![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This page is dangerously vague. Change in general is disruptive. Debate is disruptive, Free speech is disruptive. This page (along with WP:POINT) gives users an angle to attack their enemies, because many well-intentioned, productive, insightful people are disruptive. This page also advances a belief largely confined to totalitarian regimes across the world and throughout history. So, I find it disturbing that it is a guideline for a project devoted to spreading free knowledge. I don't think it'd be enough just to delete this page. Instead, we should state explicitly that disruption is not against any guidelines. In other words, we need to rewrite these pages to state the opposite of what they currently do.-- Drknkn ( talk) 07:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
An essay has been drafted that concerns the treatment of a minority group proposing an addition to a Main page that is not favored by the majority of editors contributing to the article. Please comment. Brews ohare ( talk) 17:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I have reverted the Editor's Note which essentially undermined the legitimacy of the guideline, which Stevertigo ( talk · contribs · logs · block log) added as a header without any discussion on the talk page. Please discuss this to achieve consensus before restoring the disputed note. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 21:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Good removal, SteveMcCluskey. Stevertigo, that type of note isn't standard on guidelines and takes the appearance of some kind of community consensus reservation. If it wasn't discussed at all, then the usual format for that kind of thing would be to write an essay on a separate page in namespace, and mark it as an essay. Durova 366 03:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Putting issues of "appearance" and "usual format[ting]" aside, let's move this discussion on to the actual substance in the note, recreated here:
Please be aware that this is page is only a "guideline," and one dependent on highly subjective concepts of both "disruption" and "editing." Given the range between this guideline's inherent subjectivity and its self-defined severity (indefinite block or ban), the actual meaning of this guideline is debated. Thus it is important that this guideline be clearly understood as based in doubly subjective concepts:
|
- Stevertigo ( w | t | e) 05:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Should the passage, Engages in "disruptive cite-tagging"; adds unjustified {{ fact}} tags to an article when the content tagged is already sourced, uses such tags to suggest that properly sourced article content is questionable, remain as part of the guideline page? 08:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it should stay. It is often undetecte for the same reason hat DE is often undecte, it is a pattern across many articles, sometimes utterly unrelated. But tagging itself is aoften a problem - I am sick of peopl who addPOV tags without providing any explanation of why it is deserved or what kind of treatment would improve the article, this is clearly disruptive and when someone does it repeatedly we have a real problem even if just a couple, or perhaps even no, editors see it. It ends u confusing many people who mistakenly assume god faith (in these specific instances) or people who, not seeing a general pattern, may think it is reasonable. But it disrupts the projct as a whole and maes many artcles look embarassing to a general public that turns to us for reliable knowledge. Tags are meant to signal specific areas in need of improvement and have to be placed in conjunction with discussion, and someone who does not use tags this way really is disrupting the project Slrubenstein | Talk 15:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
In case anyone is interested, I've kicked off discussion about an idea I've had about incivility blocks. Currently it's hard to get a consistent blocking policy in terms of warnings and blocking times, I'm hoping that this proposal can get some traction to make this more clear. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) talk 06:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Section " How disruptive editors evade detection":
Disruptive editing already violates site policy, yet certain editors have succeeded in disrupting articles and evading disciplinary action for one of several possible reasons:
- their edits occur over a long period of time; in this case, no single edit may be clearly disruptive, but the overall pattern is disruptive
- their edits are largely confined to talk-pages, such disruption may not directly harm an article, but it often prevents other editors from reaching consensus on how to improve an article
- their edits often avoid gross breaches of civility, especially by refraining from personal attacks, even though they interfere with civil and collaborative editing meant to improve the article
- their edits remain limited to a small number of pages that very few people watch
- conversely, their edits may be distributed over a wide range of articles that few people watch.
WP:BEANS? -- 98.114.243.75 ( talk) 18:24, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
After the WP:ANI/Stevertigo referendum on my editing, and claims of my "disruptive editing," I took a look through the history of WP:DISRUPT, to find who it was that first used the policy to refer to "comments" as "disruptive editing," in addition to actual "edits." Note that since Wikipedia began, we have always made a clear distinction between "edits" and "comments" as two different things, with two different sets of principles governing them. For example, talk page comments are the words of individuals and are not to be modified, while articles are of course free to be edited.
I found that User:Slrubenstein inserted the related text back in mid-November 2008. Among other major edits, he added: "[signs of disruptive editing include] their edits are largely confined to talk-pages, where they avoid gross breaches of WP:Civility; such disruption may not directly harm an article, but it often prevents other editors from reaching consensus on how to improve an article" ( diff) Slrubenstein happens to the same person who contributed the most to the ANI/Stevertigo, and along with others, had referred to 'WP:DISRUPT' at least a few times in the course of this discussion.
