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Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

Oh wow, so they don't follow the bureaucracy, so their concerns are shut down, until what? Until they follow the bureaucracy?

If I can take a stab at guessing what is happening, the Wikipedia admins probably feel like a super-active member is one of their own, and he/she is being attacked by "outsiders", so what they're doing is defending him with made-up reasons to fool themselves that what they're doing is just. A bit like US police, they're meant to be a part of the community and serve them, but after demonstrations against them because a few members did terrible things, they think they're under attack and their response is to protect their own and treat the public as the aggressive enemy.

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Yes. I understand that lots of people on HN hate that, but, yes. Wikipedia is an incredibly complicated and intricate project with its own objectives and norms. It has been manifestly successful; it is one of the great achievements of the Internet to date. People arguing to override those norms have a heavy burden to meet.

One of the reasons for those norms is that on controversial issues, everybody can marshal a plausible argument. WP's processes try to make sure that admins can make procedural rather than substantive decisions to resolve conflicts. It's reasonable to have a couple thousand people who understand a process. It's not reasonable to expect a couple thousand people to be authoritative for all the substantive controversies litigated on the encyclopedia.

Another reason is that the norms are interdependent. For instance: many of the rest of WP's processes don't work without the "no canvassing" rule. Admins and 'crats can't evaluate an argument if it's flooded with partisan complaints. Admin decisions aren't votes.

So I suppose the "anyone can edit" tagline is a crock of shit?

If an organization is publishing some info about me, it sounds like a giant pain in the butt if I have to learn their bureaucracy to get e.g. false information changed. At least have an ombudsman who could represent my grievances, if you built such a site. But nooooo, it seems because anyone can join and be involved in the mud-wrestle, that's what they have to do to be heard!

I wonder if politicians/celebrity can GDPR (to use that term as a verb) Wikipedia to delete all info the site has about them. After learning about this 5 minutes ago, I'm outraged! (Do note, this sentence is tongue-in-cheek!)

You obviously can edit. And it's especially easy if you're the subject of an article to correct false information about yourself; see WP:BLP.

What you're not promised is the ability to win any given debate between yourself and other editors. What would you expect? How could the project possibly work otherwise?

No, you can't edit, even simple spelling mistakes get reverted regularly. It's designed to be an overly byzantine bureaucracy to discourage edits so a relatively small group can maintain control. Remember if 100 million people made meaningful contributions daily there would be no way to maintain that control.

Arguably that works well, but it's almost meaningless to call it a wiki.

One of the indisputably nice things about WP is that there's a record of everything that happens. Can you cite an example where a simple spelling mistake was reverted, so that the page right now is running the incorrect spelling of something?

That's not what I am saying. I am saying that if you look at Wikipedia history you can find plenty of places where an anonymous user/occasional editor fixes a spelling mistake that was then reverted. That history sticks around far longer than anyone one version. And for that user all they see is that their effort is pointless.

"if you make an edit which is good-faith reverted, do not simply reinstate your edit – leave the status quo up" ... "propose your reverted change on the article's talk page or pursue other dispute resolution alternatives." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reverting

I am not saying the policy is unreasonable, but it combined with the interface does discourage people.

As to an improvement, if Wikipedia sees the same edit applied twice it could detect this and walk someone through the policy.

> I am saying that if you look at Wikipedia history you can find plenty of places where an anonymous user/occasional editor fixes a spelling mistake that was then reverted.

You're essentially refuting yourself by making the same claim again, and yet still without offering a single example of something you are claiming is rampant. If there are "plenty" of examples, it should be easy to link a few.

I'm skeptical, because I've made many small, always anonymous edits over the years, mostly correcting spelling mistakes and bad grammar. Most of these edits were even made from dynamic IPs - and yet none of them were reverted.

By the nature of Wikipedia it really depends on how many people / editors are looking at the page.

But, feel free to dig through the reverts they are really common and not just for regional variations in spellings.

PS: I realize listing even 50 in all of Wikipedia is not nessisarily meaningful so no I am not going to waste my time tilting at windmills.

You have made an assertion that a certain thing is a common occurence on Wikipedia, and have multiple times been asked for sources. The fact that you are still refusing to provide any sources (all the while claiming it is “really common”) is clear grounds for dismissing your point out of hand.

Here is one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pittsburgh&action...

Note all the editors messing up the correct Pittsburg(h) with and without the h in various settings. Lot's of +/- 1 edit lengths.

Now, did some how instantly validate my point? No.

PS: But it does illustrate the situation something is popular enough that many people see it, complex enough that it takes a little thought for someone to notice an issue fix it in good faith and then get reverted.

Why were the various Vandal Patrol groups closed?

Why is is harder to get Twinkle and Rollback now than it used to be, and why is their usage more closely monitored?

It's because people were rapidly reverting a lot of edits, and many of those edits were correct and should not have been reverted.

There's a bunch of discussion on ANI and village pump about this.

One of Cross' targets attempted to edit his page and his changes were quickly reverted by Cross due to conflict of interest. What it seems you're suggesting here is that those unfairly targeted on Wikipedia, as Cross is doing, should learn the labyrinthine processes Wikipedia expects to correct their entries. And then presumably to put in the same amount of time Cross is putting in (hours and hours on weekdays and weekends) to monitor their pages for more abuses from him.

Should we not be more concerned about blocking those who are clearly in the wrong here?

Which BLP page are you referring to here? I don't see it in the article we're talking about. (I believe you, I just don't know what you're talking about).

I don't know what "clearly in the wrong" means. Cross and I don't share a POV; from the little I know about him (exclusively: this article) I find his politics noxious. But I would be extremely disturbed if my opinion about his politics somehow controlled Wikipedia.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Piers_Robinson&ty... and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Piers_Robinson&ty...

