Wikipedia:Things that should not be surprising



Some things can be surprising about Wikipedia.

Some things, given some thought, should not be.

Some examples of things that should not be surprising:

People

 * 1) Sometimes people who aren't vandals get blocked because they were behaving like assholes.
 * 2) Sometimes people who aren't vandals get blocked because someone doesn't like them.
 * 3) Blocks that are poorly justified may be reverted by another admin upon appeal.
 * 4) Blocks that are properly justified probably won't be reverted by another admin upon appeal.
 * 5) Not all users are on Wikipedia 24/7 and thus may not be able to respond immediately to personal requests.
 * 6) Idiots are just as common on Wikipedia as anywhere else.

Articles

 * 1) Naked people exist, and might be used to illustrate an article about, say, nudism.
 * 2) Any page will never be 100% correct (except List of Pokémon characters).
 * 3) Articles about ongoing ethnic feuds are subject to ongoing feuds between ethnic groups.
 * 4) Some articles are crap (but you can fix it, what are you waiting for?!).
 * 5) Sports teams hope to make the playoffs.

Seriousness

 * 1) Some people are way too serious about the tone of articles.
 * 2) Some people are too silly when writing or editing articles.
 * 3) Some people are way too serious about themselves.
 * 4) Sometimes the Internet is serious business.
 * 5) Sometimes the Internet isn't serious business, but some people refuse to believe it.

Vandalism

 * 1) Vandals get blocked.
 * 2) Vandalism on widely watched articles gets quickly reverted, while vandalism on minor stubs and other low-traffic pages is slower to be reverted.
 * 3) People will vandalize anything and everything.
 * 4) There is much more vandalism while school is in session.

Disagreements

 * 1) People can edit war about some really stupid things.
 * 2) People can argue over the smallest things.
 * 3) People can argue over the dumbest things.
 * 4) A large portion of the back end of Wikipedia is dedicated to resolving disputes.
 * 5) Being a dick doesn't resolve conflicts.
 * 6) Being a giant dick isn't a winning move in a conflict.

Conflicts of interest

 * 1) You (and your college garage band/vanity press novel) are most likely not notable.
 * 2) Sometimes people edit their articles to make themselves look better.
 * 3) Sometimes corporations/NGOs/governments edit their articles to make themselves look better.
 * 4) Sometimes people edit articles to make their enemies look worse.
 * 5) IP addresses can be traced back to their owners.

Miscellaneous

 * 1) People behave as if articles for deletion and requests for adminship are votes, and yet loudly declare they aren't votes.
 * 2) The MediaWiki software can be fucking weird sometimes.
 * 3) The "edit this page" link actually lets people edit pages.
 * 4) Shit happens.
 * 5) Shit OFTEN happens.
 * 6) Either way you look at it, you're screwed.
 * 7) Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
 * 8) One day you will die and all of your contributions will be transcluded, erased, overwritten, invalidated, vandalized, or forgotten, but you will not be able to do anything about it.
 * 9) Most edits whose summaries contain variations on the word "accurate", especially ones by IPs or redlinked names, need to be reverted for being anything but "accurate".

And finally

 * 1) A page documenting obvious facts exists somewhere.
 * 2) People will actually look up and read a page documenting obvious facts, just like you are right now.