Handful of “highly toxic” Wikipedia editors cause 9% of abuse

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/02/one-third-of-personal-attacks-on-wikipedia-come-from-active-editors/

by blatherard • 9 years ago

164 124 9 years ago

arstechnica.com

brwnll• 9 years ago

"Almost immediately, they found that they could debunk the time-worn idea that anonymity leads to abuse. Although anonymous comments are "six times more likely to be an attack,"

Hmm, that actually DOES seem to support the idea the anonymity fosters abuse...

hyperpape• 9 years ago

I think the net of it is: anonymity encourages some people to be abusive, but enough people are abusive under their real names that you can't say anonymity is the primary factor behind abuse.

Whether curbing anonymity is a necessary component of fighting abuse and/or worth it becomes a further question.

_red• 9 years ago

It may in fact be self-selecting.

Out of the total corpus of people, there are some who would be abusive if anonymous, however they have enough 'social awareness' to not behave that way when real names are used.

However, there are another subset of this group who lacks the social awareness to curb their abusive behavior even though they are using their real names.

By enforcing a "no anonymity" policy, you filter out the first group effectively but wind up increasing the percentage make-up that the second group has in the overall community.

ykler2• 9 years ago

The study doesn't even address the question of how much real names help. No one uses their real name on Wikipedia. It is just comparing edits from logged in users with edits from people who aren't logged in (sometimes called "IPs" since their IP address is recorded). Also, some abuse from logged in users comes from sock puppet accounts.

kazinator• 9 years ago

It's a badly stated result. What they have debunked is the myth that requiring identities prevents abuse.

I'm not aware of such a myth though.

Plenty of abuse happens even from real name accounts. Cough ... LKML.

This is another "study that confirms what everyone sort of knows already".

slavik81• 9 years ago

It has died down a bit in recent years, but the idea that anonymity causes abuse is widely circulated in gaming circles because of this popular Penny Arcade comic: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

DanBC5• 9 years ago

anonymous comments are "six times more likely to be an attack,"

The ratio of abusive anonymous comments to abusive logged in comments is 6:1

We don't know the ratio of non-abusive anon comments to non-abusive logged-in comments.

angry-hacker• 9 years ago

A question that always comes to my mind is that are we better off if we don't allow or cannot be abusive/intolerant/nsfw. If people do it when they are anonymous, it's still inside them, even if they can't say things. Maybe it's better for the society if there are places where they can satisfy their urges.

gwern• 9 years ago

Not terribly surprising. But looks like the system manages to handle them pretty well - the paper shows that the probability of getting blocked is up to ~80% after 5 personal attacks.

I've never worried too much about that kind of incivility or 'abuse' - I've always been far more worried about the 'abuse' which takes the form of deleting contributions, which, because it can be justified and rules-lawyered and is not as clearcut as 'you suck', the system does not handle well and culturally encourages.

HarryHirsch• 9 years ago

So - how do you rate partisan editors in geopolitical conflicts? The Irish Troubles, Russian Federation and especially Israel-Palestine come to mind. Especially the Israeli side was very successful in casting a very favourable light on its position, and it took great effort to rein them in a little. Would the pro-Israel faction be called abusive under the present metrics?

sndean• 9 years ago

This became really obvious to me in June 2014. For whatever reason I became really interested in ISIS taking over northern Iraq and spent ~10 hours / day editing pages (to the detriment of my PhD).

There were so many sides, a lot of fake news (before that was a thing), and abusive editors. After getting multiple 24-hour bans I realized I was also becoming an abusive editor for reverting edits that seemed "obviously wrong" within seconds. It's pretty easy to emotionally pick a side. Luckily I deleted my account.

notadoc2• 9 years ago

An impressive amount of information on Wikipedia is just outright wrong, misleading, clearly biased, or astroturfed. At the rate in which I encounter inaccurate data on Wikipedia that I can identify, it makes me suspicious of nearly everything on the site. It's an interesting experiment to allow the masses to create and edit their own facts and it can provide a broad (albeit often inaccurate) overview of some topics, but it's hardly a substitution for a legitimate source let alone encyclopedia.

Nonetheless, I know plenty of people who take it as legitimate and cite it as if it's an authority.

kyled2• 9 years ago

Curious, what areas do you find are usually flat out wrong?

The math sections seem to be pretty good. A friend found a flaw in a crypto algorithm though.

