Wikipedia talk:Wikilawyering/Archive 1

Proposed merger
I have proposed a merger, because this is basically a wiki dictdef that doesn't necessarily deserve its special page. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to be commonly used. Ingoolemo talk 01:05, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It is used from time to time by members of the Arbitration committee. Fred Bauder 01:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, this is Wikipedia space, isn't it? I don't see any reason for a merge.  But, I've added the definition to Glossary along with a link to this page.  Friday (talk) 01:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks ok, but Glossary is not a sufficiently detailed explanation for arbitration committee purposes. Please don't delete this page. Fred Bauder 01:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I certainly agree that this topic isn't adequately covered in the G

lossary. But I saw no harm in putting a one-sentence definition plus a link to this page there. I wouldn't want to see this page go away either. Friday (talk) 17:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Pejorative?
Is it not the case that when this term is utilized to describe the conduct of a Wikipedian it is pejoratively used? Netscott 17:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The hope is that folks reading this article will address the substance of a matter and not try to snow us with inappropriate legal terminology and arguments. Fred Bauder 17:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand but I have seen use of this term and sooner thought, "hmm, that usage doesn't strike me as having been done while assuming good faith". Does that not make sense? It's a bit like the fact that citing WP:DICK is a bit of a dick move in and of itself. Netscott 17:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Would you mind if I made a post on WP:AN and see what others think? Netscott 17:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Question?
How does one actually defend oneself against accusations of wikilawyering? It seems to me that by selectively using it, TPTB can effectively hold different users to different standards. -- Dissident (Talk) 16:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No Call to Defame a Segment of Society
JA: Cute quotations from the Bard aside, I do not see any reason why WP should encourage this defamatory language against the legal profession. There are already well-used technical terms in philosophy and debate for what is being described here — I recommend that we chagnge the name to use one of them, say "WikiCaviling" or something similar. Jon Awbrey 20:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah... I've sometimes seen people write derogatory remarks that compare lawyers to cockroaches, and this must stop... it's unnecessarily demeaning to cockroaches! *Dan T.* 20:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: Yes, we all have our fun with this. But the ultimate effect is only to make WP, and not [___Insert Your Favorite Scapegoat Here___] look bad. Besides, WP has explicit policies against inapproriate names for pages, and so it will be necessary to conform to these policies, or else WP will only look bad once again. And nobody wants that, now do they? Jon Awbrey 02:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Except that, all joking aside, "Wikilawyering" is the actual terminology that is used... maybe you regard this as politically incorrect or something, but I've certainly never heard the term "wikicaviling". We're not supposed to make up neologisms as article titles; we're supposed to use terms as they're actually in use. *Dan T.* 18:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: Sorry, the fact that defamatory language is "established" is no excuse for continuing to use it, and simply cannot be tolerated in a civil organization. The stuff about neologisms rather obviously applies only to articles — on meta and project pages we make up about 60 new words before breakfast every day. The word "cavil" is the correct term. WikiPrefixing the "wiki" in front of an old word is something that we do all the time, as some wikiwag did with "wikilawyer". Jon Awbrey 18:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't be dense. I've moved it back and locked it. Either:

1. Jon is trolling, in which case he doesn't deserve any more than the page being moved back and locked in place (which I've done), or 2. he really doesn't appreciate how stupid this is - and he's reverted it being moved at least once so far - in which case no mere discussion will sway him and there's no plausible reason to wait on such.

It's clear no-one except Jon thinks this is a problem. The floor is now open to him to actually convince anyone else, not just attempt a page move war - David Gerard 19:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

JA: [ad hom deleted] Jon Awbrey 22:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * "Wikilawyering" is the term that is used but I suspect that the term has been used pejoratively against Jon Awbrey and he's editing in response. Although I've used the term myself, I've done so knowing that it was not the most politically correct word to use. Being that Wikipedia is NOT censored I'm not sure how politically correct it needs to be in a question such as this. (→ Netscott ) 19:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's trivially obvious to predict how the conflict between Jon's ideals and the workings of Wikipedia will eventually be resolved if he continues to work on the basis of move-warring before bothering with such apparent trivialities as convincing anyone else of his good faith and correctness - David Gerard 19:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've put a note to admins at WP:ANI - David Gerard 19:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The term is wikilaywering. What else is there to say?  You cannot treat wikipedia guidelines and policies like a lawyer can treat laws, you can't play games with them, and they aren't set in stone.  If you choose to get all technical with reguards to wikipedia's naming policies and guidelines, that is wikilawyering too. Kevin_b_er 19:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The arbitration committee would welcome professional legal help. What we object to is inappropriate amateur pettifoggery. Fred Bauder 02:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

