Wikipedia talk:Ownership of content

Tryptofish's insight

(this first paragraph I copied here from his talkpage) Yeah, too right, it does go over into NPA. I hadn't had a good look at that one or considered it. What I had been doing was besides that part, grouping some of the different kinds of comments to help clarify why they are bad comments, and give editors direction in what they should do. If you tell a person / child / editor only what it is not allowed to do, and nothing about what it could / should / can do, then the only things they have in their head are the wrong things. So there is rebellion or subversion to choose from. Besides giving the direction, I think linking between the pages would help a lot to explain why some ownership comments are wrong, like some of these

(these ones could be added under the attack section of the page, or grouped as the personal attack examples)

1. "You are a new editor"
2. "You don't have enough experience"
3. "You're ruining the article"
4. "Hi! I notice that you are a new contributor to the widget article. Thank you sooo much for your ideas. It is wonderful to know that so many novices like yourself have taken an interest in this article. Anyhow, I have made some small amendments to your changes. You might notice that my tweaking of your wording has, in effect, reverted the article back to what it was before, but do not feel disheartened. Please feel free to make any other changes to my article if you ever think of anything worthwhile. Toodles! :)"
5. "You marked my article for deletion."
6. "you're driving other editors away from this project."
7. "Do not make such changes or comments until you have significantly edited or written work of this quality."
8. "Your work is purely childish and unhelpful to the article."

So rather than a mixture of comments with no form, I was grouping by type and then working to explain what is wrong with those comments, so a small excerpt pointing out NPA with a link across to that policy may turn up the clarity. There are other groupings as well, I should write those up so we can look at what is wrong with them and link across to the policies that cover that subject. Penyulap ☏ 08:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Other groupings

Discussing yourself, not the content (not a personal attack, but violates the third pillar)

1. "I have spent hours editing this article. You are vandalizing my work!"
2. "I/he/she/we created this article" (in a manner implying some kind of inappropriate right or status exists because of that).
3. "Hello, and welcome! I saw your edit to this article, and I appreciate your help, however I am an expert on the subject, and for the accuracy of this article, I have reverted your edit. If you have any suggestions, please put them in the talk page and I will immediately proceed to ignore them."
4. "Unless it is wrong or has errors, please do not make such changes or comments without my/his/her/our approval."
5. "I don't own that book, so I can't confirm your source."

or how many people you are (third pillar again)

1. "We think you should you should make some small edits first, it would be better for everyone.
2. "We don't need this. Thanks anyways."
3. Do not use "We" when you actually mean "I", then discuss the content, not yourself
4. any sentence containing "the other editors think" rather than "see the poll in archive 6"
5. "Please clear this with project X first."

but that would just be personal ownership, rather than ownership that may verge on personal attacks Penyulap ☏ 08:31, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

timetable (linkable, but mostly an essay sort of level link)

1. "I don't have time to look into this right now, but I prefer some other version"
2. "You didn't have consensus because I was offline."
3. "I haven't had time to confirm what you wrote. I have other obligations besides wikipedia, you know."
4. "Please refrain from making any major changes while I am away"
5. "I'm going to add a better one when I have the time."

maybe adding soft advice like 'When you don't have time to research, check references and new material, but other editors do, it may be time to consider 'leaving it to them' until you do have time.' Penyulap ☏ 08:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

What prompted this discussion was an edit to the policy page that I reverted. To make a long story short, please let me suggest the following. I don't really think that we need to make any major changes to this policy page or to its organization, but maybe a "Further information: Wikipedia:No personal attacks" hatnote at the top of the appropriate section (which one?) would be a good idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually it's interesting the way that you phrase that, because I genuinely want to help improve the way that the list of comments itself is presented, so a broader range of editors can understand better the reason why each kind of remark fails, and what policy is associated with it.

Thing is, I just got through doing a little bit to help with the WP:BRD essay, which outlines how to prompt discussions :) sorry, the co-incidence makes me smile a little bit. That one is just an essay, and this one is policy, however I'm pretty sure that the list could use a little help in specifying what is wrong with each comment, rather than just saying they are wrong because it's ownership. Sort of a see also and main poicy for each comment so it links through to the related pages.

I generally gain more ideas from critique than agreement, but as far as I can see, we are on the same page. A hat-note would simply be ideal, I feel that the closer to each remark the better the the chance of associating the remark with the policy and editors clicking on through if they don't understand the problem with the remark. But which section ? that is the question indeed. The comments don't have order beyond all being ownership. Personal attacks like "Your work is purely childish and unhelpful to the article." are positioned next to "Please clear this with project X first." which violates the third pillar, so there is no section to hat-note in a meaningful manner just yet. That's what I'm thinking. Penyulap ☏ 03:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure third pillar and personal attacks can be grouped, but there would be others no doubt. Every comment that is wrong has reasons why it is wrong, where there is more than one tangent of further study, I feel we can avoid dead-ends. Penyulap ☏ 03:36, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I've put the note at the top of the section that lists all of the examples, and it's good enough for me. Thanks for drawing attention to the issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it's said that compromise is "finding a solution nobody likes". I'm more optimistic than that. Certainly it can't be perfect for everyone, but expressing the concept in mandarin would let a billion people understand the concept, and that majority would consider it good.

