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Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing: Difference between revisions

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{{Redirect|WP:SEALION|the more specific sense of stonewalling via disruptive demands for "help"|WP:You can search, too}}
{{Essay|interprets=the [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] and [[Wikipedia:Civility]] policies|cat=Wikipedia essays about neutrality|WP:CPP|WP:CRUSH|WP:CPUSH|WP:PUSH|WP:SEALION}}
{{Nutshell|Civil POV-pushers argue politely and in compliance with Wikipedia civility principles, but also with bad faith, which discourages or upsets the other contributors. In a discussion, blame is often assigned to the person who loses their temper, which is even more frustrating for fairgood-faith contributors trapped in such discussions.}}
 
Wikipedia, and specifically the dispute resolution process, has a difficult time dealing with [[Wikipedia:Civility|civil]] POV pushers. The [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee|Arbitration Committee]] (ArbCom) has a mixed record in dealing with such problem users. The arbitrationArbitration committeeCommittee has chosen to avoid focusing on content, because admittedly they are not subject experts, and often these issues are complicated enough that knowledge of the topic is necessary to identify pseudoscience, crankery, conspiracy theories, marginal nationalist or historic viewpoints, and the like. (One important reason for this is that oftentimes there is a great deal of misinformation surrounding these topics.) Rather than focusing on content the arbitrationArbitration committeeCommittee has focused on behavior. The problem is compounded because it often takes the form of long-term behavior that cannot accurately be summarized in a few diffs. As such, the committee has difficulty dealing with ''"civil" POV pushers—editors who repeatedly disregard or [[Wikipedia:Gaming the system|manipulate]] Wikipedia's content policies but are superficially civil, or not-quite-uncivil-enough to merit sanctions.''
 
As a result of the arbitrationArbitration committeeCommittee's failure to deal with these issues, the committee has effectively abdicated the responsibility for ensuring [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|neutrality]], [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiability]], and other content standards to a few users (mostly, but not entirely admins) who patrol these articles and attempt to keep them free of disruption. These users are generally very knowledgeable about the subject and committed to Wikipedia's policies on [[Wikipedia:No original research|proper sourcing]] and [[WP:WEIGHT|appropriate weight]]. Unfortunately, they tend to burn out. Usually they burn out in one of two ways:
* The impatient ones tend to become angry as a result of the seemingly never-ending problems these articles cause, become uncivil, and get sanctioned by ArbCom for incivility.
* The patient ones tend to go more quietly. They become disillusioned by the never-ending problems and the lack of support from the Wikipedia community, and stop editing on these topics or quit the site entirely.
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===Neutrality===
* They attempt [[WP:WEASEL|to water down language]], [[Whitewash (censorship)|whitewash]], unreasonably exclude information, marginalize or push views beyond the requirements of [[WP:NPOV]], or give [[WP:UNDUE|undue weight]] to [[WP:FRINGE|fringe theories]] – pseudoscience, crankery, conspiracy theories, marginal nationalist or historic viewpoints, and the like.
* They frivolously request [[WP:CITE|citations]] for [[Wikipedia:Common knowledge|obvious or well known information]].
* They argue endlessly about the [[WP:NPOV|neutral- point- of- view policy]] and particularly try to undermine the [[WP:WEIGHT|undue weight clause]]. They try to add information that is (at best) peripherally relevant on the grounds that "it is [[WP:V|verifiable]], so it should be in".
* When they are unable to refute discussion on the talk page against their point of view, they will say the discussion is [[WP:OR|original research]].
 
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* They will often misrepresent others or other discussions in an attempt to incriminate or belittle others' opinions.
* They will attempt to label others or otherwise discredit their opinion based on that person's associations rather than the core of their argument. See ''[[ad hominem]]''.
* They will use inconsistent logic across discussions, applying an argument or standard in one situation but using a contradictory one in the next discussion if it suits them.
* They may participate in [[WP:AFD|articles for deletion]] discussions, keeping articles that support their beliefs and deleting articles that do not, even if the articles otherwise have similar [[WP:N|notability]].
 
