Wikipedia talk:No factions of belief

Statements of support

1. I wrote and support this policy, because I think it is necessary to deal with divisive behavior, while allowing limited expressions of personal belief and encouraging groups sharing an interest in particular topics.--Eloquence* 04:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
2. I agree with this policy and do not think it gives any reason to ban anyone. Therefore, in my eyes at least, it has nothing to do with "banning idiots" or admins abusing powers or what have you, but rather addresses the way Wikipedia organizes its project. I think it is important to focus on the encyclopedia, and not on the beliefs of the editors. Categorizing by what a user is interested in furthers the goals of the encyclopedia, and does not group the Wikipedians themselves into unrelated categories. As far as I knew, this wasn't a networking site nor a community based project. MySpace and LiveJournal welcome you if you're looking for that. --Keitei (talk) 05:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
3. At last. It is almost impossible to overstate how much I think this is a good idea. The moments I live for on Wikipedia are when I can come to an agreement with an editor who clearly has an entirely different perspective, and yet we can co-operate on improving an article. David | Talk 08:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
4. Count me in. This is so obvious that I'm surprised it has taken so long to start it. Just zis Guy you know? 09:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
5. This puts in the form of a specific policy what has been accepted and believed at wikipedia from the beginning. Whether it is annointed as "policy" or not, it represents the thinking of the founding members of Wikipedia and will be implemented over time. 4.250.177.133 13:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
6. I would certainly support the sentiment of this policy, I certainly agree that at various stages cliques have been formed to the detriment of Wikipedia. I would question the extent to which it could actually be "enforced", and I would also question whether any policy could actually eliminate the problem, as opposed to merely eliminating the appearance of the problem. Maybe this policy could be reversed to encourage open-mindedness rather than prohibiting close-mindedness; I'm not sure whether this would change the problem or not, but it's something worth thinking about. Rje 14:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
7. Eloquently stated! However, I have a minor quibble: rather than a negative title and shortcut, I'd prefer a positive assertion of principle. For example: "Community of Shared Interests" (WP:COSI). It could have much of the same text, slightly reorganized. I've always preferred titles like "Neutral Point of View" rather than "No Point of View". --William Allen Simpson 00:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Objections

1. everytime a new policy is proposed god kills a kitten. please think of the kittens.Geni 04:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
   • I love kittens as much as the next guy, but I'm first and foremost interested in supporting the goals of the encyclopedia. If kittens occasionally have to die in the process, well, such is the circle of life. In seriousness, I think the userbox wars illustrated that the principle described herein is far from obvious; indeed, humans tend to form tribes of shared beliefs. Therefore I would argue that a clear case can be made that an explicit statement such as this is needed.--Eloquence* 04:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
     • I don't even like kittens with catsup, but I tend to agree with Geni that the admins just need more balls when it comes to banning idiots (I say at great peril to my user account). Rklawton 05:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
       • My thoughts of the day on banning idiots.--Eloquence* 05:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
         • On the other hand, banning idiots 1) sends a strong message, and 2) gives the idiot a fair chance to start again with a virgin reputation (if they haven't already figured that out). Amazon had a reviewer voting system. Maybe if we had one for contributors, people would aim at high scores. They would also provide a signal to others as to the contributor's reliability. Right now, we only have red-linked talk pages or edit counts to assess a contributor, and you know how "useful" those are. Rklawton 05:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
           • (Getting a bit OT, perhaps move this later.) Re: 1), if the message is heard, the user may have been amenable to reason in the first place. Re: 2), if the user is indef. blocked and creates a sock puppet, they have to constantly worry about being exposed, and if they have given away their real world identity before, they cannot do so again. Just like you can only lose your virginity once, it's very hard to effectively blank out an identity. That increases the risk of malicious editing, I think, as users feel they are no longer full members of the community, but outcasts or renegades.--Eloquence*
             • Good points. No doubt this has been hashed out elsewhere long ago. Rklawton 05:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
2. Per Geni. Computerjoe's talk 08:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
3. It should also be a violation to state a qualitative level of support for any one issue, other than what can be seen as a black and white yes or no statement. Expressing "Strong support" is inflammatory to me, where as expressing support or even just saying that you believe, as an outright statement, is less inflammatory because people can't argue the length or bredth of it, they can only argue true and false, and as such it is easier to determine and ironically less divisive than if you allow someone to state exactly how much support they have for a concept. Ansell Review my progress! 10:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
4. If you change the wording a bit, it would make a very nice essay, and should be circulated. As policy or even a guideline, it doesn't really work. First of all, you're moving personal preferences from declared to hidden. People in these cliques will still gravitate towards each other. Second, since everyone has a bias, everyone has to work to retain an NPOV. This proposed policy is assuming that a segment of editors will not be NPOV. You're enshrining prejudice. Besides, NPOV is already a policy. Anyone detecting it, and being bullied by factional editors can fall on admins to help. And it is interesting to note that statements of support 3 and 6 sound more like objections, and the proposal doesn't seem to have any bearing on the argument given in #2. -Freekee 04:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
   • Actually, the proposal seeks to move the preference from "form groups with those who agree with you" to "form groups with those who are interested in the same subject as you". Since groups of the latter nature already exist and are fairly successful (WikiProjects, Portals), I think with some gentle prodding (which is what this policy could provide), most people would be happy to associate primarily on this level. Certainly, this will not always be succesful, but I think that a policy would reduce the most harmful instances of faction behavior, and help to establish the principle of unity behind Wikipedia ideas in a stronger form than NPOV alone does. Tolerating visible factions, on the other hand, encourages new community members to treat them as legitimate subcommunities similar to WikiProjects. I think you will agree that they most certainly are not, but there is currently no policy or guideline which says so.
     It's often easier to change problematic behavior into less problematic or beneficial forms than to eliminate it outright. This policy is very relaxed in that it only refers to identifiable, permanent factions, so I think the cases where it would be applied and enforced are limited. However, I think it is important to have this set of limited cases, to give the principle described more weight than a mere essay would have.
     I should point out, as an example, that the German Wikipedia has IRC channels on topics (such as biology, history, etc.) in addition to the WikiProjects/portals, which seems to work fairly well. Furthermore, the proposal does deliberately not limit personal expressions of belief in recognition that their harm is limited. Again, instead it offers (but does not prescribe) an alternative approach, the "declaration of bias" which is similar to the "full disclosure" used in media and science. Would you mind elaborating on your objections given these arguments?
     One problem with the policy proposal may be that it seems more idealistic and ambitious than it is. Perhaps it should reside under a title such as Wikipedia:User groups, which explains what kind of groups are and are not acceptable within Wikipedia. So far I have seen nobody explicitly defend the existence of permanent, identifiable factions of belief within en.wikipedia.org.--Eloquence* 06:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