Ralfp• 9 years ago

I've eventually learned to limit my usage of the Wikipedia to science, distant history, and synopsis of works of popular culture while avoiding like plague current politics and ongoing events.

...but thats on english wiki only. As pole understanding english, I despair for my natives trying to use polish wikipedia, because here politics creep everywhere. I remember what a disaster polish's article on Big Bang was before its ridiculous state was called out and went viral in sceptic circles as being plainly antiscientific. Until then it's contents were more fittingly titled as "philosophical and religious criticisms of Big Bang theory". Remnants of those may be found in Article's discussion which filled with philosophical and religious debate about Big bang.

yongjik2• 9 years ago

Topics of contention between two nations (or worse, between two political factions inside a nation) are usually suspect. Even if every sentence is meticulously sourced, you can't tell if someone is "lying by omission." Basically, the tone of the article is determined by which country (or faction) can muster more people with free time and passable English skills, which may not correspond to actual expertise on the topic...

I agree that math/physics sections are pretty good. It's difficult for knowledgeable people to disagree on these matters...

thebooktocome2• 9 years ago

The math sections are okay up to what a typical mechanical engineer would know. My own sub-field is very poorly covered.

simonsarris• 9 years ago

Really? I find many math topics to be covered extremely poorly, and presume a lot of prior knowledge without linking to that knowledge.

Plenty of philosophy articles are also very poor. For example the page on Deconstruction, though its better than it was ~4 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction

_0ffh• 9 years ago

I find that quality on technical and mathematical subjects varies wildly.

I remember once looking up a very specific topic, just to be sure that I don't misremember a certain simple but crucial core relation. What I found was a page that was so shockingly disorganised that I had to wade through 5 pages of mindbendingly complexified, quasi-obscurantist... drivel... just to extract that central piece of information that really should have been mentioned in the bit above the TOC, or at least easy to find.

So, YMMV.

sowbug• 9 years ago

This is a rare opportunity to cite the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect: "You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray [Gell-Mann]'s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the 'wet streets cause rain' stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

blubb-fish2• 9 years ago

I'm shocked - there is no Wikipedia article on this!

psyc• 9 years ago

I've been pointing this out about journalism for years, and it's awesome that it has a name. However, I still want a name for just the first part of the effect - the part where you notice an article about your area of expertise is laughably wrong. And you never forget it and conclude that journalism is just terrible.

_ps6d• 9 years ago

There's a similar saying referred to as Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy: "Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge."

There's also another related topic on TVTropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowboyBebopAtHisC...

blubb-fish2• 9 years ago

The Internet says ...

cooper126• 9 years ago

At the rate in which I encounter inaccurate data on Wikipedia that I can identify

Why haven't you tried to address those inaccuracies? I could sympathize if you said you did and were rebutted, but sounds to me like someone complaining that their local beach is full of trash when they themselves never bothered to help clean it.

At the rate in which I encounter inaccurate data on Wikipedia that I can identify, it makes me suspicious of nearly everything on the site.

If you don't do that for every source you use, you might be suffering from the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.

but it's hardly a substitution for a legitimate source let alone encyclopedia.

A Nature study (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm) found it to be comparable in accuracy to Brittanica.

Nonetheless, I know plenty of people who take it as legitimate and cite it as if it's an authority.

Encyclopedias are tertiary sources, they should be used as reference works, not sources in and of themselves.

bobcostas55• 9 years ago

Why haven't you tried to address those inaccuracies?

Trying to edit wikipedia is a hellish experience. The vast majority of articles have one or more de facto owners who will do everything they can to preserve control over their turf. They tend to be experts in rules laywering which is how they got their power in the first place. So "addressing inaccuracies" typically involves 5 minutes of editing and a month-long war afterwards.

And that doesn't even begin to address that wikipedia's rules are insane to begin with. Just the rules covering acceptable usernames are almost 4000 words long (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy).

pwdisswordfish3• 9 years ago

As Tycho Brahe[0] once said: 'because I don’t have time to babysit the Internet'.

Maybe because the moment he would try to actually go and even, say, enforce the verifiability policies that already exist, an angry crowd of self-important ignoramuses would stop him in his tracks shouting 'Stop right there, you filthy deletionist! The article is notable!' and drag him to the dramaboards to have him blocked. And I should know, I have had the same thing happen to me on Commons.

