Wikipedia:Self-appointed prophet

Single-purpose editors are a fact of life in Wikipedia. Some editors who have been so described are among the most valued and respected editors Wikipedia has, particularly those who contribute material where they are able to apply their expertise.

Others fall somewhere beyond being simply an obvious POV pusher but may not have a clear financial or other conflict of interest. These editors can be a big problem for Wikipedia. This essay is about the self-appointed prophet. The self-appointed prophet has an entrenched viewpoint when it comes to certain articles or a subject within articles, and sometimes entire ranges of subject matter. The articles become the target for edits slanted toward reflecting personal bias(es), original research, fringe/pseudoscientific viewpoints, and promotional advocacy. This can take the form either of additions or deletion of material and/or entire articles. It can be as simple as distaste for a widely used term, or as complex as adopting a gestalt that differs in peculiar ways from the mainstream understanding of related subjects. The self-appointed prophet is relentless in (re)inserting their personal "truth" into articles.

General Characteristics

There are several specific characteristics which such individuals display. A key feature is that they are unwilling or unable to see that relevant policies and guidelines apply to them.

Among the more frequently seen characteristics are the following:

1. Explicit statements from the individual in question of their singular interest in a particular subject area.
2. Usernames that are clearly related to the topic of interest in some way and/or clearly self-promotional.
3. Singular attention to a specific opinion or view of a topic, said topic generally being of a disputed or contentious and broadly religious, philosophical, or pseudoscientific nature.
4. Lack of familiarity with policies or guidelines, or an unwillingness to believe in the applicability of policies and guidelines to them personally.
5. Claims that their views, opinions, interpretations, or analysis are in some way authoritative, often accompanied by WP:OR or WP:SYNTH.
6. In a broad, or at times very specific sense, a pronounced unwillingness if not inability on the part of the editor to believe that they are capable of being perhaps wrong, or even the very possibility of their even potentially ever being wrong.

Long-term SAPs

Some editors fitting this description have been around for some time. They may have learned how to avoid recognition as quickly through various means.

1. They are often not as easily detected by a quick glance at editing histories. Some have long since learned to disguise their SAP participation by multitudes of automated and semi-automated edits (use of templates, spelling checks, format checks, etc.) across swathes of unrelated articles and talk pages. These minor edits are often not marked with the "minor" flag.
2. They may tend to focus more on opinions, their own and others, or opinions they assuming bad faith ascribe to others, rather than coverage in sources. They may also show a focus on limiting coverage or removing notable material rather than reporting all significant viewpoints found in reliable sources, particularly when doing so serves their own interests, or, alternately, adding only material which does serve their own interests.
3. They may have also learned how to misuse sources in a way not easily detectable. Of course, considering such misuse of sources is a violation of policy, had they not done so, they would have been made obvious earlier. And, for editors who have been around for some time, and have not been found problematic or sanctioned in such a way already, WP:AGF and other factors will often cause administrators to ignore such behavior or choose not to sanction for it. Particular specific tactics here may include:
   1. Misrepresentation of what reliable sources say. This can be blatant (misquoting and/or cherrypicking) or subtle (dismissing certain aspects of the source by questioning its authors' motivations, knowledgeability, data, etc.).
   2. Offering critiques of reliable sources based in personal opinion and/or original research, rather than bringing up other mainstream reliable sources that illustrate alternative views that should be included.
   3. Denigrating authors of reliable sources as individuals and otherwise attempting to undermine their reliability via rationales based largely on original research and/or a skewed viewpoint.
   4. Seeking to give undue attention to authors of fringe or minority views, or such views themselves.
4. They may also have become well versed in how to miscite or misuse policies or guidelines in support of their opinions. Specific instances may include:
   1. Misrepresentation of policies such as WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOTE to justify excluding material or topics.
   2. Misrepresentation of policies such as WP:PSTS as rationales for blanking cited material.
   3. Misrepresentation of WP:V and policies regarding sources as reasons for excluding otherwise reliable references.
5. They may often and frequently attempt to cast those who do not support them in their efforts in a negative way, as "enemies" of their positions, or active proponents of conflicting opinions, or unqualified in one or more fields relevant to the area in question.
6. Overemphasis on sometimes trivial or minor changes as indicative of larger changes than seem actually indicated by the sources. These can be particularly obvious in the cases of individual groups, who can, and sometimes do, change their names frequently, or where new groups arise on the retirement or inactivity of the leaders of earlier groups, or similar minor changes as indicating a fundamental or major change in some aspect of the group when such may not in fact exist.

Some specific strategies used

They may also sometimes take advantage of their long-time editor status to engage in the activities of the following kinds, which, in deference to their status as long-time editors, often goes unnoticed or unchallenged.

1. Pushing revisionist, pseudoscientific and other non-mainstream viewpoints and sources without labeling them as such, or labelling dominant viewpoints as "biased" in some way, and/or misrepresenting minor viewpoints as mainstream scholarly viewpoints.
2. Blank material cited to reliable sources, sometimes indicating as much in the edit summary, sometimes not, sometimes by misrepresenting the reliability of the reference.
3. Incremental blanking, either by blanking or reducing content or references over several edits and possibly months or years, knowing that few editors will look through their history over longer periods of time and/or sometimes even see them as keeping the article in good shape by removing poorly sourced material or poor sources. The SAP can be very patient and persistent.
4. Blanking by redaction: removing cited statements and references under some pretext of improving the flow or other purported improvements.
5. Summary blanking of significant material that may appear to be uncited, but which may be WP:OBVIOUS and/or covered by an existing citation, instead of improving the text or requesting a reference (or better reference).
6. Blanking material (and sometimes entire articles) in disregard of citations, with no effort to provide or request backup or better sources, and/or failure to adhere to guidelines such as WP:BEFORE and WP:BEFOREBLPPROD. In some cases, false claims of failed verification may be used to remove a source and its supported statement(s).
7. Strategic "break" taking. Some SAP's cannot apparently believe that they will not, in time, be proven 100% correct. Not surprisingly, of course. So, in the event that they find their behavior commented about negatively, they may take a declared break, for the truly SPA SAP's, or engage in editing marginally related or unrelated content for a period of weeks or months, until they once again appear in the area of conflict. In some cases, the strategic break taking may be effectively an effort to avoid sanctions, as there is no pressing need to sanction someone who is going to be gone indefinitely. Some SAP's employ this particular strategy repeatedly.

Dealing with such editors

It can be extremely difficult dealing with such individuals. They often seem to regard any opposition to their views as being in some way related to some conspiracy-theory "cabal." The more religiously fanatical of them may even start casting any opponents in specifically demonic roles, although any opposition is pretty much by definition an effort to prevent people from being allowed to see their version of The Truth©. For newer editors of this type, they are often recognized quickly and sometimes topic banned or site banned.

For longer term editors, identifying the self-appointed prophet can be more difficult. Some editors, in the generally laudable goal of retaining editors might overlook signs of advocacy owing to a long edit history that may be difficult to wade through in any case. And sometimes, those who recognize the problem may avoid reporting the behavior to administrators or other authorities with the hope that the editor in question might reform. Long-term problematic behavior can be difficult to document sufficiently well for others to believe it. If help dealing with the problem is requested, the amount of time the person has been editor, the number of edits, and the (superficially at least) following of policies and guidelines can trump the statements of others and the evidence that there is a problem.

Alternately, enforcers of Wikipedia policies sometimes incorrectly seek to "spread the blame" to all parties involved in disputes surrounding self-appointed prophets.