   I don't think the policy provides for moving the preference from one form of group to another, beyond using the opportunity to point out a better kind of group. Also, I think that given mutual interest in a subject, users will tend not to associate with users who disagree with them. So there's little practical use in urging them to do so. "Tolerating visible factions, on the other hand, encourages new community members to treat them as legitimate subcommunities." This sounds like a danger to me. In the Policy, you mentioned users who believe in religions, or are members of political parties. Are you saying that there shouldn't be "this user is Catholic" userboxes? That sounds like a declaration of bias tome. And such a bias would only become important if the person was editing articles about other religions, and ended up giving an NPOV bias (which brings us back to the NPOV fallback position). Or would you prefer that articles about Catholocism only be written by non-Catholics? In short, I don't find that being a member of a religion or party means their stance would lead to a bias in articles. Can you show me an example of another sort of a "visible faction"?
   I think my most basic opposition to this as policy, is the ideological level. You're looking at the problem in a practical way, but it bothers me on a different level. I'll reiterate my position that to ban certain displays of bias, shows a prejudicial belief that a personal bias will find its way into articles. And that said bias can be countered with currently existing policy. What's the most basic problem that you're trying to prevent? I'm assuming that it comes down to a non-NPOV bias in articles. Am I missing something?
   -Freekee 04:12, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

5. I support this in principle, but have serious doubts about it becoming Policy. Guideline, essay, idea, fine, but policies should generally be enforceable, and unfortunately I do not think this is. If outlawed as such, POV cliques will simply reinvent themselves as "neutral" messageboards and WikiProjects -- a phenomenon we have already seen from time to time. -- Visviva 09:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
6. Irrealistic. In order for this to work, we should not only delete all userpages, regional noticeboards and probably most wikiprojects, as quite a lot of them don't really differentiate between belief and interest in, but we should also devote significant resources to 'discussion police', which should make sure that no beliefs and such are expressed in talk pages, edit summaris and such. Further we should probably control the use of all forms of communications by people involved in the project, to ensure that no 'belief groups' are formed with the use of tools outside Wikipedia. Sounds like a good idea for dystopian novel, but not a Wikipedia policy. Yes, I know the people who support it have good intentions. And we all know what the hell is paved with, don't we?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Other comments