A Nature study (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm) found it to be comparable in accuracy to Brittanica.

Are you seriously referring to that one over-ten-year-old study which used a non-representative sample of articles?

[0] As in, the writer of Penny Arcade, of course.

cnnsucks2• 9 years ago

> someone complaining that their local beach is full of trash when they themselves never bothered to help clean it

Here you're shouting others down by trying to shame them. Please don't do that. Being unwilling or incapable of cleaning up the messes others make does not disqualify one from criticizing the mess makers.

projektir2• 9 years ago

I'm not sure that's a Wikipedia problem, as opposed to a general sources problem. Wikipedia at least often shows proponents and critics of a given idea, while the average source just presents its own position and doesn't provide any sort of context. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "legitimate source", I don't think I've ever seen one. Often an old book has more bias and inaccuracies in it than a blog post. I recall reading a discussion on how The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is no longer perceived as accurate, and few people will call that an illegitimate source. Information is hard.

All Wikipedia does half the time is reference such sources, so it's about as biased as the sources are, except it tends to combine them, and there's nothing forcing it to do so in a way that represents the true balance. That's up to the content editors. The only thing I can suggest is, if you see a problem, try to correct it.

Also, pretty much every page these days has a warning on it.

Wikipedia is great for basic coverage of a fairly broad range of topics, such as physics, psychology, linguistics, religion, biology, computer science, etc. As long as you're sticking to information that's mostly perceived as fact, as opposed to opinion. I have yet to find a source that rivals Wikipedia in this regard. Wikipedia had a huge, huge influence on information transfer for many people, I think we forgot how big of a deal it is because it's been around for so long. It's absolutely invaluable to many people.

I don't believe it's Wikipedia's job to identify answers to opinionated stances, so don't expect it to be "accurate" on things like controversial history, politics, design, etc. Those things are usually not covered accurately by anyone.

hackuser5• 9 years ago

I now recognize Wikipedia as the original 'fake news' or 'fake information' on the Internet. Just like all those news stories people pass around, nobody cares about Wikipedia's accuracy. It's the same phenomenon, and possibly (I have no evidence) Wikipedia conditioned people to accept unreliable information.

redsummer4• 9 years ago

I was about to write the same thing. Many articles have fake information.

For instance, someone might edit an article to say that a person was a known political extremist. Someone else might write an article (not on Wikipedia) saying the same thing (after having read the Wikipedia article). Years later, if the information is questioned on Wikipedia, then editors will add a reference to the off-wiki article, and everyone will be happy. Circular fake news, with truth going down the plughole. The entropic heat death of information.

empath75• 9 years ago

Anything that touches on politics or religion is a tire fire, but the math and science articles aren't bad. I mostly use Wikipedia to help me find actual resources.

notadoc2• 9 years ago

Science is political now because evidence, studies, and results can impact policy, so it's deeply polluted.

Personally I've found many medical and scientific articles to contain vast amounts of misinformation and disinformation. I would recommend not relying on any of it, it is at the whims of whoever bothers to edit.

WikipediasBad• 9 years ago

Ah..Wikipedia. Nice to know my HN Username is relevant for this thread.

Jokes aside, Wikipedia has a ton of flaws and the abuse is definitely one of them regardless of what percentage of people do it, but there are just no other realistic substitutes that are actually large enough to matter. The largest and most respectable competitors are Everipedia (only one that doesn't reuse mediawiki software), RationalWiki, InfoGalactic, and some other rolled mediawiki crap. And none of those alternatives are even Alexa top 1,000 let alone Alexa top 100 traffic.

projektir2• 9 years ago

Online encyclopedias suffer from the network effect like everything else.

Fej• 9 years ago

If you want to see for yourself the seedy underbelly of Wikipedia, check out http://wikipediocracy.com/

sparkzilla3• 9 years ago

Wikipediocracy is so over. All the cool kids have already moved on to http://wikipediasucks.boards.net/

DanBC5• 9 years ago

Was that link dead when you posted it?

camdenlock3• 9 years ago

I expend a lot of effort to avoid Wikipedia as a bona dude source of truth, and man is it difficult. The desire for a single easy-to-access repository of knowledge is incredibly strong, but over the years, I've been stung repeatedly by this particular one.