I found it strange, as I've never confused the concept of an "edit" with a "comment." Nor have I ever promoted a technical policy to supercede WP:CIVIL, which I co-wrote, as a principle. Slrubenstein had appeared to choose violating CIVIL, on the basis of defending against what he called DISRUPT. I made a note to look it up in the WP:DISRUPT history, and after finding it was Slrubenstein himself that inserted the concept, it all started to make sense: His notion that open discussion of editorial issues constitute a punishable offense was nonsense he himself inserted. - Stevertigo ( w | t | e) 19:51, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I removed the below section, called "Attempts to evade detection" from the project page, because it has serious problems with subjectivity and POV:
Extended content
|
---|
Certain editors attempt to evade disciplinary action by using several practices when disrupting articles:
Nonetheless, such disruptive editing violates site policy. |
Steve, note that your analogy is wrong, and not even that: The word "edit" on the tab is simply a symbol used for one of two basic page modes, which in technical language could be described as creating a patch of the previous version of the article. The word "edit" in fact refers to an actual change to an article. We don't "edit" talk pages. We "comment" on talk pages, with regard to "editing" the article. If you have substantive criticisms to make about the points I raised, then make them. Starting off with the personal attack of "pedantic wikilawyering" doesn't serve what ostensibly is your purpose. I understand from your comments though that you don't regard CIVIL very highly, and don't really understand the meaning of the word "substantive." - Stevertigo ( w | t | e) 20:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
ST has been on a tear to dismantle this uideline for a long time. One way is to identify a section as a pesonal essay of mine and to remove it on those grounds. Of course, anything I wrote that ende dup in the gideline and stayed was the result of a collaborative process on this page, involving othe editors. The section in question des not define a disruptive editor, it is merely meant to help explain why DEs often evade detection. We are necessarily enering a grey area here. But I do not think anything in the passage ST hates conflicts with any other policy.
In the end, I have th same reaction I have with most of SV's large wholesale edits, a yawn and a question, why is this one editor so intent on disrupting other edior's lives through contentious edits. Why can't he just do what a normal Wikipedian does: research topics and add content to articles based on actual research? I am not going to hang around here and keep feeding ST' hunger for endless argument when I could be reading more about the battle of Shiloh or BP or the New Zeeland football team with the hopes of making one of those articles, or another article, better. I do have a simple question for Steve Tigo: Steve, why are you not capable of doing any serious research meant to make this a better encyclopedia? Slrubenstein | Talk 23:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Tidied and reordered a little. Put "in sum" in front of key sentence. Gave trivial example of non-disruptive editing that I don't think anyone will question. Nucleophilic ( talk) 18:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
I have made some alterations to sections which were outdated, overlooked nuances and were a poor reflection of administrative practice. Review and commentary welcome. Skomorokh 16:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Citing wp:rs is not per se disruptive editing is mostly just a clairification of the sentence before. The key words are "per se", which means the reliable source has to be relevant, etc. to the issue at hand. Mainly, this helps assure NPOV and inhibits POV-pushing by editors who may not like what the reliable sources say. Also, --- notice that one editor with a history of being beat up by arbcom for this sort of stuff-- see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria and ops cit--- reverted a week's-plus of work by several editors without going to the comments page. Should we be calling in arbcom again ? Nucleophilic ( talk) 20:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm dealing with two articles now (Added later for clarification: Libertarianism and United States and state terrorism), one where a few editors keep trying to get material removed despite at least 2 RfCs/2 Name change requests/4-5 failed proposals (all against their view) another where article has been AfD and survived a number of times and people are still trying to delete it. (Both articles now locked because of edit warring!) Yet no one has been sanctioned because of Failure to Get the Point, even though their constant disruptions led to total protection of both articles! How do we get some teeth in "Failure to get point", starting with the article explicitly stating that constant deletionist (or whatever) behavior vs. strong and repeated consensus really is not acceptable?? I have wasted hours on first article dealing with it and don't want to do the same on new article am working on. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 14:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Upon reflection I have removed parts of a few of my comments that seem to have been stressing another editor. Today is a holiday, and we should try to avoid needless quarreling so that everybody can enjoy the day. Jehochman Talk 16:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
What I'm looking for for the Libertarianism article talk page (and possibly elsewhere in the future) is a template to replace the temporary protection-related one now there which was created using Wikipedia:TMBOX. The template would say something like
![]() | The issue of [DESCRIBE ISSUE] has been settled through various dispute resolution means [LIST THEM]. Some editors might consider bringing this issue up again WP:Disruptive editing and warn you about this and possibly collapse the discussion or take the matter to Administrators' noticeboard. |
My questions: Is there such a template now? Does there need to be one? How much page consensus does there need to be to create one if there isn’t an established one? Thanks! CarolMooreDC ( talk) 17:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
This article cites Wikipedia (or sources that take information from Wikipedia), in a
circular manner. |
{{
circular}}
. I think it is a bad idea to start threatening editors with anything stronger than this friendly template. The archive search is a good feature. We don't want to
bite newcomers. If they bring up something that has been discussed before too many times, they can be given a gentle, good faith explanation of the history and pointed to the relevant archive sections.
