Wikipedia talk:Editing environment

This article began as a contribution to the article Wikipedia on Citizendium. Please suggest improvements below. Comments are invited concerning an essay on the WP editing environment intended to provide some guidance to the neophyte. The essay is found here, and comments are invited on its Talk page. Brews ohare (talk) 19:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

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Comments

*Comment

As a guide for new or any users it has many significant issues. Mostly it spends far too long describing the behaviour of disruptive editors (wikilawyering, soapboxing), disputes and WPs mechanisms for dealing with them. But seriously disruptive editors and dealing with them are a very small part of WP, as evidenced by the small number of arbitration cases, each usually involving very few editors. Disputes and arbitration are of little interest to most editors.

More generally it has many inline external links, oddly to WP itself. It has many POV statements, not a problem for an essay but inappropriate for guidance. Some sections have far too many direct quotes, so it reads very poorly and choppily and it's difficult to make sense of what it's saying, especially whether it is agreeing with the quoted material or not.

WP already has pages such as WP:Editing policy which describe the process of editing quite well, with links to other policies and guidelines. It's unclear what this adds to existing guidelines.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:26, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

You raise some general points here without specifics. I'll try to interpret your remarks and make changes, particularly as to whether the quotes are agreed with. In general, the quotes refer to stated policy, so they are expository, not matters to agree with or not to agree with.

This article is not intended as a help page for the mechanics of the editorial process, but as a guide to how one should attempt to navigate the thickets and avoid administrative intervention. You might have some advice on this score? Brews ohare (talk) 20:34, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It's easy to avoid administrative intervention: don't be disruptive. But most editors find this easy and natural and have no problems steering clear of 'the thickets'.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I've no statistics at hand, but however common the problems may be, the objective is to help avoid them. So the focus is upon a clear description of the lay of the land in this regard. I've added a preamble to make that clearer. Brews ohare (talk) 20:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

"It's easy to avoid administrative intervention: don't be disruptive." That's not strictly true. See the latest Signpost for one reason. Rich Farmbrough, 13:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC).

I've had a look at it and can't see what you are referring to.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:51, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

*Comment

This is quite an important area. There is some academic research on this, but it is vary basic. Rich Farmbrough, 13:13, 6 March 2012 (UTC).

Rich: Thanks for taking a look at this. Apart from questions about how things are actually handled are questions about what WP itself says about how things are supposed to be handled. Even that is not too clear. In particular, it would appear that Admins are not supposed to be empowered to make bans or blocks on their own initiative, yet my experience is that they do in fact do such things. Sometimes this stems from an AN/I complaint used as evidence of "community agreement" on a sanction, although achievement of such agreement on AN/I is decided by Administrator fiat, not by due process. Another issue in such cases is that the "community" involved here consists of those disputants on AN/I involved in the particular issue, and these disputes are frequently between some individual and a gang of opponents determined to stack the deck. Brews ohare (talk) 14:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

*Comment

I believe a fair conclusion from this essay is that Administrators have carte blanche in adjudication, and are under no obligation whatsoever (other than their own consciences) to follow any precepts such as WP guidelines and policies, nor even any requirement to use fact rather than opinion. They are empowered to take action to prevent hypothetical future acts of their imagining, based upon their putative prescience. Moreover, they cannot be disciplined except by ArbCom, and are thus responsible to no-one except ArbCom, which is composed of their own members. They serve forever, new Administrators are accepted subject to the judgment of Bureaucrats, and very little new blood is added to their numbers over time. These considerations are a prescription unlikely to motivate acuity or adaptivity. That doesn't mean that the system doesn't work. But it does mean that there are no safeguards, and proper administration of WP depends 100% upon the integrity, good judgment, and responsiveness of its administrators, as they themselves interpret these qualities. Brews ohare (talk) 17:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

*Comment

Transferred from edit of article page by TopGarbageCollector:

However, this is just a marketing gimmick. In practice, virtually changes (however logical, and however well backed up by citations and references) will be deleted if they go against the political slant or personal prejudice of one of the editors. On some pages even the pretense of free editing is removed, and the pages are blocked. Transferred by Brews ohare (talk) 21:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)