User:Mcorazao/Helpful editing

I have observed more than once editors, even experienced ones, attempting to help improve Wikipedia only to end up in battles and edit wars. This article is a collection of observations and advice I have come up with on what sorts of non-obvious things can be helpful when trying to contribute to work others have begun. This essay is not intended to be a replacement for any policy guidelines or the Manual of Style but rather some practical things to think about (even statements of the obvious) that any of us, as human beings, can miss from time to time.

Treating references as facts
The following are two common and related mistakes inexperienced, and sometimes experienced, editors make in utilizing references.
 * Thinking that because some particular source has made a particular assertion, this, in and of itself, makes the assertion appropriate to include in an article.
 * Thinking that because a particular source contradicts a statement then the statement definitively does not belong in an article.

There is a key thing about references that perhaps is not recognized widely enough:


 * References are evidence, nothing more.

Remember that the goal is to write articles that are consistent with general scholarly concensus, not articles that are true or articles that agree with any particular source. The fact that a statement agrees with some particular source does not mean that the source is consistent with most experts on the subject. Conversely the fact that a particular source disagrees with a statement does not mean that most experts would disagree with the statement.

All of this brings up an obvious question: "How does one prove that any statement is consistent with the experts on a subject?" The short answer is that with most things it is impossible to prove scholarly consensus because it is rarely the case that the opinions of all scholars on a subject are collected in one source. Using peer-reviewed journals is often helpful though only certain topics would be covered in such journals. Even at that, though, a journal article could be out of date or contain errors that were not noticed at the time of publication.

What does all of this mean? Ultimately it means that there is no substitute for editors doing their homework and exercising good judgement in what merits inclusion and what does not. Editors sometimes become overly fixated on what specifically this source or that source says, sometimes because they do not want to admit that they really do not know that much about the subject in general. Authors should ask themselves if they truly have good reasons for believing that what they are writing reflects what most experts think and should back their statements up with appropriate sources. Other editors before jumping to critism should make sure that they are basing their criticism on a genuine understanding of the sources rather than just a cursory reading of a single one. In general when there are questions about sources ask yourself,


 * Is it a reasonable expectation that the source you are using is publishing reliable, unbiased information on the topic?
 * Is it possible that the source has a fringe opinion on this issue that almost all other experts disagree with?
 * Is it possible that the source, despite being an expert, simply made a mistake in what they published?
 * Do you really understand what the source is talking about or could you be taking a statement out of context?

Using a reference in an overly specific fashion
When coming upon a statement in an article which irks us we may be inclined to look at the specified reference for the specific purpose of finding fault. Perhaps we find something in the reference that only partially corroborates the statement and therefore feel empowered to go and change the statement to remove information that we have not found in the source. This is usually bad practice for several reasons:
 * 1) First, have you really read through the reference to make sure there were not other statements which corroborated the rest of what was in the article? When we are irked we can be tempted to oversimplify.
 * 2) There is no requirement in Wikipedia that says that a reference has to back up every assertion in a statement, only the ones that might be controversial.
 * 3) Are you certain that you even understand what you are reading? Sometimes a source may indicate something in an indirect way that only makes sense if you understand the larger context (ideally the author should choose sources that make their points clearly but sometimes it is hard to find such a source). Do you really understand the context?
 * 4) Even if there are key assertions not backed up by the source that does not mean that those assertions are wrong. A  tag is generally a more professional way to address the concern than stripping out text.

So what rule should be followed? There are two rules that are good to follow:
 * 1) If possible try to have a discussion before removing statements others have written. That is not always practical but one should attempt to follow this as much as possible.
 * 2) If you are planning to remove assertions without explicitly getting the consent of the other authors in advance it should never be simply because the the assertion is not supported by the source. It should always be because you have some solid reason to believe the assertion does not reflect the opinions of most experts on the subject. If you cannot honestly say that you have a good feeling for this then you should not be removing others' edits (at least not without giving them an opportunity to first justify what they have written).

Thinking being a broad expert makes you a specific expert
Question: Does the fact that you wrote an Featured Article on the Roman Empire make you an expert on Julius Caesar?

We all have a tendency to think that our being experts on a broad topic makes us experts on anything related to that topic. But this is often not the case. Obviously one of the reasons that Wikipedia requires references and citations when there is dispute is to try to circumvent human nature in assuming that we know things. Unfortunately a times when an editor encounters statements that they are sure are incorrect there is a tendency to make accusations of Original Research and bias without checking facts. Worse, if the statements in an article offend an editor enough he/she may tend to avoid reading references offered by the original author because he/she is too busy.

...

Dive bombing
Leaving banner templates such or  can be a great way to raise serious issues about an article without resorting to edit wars or other destructive tactics. But I will borrow a comic saying here which is applicable: "With great power comes great responsibility". When we feel offended or upset by what somebody has written, particular after there has previously been an acrimonious discussion related to the article, it can be tempting to come in and leave banners in the article and then run for the hills. We can tell ourselves that we have done nothing wrong because the banners are a legitimate way to raise a concern but leaving banners and being unwilling to discuss them is nothing but passive aggression. Banners are only appropriate if you intend to stay in the discussion and help bring the article to a point that the banners can be removed. In general you should be planning to only have the banner up a few days. Granted if no authors are actively involved in the article and you simply do not have time to do anything with the article yourself then perhaps leaving banners up longer may be appropriate. But simply putting in a banner which you refuse to discuss is vandalism. If you are no longer willing to discuss whatever your concern is, it is best to simply leave the article alone.