Jehochman
Talk
20:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)I added a line about tendentious deletions of referenced material, but it was unilateral deleted without discussion by another editor here: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing&diff=405373511&oldid=405330609. My "disruptive edit" read, "Likewise, deletion of relevant, reliably sourced and neutrally worded material from articles, in an attempt to exclude notable but controversial information, can also be disruptive (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view)." The deleting editor also posted an accusatory message on my talk page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ghostofnemo#Your_edit_at_Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing Ghostofnemo ( talk) 02:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
My concern is that some editors COMPLETELY DELETE material that is relevant, well-sourced, neutral in tone, and not giving undue weight, that simply states facts or reports material published in respected sources. They have all kinds of rationales for these deletions (BRD, UNDUE, against consensus, no consensus, etc., etc., etc.) but the fact is they are being disruptive because the material is neutral, well-sourced, notable and relevant. ArbCom says this is a no-no. NPOV says this is a no-no. It should be reflected here as well. Ghostofnemo ( talk) 14:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
There are all kinds of very useful, expilict rules on Wikipedia regarding neutral point of view, reliable sources, and so on. This page is about disruptive editing, what it is, and why editors should not do it. It seems really odd to exclude tendentious deletions from an article on disruptive editing. According to this article in the Economist http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=17911276&subjectID=348963&fsrc=nwl "The number of regular contributors to Wikipedia’s English-language encyclopedia dropped from around 54,000 at its peak in March 2007 to some 35,000 in September 2010. A similar trend has been visible in some foreign-language versions of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s leaders say this reflects the fact that the large majority of subjects have now been written about. Perhaps, but some evidence suggests that neophytes are being put off by Wikipedia’s clique of elite editors. One study by researchers at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre looked at the number of times editorial changes were subsequently reversed. It found that roughly a quarter of the edits posted by occasional contributors were undone in late 2008, compared with less than 2% of those posted by the most active editors. And it noted that this gap had widened considerably over time." Now, I'm not saying bad edits should be allowed to stand unedited, but I've noticed a definite pattern of complete deletions of apparently neutral, well-sourced, relevant material (as opposed to rewording them to bring them into line with various policies, policies that may or may not be cited by the deleting parties). I think it needs to be pointed out to editors that completely deleting another editor's contributions is disruptive if it is not being done for a valid reason. This is the policy, after all (see my citations on the deleted lines of my proposal). Ghostofnemo ( talk) 08:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
that if I try to imply someone is disruptive, or if I use sarcasm in a strong tone of self-confidence, I might and probably will turn someone with good intentions disruptive because I'd seem to be purposely making it too difficult, or rather, embarrassing, for the editor to "get the point?" 173.183.79.81 ( talk) 04:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I have been going over the steps in the "Dealing with disruptive editors" section, and it occurs to me that we should probably put the new dispute resolution noticeboard in there somewhere. What do people think about this? — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm overwhelmed by the bureaucracy necessary to stop a simple edit warrior. As a consequence, I will now let the case in question slide, and leave the article with unsourced info. You don't care, you say? Well, imagine this happening thousands of times per day. In the words of GWB: the edit warriors has won.-- Anders Feder ( talk) 12:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
People have suggested this before, and it has been dismissed, but I always thought it had merit. Is there any interest in establishing an editors'/writers' guild (for the want of a better phrase) -- an association of some kind to promote the interests of content contributors and the content they create?
There was an incident last year that concerned me. A company started offering print-on-demand books at hefty prices that were just Wikipedia articles, including FAs, bound with a nice front cover. What bothered me was this: first, that the prices were high ($50 or so), and the Wikipedia connection was not made clear enough. Secondly, the books had a byline of three non-existent people, which suggested they had actually written the content. And third, when a journalist in the UK asked whether Wikipedia objected to this, they were told by a spokesperson (David G), no, it's fine, we welcome it.