As it turns out, the "Neutral Point of View" rule that Wikipedians so proudly tout is quite strongly biased toward a specific world-view: that of the so-called "progressive" mindset.

It doesn't matter how much value a system of ideals has; if it transforms a purportedly neutral source of information into a dogmatic one, then the source loses all credibility and usefulness.

This seems to be happening on Wikipedia at an alarming rate, which is a real bummer. It's not as ridiculous and blatant as (e.g.) Conservapedia, but... well, frankly, that makes it all the more concerning. Zealotry is way harder to call out when it's cloaked, as Wikipedia tends increasingly to be, in the sly guise of unassailable moral high ground.

zubat• 9 years ago

You might be interested in Gee's approach.

https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/getgee-tools-for-...

BuuQu9hu• 9 years ago

Former WP editor, left because I was tired of abuse after the Esperanza project disbanded.

There is always the distinct possibility that progressivism is part of the correct way to interpret the universe. It seems to pop up in many places.

Consider Pirsig's argument: "The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all energy systems run down like a clock and never rewind themselves. But life not only 'runs up,' converting low energy sea-water, sunlight and air into high-energy chemicals, it keeps multiplying itself into more and better clocks that keep 'running up' faster and faster. Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to organize themselves into a professor of chemistry? What's the motive? If we leave a chemistry professor out on a rock in the sun long enough the forces of nature will convert him into simple compounds of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and small amounts of other minerals. It's a one-way reaction. No matter what kind of chemistry professor we use and no matter what process we use we can't turn these compounds back into a chemistry professor. Chemistry professors are unstable mixtures of predominantly unstable compounds which, in the exclusive presence of the sun's heat, decay irreversibly into simpler organic and inorganic compounds. That's a scientific fact. The question is: Then why does nature reverse this process? What on earth causes the inorganic compounds to go the other way? It isn't the sun's energy. We just saw what the sun's energy did. It has to be something else. What is it?"

Armisael16• 9 years ago

That quote is wrong in so many ways - the man clearly didn't understand thermodynamics. Life doesn't reduce universal entropy, and inorganic compounds will spontaneously form more more energetic and complex compounds given a little input energy.

camdenlock3• 9 years ago

(yes, "bona dude"; not gonna fix that one...)

cooper126• 9 years ago

As it turns out, the "Neutral Point of View" rule that Wikipedians so proudly tout is quite strongly biased toward a specific world-view: that of the so-called "progressive" mindset.

How? You're making that claim but not supporting it at all. Do tell me how anything here is biased towards a progressive mindset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie...

camdenlock3• 9 years ago

I'm not referring to Wikipedia's written definition of NPoV, I'm referring to its application. Many Wikipedia articles in their various states (past and present) don't fit into any kind of "neutral viewpoint" ideal. They may appear as such, of course, to one who shares the bias; in that case, Wikipedia's content must seem like a bastion of truly neutral rationality.

NelsonMinar• 9 years ago

This report reminds me of some of Jeffrey Lin (Riot Lyte)'s work on League of Legends. He found that 1% of players are toxic, frequently acting badly. But that only accounts for 5% of toxic behavior; 77% of bad behavior comes from people who are just having a bad day. That echoes this report's finding that 34 Wikipedia folks are responsible for 9% of abuse.

A related finding is Riot found that toxicity in LoL was contagious; people who played with an abusive player were more likely to be abusive in their next game. The Wikipedia phenomenon of abuse pile-ons seems similar.

Some links for Lin's work: http://www.nature.com/news/can-a-video-game-company-tame-tox... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbYQ0AVVBGU

igravious• 9 years ago

I believe this to be an example of the well known cognitive phenomenon that psychologists refer to as Monkey See, Monkey Do.

bane• 9 years ago

One of the interesting things about high functioning forums (like this one) is that there's a group of people who have as part of their job function the ability to enforce civility and reduce abuse. Like any community, HN also has "power users", in WP they're the run of the mill editors, but the difference is that here dang or somebody will show up to calm down incivility and point to the guidelines. In WP those people either don't exist or they're absent in providing that function.

I contribute here, I don't to WP and this kind of active community hygiene is exactly the reason why.

Amezarak• 9 years ago

It has a lot to do with the community governance structure.