We should AGF that Jon is simply trying out IAR (you can do anything once) except that his comment "You people disgust me" and a previous indication that he was leaving Wikipedia make it seem more like POINT or simply anger - perhaps enough anger his judgement is distorted. In any case, I would like to take this oportunity to suggest that that wikilawyering is actually more correct because it is in fact English/American lawyer behavior that is uncalled for at wikipedia. While applicable in an adversarial system, wikipedia is not an adversarial system and thus lawyering on this wiki ("wikilaywering") is not appropriate. Consensus building is appropriate and adversarial approaches are not consensus building but instead are divisive. It would have been nice if arguments had been used against Jon's ill advised attempt at IAR, but the fact is that his apparent anger has resulted in snide comments on other talk pages that have made people fed up with him and unwilling to further engage. As we are a volunteer society and I myself give up rather quickly with people I find trollish, I understand and do not condemn anyone who has given up on Jon. I haven't given up on him just yet, but his comment that "You people disgust me" needs to be apologized for at the very least if he is not intent on burning all his bridges behind him as he leaves. WAS 4.250 21:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm a lawyer IRL and contribute to legal-history articles. I find this term descriptive (albeit occasionally overused), and not demeaning in any way. Newyorkbrad 02:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

page protection
Either can the page editing be unprotected (Jon is unlikely to try this again w/o discussion I would hope), leaving move protection), or at the very least, change back to  ?
 * He's been blocked so there is likely no futher need for protection. (→ Netscott ) 19:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Oops, missed that one. I've unlocked it for both editing and moves - David Gerard 20:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Godel?

 * Wikilawyering the term "wikilawyer" is not the Wikipedia Gödel number and does not win you any special prizes.

Removed the above as it seems nonsensical. - RoyBoy 800 00:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I put back the word rationale over reliable sources, though. This this type of behavior occurs outside of articles. Reliable sources doesn't make sense in the context of people wikilawyering when they're blocked or when they're in arbitration with the arbitration committee. Kevin_b_er 02:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, slightly obscure mathematical joke. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem says that any formal system sufficiently powerful to use cannot prove its own completeness; the Godel number is the number that demonstrates the system's incompleteness. This is analogous to the notion some wikilawyers have that they can prove policy mathematically incorrect and thus ignore it. (And the notion that sufficient policy can cure blatant trolling or really creative stupidity, said notion being the source of instruction creep.) I figured we were in the company of geeks and a link would illustrate what it meant well enough. See also Does not compute - David Gerard 08:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

pejorative term
I added that this is used as a "pejorative term" because frankly, it just is. That's not inherently a bad thing. It's just silly to deny. It's not like anyone says "Bob is a great WikiLawyer, he should make a good admin" and so on. It's always used as a criticism. According to our article "A word or phrase is pejorative if it implies contempt or disapproval". Seems pretty clear. --W.marsh 22:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It is typically used pejoratively but I have used it non-pejoratively (in saying that my comments may seem like an example of ... etc. etc. ). I touched on this previously but didn't get much response. (→ Netscott ) 23:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Page move and broken redirect
Somebody moved this page to Pettifoggery. But they only fixed one redirect, WP:LAWYER. I moved the page back, but can't fix that redirect as it is protected. Could an admin please fix it? -999 (Talk) 21:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have unprotected the page, but please consider supporting the move to Pettifoggery. It is a much more appropriate name. Fred Bauder 22:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess you would need to start a page move survey and see what the consensus is. I'm inclined to keep wikilawyering. It's become a common term on WP. Not all compound neo-logisms are accurate. Most people don't worry about it, but continue to use them. A butterfly is neither a fly nor butter. I'd rather call it a flying flower, but hey! That's language for ya! -999 (Talk) 22:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Having created the article in the first place and written the original essay, I guess I don't see the thing as fixed. Fred Bauder 22:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Changing to another term seems reasonable to me. Wikilitigate? Like, "oh quit your Wikilitigating!"? Could be shortened to Wikigation and Wikigating. From lawsuit, "The conduct of a lawsuit is called litigation." (→ Netscott ) 22:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Strikes no sparks. Fred Bauder 01:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't really like "pettifoggery"... sounds quaintly Victorian or something. So far, of all the possibilities, "Wikilawyering" still sounds best. *Dan T.* 02:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

