User:HJ Mitchell/Essays/Musings

This is mostly a dumping ground for thoughts and opinions on Wikipedia processes. These musings reflect my own personal feelings but I will always endeavour to act within the policies and consensus we have, especially as an admin, and not the policies as they would be if I had everything my way.

On editor behaviour

 * The encyclopaedia is Wikipedia. It's why we're here. There are ways to improve Wikipedia without adding sourced content to the encyclopaedia and many of these back-room functions are welcome and necessary. But it's important to remember that these functions are there to serve the encyclopaedia and are not an end in themselves.
 * Editors whose focus is politicking in project space and at administrators' noticeboards, especially on matters they're not involved in, are a net negative to Wikipedia.
 * Editors who are here to pursue an agenda incompatible with Wikipedia's goals—from people who only want to write about their own company, have confused us with Facebook or Linkedin, want to push fringe or conspiracy theories, or who are otherwise not interested in writing an encyclopaedia—should be politely but firmly shown the door.
 * Relatedly, there is no need to engage with trolls, vandals, spammers, and others as described above. Our purpose here is to write an encyclopaedia, not judge those who don't share our goals, antagonise people, or get into arguments. Revert, block, move on.
 * If a vandal insults you, it means you've done something right. Shake It Off.
 * Our conduct policies and procedures are not about fairness or justice. You may feel that a block or sanction is unfair or unjust and you may be right. But the standard must always be what is best for the encyclopaedia. If the block or sanction is preventing harm or disruption, even if not all the Is were dotted or the Ts crossed, it is doing its job.
 * Removing long-term editors from the project is always unfortunate and should not be done without due consideration, but it is sometimes necessary and administrators willing to make such decisions (rarely, carefully, after a lot of consideration, and usually as a last resort) should be supported by the community and not pilloried, even if the decision turns out to be mistaken or is later reversed.
 * On the other hand, administrators who repeatedly impose excessively heavy handed or draconian sanctions cause more problems than they solve.
 * I really hate spammers. I have a little bit of sympathy for the people who are trying to tell the world about their company/product/whatever but don't realise the difference between Wikipedia and Linkedin but I have no tolerance for the professional marketing and SEO companies who inundate us with advertisement articles and spam links. We should make Wikipedia a hostile environment for these people.

On articles, deletion, etc

 * I'm more of a mergeist than a deletionist but more of a deletionist than an inclusionist. I believe Wikipedia would better serve its readers better with a smaller number of more detailed articles with a broader scope than with many thousands of short articles on (for example) individual athletes or species.
 * Notability should never be inherent or presumed. Every article subject should be covered in reliable, third-party sources; if challenged, editors wishing to keep the article should be able to prove that such sourcing exists.
 * Our notability requirements—especially for TV episodes and fictional characters—should be higher; the works should have had some sort of broader impact. The standards for companies and biographies (especially of living people) should be much higher. Taylor Swift would still be safe.
 * Unsourced articles are not encyclopaedia entries. Without sourcing, it can't be verified that the article subject even exists, much less that the content of the article is accurate. Unsourced articles present much more of a risk to Wikipedia (and, in the case of articles documenting events involving living people, to their subjects) than they're worth.
 * In a similar vein, we should delete articles about people who are not public figures if they ask for it. We're never going to delete Taylor Swift (phew!) but the encyclopaedia will survive with one less article about an athlete/military officer/local politician/etc.
 * There is no need to link everything, just because it turns blue when you put square brackets round it.
 * I often hear people say they can't find anything to write about, or that everything already has an article. Sure, the English Wikipedia has (at the time of writing) nearly 7 million articles but the sum of all human knowledge is vast. Open an encyclopaedia, biographical dictionary, or gazetteer and you'll find something to write about. The most obvious subjects will probably already have articles (though in many cases there will likely be something you can add from your source) but scratch beneath the surface and you'll be surprised how many red links you find. I keep a pile of potential articles in my userspace, most of which I have sources for. Occasionally, one turns blue without my help!

On editing

 * Wikipedia would be better in some ways if we didn't accept new articles about events until they're actually "history". The controversies that arise over these articles and the need to constantly update them as the event itself develops is a significant drain on editor resources.
 * On the other hand, Wikipedia's ability to document events as they happen shows one of its great strengths—that its content is not set in stone. Articles on current events attract a lot of eyeballs and are often the best overview of the event and its context available anywhere. They are also a route for attracting new editors or reinvigorating dormant ones, who then go on to contribute to other articles.
 * Editors (or small groups) who successfully research, write, and nominate a featured article should be allowed a by-line if they want it.
 * The rise in indefinite semi-protection and extended-confirmed protection should be lamented as shutting off potential in-roads for new editors, even if it is absolutely necessary to protect the encyclopaedia (and, in the case of biographies of living people, our subjects); it's unlikely to be safe to unprotect Taylor Swift for many years.
 * With nearly seven million entries (6.75 million at time of writing, late 2023), one would think the encyclopaedia is complete but there's a long way to go yet. Open any subject-specific encyclopaedia, biographical dictionary, almanack, etc, and you'll find dozens of potential entries. And for as long as reliable sources keep writing, new subjects will become notable all the time. Including new Taylor Swift songs!

On governance, adminship, etc

 * Wikipedia has grown past the point of being one person's pet project and Jimbo Wales's status should be the same as any other editor. Jimbo himself rarely writes encyclopaedia articles—it's probably not advisable given his high profile, and if I was him I'd have a separate, very low-profile account to do "fun" editing—but governance should be left to people who are involved in the day-to-day running of the project as it is today.
 * The Arbitration Committee doesn't do an awful lot of arbitrating. If we were starting from scratch, we'd probably elect a governing body and call it such.
 * On that note, Wikipedians are fond of calling processes things they're not. For example, processes like AfD and RfA are called discussions and many Wikipedians go to great lengths not to call them votes. They are votes. We expect editors to provide a rationale for their vote (more so at AfD than RfA), but strength of argument rarely trumps numerical superiority (and never at RfA).
 * RfA is a cesspit where we invite people to abuse candidates with impunity for a week. Adminship is a position of trust and some vetting and critical discussion is absolutely necessary. But dedicated editors volunteering to take on extra work deserve better. That many of these people have left the site after their treatment at RfA should be a source of shame.
 * Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanisms, ANI in particular, are completely dysfunctional. Some issues are dealt with quickly before the thread goes off the rails but many threads spiral out of control quickly. This is inevitable when the peanut gallery is not just the audience, but the jury and a party to the case at the same time.
 * It should be much, much easier to revoke adminship when an admin has lost the community's trust but much easier to regain the tools if they repair their reputation.
 * Admins don't get paid enough for this shit!

Other essays I think are worth reading

 * User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior
 * User:Ritchie333
 * User:Ritchie333/Why admins should create content
 * User:Beyond My Ken/Thoughts
 * Professional opinion-havers