User:SirFozzie/Nationalism

Introduction

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

That is a wonderful thing.

It's the exact thing that brought me into editing here.

It's also the worst possible thing for Wikipedia.

Because truly, anyone can edit it.

Over the past few months, I have dealt with many people here on Wikipedia. Some of them I would call my closest friends. There are others who I have dealt with who for one reason or another, have made my blood pressure boil.

It's the latter ones that are causing me to write this essay right now.

Why Wikipedia is a battleground

Because Wikipedia is so popular, it is important for many people to have their side of the story reflected. After all, if you use google to search for X, and if Wikipedia has an article on X... somewhere on that first page of results will be a link to the article.

I saw a story that Wikipedia is one of the top 1000 most visited English-Language sites in the world. That seems like Wikipedia's powerful, right?

However, that power has a dark side. Because Wikipedia is powerful, and to a point, trusted by those who read it, there is a real reward for editors to fight as hard as they can to make sure that the Wikipedia article is as favorable as possible to their side, and as negative as possible to the side they oppose. It's the power to sway minds.. or at least provide a favorable first impression in the minds of those who visit Wikipedia.

So we get Point of View battles. Boy Howdy, do we get PoV battles. Articles can wildly swing from one extreme to another. And one of the focal points of these POV extremists is nationalism. Our Dispute Resolution chain is choked up with case after case of nationalistic warfare. I have been involved for several months with one such battle (currently in ArbCom), so I've seen it up close and personal.

I've seen groups of people band together in pseudo-gangs to push a certain nationalistic Point of View, and then seen a counter acting group form to resist the first group's heavy-handed editing.

I guess it's better then the traditional battlefields that these battles had been waged on, but forgive me for not seeing the benefit to Wikipedia.

Can Wikipedia truly cleave to WP:NPOV?

It's possible. I see one editor who has a strong Point of View regarding a current Wikipedia Conflict write neutrally, and get articles to Featured Article status. However, since he writes on articles where there's a conflict, he has been hounded, insulted, and constantly attacked by a group of editors whose views skew to one end of a long-running edit war across approximately 50-60 articles. Because this editor cannot do his work without being harassed and attacked, he's leaving Wikipedia to the wolves and the tigers. To those whose primary mission in Wikipedia-Life is to make sure the OTHER SIDE DOES NOT WIN.

My viewpoint on these things: You don't have to be neutral yourself in any conflict to write about the conflict. However, if you can't WRITE neutrally, then go away. That's just my viewpoint. If you can't write dry, factual articles that comply with an encyclopedic, neutral point of view. Then you're not a positive to this project. If you are going to be one more editor in lockstep with others, voting the same way, writing the same way, attacking the same folks, and just another name in constant reports and disruption? I don't want to see you at all.

I've seen administrator after administrator try to calm these nationalistic battles, get chewed up and spit out. I AM one of those administrators.

Sadly, some of these folks are also the most knowledgeable folks regarding these conflicts. Wikipedia needs to find a way to harness the potential of these editors, without allowing their disruption.

Can it be fixed?

Is there a solution? Yes and No. Yes, we can be harsher on edit warriors, and PoV Pushers. Topic Bans are de-facto bans for a lot of these folks. They're only here for one reason. Wikipedia needs to come down harsher on these long-running battles. That's part and parcel of being the encyclopedia "anyone can edit".. just like the red blood cells and the white blood cells, you get the equivalent of a virus, infecting the system .They are an infection on Wikipedia, and need to be lanced.

I'm not saying that you should all be sitting around the campfire singing "Kumbaya" with each other.. I'm just saying that if two sides won't work with each other, then both sides need to go. We cannot decide these battles for them, but we also cannot allow the bad faith to infect the rest of Wikipedia.