Wikipedia talk:We are absolutely here to right great wrongs

Strawmen and a failure to understand how the community actually uses WP:RGW

Interesting to see a professional Wikipedia consultant to come out so unambiguously in favor of what the Wikipedia community calls "disruptive editing".

It looks like this essay fails to address the main reasons why most editors consider this kind of behavior disruptive in practice. It might have benefited from examining actual cases where WP:RGW was invoked on-wiki (rather than positing a putatively comprehensive list of the objections to righting great wrongs), and engaging with the concrete arguments that are used there most frequently, rather than ascribing lots of arguments to unnamed "skeptics" (which appears to contain quite a few strawmen, e.g. item 12 is basically the opposite of what the very first sentence of WP:RGW says).

To expand a bit on the above, here is a search query for concrete references to "Right Great Wrongs" in actual editor disputes: [1]

The essay gives the strong impression that its author assumes that RGW is mostly invoked against advocacy for political issues that US progressives like himself stand for. But looking just at the first search result (the current ANI page), the cases where it is mentioned (as of some hours ago, when I first posted a version of this comment in the Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group) are about:

an editor alleged to be promoting a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist POV
something about the history of the Latter Day Saint movement, where RGW is invoked to argue that Wikipedia should focus on what reliable secondary sources who have analysed the evidence from a non-Mormon POV have concluded even if an editor feels that these sources are wrong
an editor being taken to task for claiming that a million white girls have fallen victim to moslem rape gangs (yes, gang rape is unambiguously a great wrong, but...)
an editor being accused of adding negative views to the BLP about a Harvard professor (regarding Hindu nationalism)

I'm not saying WP:RGW is never abused (indeed on first glance I'm not sure I agree about its use in case 4). But this small sample should already illustrate that "Wikipedia should let editors have their way on political issues where they strongly feel they are in the right!!" comes with tradeoffs.

PS: The above was written in reference to the version the author posted on his Medium blog, which appears to be identical to the version posted here.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:20, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying WP:RGW is never abused that's why I thought this essay was interesting. Like in practice, I don't think most people on-wiki actually disagree with a decent chunk of what the author is saying here. I saw it as more of a "why not righting great wrongs isn't what you think it is". An expansion on certain parts of WP:RGW. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I'm following. Are you saying that this essay does not express any disagreement with WP:RGW or the current community consensus/majority opinion (most people on-wiki)? I.e. that it doesn't advocate for any changes? That's not how I and several other longtime Wikipedians who commented on it in the above mentioned Facebook discussion understood it. (By the way, I just realized that Facebook might unfortunately require login to access some of them from the link above, even though the group is public. Perhaps these direct links to individual comments will work instead: [2][3].)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:50, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS: This essay summarizes WP:RGW (describing it "an influential essay explaining 'Disruptive editing'") as follows:

Wikipedia is not a platform for activism, social justice, or rectifying inequities. Wikipedia’s sole purpose is to be a neutral, reliable, and verifiable encyclopedia. Period. Consequences be damned.

Do you read that as this essay's author agreeing with RGW?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:58, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see that as the author not agreeing that the premise of RGW as an ordinary person would understand it. (Out of context, telling someone that "Wikipedia isn't about righting great wrongs" might give the wrong impression). RGW itself says If, however, the wrong that you want to address has already been sorted in the real world, and if you have the reliable sources to support it, then please do update the articles. This essay is an extension of that. He's not saying go out and start POV editing but to address imbalances that already exist. It's not atypical to see essays where someone expands on their perspective about a specific concept on-wiki. As far describing RGW that way, Wikipedia:Tendentious editing (and its section about righting great wrongs) is an explanatory essay. I don't think it's correct to describe the viewpoint expressed there as "consequences be damned" but I don't think it makes this entire essay unreasonable. Does that make sense? Feel free to ask further questions if you'd like. I'm not the author so if you're trying to get into his head, I'd ask him what his intentions were. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:07, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But yes, I do think the average Wikipedian wouldn't see that much of this essay as particularly controversial. It's possible I'm off-base here but that was definitely my impression. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:08, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll mention an example I remember of 'right great wrongs' being used something like the way this essay describes. In a thread earlier this year about the reliability of The Telegraph's coverage of transgender topics, more than one editor said that editors who expressed concerns about Wikipedia platforming transphobia or anti-LGBT extremism were 'righting great wrongs' and that doing so was contrary to Wikipedia's purposes.

I don't think I would've written this essay quite the way it's written (for one, I think it could be expressed more concisely by focusing on what's most important, and while I see the point about active Wikipedians having certain privilege by virtue of having the experience, knowledge, time, and wherewithal it takes shape the encyclopedia leaping from there to 'we are the knowledge elite' really feels a bit much), but it's not meritless. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 22:34, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In a similar vein, a user says Wikipedia is not a place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS (italics original) to oppose efforts to correct the presentation on Wikipedia of a moral panic that an earlier version of an article had, against the best sources, taken as reality. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 08:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]