I found this objectionable. Yes, we agree to free licences, but that doesn't mean we cease to exist as writers. The attitude that we don't matter as individuals feeds into Brian's point about how many/most editors use Wikipedia as a plaything or weapon, not as a serious place where they can write. It's also directly connected to the disruption factor, where the person who writes an FA/GA is seen as having no more moral rights over his creation than someone who wanders past to introduce errors into it.
Creating a guild specifically for content creators (with the stress on "creation") will give us a voice. We could deal with our own civility issues (and there are issues, though it's more complex than a lot of the discussions about it imply), without it needing to be addressed by admins. And we could create guidelines about how to deal with disruption to content creation.
I'm not suggesting setting something up that would be oppositional and divisive, but something that would focus on writers' interests, which are currently completely unrepresented. In fact, at the moment, we don't even have any concept on Wikipedia of "writers' interests."
Is there any interest in doing this? SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 01:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The sections Dealing with disruptive editors and Signs of disruptive editing refer to "unencyclopedic" edits: "First unencyclopedic entry by what appears to be a disruptive editor", "revert uncited or unencyclopedic material", and "cites unencyclopedic sources". My question is where is the term "unencyclopedic" defined in WP policies/guidelines? If it isn't, who decides what "unencyclopedic" means in discussions? Shirtwaist ☎ 22:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
We can chip away at the edges, but until there's an obvious ground swell of opinion then nothing will change. So let's pick a day that every editor agrees not to edit, and let's see what the result is. Malleus Fatuorum 06:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be more constructive to propose a solution before getting into a flap about the continued existence of the problem - there clearly is a problem, but what are some of the realistic things we might do about it?-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
It wouldn't work Malleus-- 90% of the Project has no idea what the 10% who write the thing (much less the top content) are doing, they don't know FAs exist, they don't worry too much about policy, and the absence wouldn't even be felt. It's like two different worlds in here; those who care about policy-compliant content and work it at the top level, and the rest. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Maybe what is needed is a noticeboard where those maintaining and acting as stewards for featured articles could ask for those who are more patient to mentor and help well-meaning editors who need a bit of guidance? Though it is difficult to direct people to a place like that without seeming to be patronising. I also agree with what WhatamIdoing said here: "We're really just looking for improvements". I've been trying to add details to Challenger expedition on where the ship went during the expedition, and some of the information was in other articles. There are books in the secondary literature on the expedition, but until someone arrives with one of those books (one is mentioned in the external links) all that can be done for now is improving the article steadily, bit by bit, so that readers at least find the basic information they may be looking for. GA and FA only really kicks in at the end of a long process of article nurturing (unless we are very lucky to have someone massively improve it in one go).
But this is getting off topic. The issue being discussed here is essentially how to deal with disputes between those who think an FA needs additional changes, and the FA writers who say that the existing article is fine and the changes make it worse. It is nearly always a content dispute with the two sides disagreeing on sourcing and weighting issues. The resolution for such disputes should be: (1) Suggest change on talk page providing source and example of text to be added; (2) Discuss reliability of source and go to noticeboard if needed; (3) If source is reliable, discuss relevance to the article and either agree to add something to this article or suggest an alternative article where the material is better placed; (4) If there is agreement that the material is relevant and well-sourced, consider weighting and agree on the best way to mention in the article, whether that be a footnote, expanding an existing sentence, adding a few new sentences, adding a new paragraph, adding a new section, or expanding an existing section but spinning it off to form a subarticle to avoid unbalancing the existing article. All these options should be considered, and one of them usually works. Carcharoth ( talk) 11:26, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
But pls, let's stay on topic. I see all over this page several references to the need for a place where disruption on FAs can be brought. I raised that at least a year ago on WT:FAC and (IIRC) it was beaten down-- I think by some of the same participants now advocating for it here. I guess I'll start it myself somewhere, because the systemic problems on Wikipedia aren't going to be addressed, so at least we should try to get a break for FA writers. What is missing in a lot of the analysis (below) is that, once an FA writer has 20 or so FAs on widely known topics, defending those from idiots becomes practically impossible (some FA writers are more lucky than others because they write on obscure topic that get left alone). Those casual editors do not have the same problem-- they aren't going to see their years of hard work end up at FAR and destroyed. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 17:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This page is dangerously vague. Change in general is disruptive. Debate is disruptive, Free speech is disruptive. This page (along with WP:POINT) gives users an angle to attack their enemies, because many well-intentioned, productive, insightful people are disruptive. This page also advances a belief largely confined to totalitarian regimes across the world and throughout history. So, I find it disturbing that it is a guideline for a project devoted to spreading free knowledge. I don't think it'd be enough just to delete this page. Instead, we should state explicitly that disruption is not against any guidelines. In other words, we need to rewrite these pages to state the opposite of what they currently do.-- Drknkn ( talk) 07:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
