Wikipedia:For every essay, there is an equal and opposite essay
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: If you can cite an essay advancing one argument, someone else can very likely cite an essay advancing the opposite argument. |
There is a saying that for every aphorism there is an equal and opposite aphorism. An equivalent process occurs with Wikipedia, where there are several essays that are often in competition with one another and can be used to imply conclusions that are mutually exclusive. This process is known as Wolfson's law or Newton's third law for Wikipedia. This can be somewhat problematic in a discussion such as AfD where there can be only one result of the discussion.
Examples
[edit]- HEY and TNT
- Various essays on whether content creation should or should not be a de facto criterion for adminship
- Most essays with a shortcut beginning with "NO(T)" and an essay with the same shortcut without the negative
Causes
[edit]Wikipedia has several fairly-rigid policies, such as NPOV, V, and NOR, as well as several more guidelines. However, it can be non-obvious how to apply those guidelines to a specific case in practice, and essays help fill in the gaps. As anyone can write an essay, and as they are not vetted by the community, they are more numerous than policies and guidelines. Since Wikipedia is filled with people with differing opinions about things, it is the case that many essays don't see eye to eye on a given issue.
Solutions
[edit]The easiest and best way out of this bind is to cite policy and guidelines rather than mere essays. As said above, however, these tend to be rather general and essays might be the best in filling in more specificity to a particular case. Rather rarely are two given essays completely irreconcilable; to give the examples of HEY and TNT, one can recognize that an article can have more potential than its current state while recognizing that some articles are in such a state that it's better to start over. It is also not necessarily the case that all essays are created equal; some are more highly valued by the community than others, as shown here. In general, essays with a higher impact in the community should be given more weight than others, although it must be stressed that even they are still mere essays.