This proposed policy is indistinguishable from the long-standing "User Box Wars" only with a prettier name. Rklawton 04:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you referring to a specific policy it is indistinguishable from? If so, could you point it out? Note that this policy refers to any method of forming factions, not just userboxes.-Eloquence* 04:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. I am not referring to a specific policy but to the barrage of arguments for and against user boxes frequently referred to as "User Box Wars." The policy as described here appears to apply to pretty much anything that identifies a user as belonging to a faction. I take it this includes certain categories, images, descriptions, and code-words. Rklawton 04:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Right, however, only factions of belief are concerned. For example, community groups which merely articulate or enforce existing policies, such as WP:CVU or Wikipedia:Esperanza, are not affected. Do you think this is sufficiently clear from the current wording?--Eloquence* 04:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah! Yes, it is sufficiently clear. But, as in my case, I overlooked this clear distinction as soon as I connected "factions" with "user boxes" in my mind. Even though the proposed policy is very clearly worded, the proposal may cause a similar reaction with others (or not). Rklawton 04:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to clarify it a bit in the intro. Does that help?--Eloquence* 05:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I thought the original was fine. The new version works, too. The problem I had (but hopefully no one else) is that my brain changed gears as soon as I made the User Box connection. Rklawton 05:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Other thoughts:

• Wikipedia's administrators have already been referred to as "thought police" and "admin nazis" on the web. Hunting down faction members may not help - even though the end goal is to eliminate the grounds for these criticisms. Rklawton 04:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
• Censorship on the web isn't practical. That is, there's always a way around it. People who want to build factions will just do so less openly. Rklawton 04:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone should be hunted down. I hope that where possible, we can facilitate the transformation of factions of belief into groups working on shared interests. And I tried to make it clear that people are free to state their beliefs, just that they should try not to group around them. Furthermore, Meta is listed as a legitimate place for belief communities to form.--Eloquence* 05:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

That sounds a bit utopian: a great idea on paper, but not practical in many cases. Rklawton 05:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Mmmh, utopian? Kind of like bringing people from all cultures together to create the single largest source of human knowledge, and giving it away for free? ;-) You're right, of course: We can't legislate away all sources of conflict and division -- but I think a generic policy like this could at least eliminate some of them.--Eloquence* 05:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd love to support Eloquence; it's a beautiful idea. Alas, in practice it won't work, and I fear that it will just provide a stick for one side in a POV conflict to use to beat the other side. Runcorn 20:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you give me an example scenario? The proposal only deals with permanent, identifiable factions, not with groups of editors who happen to agree or disagree in a particular case.--Eloquence* 06:40, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

People will say that editors they don't like are part of permanent factions, and will concoct a case. It's not difficult to do that.--Runcorn 22:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

George Washington warned against faction. Didn't work. If he'd issued an edict banning it? Metarhyme 06:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea in theory, but I don't see it working. --72.160.81.215 06:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

On Userboxes based on interest: I've seen this concept come up before as preferrable to userboxes based on belief. I have been looking for those, and right now they seem a bit inconsistent, and mostly useless. How about setting up a categorized project similar to the User categorisation one and give a solid alternative? A good start would be using the similar top categories that are used for the RfC pages. Why not spend some time developing a positive alternative, instead of just warring about what isn't allowed? I'm still getting templates and such figured out, but I would be willing to help with the project, if it ever were to take off. It could even turn into a useful tool in recruiting help with particular stubs and articles. Sxeptomaniac 18:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

too strict

Why not make it say factions of belief are discouraged, rather than banning them? It's not like we can boot someone for their factional beliefs if they follow policy, anyways.--Urthogie 13:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The only thing the policy prohibits are factions organized within Wikipedia using tools like categories, membership lists, and so on. It does not prohibit using Meta for the same purpose, or any other wiki. I think that is reasonable.--Eloquence* 16:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok. But doesn't the name suggest that factions of belief aren't acceptable, period? It's called "no factions of belief", which suggests that its not only categories and lists which are the problem. I happen to agree with you on categories and lists, by the way.--Urthogie 08:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

The policy refers to identifiable factions within Wikipedia. Do you think that could be made clearer somehow?--Eloquence* 08:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

But wikipedians aren't supposed to be divided. We are one in our beliefs. Ansell Review my progress! 10:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a communnist country that bans religion because it doesn't help the state.--Urthogie 14:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds more like a government which bans government-supported religious groups because it doesn't help the govenment. Wikipedia is not the world - groups can still happen outside. 131.111.226.61 18:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Correct; wikipedia isn't the world, its an encyclopedia-- something which aims to document the world. Factions of belief are part of the world-- excluding them is like saying they're antithetical to our mission, which isn't necessarily the case. Also, I don't follow your metaphor because these factions aren't wikipedia-"supported" factions-- they're merely groups that people belong to in real life. Peace, --Urthogie 19:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)