RfC
The current title is perfectly good. Lawyers are not an oppressed or downtrodden segment of society, so it comes off as disengenuous to compare this title to actual slurs. Durova 16:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

JA: There's about 6.7 x 103 pages on my watch, and when I spy a problem, from a comma fault to a non-MOS heading to subpar page name, I fix it without a 2nd thought. I'm sorry about getting irate but I see that there is a genuine, er, "failure to communicate" here. There are words that are offensive in just about any context short of a historical film. There are words that are the ordinary terms for particular groups, that only become offensive and reductive of a group's humanity when they are used in association with this or that historical connotation or unfair generalization of an invidious and often injurious nature. It doesn't matter whether people can defend themselves against such personal attacks — it is still wrong to make them. It is one thing to joke around over a few beers about these things — most folks are tolerant of that — it is another thing to put up a sign in your place of work that notarizes the slight and only brings disrepute to your own organization. 'Nuff said, I hope. Now, on to those beers! Jon Awbrey 21:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I thought RfC was a call for outside opinions, not the participants in the dispute. Durova 22:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

JA: Just from my experience, I've never seen a case where an RFC was not the occasion for continuing discussion among all parties concerned. Jon Awbrey 01:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Clarification
The article currently says "(All this assumes that we are talking about internal matters; the Wikimedia Foundation of course provides overall governance.)"

I think it would be helpful to clarify the exact legal role of the Foundation. Examples: They own the servers. The software and data is copyleft and thus available to all. As a not-for-profit organization under an educational charter financial support (computer hosting for example) of noneducational material (a novel at wikibooks for example) is legally questionable. Content of a given article can be "governed" by someone or some group everyone else accepts as its keeper (good people are given wide latitute). Most policies of individual language wikipedias are determined by consensus of the participants of that language wikipedia. The Foundation sets overall policy most especially dealing with staying legal and avoiding lawsuits. The State of Florida and the Unites States of America have and create laws that establish important boundaries concerning legal liability, privacy rights, defamation, fundraising, conflict of interest and so forth. WAS 4.250 07:26, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The quoted language is the end of a new paragraph which I don't think I would support as written. What you seek to clarify is what external laws might be applicable to Wikipedia or the Foundation. If a law applies it would be helpful if that is clear. As to a novel at wikibooks, I note novels at the library at our local college. Fred Bauder 13:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on policies
"under the misunderstanding that Wikipedia administrators or the Arbitration Committee are obligated to follow agreed upon wikipedia policies." No misunderstanding. We are obligated to follow agreed on Wikipedia policies. Fred Bauder 13:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Some questionable assertions
Moved from article:

One feature differentiating Wikipeda policy from law is that our policies are not handed down by a higher body. Wikipedia has an executive branch of sorts (administrators, bureaucrats, the Arbitration Committee), but "legislative" power is held by the community as a whole. This has the important implication that any decision can be re-visited. A rule without community support is meaningless; there is no inherent power in the text of a policy page. The text is just the embodiment of the opinions and decisions of the community. If there is consensus that a rule should ignored in a particular instance, or that it should be interpreted in a particular way, there is no higher power to object. There is no reason to closely analyze the text of a policy, because the policies were written by Wikipedians, and are interpreted in whatever way we choose. (All this assumes that we are talking about internal matters; the Wikimedia Foundation of course provides overall governance.)