Hey, I'm not looking for perfect, I'm looking for something that will help guide newbies like I was, to identify the many ways ownership expresses itself. Sure you, and I, and everyone reading the talkpage know what ownership is now, but I feel it's missing some fundamental guidance, and helping it to be just 'good' for a larger number of editors is something I'd like to do, so it's good for you and good for me, or at least the people we were when we started. Penyulap ☏ 08:46, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Everyone should be made to read this policy

Even though this policy dates back to something like 2005 (according to the edit history), it's amazing that I only just learned of its existence today. Although I edit as an IP now, I am an experienced Wikipedia editor with some 30,000+ edits and one of the reasons I no longer edit regularly, or under my username, is because the experience I had with so many editors who claimed ownership of an article really soured me on the project. I wish some of the "Wikia" sites also followed this policy. In my opinion every Wikipedia editor - especially those who register accounts - should be made to read this. If more people were aware of the policy we might see fewer edit wars and bad blood. Just my 2 cents; as with most things there's always room for improvement, but this policy (now that I know it exists) gets two thumbs up from me. 70.72.215.252 (talk) 21:19, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

+1 Penyulap ☏ 11:57, 28 Jun 2012 (UTC)

For consideration

There's a sort of inverse annoyance that's prevalent, which is assigning ownership to others. For example, when someone makes a contribution, then someone else decides that the reference is in an outdated format or the fair use rationale isn't specific enough. First they go through the history to find out who to blame, then they summon up some long-winded template full of links to long-winded policy pages, all because they want you to fix it yourself. Wouldn't it be much simpler and kinder if when someone finds a weakness in Wikipedia, they would just address it directly instead of going to all that trouble just to nag someone else? Most of the time, the course of correction is clear and Wikipedia can go on improving itself without calling people on the carpet. In the case that more information is needed, wouldn't it be more collegial to ask the question instead of framing the oversight as a violation? --Dystopos (talk) 03:21, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

exactly. But what would we clog the server space with, if not 6 pages of discussion about a particular change by a dozen people who don't want to simply make the change to the one sentence ? Penyulap ☏ 11:58, 28 Jun 2012 (UTC)

a few additions

I would like to know if these are spot on, or no good...

1. "You should try making some small edits first"
2. "If bob disagrees with your decision that a given subject is notable, then it's clearly non-notable, isn't it?"
3. "I can see nothing wrong with the article and there is no need to change anything at all."
4. "This edit wasn't discussed first"

Penyulap ☏ 21:54, 28 Jun 2012 (UTC)

I think 1 and 4 are spot on! I'm not so sure about 3, because it could just be an honest disagreement, or a misunderstanding of whatever the proposed change is. I guess 2 sort of is ownership, but it may not be a clear example, first because it divides the ownership between two users, and second because I did a sort of double-take wondering who the name referred to . --Tryptofish (talk) 00:45, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

sweet, you know I think someone missed the cosmic opportunity to revert me on number 4 :)

I'll work on the others, and try to better capture the essence and separate it from the gf comment sort of thing. do you think there are others in the article that we could improve? Penyulap ☏ 01:26, 29 Jun 2012 (UTC)

would it be helpful if I make a separate list, with examples of the multiple editor ownership, so that 2 is a little clearer as an example ? Penyulap ☏ 22:50, 29 Jun 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes

Several significant changes have been made to this policy recently; I've twice reverted them, the second time asking the editor concerned to make a case for them here, but I've again been reverted. I re[eat my request that the changes be discussed here in order that consensus can be reached. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 06:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I just reverted three good faith edits that made the page less clear to me. I wanted to say the edits were good faith, but no edit summary appeared. Sorry if I did it wrong, but there was no edit summary to explain. It is important for this page to be clear. Best wishes, MathewTownsend (talk) 13:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

But there were edit summaries for each of the three edits you reverted, MT. Perhaps you meant to revert different edits? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't explain myself clearly. I meant there wasn't an edit summary for me. Usually there is an edit summary for me, so that when I revert, I can give my reason - but it just reverted and I couldn't explain: In this case, I preferred the version before the last three edits because it was clear to me and that I realized the new edits were made in good faith. MathewTownsend (talk) 13:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Your edit summaries didn't make much sense, however, Nikki. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:35, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

When one editor writes the article

I think this is a particular problem because an editor who has written all or most of the article often seems to feel ownership especially if it has FA. They often talk about "my work", "articles I wrote", guard their watchlist, and act in every way that it belongs to them. There is an article somewhere about "diva" editors. If wp is really interested in retaining new editors, I think this attitude needs to change.

Editors with "ownership" issues typically do not edit collaboratively with the community but write the article themselves, perhaps with a few "trusted" friends. Perhaps wp needs to decide whether they are apart from WMF goals or not. Perhaps wp should be split into the existing encyclopedia, and a special "literary magazine" for FAs (whose editors choose to be in it - e.g. "diva" editors could put their articles there) with different rules. Since FAs usually have low number of page views, perhaps this could be achieved without harming the encyclopedia. MathewTownsend (talk) 14:18, 10 September 2012 (UTC)