An essay has been drafted that concerns the treatment of a minority group proposing an addition to a Main page that is not favored by the majority of editors contributing to the article. Please comment. Brews ohare ( talk) 17:32, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I have reverted the Editor's Note which essentially undermined the legitimacy of the guideline, which Stevertigo ( talk · contribs · logs · block log) added as a header without any discussion on the talk page. Please discuss this to achieve consensus before restoring the disputed note. -- SteveMcCluskey ( talk) 21:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Good removal, SteveMcCluskey. Stevertigo, that type of note isn't standard on guidelines and takes the appearance of some kind of community consensus reservation. If it wasn't discussed at all, then the usual format for that kind of thing would be to write an essay on a separate page in namespace, and mark it as an essay. Durova 366 03:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Putting issues of "appearance" and "usual format[ting]" aside, let's move this discussion on to the actual substance in the note, recreated here:
Please be aware that this is page is only a "guideline," and one dependent on highly subjective concepts of both "disruption" and "editing." Given the range between this guideline's inherent subjectivity and its self-defined severity (indefinite block or ban), the actual meaning of this guideline is debated. Thus it is important that this guideline be clearly understood as based in doubly subjective concepts:
|
- Stevertigo ( w | t | e) 05:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Should the passage, Engages in "disruptive cite-tagging"; adds unjustified {{ fact}} tags to an article when the content tagged is already sourced, uses such tags to suggest that properly sourced article content is questionable, remain as part of the guideline page? 08:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it should stay. It is often undetecte for the same reason hat DE is often undecte, it is a pattern across many articles, sometimes utterly unrelated. But tagging itself is aoften a problem - I am sick of peopl who addPOV tags without providing any explanation of why it is deserved or what kind of treatment would improve the article, this is clearly disruptive and when someone does it repeatedly we have a real problem even if just a couple, or perhaps even no, editors see it. It ends u confusing many people who mistakenly assume god faith (in these specific instances) or people who, not seeing a general pattern, may think it is reasonable. But it disrupts the projct as a whole and maes many artcles look embarassing to a general public that turns to us for reliable knowledge. Tags are meant to signal specific areas in need of improvement and have to be placed in conjunction with discussion, and someone who does not use tags this way really is disrupting the project Slrubenstein | Talk 15:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
In case anyone is interested, I've kicked off discussion about an idea I've had about incivility blocks. Currently it's hard to get a consistent blocking policy in terms of warnings and blocking times, I'm hoping that this proposal can get some traction to make this more clear. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) talk 06:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Section " How disruptive editors evade detection":
Disruptive editing already violates site policy, yet certain editors have succeeded in disrupting articles and evading disciplinary action for one of several possible reasons:
- their edits occur over a long period of time; in this case, no single edit may be clearly disruptive, but the overall pattern is disruptive
- their edits are largely confined to talk-pages, such disruption may not directly harm an article, but it often prevents other editors from reaching consensus on how to improve an article
- their edits often avoid gross breaches of civility, especially by refraining from personal attacks, even though they interfere with civil and collaborative editing meant to improve the article
- their edits remain limited to a small number of pages that very few people watch
- conversely, their edits may be distributed over a wide range of articles that few people watch.
WP:BEANS? -- 98.114.243.75 ( talk) 18:24, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
After the WP:ANI/Stevertigo referendum on my editing, and claims of my "disruptive editing," I took a look through the history of WP:DISRUPT, to find who it was that first used the policy to refer to "comments" as "disruptive editing," in addition to actual "edits." Note that since Wikipedia began, we have always made a clear distinction between "edits" and "comments" as two different things, with two different sets of principles governing them. For example, talk page comments are the words of individuals and are not to be modified, while articles are of course free to be edited.
I found that User:Slrubenstein inserted the related text back in mid-November 2008. Among other major edits, he added: "[signs of disruptive editing include] their edits are largely confined to talk-pages, where they avoid gross breaches of WP:Civility; such disruption may not directly harm an article, but it often prevents other editors from reaching consensus on how to improve an article" ( diff) Slrubenstein happens to the same person who contributed the most to the ANI/Stevertigo, and along with others, had referred to 'WP:DISRUPT' at least a few times in the course of this discussion.