 * Despite the obvious fact that policies are written by Wikipedians and subject to re-editing the arbitration committee looks closely at the text of policies and tries to interpret them. We may also look at the editing history of the policy and the talk page. We have very limited ability as we consider some particular matter to know what the consensus of the community is regarding policy, unless it is written down on a policy page. What we can sometimes tell is if someone is quoting scripture while sinning, using perverse interpretations of policy to justify disruption. The most obvious is the POV warrior who always comments "NPOV" while engaged in his point of view editing. Fred Bauder 13:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Via Requests for comment/Style issues

 * ''Wikipedia talk:WikiLawyering - Inappropriate name by WP standards. Project name is derogatory toward a segment of society, on a par with ethnic and racial slurs. Discussed on talk page and suggested adoption of the established technical term "caviling" from philosophy and debate. Made change but had it reverted. 19:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Support. According to the opening words of this essay, "WikiLawyering... is a pejorative term...", so, if this describes its use, I'd agree that a term that isn't inherently derogatory toward lawyers (despite the amounts of money many seem to earn!) is needed. I'm not sure, however, what that might be; if most "wikilawyering" is petty, trivial and/or small in scope, then I guess "pettifogging" ("wikifogging"?) is appropriate. "Caviling" was a term unknown to me until now, so, if as I suspect many other users wouldn't be acquainted with it, I'd use something else. Regards, David Kernow 13:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Support, although I did change it once to pettifoggery. "Wikilawyering was the neologism that came spontaneously into use and continues to be in use for the phenomena described. Fred Bauder 13:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Objection, your honor. The term "WikiLawyer" derives not (well, not directly) from "lawyer" but rules lawyer. The name is rather appropriate and rather well used. Besides, Wikipedia is not a court of law, and the most obvious wikilawyers are those people that seek to impose courthouse politics on Wikipedia.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  17:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, for the record, "lawyer" is what I saw within "Wikilawyering", not "rules lawyer" – which I'm not sure is recogniz/sed across all varities of English – so perhaps "rules lawyer" might not occur to (many) other users...? Regards, David Kernow 02:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment. I don't see this term as suggesting that lawyers are bad, simply that Wikipedia isn't an appropriate environment for acting like one.  There are contexts where "lawyering" is entirely appropriate (I'm thinking of a court of law, for example).  The real lesson behind the word "Wikilawyering" is that Wikipedia's rules aren't very much like a legal system.  Many resist this idea, assuming that we've got traditional rules here, and that we're kind of kidding whenever we say we don't.  That said, I'm pretty open to a change.  "Caviling" is, as noted above, a word unfamiliar to many.  I don't see that as much of an argument against using it, though.  Why not help increase everyone's vocabulary?  If someone wants to know what it means, they can click on it, just like they do with words we make up here, like "Wikilawyering".  After a few months, we can all list "cavil", along with "disambiguate" and "transclude" as words we learned here. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * C'mon fellas and fellinas, "wikilawyer" has nothing to do with "rules lawyer" (other than the last six letters). Defined: a rules lawyer is a player in a game who attempts to use a supposedly-encyclopedic knowledge of the rules of a game to gain unfair advantage, to annoy or to ingratiate himself with other players.   But wikipedia isn't a game and it wikilawyer doesn't mean to "gain unfair advantage", "to annoy" or "ingratiate himself with other players".   So can we remove the awkward  "no direct connectio to the word lawyer"?   Though it seems part of the lingo here, this is derrogatory towards lawyers, and can be confusing.   When I first got here I thought wikilawyers were some sort of helper editors that could assist in disputes.  Only later did I discover it was a personal attack.  Another term that's gotta go is "meat puppet".   How rude!  Justforasecond 20:56, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It appears our page rules lawyer isn't quite up to par. A rules lawyer is someone who doesn't "get" the spirit of the game and sticks to the bureaucratic letter of the rules. Don't you hate it when you're playing and someone comes by and says "you can't do that, it's against the rules"? What about the smartass that goes "well, paragraph seven sub 3 says I get five days, not four". Well, the same goes for Wikipedia. We go by the spirit of things - someone who reverts exactly three times each day is perfectly in line with the WP:3RR and yet gets blocked for revert warring because he didn't grasp the idea (or grasped it just fine but thinks he can "appeal" or "impeach the blocking admin" because of a "technical violation").  