in communications between Wikipedia editors, such as policies, guidelines and essays in the Wikipedia: namespace on Wikipedia, in edit summaries on edits, and on Talk pages. These meanings should not be used in ordinary Wikipedia articles - with the sole exception being where those articles refer to Wikipedia. Even in the latter case, editors should bear in mind that non-editors are frequently unaware of these alternate meanings, so should be careful not to employ these alternate meanings without adequate explanation.

Editor and editing

The editor of a newspaper or magazine is, at least theoretically, someone who edits article submissions prepared by other people, who are known as authors or contributors. The same is true in a compendium of fiction or suchlike. There is a clear distinction between editors on the one hand, and authors on the other (except that editors may also author articles).

This is not the case on English Wikipedia. In fact, the word "author" is not used at all (except occasionally in the context of essays in the Wikipedia namespace). This is because it would imply, in some people's minds, some level of ownership over articles by the original creator of an article, which Wikipedia (and most public wikis in general) reject - again, with the exception of certain special types of pages, such as Wikipedia-namespace essays in Wikipedia's case. Instead, the word "editor" is used to cover everyone who creates, edits, or adds content to articles.

Similarly, editing on Wikipedia refers to all modifications, including the straightforward addition of text, such as new sections.

Media articles about Wikipedia often use alternative words such as "contributor" in place of "editor", to avoid confusing people who are not Wikipedia editors.

Sockpuppets, sockpuppeting and meatpuppets

Normally, on the Internet, the term sockpuppet may be used to refer to any online identity whose owner pretends to be someone other than themselves (sometimes this may be a form of astroturfing).

However, in the context of Wikipedia editors, "sockpuppet" specifically means an alternate, secondary Wikipedia account controlled by the same person as another Wikipedia account. The obvious question arises: "How on earth could you prove beyond doubt that this was going on, short of standing behind the puppeteer in real life as they did this, or hacking into their computer?" - and the uncomfortable answer to that question is "there is no technical means to do so" - it can only be a "reasonable" suspicion, based on evidence which is quite likely to be inconclusive.

It is a very bad idea to accuse a Wikipedia editor of "sockpuppeting" merely for pretending to be someone other than their real-world self - as the main author of this essay discovered - because if there is no evidence presented of a second account being used, this usage of the term "sockpuppeting" does not conform to correct Wikipedia jargon usage (a serious crime on Wikipedia!). The only circumstances in which one should ever accuse a Wikipedian of being a sockpuppet, is in a report of suspected sockpuppeting (in the narrower Wikipedia sense given above) to WP:SPI, which must be evidence-based.

"Meatpuppet"

Although not really a genuine English word, the closely-related term "meatpuppet" means, in Wikipedia jargon, an account unduly influenced by another person - and the definition of "unduly" can be very, very broad. You were angry about some inaccurate or defamatory content included in a Wikipedia article, or the proposed deletion of an article you thought was worth keeping, and you posted about it to Reddit? Oops, you've just created a "meatpuppet" army, possibly without realising it - and now, if anyone actually notices you've done this (which is by no means guaranteed to happen, note), anyone who agrees with you may be automatically considered to be your "meatpuppet" on sight (see also "consensus" below).

This is actually very unfair in practice, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, there are very-well-documented cases of politically-non-neutral campaigns organising people en masse to edit Wikipedia, and yet they aren't usually considered to be "meatpuppet" armies - possibly because a formal campaign lends them an imprimatur of gravitas which websites such as Reddit and 4Chan lack (but of course the perceived collective gravitas of a group is an entirely spurious grounds for accepting or rejecting its edits), or possibly because they obscure their collective identity much, much more effectively than someone posting a link to a Wikipedia deletion debate to Reddit does. Meatpuppetteers, take note!

Original research

In ordinary English, insofar as the expression is used at all in ordinary English, "original research" means a contribution which advances the state of human knowledge or scholarship due to its novelty or original insights - a good example being a PhD thesis, which is supposed to only be accepted for the requirements of a PhD degree if it truly constitutes original research (although some non-original work does slip through the net sometimes).

On Wikipedia, it means something similar, but (a) far from being praised, it is actually banned, and (b) the bar for what constitutes original research is really, really, low - even an edit as small as one which adds the single word "but" to an article can qualify as "original research" - something that may not be obvious to a casual reader, to say the least. This is not a joke. Under Wikipedia's policy on "synthesis", joining two sentences with connectives such as "and" can create an impression that the two facts or opinions (or whatever they) are connected, by logical implication or otherwise, and if no reliable source makes that connection, that's (quite rightly) banned. In line with the general guideline that all contributions that might be contentious should have a citation, if there is a reliable source that makes that connection, editors are advised to add an inline citation to that source, or some anti-synthesis editor is likely to come along and delete it (eventually). Even though it might look a bit silly to cite the word "and", it's better on policy grounds, than not adding the cite at all.

Fortunately, arithmetic reasoning such as concluding that 1+1=2, and more broadly, a few types of very simple reasoning, are not considered to constitute "original research" - although they technically qualified under an older version of the original research policy in the past.

However, for some reason, research activities such as selecting sources for an article, selecting images or videos for an article, and even taking photographs or producing other images or videos for an article, are not deemed to involve any "original research". Well, I'm being disingenuous - if these activities were deemed to fall under "original research" and banned on Wikipedia on those grounds, Wikipedia editing would grind to a halt overnight. So that's why.

Ironically, also, determining whether a source counts as a "reliable source" may require original research!

Consensus

This is possibly the most Orwellian redefinition on the list. On Wikipedia:

1. The word "consensus" is frequently redefined to mean something more akin to "plurality". The pragmatic reason for this is probably that while a group of friends might just about be able to come to a consensus about what type(s) of pizza to order for themselves to share, getting a group of random Wikipedia editors to come to a genuine consensus on any controversial issue, on arguably the crappiest discussion forum system on the internet, is akin to herding cats - and no-one usually cares enough to take consensus-building seriously. Life's too short, and people are too intransigent. Maybe the situation will improve when the Talk page "software" (actually there is no Talk page software at all, they're just ordinary wiki pages) finally gets upgraded. Probably not.
2. "Invalid" arguments, and "invalid" users such as sockpuppets or people reasonably suspected to be "meatpuppets", are supposed to be ignored by any administrator seeking to determine what the "consensus" on a question is. Thus, 1 person making a "valid" argument against 99 people making an "invalid" argument would technically constitute a "consensus" for the views of the 1 person - a definition of consensus that would make Kim Il Sung proud. Nobody really understands this.

It is also worth noting that though the perception is that Wikipedia is driven by consensus (albeit under the weird Wikipedia redefinition of the term), even this is not actually true. The quite frankly embarrassing and widely ignored wording of one of the "five pillars of Wikipedia", WP:IAR, cannot be changed, apparently because it was set in stone by our Great Leader, who no longer leads Wikipedia, but yet does, in some undefined Schrödinger's cat kind of way. See also the furore over multiple technical decisions such as the Visual Editor opt-in-by-default and the new media viewer, pushed through by the WMF over (and in some cases, in advance of) the strenuous objections of Wikipedia editors. It is unclear who at the WMF first came up with the genius idea of springing potentially-unpopular major technical changes on the community, thus pissing off the volunteers who make the WMF's websites, and thus the WMF staffer's jobs, possible - perhaps a programmer with Asperger's syndrome working at the WMF - though if so, that suggests a worrying lack of management oversight. However, under the new leadership of Lila Tretikov, the WMF has sought to soften its stance - in particular by consulting the community first instead. Only time will tell whether the WMF's apparent new commitment to "consensus building" is genuine.