Wikipedia:Ideology warrior
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Don't alter political ideologies without specifying a reason why; try not to base your arguments on personal beliefs or feelings, ensure that your claims are verified by reliable sources, and seek consensus on the talk page before making controversial edits. |
An ideology warrior is an editor who spends most of their time on Wikipedia altering the ideology field of political infoboxes, or altering a party's/individual's political leanings within the body of the text. They may also alter the "political position" field in the infobox. They are the political siblings of genre warriors, but are often far more passionate and headstrong about their interpretations being right.
The ideology warrior is usually here with an agenda, either to promote their own politics or disparage their opponents'. They are more often than not motivated by their own point of view, and often resort to original research and especially synthesis to argue their points.
Ideology warring is disruptive to articles, because the changes have to be reverted. Warriors waste the time of other editors, because it must be spent reverting these edits and some then feel obligated to add the affected articles to their watchlist, thus adding to their workload. Furthermore, ideology warriors often have no hesitation in edit warring and violating the three revert rule to make sure their version of a political article sits on top.
If a disagreement arises over what political ideology or position should be stated in an article, take the issue to the talk page, and start an RfC, if needed.
Examples[edit]
Ideology warring can include, but is not limited to, the following:
- Whitewashing the political views of extremist groups, such as changing or removing references to fascism or changing far-right to right-wing
- Being pedantic about similar political positions, such as changing democratic socialist to social democrat
- Adding an entire ideology to the infobox based on a single policy a party might have
- Similarly, adding positions to the infobox that aren't strictly ideologies
- Adding or removing ideologies based on a party's historical position, as opposed to their current one
- Adding an ideology based on a passing descriptor or adjective found in otherwise reliable sources
- Adding or removing ideologies based on a user's personal interpretation of their politics
- Changing far-right to far-left, often based on a misinterpretation of what national socialism is
- Changing centre-left or centre-right to far-left or far-right in order to paint them as extreme
- Removal of the word "hard" from sourced political positions, such as hard-left, in order to present a subject as being moderate
Official standards and guidelines[edit]
No original research or synthesized claims[edit]
Wikipedia prohibits original research, unverifiable claims, and conclusions that are not explicitly stated by the sources. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. What this means is that you can't make an interpretation of what ideology a subject is based on their policies, manifesto, or actions. Instead any ideology that you intend to add to an article must be explicitly stated by reliable sources. You also cannot take a mix of statements about a subject's views from different sources and combine them to form a conclusion on their ideology, as this would be synthesis of published material.
Behavior pattern and motivations[edit]
Politics is a contentious topic. Even the most moderate political positions or subjects will have their ardent opponents, which attracts the ideology warrior. IWs are normally here to right great wrongs. It's also important to note that many people believe Wikipedia has a bias, whether it be either left-wing or right-wing. After all, if you think that Wikipedia is simply propaganda for the other side, then it is your sacred duty to edit war to correct these mistakes!
Ideology warriors often have little regard for the three-revert rule, and will happily undo other users in order to push their preferred presentation of a subject.
What to do when encountering an ideology warrior[edit]
One of the first things to accept is that a user coming to Wikipedia to take issue with a subject's political position probably won't be satisfied with making a single edit and then leaving. They are likely to stick around and edit war to make sure their views are brute-forced into an article. Consequently the first principle that should be followed is the bold, revert, discuss cycle. A user making a contentious change should be reminded of this process immediately in order to prevent or mitigate edit warring.
Because politics can be such a battleground, however, don't be surprised when the user doesn't reach the "D" part of BRD. Notifying them of the three-revert rule should be the next step, in order to encourage them to engage on the talk page before having to pay a visit to the edit-warring noticeboard. If they're looking especially persistent, consider starting a thread for them on the article's talk page and tagging them in it, where you explain why their edits are unsubstantiated. Many new editors might not be familiar with the idea of original research, and so this is a good opportunity to explain why personal interpretation is not suited to an encyclopedia.
If you're lucky, they'll engage on the talk page (and it'll probably take a few attempts to get them to understand Wiki policy) and eventually the issue will be resolved. However, this essay is about ideology warriors, and a warrior doesn't give up so easily. A trip to the aforementioned edit-warring noticeboard might be inevitable, and particularly stubborn unlogged users might necessitate the page being semi-protected.