I found it strange, as I've never confused the concept of an "edit" with a "comment." Nor have I ever promoted a technical policy to supercede WP:CIVIL, which I co-wrote, as a principle. Slrubenstein had appeared to choose violating CIVIL, on the basis of defending against what he called DISRUPT. I made a note to look it up in the WP:DISRUPT history, and after finding it was Slrubenstein himself that inserted the concept, it all started to make sense: His notion that open discussion of editorial issues constitute a punishable offense was nonsense he himself inserted. - Stevertigo ( w | t | e) 19:51, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I removed the below section, called "Attempts to evade detection" from the project page, because it has serious problems with subjectivity and POV:
Extended content
|
---|
Certain editors attempt to evade disciplinary action by using several practices when disrupting articles:
Nonetheless, such disruptive editing violates site policy. |
Steve, note that your analogy is wrong, and not even that: The word "edit" on the tab is simply a symbol used for one of two basic page modes, which in technical language could be described as creating a patch of the previous version of the article. The word "edit" in fact refers to an actual change to an article. We don't "edit" talk pages. We "comment" on talk pages, with regard to "editing" the article. If you have substantive criticisms to make about the points I raised, then make them. Starting off with the personal attack of "pedantic wikilawyering" doesn't serve what ostensibly is your purpose. I understand from your comments though that you don't regard CIVIL very highly, and don't really understand the meaning of the word "substantive." - Stevertigo ( w | t | e) 20:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
ST has been on a tear to dismantle this uideline for a long time. One way is to identify a section as a pesonal essay of mine and to remove it on those grounds. Of course, anything I wrote that ende dup in the gideline and stayed was the result of a collaborative process on this page, involving othe editors. The section in question des not define a disruptive editor, it is merely meant to help explain why DEs often evade detection. We are necessarily enering a grey area here. But I do not think anything in the passage ST hates conflicts with any other policy.
In the end, I have th same reaction I have with most of SV's large wholesale edits, a yawn and a question, why is this one editor so intent on disrupting other edior's lives through contentious edits. Why can't he just do what a normal Wikipedian does: research topics and add content to articles based on actual research? I am not going to hang around here and keep feeding ST' hunger for endless argument when I could be reading more about the battle of Shiloh or BP or the New Zeeland football team with the hopes of making one of those articles, or another article, better. I do have a simple question for Steve Tigo: Steve, why are you not capable of doing any serious research meant to make this a better encyclopedia? Slrubenstein | Talk 23:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Tidied and reordered a little. Put "in sum" in front of key sentence. Gave trivial example of non-disruptive editing that I don't think anyone will question. Nucleophilic ( talk) 18:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
I have made some alterations to sections which were outdated, overlooked nuances and were a poor reflection of administrative practice. Review and commentary welcome. Skomorokh 16:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Citing wp:rs is not per se disruptive editing is mostly just a clairification of the sentence before. The key words are "per se", which means the reliable source has to be relevant, etc. to the issue at hand. Mainly, this helps assure NPOV and inhibits POV-pushing by editors who may not like what the reliable sources say. Also, --- notice that one editor with a history of being beat up by arbcom for this sort of stuff-- see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria and ops cit--- reverted a week's-plus of work by several editors without going to the comments page. Should we be calling in arbcom again ? Nucleophilic ( talk) 20:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm dealing with two articles now (Added later for clarification: Libertarianism and United States and state terrorism), one where a few editors keep trying to get material removed despite at least 2 RfCs/2 Name change requests/4-5 failed proposals (all against their view) another where article has been AfD and survived a number of times and people are still trying to delete it. (Both articles now locked because of edit warring!) Yet no one has been sanctioned because of Failure to Get the Point, even though their constant disruptions led to total protection of both articles! How do we get some teeth in "Failure to get point", starting with the article explicitly stating that constant deletionist (or whatever) behavior vs. strong and repeated consensus really is not acceptable?? I have wasted hours on first article dealing with it and don't want to do the same on new article am working on. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 14:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Upon reflection I have removed parts of a few of my comments that seem to have been stressing another editor. Today is a holiday, and we should try to avoid needless quarreling so that everybody can enjoy the day. Jehochman Talk 16:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
What I'm looking for for the Libertarianism article talk page (and possibly elsewhere in the future) is a template to replace the temporary protection-related one now there which was created using Wikipedia:TMBOX. The template would say something like
![]() | The issue of [DESCRIBE ISSUE] has been settled through various dispute resolution means [LIST THEM]. Some editors might consider bringing this issue up again WP:Disruptive editing and warn you about this and possibly collapse the discussion or take the matter to Administrators' noticeboard. |
My questions: Is there such a template now? Does there need to be one? How much page consensus does there need to be to create one if there isn’t an established one? Thanks! CarolMooreDC ( talk) 17:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
This article cites Wikipedia (or sources that take information from Wikipedia), in a
circular manner. |
{{
circular}}
. I think it is a bad idea to start threatening editors with anything stronger than this friendly template. The archive search is a good feature. We don't want to
bite newcomers. If they bring up something that has been discussed before too many times, they can be given a gentle, good faith explanation of the history and pointed to the relevant archive sections.