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  21:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Object in role-playing games, which can have notoriously labyrinthine rules, a common "rules lawyer" tactic is to ambush a game in progress with an out-of-context citation from some passage that doesn't really say what the rules lawyer wants it to mean, which sometimes gains a crucial advantage when others just want the game to move along. Since Wikipedia does bear some similarities to an MMORPG, the analogy fits. Durova 02:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See query in response to >Radiant<'s "Objection, your honor" above. Regards, David Kernow 03:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That's why I put a line on the page explaining the origin of the word "wikilawyer".  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  15:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I read all previous discussion before posting. Durova 15:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Suggest the problem is that a visit to WP:LAWYER WikiLawyering to read the explanation is required to understand that "wikilawyering" isn't meant to suggest lawyers but rules lawyers – plus the assumption that most folk recogniz/se the term "rules lawyer". Although a term such as "pettifogging"/"wikifogging"/etc would be just as (if not more) likely to require a visit, at least it doesn't risk the possibility of a mistaken association (misassociation?). Regards, David 15:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, if that's the main problem, the obvious solution would be to delete WP:LAWYER (it's too long for a shortcut anyway, imho) and use the perceivedly-less-offensive WP:WL instead.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  10:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Apologies – I didn't mean to draw attention to the shortcuts; they're not "the problem". (I've now amended my post above.) I think "the problem" to which people are reacting is that:
 * If it's the case that "WikiLawyer/ing" derives from the pejorative "rules lawyer" rather than simply "lawyer", the label should be something like "WikiRulesLawyer/ing" to avoid the suggestion that all lawyers are rules lawyers – or the label should be something else entirely;
 * I suspect "rules lawyer" is an uncommon term outside (North) America, so perhaps the label "Wiki(Rules)Lawyer/ing" should be something else entirely.
 * Hope that clarifies the above! Regards, David (talk) 15:46, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm still confused. I thought it wasn't just the problem behavior known as "rules-lawyering" that we're saying is inappropriate.  I thought that perfectly ordinary "lawyering" - what we pay lawyers to do - is considered inappropriate here, whether or not the person is being manipulative about it.  "Rules-lawyer" implies manipulation, but Wikilawyering is often done in entirely good faith, by people who mistakenly believe that our "rules" are to be interpreted in the same spirit as laws, i.e., more or less absolute, written with technical and precise wording that really matters, etc.  In fact, Wikipedia's rules are a different kind of beast, and understanding that is one of the big hurdles to overcome for a lot of editors.  Isn't that supposed to be the message of this page? -GTBacchus(talk) 21:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikilawyering, inappropriate legal posturing, is to be distinguished from effective advocacy, either on your own behalf or on behalf of another. Effective advocacy in the context of an arbitration case involves marshaling of evidence (diffs, usually) which is relevant to the issues involved in the arbitration and common sense discussion of how the behavior in question relates to Wikipedia policy. This is really no different from most work done by skilled attorneys. Fred Bauder 22:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that makes sense to me. I guess I see a difference between effective advocacy at Wikipedia and effective advocacy in a court of law, and that difference seems to be precisely what we mean when we say people shouldn't understand our policies and guidelines "legalistically".  In other words, Wikilawyering, to my mind, means placing a higher value on The Rules (tm) than one places on common sense.  In court, the wording of the statute is the ultimate arbiter.  Here, the precise wording of the policy page means very little, in comparison to the common-sense principle behind it, right?  Maybe I'm talking about something different from Wiki-lawyering... -GTBacchus(talk) 22:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Given all the above (and, it seems to me, the continued possibility of confusion, misinterpretation, etc) I suggest any name using the term "lawyer" within it is avoided. In lieu of any other promising suggestions, "Pettifogging" (or, if a "wiki-particular" name is needed, "Wikifogging") seems sufficient...? Regards, David Kernow (talk) 02:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Etimology
I had the mind to revert Centrx's edit and keep the etimology, but I'm not sure if Wikilawyering comes from rules lawering specifically. I'd guess that most people have never heard about a rules lawyer, and unless anyone has any specific information, it doesn't seem clear to me that rules lawyer is where the term originated from. Fresheneesz 05:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)