===Sources===
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* [[Tea Party Movement]]
* [[Gun control]]
* [[School shootingsshooting]]s
* [[Mass killings under Communistcommunist regimes]]
* [[Uyghur genocide]]
* [[Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war]]
* [[Alt-right]]
* [[Neo-Nazism]]
* [[Cryptocurrency|Cryptocurrencies]]
* [[Coronavirus disease 2019|COVID-19]]-related topics
* [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II and the history of Jews in Poland|World War II and the history of Jews in Poland]]
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==Principles==
* Civility is not limited to superficial politeness but includes the overall behavior of the user. Superficially polite behaviors still may be uncivil. Some examples are politely phrased [[WP:BAIT|baiting]], [[frivolous or vexatious]] use of process, ill-considered but politely phrased accusations, unrelenting pestering, and [[WP:TPG|abuse of talk pages]] as a platform to expound upon personal opinions unrelated to specific content issues.
* Just as [[WP:NPOV]], [[WP:V]], and [[WP:NOR]] cannot be applied in isolation, [[WP:CIVIL]] should not be interpreted or enforced without reference to other guidelines and policies. Civility is important, but it does not trump other core behavioral and content policies.
* Using Wikipedia as a vehicle for advocacy, or to advance a specific agenda, damages the encyclopedia and disrupts the process of collaborative editing. Wikipedia is not here to [[WP:GREATWRONGS|right great wrongs]]. Even when such behavior is superficially civil it is just as harmful to the project, if not more so, than incivility.
* [[WP:AGF|The requirement to assume good faith]] is not an excuse for uncooperative behavior. [[WP:PACT|There is a limit]] to how long good faith can be extended to editors who are continually shown to be acting in a manner that is detrimental to the growth and improvement of the encyclopedia. Nor is AGF defined as doublespeak for urging all editors to agree with a particular viewpoint and accept any changes that are advocated.
* Civility does not mean that editors cannot disagree. Academe is well known for spirited debates and disagreements and these often point the way to progress. The key principle is "stay on topic"; that is, arguments should be on the merits and not personalities. Editors should bear in mind that a disagreement with their point is ''not'' an attack on their honor.
 
==Suggested remedies==
* This is a type of behavior that is very easy to do; all it takes is a willingness to spend the time creating the necessary walls of text until the other editor(s) become frustrated, give up in disgust and go away. It is incredibly tedious to prove and almost as tedious to assess because by its very nature it requires many multiple diffs. You simply cannot prove it with 3 or 4; editors assessing the situation would have to then take the complaining editor’s word for it that this was being repeated over the course of a long wall of text. Because of this, complaints of sealioning/civil POV pushing about an editor who has been found to be exhibiting this behavior before should be taken seriously, and such complaints should not be closed until someone has been willing to investigate.
* Accounts which use Wikipedia [[WP:SPA|for the sole or primary purpose of advocating a specific agenda]] ''at the expense of core policies and consensus-based editing'' should be warned, restricted, or ultimately blocked by any [[WP:UNINVOLVED|uninvolved administrator]]. Care should be taken to distinguish ''new'' accounts from those with an established pattern of disruptive single-purpose advocacy. Likewise, this remedy is not meant to apply to editors who work within a narrow range of topics but adhere to Wikipedia's core policies.
* Where consensus cannot be attained through normal wiki processes, the arbitrationArbitration committeeCommittee could designate "lead" editors who have considerable expertise on that article or topic. Lead editors would be empowered to direct discussion, determine consensus and designate discussions as closed. However, the arbitrationArbitration committeeCommittee has done this only very rarely, and there is considerable opposition to it doing it at all: the committee is expected to deal with behavior, not content.
* If an editor insists on continuing to bring up an issue which has been discussed and decided, especially if they have no new information that can add to the issue, they should be pointed to the previous discussion, warned, restricted and ultimately blocked by any uninvolved administrator. An "involved administrator" (for the purposes of allowing uninvolved administrators to impose sanctions on problem users) is one who has a ''current, direct, personal conflict with a problem user on the specific issue at hand.'' Previous interactions on other articles or topics does not make one involved; previously editing the same article (but a different matter) does not make one involved. Broad definitions of "involved" that exclude administrators who have any prior experience with the article or editors in question are counterproductive. They result in overemphasis on superficial civility at the expense of more complex and long-term behavior. See [[WP:UNINVOLVED]].
 
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===More on civil POV pushing===
* [[WP:Don't bludgeon the process]] (essay that verges on guideline-level acceptance)
* [[WP:Gaming the system]] (dittoguideline)
* [[Gish gallop]]
* [[WP:Tendentious editing]] (ditto)
* [[WP:Wikilawyering]] (ditto)
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* [[WP:POV railroad]]
* [[WP:Why Wikipedia cannot claim the Earth is not flat]] – advice on coping with civil POV pushers
* [[WP:Ye shall know them by their sources]]
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