Jehochman
Talk
20:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)I added a line about tendentious deletions of referenced material, but it was unilateral deleted without discussion by another editor here: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing&diff=405373511&oldid=405330609. My "disruptive edit" read, "Likewise, deletion of relevant, reliably sourced and neutrally worded material from articles, in an attempt to exclude notable but controversial information, can also be disruptive (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view)." The deleting editor also posted an accusatory message on my talk page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ghostofnemo#Your_edit_at_Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing Ghostofnemo ( talk) 02:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
My concern is that some editors COMPLETELY DELETE material that is relevant, well-sourced, neutral in tone, and not giving undue weight, that simply states facts or reports material published in respected sources. They have all kinds of rationales for these deletions (BRD, UNDUE, against consensus, no consensus, etc., etc., etc.) but the fact is they are being disruptive because the material is neutral, well-sourced, notable and relevant. ArbCom says this is a no-no. NPOV says this is a no-no. It should be reflected here as well. Ghostofnemo ( talk) 14:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
There are all kinds of very useful, expilict rules on Wikipedia regarding neutral point of view, reliable sources, and so on. This page is about disruptive editing, what it is, and why editors should not do it. It seems really odd to exclude tendentious deletions from an article on disruptive editing. According to this article in the Economist http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=17911276&subjectID=348963&fsrc=nwl "The number of regular contributors to Wikipedia’s English-language encyclopedia dropped from around 54,000 at its peak in March 2007 to some 35,000 in September 2010. A similar trend has been visible in some foreign-language versions of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s leaders say this reflects the fact that the large majority of subjects have now been written about. Perhaps, but some evidence suggests that neophytes are being put off by Wikipedia’s clique of elite editors. One study by researchers at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre looked at the number of times editorial changes were subsequently reversed. It found that roughly a quarter of the edits posted by occasional contributors were undone in late 2008, compared with less than 2% of those posted by the most active editors. And it noted that this gap had widened considerably over time." Now, I'm not saying bad edits should be allowed to stand unedited, but I've noticed a definite pattern of complete deletions of apparently neutral, well-sourced, relevant material (as opposed to rewording them to bring them into line with various policies, policies that may or may not be cited by the deleting parties). I think it needs to be pointed out to editors that completely deleting another editor's contributions is disruptive if it is not being done for a valid reason. This is the policy, after all (see my citations on the deleted lines of my proposal). Ghostofnemo ( talk) 08:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
that if I try to imply someone is disruptive, or if I use sarcasm in a strong tone of self-confidence, I might and probably will turn someone with good intentions disruptive because I'd seem to be purposely making it too difficult, or rather, embarrassing, for the editor to "get the point?" 173.183.79.81 ( talk) 04:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I have been going over the steps in the "Dealing with disruptive editors" section, and it occurs to me that we should probably put the new dispute resolution noticeboard in there somewhere. What do people think about this? — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm overwhelmed by the bureaucracy necessary to stop a simple edit warrior. As a consequence, I will now let the case in question slide, and leave the article with unsourced info. You don't care, you say? Well, imagine this happening thousands of times per day. In the words of GWB: the edit warriors has won.-- Anders Feder ( talk) 12:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
People have suggested this before, and it has been dismissed, but I always thought it had merit. Is there any interest in establishing an editors'/writers' guild (for the want of a better phrase) -- an association of some kind to promote the interests of content contributors and the content they create?
There was an incident last year that concerned me. A company started offering print-on-demand books at hefty prices that were just Wikipedia articles, including FAs, bound with a nice front cover. What bothered me was this: first, that the prices were high ($50 or so), and the Wikipedia connection was not made clear enough. Secondly, the books had a byline of three non-existent people, which suggested they had actually written the content. And third, when a journalist in the UK asked whether Wikipedia objected to this, they were told by a spokesperson (David G), no, it's fine, we welcome it.
