 | 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. |
Wikipedia is first and foremost an online encyclopedic written by volunteers. Therefore, the most important contributors are content writers. En masse, they form an organism-like community. Just like a living organism, the Wikibody is frequently disturbed by people both external and internal. External agents, such as vandals and trolls, are like invasive bacteria or viruses. Internal factors, usually editors who believe they are doing what's best for Wikipedia but don't truly grok the nature of the Wikibody are like cancerous cells; they start out beneficial but become harmful.
To allow the content writers to thrive, Wikipedia has developed dispute resolution processes analogous to an immune system. Just as it sometimes takes time for a body to build up antibodies to a disease, sometimes dispute resolution takes time to mitigate disturbance to content writers.
Autoimmune disease and allergies occur when regulatory mechanisms fail and the immune cells attack healthy cells. Likewise, sometimes dispute resolution volunteers (responders) lose track of the big picture and attack content writers instead of supporting them, or react hyper-sensitively to wikiallergens and escalate, rather than deescalate, situations. At these times, Wikidryl, an antihistamine-like mindset should be applied.
While antihistamines work through drug interactions, Wikidryl works through conscious activities of Wikipedia dispute resolution volunteers.
- Knowing policy, protocols, and procedures is obviously really helpful to being a good responder; but, with very few exceptions, we're never required to take action, only not to take inappropriate action. Before we take any action, we should always ask ourselves a couple questions. Does this make sense?, and This helps Wikipedia -- how? If we don't have positive answers to these questions, it's time to reflect a little more before acting.
- It's not about the responders; when a sanction is applied, whether it's a contrary word or a block or ban, the normal human reaction is to lash out at the perceived source. The angry editor isn't attacking the responder personally -- they don't know the responder, just the account name they use online -- they're unhappy with the role the responder is playing. The wikisavvy responder does not take things personally because they're not acting on their own behalf, they're acting on behalf of Wikipedia. Instead, they become other ducks.
- People have an innate sense of justice and fairness and need to vent. Unfortunately, we can't do justice, but we can do tolerance. As long as sanctioned editors are not degrading articles or moving beyond ranting into personal attacks, it costs us nothing to allow an editor a little space. An editor venting on the wiki is not banned and therefore continues to be an asset; the goal of the sanction is prevent further disruption, not discourage further positive contributions.
| 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. |
Wikipedia is first and foremost an online encyclopedic written by volunteers. Therefore, the most important contributors are content writers. En masse, they form an organism-like community. Just like a living organism, the Wikibody is frequently disturbed by people both external and internal. External agents, such as vandals and trolls, are like invasive bacteria or viruses. Internal factors, usually editors who believe they are doing what's best for Wikipedia but don't truly grok the nature of the Wikibody are like cancerous cells; they start out beneficial but become harmful.
To allow the content writers to thrive, Wikipedia has developed dispute resolution processes analogous to an immune system. Just as it sometimes takes time for a body to build up antibodies to a disease, sometimes dispute resolution takes time to mitigate disturbance to content writers.
Autoimmune disease and allergies occur when regulatory mechanisms fail and the immune cells attack healthy cells. Likewise, sometimes dispute resolution volunteers (responders) lose track of the big picture and attack content writers instead of supporting them, or react hyper-sensitively to wikiallergens and escalate, rather than deescalate, situations. At these times, Wikidryl, an antihistamine-like mindset should be applied.
While antihistamines work through drug interactions, Wikidryl works through conscious activities of Wikipedia dispute resolution volunteers.
- Knowing policy, protocols, and procedures is obviously really helpful to being a good responder; but, with very few exceptions, we're never required to take action, only not to take inappropriate action. Before we take any action, we should always ask ourselves a couple questions. Does this make sense?, and This helps Wikipedia -- how? If we don't have positive answers to these questions, it's time to reflect a little more before acting.
- It's not about the responders; when a sanction is applied, whether it's a contrary word or a block or ban, the normal human reaction is to lash out at the perceived source. The angry editor isn't attacking the responder personally -- they don't know the responder, just the account name they use online -- they're unhappy with the role the responder is playing. The wikisavvy responder does not take things personally because they're not acting on their own behalf, they're acting on behalf of Wikipedia. Instead, they become other ducks.
- People have an innate sense of justice and fairness and need to vent. Unfortunately, we can't do justice, but we can do tolerance. As long as sanctioned editors are not degrading articles or moving beyond ranting into personal attacks, it costs us nothing to allow an editor a little space. An editor venting on the wiki is not banned and therefore continues to be an asset; the goal of the sanction is prevent further disruption, not discourage further positive contributions.