[WikiEN-l] A lengthy defense of Wik

Wed May 5 23:43:02 UTC 2004

Hello,

Jimbo has asked who supports Wik. Well, I do, for one. I would like to 
explain.

As I see it, Wik is not a problem with Wikipedia but, rather, a symptom of a 
much larger problem. In many ways, JHK, Zoe, Kosebamse, Tannin, and quite a 
few others were different symptoms of the same problem. That is because the real 
problem is the proliferation of users, some well-known, and some rather new, 
who have forgotten the most basic principle of Wikipedia: we are out to build 
an encyclopedia. Period. We are out to collect and organize the sum of human 
knowledge and present it in a manageable, readable format that could be of help 
to anyone. And we invite everyone to participate in this process, because we 
believe that it will benefit everyone. Yes, it is intellectually titillating, 
exciting, challenging, and fun. Those are side benefits of the essential value 
of the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge.

There are, however, people who do not share in our objectives. Because we are 
an open source (I hope I am using the term correctly), there are people who 
get their rocks off adding "Danny is a fag" or "Fuck you" into articles, or 
perhaps erasing texts, and engaging in other kinds of vandalism. They are 
annoying--sometimes even very annoying--but so are mosquitoes. While I think we need 
a better infrastructure to deal with these kinds of "users," I also believe 
that we are pretty effective cleaning up after them.

Then there are other kinds of users: users who come to Wikipedia with strong 
opinions one some subject or another, who insert these opinions into articles. 
The fact of the matter is, most of us have strong opinions, but we are more 
cautious (or perhaps, more sophisticated) when it comes to introducing them to 
Wikipedia. I have no doubt that these people believe strongly in their 
opinions, but I think we all agree that this is not the place for them to advocate on 
their behalf. That is why we have the NPOV policy. For instance, I am 
convinced that many Wikipedians would like to rewrite the George W. Bush or Bill 
Clinton (or Thatcher, or Sharon, or Arafat, or Evolution, or Homosexuality or any 
other contentious topic) articles so that they better reflect their personal 
politics, but they don't. Some people do, and frankly, they can be a stubborn 
lot--and I am assuming good faith, nonetheless. 

Essentially, it is these users who are behind most of our edit wars. There 
can be several reasons for this: 1) they do not understand our NPOV policy; 2) 
they choose to ignore our NPOV policy; 3) they feel like adding their positions 
makes for more accurate NPOV. Personally, I have issue with the latter 
position, but this is not the place to discuss that. The problem is, that whatever 
their reason, this results in virulent edit wars, which tend to disrupt the 
community. 

We are remarkably tolerant of these people--our bylaws were, in many cases, 
created with the assumption that they can reform--but unfortunately these users 
do tend to disrupt our community. Many users spend an inordinate amount of 
time cleaning up after them or just getting into polemical arguments on talk 
pages with them. When it gets particularly heated, some users who sincerely care 
about the quality of the project leave in disgust (this was the case with JHK, 
for instance). 

Wik is a valuable Wikipedian too. One only need look at his other, extensive, 
non-controversial edits to see that. The problem is that Wik also represents 
another option to trolls and vandalism: fighting back. Out of what seems like 
over-zealous quality control, he reverts them and does not waste his time in 
what he perceives as futile dialogue. By the way, my personal feeling is that 
if anyone here thinks that they will convince a biased POV pusher of their 
position on a talk page, they are severely deluded as to their persuasive 
skills--in almost all cases, it is simply an exercise in rhetoric. 

There is a flaw in Wik's style: his methods tend to provoke rather than get 
rid of those trolls and vandals (yes, the vandals, too, are drawn to the 
confrontation). On the other hand, it is one way of dealing with a severe problem of 
trolling and vandalism that will only grow in intensity if it is not nipped 
in the bud. Leaving Wikipedia does not help resolve the problem. Banning 
someone for fighting back does not help resolve the problem either. In both cases, 
it just leaves the problem to fester, so that we see more and more established 
and valuable users getting frustrated. I quote Jimbo here:

"I should point out, not in support of Wik, but just by way of comment, that 
the great irony about Wik is that he's sort of an anti-troll troll.  He 
claims, and I have little reason to doubt his sincerity of belief, that his annoying 
actions are just proper responses to various troublemakers on the site"

I believe that in the case of Wik, people are pointing the finger at him, 
rather than seeing what it is he is reverting (and yes, he has come under attack 
by respected users, which only exacerbates his own feeling of isolation and 
frustration). He is here to help build an encyclopedia, and as he seems to see 
it, he is being thwarted. 

One last thing. I do not condone the lists of users on Wik's page. In fact, 
they trouble me. If he is reading this, or if someone can send this to him, I 
ask him to remove the lists as a gesture of good faith. Then, hopefully, we can 
all work together to improve the quality and quality control of Wikipedia.

Danny
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