Wikipedia is something akin to a democracy. Every editor has the potential to become an Administrator or a Bureaucrat. This means that a lot of editors engage in metrics-gaming behavior and become involved in the Wikipedia community, which by its very nature means weighing on on various controversies, like whether or not to delete an article. There's nominally a focus on creating a consensus, but in practice, the opinion of the Right People wins the day. There's a process for everything, and everyone has a refuge in some guideline or another which leads to lots of rules-lawyering. It's difficult to get rid of problematic people who are good at rules-lawyering and garnering support.

On HN, dang and sctb are kings. If you cause problems, you are warned. If you continue to cause problems, you are banned. There are no higher appeals. Your interpretation of the guidelines is irrelevant; that of dang and sctb is irrefragable.

I think it is possible to construct well-run, friendly 'democratic'-type communities on the Internet, but very difficult. In practice, it's always seemed to me that dictatorial moderation creates the best communities - of course, there are communities with bad administrators, but they generally die out. I've seen some really excellent forums where moderators ban posters simply for not having sufficiently high-quality content, and the result was amazing.

Granted, for any reasonably active community, it means that someone is going to spend a lot of time doing the moderating. I think HN strikes a good balance with allowing users to downvote and flag, even though I feel that most people generally downvote for reasons I disagree with (disagreement.)

One other key factor I've found in community civility actually seems a little strange at first. In my experience, it is very important for no communication backchannels to exist - for example, no IRC channels. Those effectively breed the creation of cabals and all sorts of strategic interventions in discussions, or in the case of Wikipedia, talk pages and votes. That's been a major problem on Wikipedia. It is nominally community-run, but "community" really refers to the insiders who frequent the right IRC channels and are friends with the right people - connections you have no way of seeing simply by looking at Wikipedia talk pages. On top of that, people who are friends with the right people outside of Wikipedia always, simply by human nature, get much more leeway when engaging in abusive behavior than do people who aren't.

devwastaken• 9 years ago

but the difference is that here dang or somebody will show up to calm down incivility and point to the guidelines

Commonly, guidelines will be referenced, but the guidelines are very numerous and sometimes there are 'unspoken' rules backed up with 'a decision had to be made'. For example, blocking an article from being editing, and then marking for deletion, so you can't add content to it. Badmins will argue 'its not in the guidelines', so obviously they can do what they deem right.

We really need better wiki software so people can make their own.

Zuider• 9 years ago

The civility and commitment to keeping discussion rational on HN is kept alive by the goodwill of its contributors rather than enforced by rules. When a power user shows up to nip incivility in the bud, they rarely have to employ more force than to remind the poster of the above ethos.

Rules and moderators alone cannot enforce civility. A common ethos such as the one which miraculously survives here on HN is also a prerequisite.

Rules can easily be subverted. They are a two-edged blade which can be forced to operate in an opposite manner to their original purpose. For example, the abusive users on Wikipedia often know all the rules, no matter how obscure, and they silence and confound their targets with such legalisms.

I have participated in forums where the first demand of hostile invaders was for a set of rules against abuse. Those forums where rules were provided quickly became toxic. Those forums where the moderators did not provide a rule-book to be subverted, but simply addressed abuse whenever it arose thrived.

phjesusthatguy3• 9 years ago

The really toxic people on HN are just sent down the memory hole though. I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

shermanyo• 9 years ago

Backing up what you said here, I've played a few online games with (at times) abusive communities (DotA, Overwatch), and in my experience:

- Games go for 30-60 minutes on average, and generally have a clear winner by the halfway point. Players are forced to sit through a defeat, building frustration.

- Games rely on team coordination on top of individual skill, so players who are scoring high (kills, etc...) may not actually be helping complete the objective.

- On death, there is enough downtime to vent frustration at your team, and blame them for the bad situation that caused your death.

- People often try to get the rest of their team to side against an individual, calling them out as the cause of other players dying / losing objectives.

It can be extremely toxic (to the point I've moved on), but I found pushing back with civility and calling people out often helped the situation.