I'm not suggesting anyone base the block on their opinion of his politics, but of his behaviour on Wikipedia. There's clearly a conflict of interest when someone who is openly hostile toward someone else and taunts them on Twitter, then goes and makes the kind of edits he's making to their Wikipedia page.

There's of course a bigger issue of how Wikipedia deals with this problem more broadly. But the fact that they're unwilling to act on a single editor whose actions have been exposed doesn't inspire much confidence.

saying that "anyone can edit wikipedia" is identical to saying that anyone can contribute to the linux kernel. Its both true and false depending on how you look at it.

Yes, anyone can send in a patch.

No, only a very small subset of the world population has the knowledge and experience to create a patch that gets accepted.

Yes, they do want more contributors and want to encourage all users to contribute.

No, they can not accept all patches.

That's not what 'identical' means. Although this thing isn't even similar, never mind identical.

That is not a fair comparison.

Linux patches generally gets accepted based on technical merit, some politics aside;

But it seems like most Wikipedia contributions are subject to the inside political considerations and bureaucracy.

Wikipedia contributions are generally subject to sourcing requirements (i.e. information must be backed by reliable secondary sources), not "political considerations." Wikipedia cares about verifiability, not truth itself.

See this example that illustrates the policy using the flat earth theory[1]:

> "Wikipedia is not worried per se about whether the theory that the Earth is flat is true. There must be current, reliable and independent sources substantiating claims that the Earth is flat. But there are no such sources that are current (almost no scientists have thought the Earth was flat since about the fourth century BC), that are reliable (reliable sources are reviewed for accuracy), or independent (a journal published by a Flat Earth Society would not be independent.)"

> "If Wikipedia had been available around the sixth century BC, it would have reported the view that the Earth is flat as a fact without qualification. It would have also reported the views of Eratosthenes (who correctly determined the Earth's circumference in 240 BC) either as controversial or a fringe view. Similarly if available in Galileo's time, it would have reported the view that the Sun goes round the Earth as a fact, and if Galileo had been a Vicipaedia editor, his view would have been rejected as "originale investigationis". Of course, if there is a popularly held or notable view that the Earth is flat, Wikipedia reports this view. But it does not report it as true. It reports only on what its adherents believe, the history of the view, and its notable or prominent adherents. Wikipedia is inherently a non-innovative reference work: it stifles creativity and free thought, which is a Good Thing."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_cannot...

I don't buy the assertion that Wikipedia gives a higher weight to source requirements than their internal politics and bureaucracy. Things like this original story are sadly very common.

And to add an anecdote to this, in multiple occasions, my contributions were reverted with some jargon that I suppose suggested that my sources (local journalist) were not credible, after adding more mainstream (CNN or Washpost, can't remember), the whole article was deleted yet with some other jargon that I couldn't bother figuring out.

So, from where I stand, the notion that Wikipedia contributions are not subject to political considerations is laughable.

Alright I'm going to have to disagree specifically on that point. I otherwise agree with your argument that there's no homogenous "they" banding together (And there's an article for that, even! [0] And an article nuancing that view too. [1])

But I emphatically take issue with the idea that it's reasonable to shut down what sounds like, in your words, "very legitimate concerns" instead of guiding the concerned users through the proper process, fostering a healthy discussion. If I'm being harsh, isn't that the role of an admin, someone who should know better?

It's important to follow rules, and I could ironically cite you a dozen Wikipedia guidelines that argue for[4][5][6][7] or against[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] the idea that not following proper process should get your concerns shut down.

But one of the founding and most important principles of Wikipedia[2] is precisely that it has no firm rules. What it has are guidelines that have been found to work well, and policy that one is expected to follow unless there is a reason not to.

The moment that heavily codified process is used by experienced editors against less experienced ones or against people who have a legitimate concern, that is not helpful process and not a fair or acceptable outcome.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_No_Cabal

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CABAL

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:5P5

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:LAWYER

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOCOMMON

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RECKLESS

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CAUTIOUS

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EXPECT

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:IAR

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BOLD

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SNOWBALL

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOTBURO

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOTFATRAT

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:COMMON

[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REASONABILITY

[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:PRINCIPLE

In what sense is a process being used by experienced editors against an inexperienced one here? Again: all I see is a person being told where to file grievances, and a general set of expectation about "Conflict of Interest" that doesn't in fact match the project's COI guidelines.

>In what sense is a process being used by experienced editors against an inexperienced one here? Again: all I see is a person being told where to file grievances, and a general set of expectation about "Conflict of Interest" that doesn't in fact match the project's COI guidelines.

I'm thinking of the FORUMSHOP justification for closing the discussion on ANI in particular, and I'm more generally responding to your posts in this thread.

About this incident, I think it's fair to say that the administrator in question, with 13 years of experience and over 100k edits might be more experienced with the rules and policies than User:KalHolmann.

Now if the COI guidelines do no justify filing a report to the COI Noticeboard, that is one thing and closing that request is understandable, but ANI is a place for discussion, and since we're using it as an example the FORUMSHOP close reason comes across as exceptionally severe and opinionated to me.

I see a person being told to file grievances somewhere else, and an administrator who at the very least may have forgotten to Assume Good Faith in response.

What you see is bureaucracy.

- File this form in triplicate here sir!

- I did, but it was instantly rejected within 2 minutes. Where should I file my appeal?

- File your appeal with the same person.

- But it will get rejected again. Can't I appeal to someone else?

- You can only file your appeal somewhere else if you fill out this form.

- OK, I did that. It was rejected in 6 minutes by the same person.

- Sounds like you're out of appeals. Stop trying to play the system.

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