User:Orderinchaos/Article conflict scenario


 * Originally posted here on 12 July 2008, modified intro para to put in perspective on 9 August 2008. I hope to develop it at some point into an essay.

Having worked at a couple of high-visibility articles where ideological war is the norm rather than the exception and behavioural issues are a major long-term factor impacting on article development, I had made some observations about how the environment works, possibly with some help from my corporate review background where I was responsible for reviewing failed projects from other departments on behalf of a senior manager, and educational environments where I have dealt with both other educators and with groups of students. During a particularly hot AN/I relating to Barack Obama, I was amazed to see exactly the same situation as on the articles I had been working, although at that article it was at an embryonic stage and enough good faith editors were still in action to keep the high-visibility article on an even keel.

The procedure I have observed works something like this:


 * 1) Starting situation - an editing environment with perhaps 6-8 editors, with different opinions but able to work together, on a high-visibility article. The article is broadly speaking balanced and encyclopaedic, but not anywhere close to FA/GA, so lots of gaps exist to be filled.
 * 2) A couple of really egregious editors start tilting it, sometimes bringing in assistance in the form of other editors they have worked well with (ideologically compatible but maybe not aware of the purpose of the exercise) or alternatively just being chronically incivil on the talk page. These editors may have an offline agenda or some other driving motivation, and are usually quite literate (this is key to how they evade detection) and have a list of sources for their changes.
 * 3) Whether attracted through ideology, stalking or whatever, a couple of the opposite number follow and an edit war begins.
 * 4) First protection cycle of article.
 * 5) A couple show up who do not appear to be particularly tilted, but are essentially there to lend a "respectable face" to the original new arrivals and argue out their opponents.
 * 6) Because of careful avoidance of to-the-letter policy-non-compliant behaviour and characterising everything as a mere content dispute (even accusing more reasonable minds of NPOV or BLP violations and trying to force mediation and other processes), the aggressive editors survive fairly easily. Those of the original group of editors who can see the problem unfolding are deemed to be "involved editors" and, with the building complexity of the situation, find it hard to explain to others what is going wrong or how, as the edits do *seem* like just a content dispute. Further limits on outside action may be created by the behaviour of the newer group of opposing editors, who may be just as aggressive and provide ripe fodder for complains to AN/I and other fora, distracting from the real issue.
 * 7) Over time, the aggressive editors get to set the agenda and now effectively own the article, tandem-revert-warring any change they disagree with and achieving their aims by strength in numbers. Discussion on the talk page revolves around what they want to talk about. By this time, most of the original editors have left the article permanently, and those there have only known the conflict in its current phase. As such, the pool of genuinely neutral editors diminishes and it becomes increasingly a clan division based on allegiances, with people talking of "sides", "winning" and etc.
 * 8) Ultimately, after 1½ - 2 years, the aggressive editors get pushed into a corner, react inappropriately (e.g. sockpuppeting or stalking), and finally get banned from editing. However the article left behind is a wasteland that nobody wants to edit filled with random irrelevancies and not covering key points of the subject. Even if editing can proceed, it has to do so with the worst starting position of a twisting and turning article with many opportunities for conflict, and a group of editors all too accustomed to (maybe even comfortable in) the conflict paradigm.

On showing these observations to others, many of whom had no exposure to the disputes I had observed but had either presided over or been involved in others, I came to the conclusion that, with some modifications, this can almost be classed as a general behaviour phenomenon. Not all - maybe not even a majority - of contentious or potentially contentious articles will manifest it, as many topics are simply not of much interest to a lot of people, and organising a group dedicated enough to take over an article requires finding people who are interested in the topic. But I, and many others, would love to think Wikipedia can think up a way of dealing with this sort of situation proactively rather than reactively.