Rephrasing for bias
Consider a controversial statement like the following.
 * The Nazis helped rebuild Germany's economy and lower unemployment.

Upon seeing a statement like this many of us might feel that the statement is biased and misleading. One might be tempted to change it to something like
 * The Nazis gave jobs to some Germans and created the illusion of prosperity.

This is better, right? The first statement casts the Nazis in a positive light whereas the second does not. So the new version must be less biased. And we do not need to bother with reading the references since this is really just rephrasing the statement, not changing its meaning, right?

Tempting though this thinking may be (even to experienced editors) we need to be honest with ourselves. Though these statements have some superficial similarities they are not saying the same things. We have both removed some of the meaning of the original statement and introduced new meaning in the latter. It may or may not be the case that the statement should be changed, but you should avoid the temptation to lie to yourself in saying that you are just "rephrasing" when you are actually altering the meaning. If you are altering the meaning then you probably need to have actual justification both for removing the original statement and for introducing whatever new information the revised statement contains. If there is a reference cited then you should read it.

Rephrasing for bias is often a good thing to do but it is easy to fall into the trap of rationalizing getting rid of statements that bother us without a good reason.

Removing bias
One of the biggest difficulties in Wikipedia is, of course, trying to write articles from a neutral point of view. There are numerous policies and practices that attempt to address this but ultimately there is always an element of subjectivity to it. Certainly inexperienced editors often have difficulty with learning good practices in writing "unbiased" articles. And it is a natural tendency for more experienced editors to try to help out by "removing bias" from articles others have written.

"Removing bias" is a noble goal to be sure but here is an observation:


 * I have yet to see a case where an editor, experienced or not, begins making major edits to an article for the sole purpose of removing bias and actually makes the article better.

It might seem that this should not be the case but in general there is a practical reason it is usually not. If the main thing that bothers you about the article is that it seems very biased to you then it probably means that you are biased. Why? In general if an editor has written an article with such serious bias issues then there are almost certainly bigger problems that also need to be addressed. So either a) the article really is seriously flawed in which case it needs some rewriting and your trying to "fix" the bias problems is really "putting lipstick on a pig," or b) the bias you perceive says more about you than the article.

So what is the best thing to do when you perceive serious bias? Obviously the first thing is to do a self-check and make sure what your factual basis for your concerns is (telling yourself "my buddy Editor345 thinks so too" is not a factual basis). If you do think there is bias, discussion on talk pages is the best place to start. Putting banners at the top of articles about your concerns is fine as long as you genuinely intend to following through and discuss with the editors. As a general rule you should expect not to leave banners more than a couple of weeks at most.

So what about helping by editing the article? Helping other editors by contributing as an author certainly is Wikipedia's goal but make sure that if you are doing it appropriately. If all you are doing is rephrasing some statements without altering their meaning the same then that is not a problem. But is that really all you are doing? If you need to alter the content then simply tweaking statements is unlikely to make the article better. You need to take some real ownership of the sections you are editing so as to actually improve it overall. And you should ask yourself if you actually know what you are talking about. If the extent of your research is reading a few sentences out of a cited reference and deciding that the text does not agree with it then that is probably not doing your homework. Take a look at the section your planning to edit and ask yourself if you are familiar enough with the topic to rewrite it from scratch. The answer does not have to be a complete yes but, if the answer is mostly no then it is likely the case that you do not have enough understanding of the topic to justify making the types of edits you are thinking about. Certainly you may be correct that the statement you are concerned with is biased but it is presumptous for you to assume you are making the article better by editing the statement. To put it another way, even if you actually do remove some bias and you may still be lowering the quality of the article by inadvertently making the resulting text incomplete, misleading, or just plain wrong.

Getting desperate
An annecdote to illustrate a point: Some time ago I had an unfortunate confrontation with another editor regarding common names for a particular topic. I had used one name in the article (supported by sources) and the other editor insisted that he believed another name was far more common. By this time disagreements on other issues had made us both very irritated. The other editor became so intent on making his point that he resorted to using as evidence a simple Google search he had done for both names (supposedly Google came up with more "hits" for his version than mine). Mind you, this was not a newby editor who did not understand WP policies but rather an experienced editor who had previously authored FA-rated articles. Yet unfortunately by this time the editor was so blinded by anger that he began trying to make changes to the article based solely on this "Google" evidence (see WP:Search engine test for a discussion of do's and dont's with using Google).

Unfortunately we are all human and we all do things that we should not when we get angry. That is unavoidable. Sometimes the feeling that the other guy is trying to get away with something or that we are just sure that they are wrong can make us feel desperate to get the upper hand in an argument causing us to forget the rules. The Wikipedia policies and guidelines are there, in part, to remind us what we are supposed to do when we forget. Anger and desperation can cause us to think things like
 * I've been in Wikipedia for a long time and I know all of the rules so I don't need to give them a second thought.
 * I know the other guy is wrong so anything I have to do to stop them is justifiable (see two wrongs make a right).
 * Well I have to do something! I can't just let them get away with it.

All I can say is that, when you feel angry, try to keep asking yourself if you are following WP guidelines even if you are certain the other guy is not.