I found this objectionable. Yes, we agree to free licences, but that doesn't mean we cease to exist as writers. The attitude that we don't matter as individuals feeds into Brian's point about how many/most editors use Wikipedia as a plaything or weapon, not as a serious place where they can write. It's also directly connected to the disruption factor, where the person who writes an FA/GA is seen as having no more moral rights over his creation than someone who wanders past to introduce errors into it.
Creating a guild specifically for content creators (with the stress on "creation") will give us a voice. We could deal with our own civility issues (and there are issues, though it's more complex than a lot of the discussions about it imply), without it needing to be addressed by admins. And we could create guidelines about how to deal with disruption to content creation.
I'm not suggesting setting something up that would be oppositional and divisive, but something that would focus on writers' interests, which are currently completely unrepresented. In fact, at the moment, we don't even have any concept on Wikipedia of "writers' interests."
Is there any interest in doing this? SlimVirgin TALK| CONTRIBS 01:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The sections Dealing with disruptive editors and Signs of disruptive editing refer to "unencyclopedic" edits: "First unencyclopedic entry by what appears to be a disruptive editor", "revert uncited or unencyclopedic material", and "cites unencyclopedic sources". My question is where is the term "unencyclopedic" defined in WP policies/guidelines? If it isn't, who decides what "unencyclopedic" means in discussions? Shirtwaist ☎ 22:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
We can chip away at the edges, but until there's an obvious ground swell of opinion then nothing will change. So let's pick a day that every editor agrees not to edit, and let's see what the result is. Malleus Fatuorum 06:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be more constructive to propose a solution before getting into a flap about the continued existence of the problem - there clearly is a problem, but what are some of the realistic things we might do about it?-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
It wouldn't work Malleus-- 90% of the Project has no idea what the 10% who write the thing (much less the top content) are doing, they don't know FAs exist, they don't worry too much about policy, and the absence wouldn't even be felt. It's like two different worlds in here; those who care about policy-compliant content and work it at the top level, and the rest. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Maybe what is needed is a noticeboard where those maintaining and acting as stewards for featured articles could ask for those who are more patient to mentor and help well-meaning editors who need a bit of guidance? Though it is difficult to direct people to a place like that without seeming to be patronising. I also agree with what WhatamIdoing said here: "We're really just looking for improvements". I've been trying to add details to Challenger expedition on where the ship went during the expedition, and some of the information was in other articles. There are books in the secondary literature on the expedition, but until someone arrives with one of those books (one is mentioned in the external links) all that can be done for now is improving the article steadily, bit by bit, so that readers at least find the basic information they may be looking for. GA and FA only really kicks in at the end of a long process of article nurturing (unless we are very lucky to have someone massively improve it in one go).
But this is getting off topic. The issue being discussed here is essentially how to deal with disputes between those who think an FA needs additional changes, and the FA writers who say that the existing article is fine and the changes make it worse. It is nearly always a content dispute with the two sides disagreeing on sourcing and weighting issues. The resolution for such disputes should be: (1) Suggest change on talk page providing source and example of text to be added; (2) Discuss reliability of source and go to noticeboard if needed; (3) If source is reliable, discuss relevance to the article and either agree to add something to this article or suggest an alternative article where the material is better placed; (4) If there is agreement that the material is relevant and well-sourced, consider weighting and agree on the best way to mention in the article, whether that be a footnote, expanding an existing sentence, adding a few new sentences, adding a new paragraph, adding a new section, or expanding an existing section but spinning it off to form a subarticle to avoid unbalancing the existing article. All these options should be considered, and one of them usually works. Carcharoth ( talk) 11:26, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
But pls, let's stay on topic. I see all over this page several references to the need for a place where disruption on FAs can be brought. I raised that at least a year ago on WT:FAC and (IIRC) it was beaten down-- I think by some of the same participants now advocating for it here. I guess I'll start it myself somewhere, because the systemic problems on Wikipedia aren't going to be addressed, so at least we should try to get a break for FA writers. What is missing in a lot of the analysis (below) is that, once an FA writer has 20 or so FAs on widely known topics, defending those from idiots becomes practically impossible (some FA writers are more lucky than others because they write on obscure topic that get left alone). Those casual editors do not have the same problem-- they aren't going to see their years of hard work end up at FAR and destroyed. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 17:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)