Wikipedia:Tendentious editing
This is an explanatory essay about Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. |
This page in a nutshell: How to recognize and avoid various problematic and disruptive patterns of editing. |
Tendentious editing is a pattern of editing that is partisan, biased, skewed, and does not maintain an editorially neutral point of view. It may also involve repeated attempts to insert or delete content in the face of the objections of several other editors, or behavior that tends to frustrate proper editorial processes and discussions. This is more than just an isolated edit or comment that was badly thought out.
This essay is about how to recognise such editing, how to avoid it, and how not to be accused of it.
Other policies and guidelines covering tendentious behaviors include:
- How content is edited – consensus
- Common tendentious behaviors – "I didn't hear that"
- Editor intentions – not being here to build an encyclopedia.
What is tendentious editing?
Tendentious editing is editing with a sustained editorial bias, or with a clear editorial viewpoint contrary to Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. A single edit is unlikely to be a real problem, but a pattern of edits displaying an editor's bias is more likely to be an issue, and repeated biased edits of a single article or group of articles will be very unwelcome indeed. This last behavior is generally characterized as POV pushing and is a common cause of blocking. It is usually an indication of strong opinions.
Editors who engage in this behavior generally fall into two categories: those who come to realize the problem their edits cause, recognise their own bias, and work productively with editors with opposing views to build a better encyclopedia – and the rest. The rest often end up indefinitely blocked or, if they are otherwise productive editors with a blind spot on one particular area, they may be
It is important to recognize that everybody has bias. Few people will edit subjects in which they have no interest. Bias is not in and of itself a problem in editors, only in articles. Problems arise when editors see their own bias as neutral, and especially when they assume that any resistance to their edits is founded in bias towards an opposing point of view. The perception that "he who is not for me is against me" is contrary to Wikipedia's assume good faith guideline: always allow for the possibility that you are indeed wrong, and remember that attributing motives to fellow editors is inconsiderate.
Remember:
Characteristics of problem editors
Here are some hints to help you recognise if you or someone else has become a problem editor:
Not learning from a block for edit-warring
You have been blocked more than once for edit-warring. Or argue about whether you actually reverted four times or only three, or whether the
3RR exists to prevent edit wars. Wikilawyering about the precise details is unproductive and probably means that you have missed the point: edit warring is bad, and even one revert can be disruptive.
Even a slow-motion edit war, perhaps involving one revert per day, is still an edit war. 3RR draws a "bright line", but meeting its minimal requirements ultimately does not shield one from the consequences of edit-warring. If your edits are reverted or rejected, you can take the dispute to the article's talk page, remembering to cite your sources. If that fails, but you still feel that you are right, consider options for dispute resolution.
Repeating a penalised edit
On returning from a block, your first action is to head right back to the article and repeat the edit. A contentious fact does not become uncontentious by virtue of repetition. Elsewhere on the internet you can get away with repeating something until nobody cares enough to contradict you anymore; on Wikipedia, that is unacceptable.
A variant of returning to the same edit is returning to the same talk page to make the same arguments. On returning from a block, if you go to the talk page of the article you were penalized for, do not repeat the same arguments that led to the block. Instead, try to find different arguments, different policy rationales, and better sources. Repeating the exact arguments you made before your block may be viewed as disruptive.
As well, you may wish to compromise on the position you are arguing for, in the interests of proposing an idea which is more likely to get a consensus.
For example: If your earlier attempts to add the phrase "Film XYZ is widely viewed as the worst film in the genre" did not lead to consensus, you may want to propose more defensible wording, like this: "While Film XYZ was widely praised by critics, critic Sue Smith of the New York Times called it 'the poorest example of the genre in 2015'." This one at least has a
Wrongly accusing others of vandalism
You repeatedly undo the "vandalism" of others.
Content disputes are not vandalism. Wikipedia defines vandalism very carefully to exclude good-faith contributions. Accusing other editors of vandalism is uncivil unless there is genuine vandalism, that is, a deliberate attempt to degrade the encyclopedia, not a simple difference of opinion. There are numerous dispute resolution processes and there is no deadline to meet; the wheels of Wikijustice may grind exceeding slow, but they do grind (apologies to Sun Tzu).
Asking for the benefit of doubt
You find that nobody will assume good faith, no matter how often you remind them.
Warning others to assume good faith is something which should be done with great care, if at all – to accuse them of failing to do so may be regarded as uncivil, and if you are perceived as failing to assume good faith yourself, then it could be seen as being a jerk.
Accusing others of malice
You often find yourself accusing or suspecting other editors of "suppressing information", "censorship", or "denying facts".
This is prima facie evidence of your failure to assume good faith. Never attribute to malice that which may be adequately explained by a simple difference of opinion. And in the case of biographies of living individuals, it is vitally important always to err on the side of caution. If the information you want to add is self-evidently valid and important to the subject, it should be trivial to provide multiple citations from reliable sources which agree that it is both true and significant. Take this evidence to the talk page in the first instance.
Disputing the reliability of apparently good sources
You find yourself engaging in discussions about the reliability of sources that substantially meet the criteria for reliable sources.
There is nothing wrong with questioning the reliability of sources, to a point. But there is a limit to how far one may reasonably go in an effort to discredit the validity of what most other contributors consider to be reliable sources, especially when multiple sources are being questioned in this manner. This may take the form of arguing about the number of or validity of the information cited by the sources. The danger here is in judging the reliability of sources by how well they support the desired viewpoint.
Expecting others to find sources for your own statements
You demand that other editors search for sources to support text that you added, or
Adding citations that are inadequate, ambiguous or not sufficiently explicit
Your citations back some of the facts you are adding, but do not explicitly support your interpretation or the inferences you draw.
The policy against adding
Repeating the same argument without convincing people
You find yourself repeating the same argument over and over again, without persuading people.
If your arguments are rejected, bring better arguments, don't simply repeat the same ones. And most importantly, examine your argument carefully, in light of what others have said. It is true that people will only be convinced if they want to be, regardless of how good your argument may be, but that is not grounds for believing that your argument must be true. You must be willing to concede you may have been wrong. Take a long, hard look at your argument from as detached and objective a point of view as you can possibly muster, and see if there is a problem with it. If there isn't, it's best to leave the situation alone: they're not going to want to see it and you cannot force them to. If there is a problem, however, then you should revise the argument, your case, or both.
Deleting the pertinent cited additions of others
You delete the cited additions of others with the complaint that they did not discuss their edits first.
There is no rule on Wikipedia that someone has to get permission from you before they put cited information in an article. Such a rule would clearly contradict
Ignoring or refusing to answer good faith questions from other editors
You ignore or refuse to answer good faith questions from other editors.
No editor should ever be expected to do "homework" for another editor, but simple, clarifying questions from others should not be ignored. (e. g. "You say the quote you want to incorporate can be found in this 300-page pdf, but I've looked and I can't find it. Exactly what page is it on?") Failure to cooperate with such simple requests may be interpreted as evidence of a bad faith effort to exasperate or waste the time of other editors.
Assigning undue importance to a single aspect of a subject
A particular problem is to assign
Similarly, if a single author says that a particular country is a state supporter of terrorism, then adding that country to the article state-sponsored terrorism would be to place undue weight on that one author's view. It is very important to place all critical material in the proper context, and ensure that an overall balanced view is provided. A balanced view does not need to be a sympathetic view – our article on Adolf Hitler does not portray him as a sensitive and misunderstood individual who was kind to his mother – but it does need to reflect the balance of opinion among reputable authorities.
Not accepting independent input
Some editors may find that independent input through a
Similarly, such editors may resist the initiation of a request for comment. If someone argues at great length over a content dispute, but then suddenly gets cold feet when others suggest seeking wider input, it is often a sign that the editor recognizes that a wider consensus is unlikely to go their way.
"Banning" otherwise constructive editors from your talk page
Some editors routinely tell other editors that they disagree with to "Stay off my talk page." The editors who do this tend to have long lists of folks that have been "banned." Talk pages are the fundamental medium used for editors to interact. Except in specific and clear cases of
Threatening to quit Wikipedia
Just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore.
—US politician Richard Nixon in 1962, as reported in the New York Times[2]
Don't let the door(knob) hit you where the good Lord split you!
—African-American vernacular saying
Most editors occasionally wonder why they're investing so much blood, sweat, and tears into Wikipedia. However, it is inappropriate to use threats of leaving as
On the other hand, editors can also be genuinely troubled about ways they have been treated by others, and such sincere soul-searching should be treated with kindness. An editor who worries out loud about whether or not continuing to edit is worth it, particularly when not made conditional on a demand and not a repeated habit, should not be dismissed as
Righting great wrongs
Wikipedia is a popular site, and its articles often appear high in search engine rankings. You might think that Wikipedia is a great place to set the record straight and right great wrongs, but that is absolutely not the case. While we can record the righting of great wrongs, we can't actually "ride the crest of the wave" ourselves. We are, by design, supposed to be "behind the curve". This is because we only report information that is
- Expose a popular artist as a child molester, or
- Vindicate a convicted murderer you believe to be innocent, or
- Explain what you are sure is the truth of a current or historical political, religious, or moral issue, or
- Spread the word about a theory/hypothesis/belief/cure-all herb that has been unfairly neglected or suppressed by the scholarly community...