Whenever I noticed it starting, I'd jump in and tell the frustrated player to take charge. I'd acknowledge the valid issues they call out, and try to reword them constructively and focus on the team rather than the individual. (eg: "Don't run in until we're all there to support you, we'll follow you now and see if we can outnumber them", or: "Try moving over there, their sniper is really good, and is protecting the area you were just in")

ykler2• 9 years ago

"Depressingly, the study also found that very few personal attacks are moderated. Only 17.9% of personal attacks lead to a warning or ban." I'm not sure, but it seems like 17.9% is probably close to the right rate for moderation, not "depressing" or "abysmal". Especially if there are calm comments from experienced users disapproving of the abusive behavior in many of the other cases.

kordless• 9 years ago

I find it encouraging we have some AI to throw at this. I've hypothesized for a while that people make blaming statements using biased arguments because it is cheap, effective, and presents the gain of an upper hand without too much risk.

makomk2• 9 years ago

I'm curious if they have stats on how many personal attacks lead to a warning or ban against the target of the personal attack.

cooper126• 9 years ago

Why do threads like these talking about a specific aspect of something always devolve into hatejerks about the subject? I've noticed the same thing on threads about Apple as well. It's talking specifically about personal attacks yet people are somehow relating that to the reliability of the site. It's not wrong to criticize Wikipedia, but then you should focus on the topic of the toxic atmosphere instead like how that might compromise neutrality by keeping out editors who are more conflict-averse. (or actually back up how you think the site is unreliable, considering a study in Nature found Wikipedia to be just as reliable as Brittanica)

DanBC5• 9 years ago

People can't fix the reliability of the site because of the fucking arseholes on WP that make personal attacks.

Your comments ("Have you tried to correct these errors?") are answered by the submitted article. People don't try to fix errors because of the toxic culture at WP.

yongjik2• 9 years ago

From my brief experience with (English and Korean) Wikipedia editing many years ago, the problem was not "toxic" editors but more with entrenched ones. They never resorted to personal attacks, but instead used their vast knowledge of WP:this and WP:that to provoke other people until either they left or get banned.

E.g., for a long time, the article title in the Korean wikipedia for Japanese Empire was 대일본제국, literally, Great Empire of Japan. Well, this being Korean wikipedia, you could see how some people took offense at it. The sensible thing would be just to drop the "Great" part: everybody knows which Empire we're talking about, nobody thinks the Empire was particularly Great anyway, and then we could move on to actually talking about the article's content.

But no, some editors would object, because we have to use Official Names(TM) for everything. (For some reason, nobody bothered to change Bangkok's name to the official "Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit", but if anybody did that I'm sure it would be quickly reverted, citing WP:(You can't make an edit just to prove a point) or something like that.) To this day, I suspect some editors' criterion for "Official Names" and other similar policy was maximal likelihood for alienating potential contributors. Classic power game move.

milesrout6• 9 years ago

Changing titles to avoid offending people is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Nomentatus2• 9 years ago

But changing the current title "Coeliac disease" to celiac disease in Wikipedia might reduce confusion, and since celiac death rates are quite high if undiagnosed, over millions of users, save some lives.

(Against this, search engines are now very good at matching synonyms.)

I know, you didn't like the hint of political correctness in the particular Korean example. That's a judgement call, I might agree with you in general, but with such an emotional topic (comfort women, atrocities, etc) I wouldn't resent the change.

sparkzilla3• 9 years ago

Abuse and harassment on Wikipedia does not belong to a handful of editors, it's endemic, because the only way to succeed on Wikipedia is to be an asshole. But it's important to note that bad behaviour on Wikipedia is a symptom of poor software design. The software that Wikipedia is built encourages conflict, and uses hundreds of rules combined with poorly-trained admins to try to patch things up. The boundaries between conflict and abuse are wide, arbitrarily defined, and patrolled by people who have neither training, nor consistency. A better designed system would install systems to minimize conflict, and would give clearer rules and standards to it's moderators.

ChuckMcM• 9 years ago

I suspect the sentence "A handful of 'highly toxic' <members> cause <overly large> amounts of abuse." is true for all groups.

wallace_f2• 9 years ago

Well, of course, because the terms 'handful,' and 'overly large' are undefined. In the article's case, it refers to 1% causing 9%. Disproportionate, but far from a majority.

Contrast with threads about the '80/20' rule. In those, people start saying something not much different, like:

I suspect the sentence "80% of <effects> come from 20% of <causes>," is true for all groups.

We'll always have a distribution of a range of behaviours, and we'll always have cognitive bias; these in combination will lead to any number of reasonable 'x of y' rules about populations.

anigbrowl• 9 years ago

Good article, but I wish she'd reached out to Wikipedia or the community of editors to solicit some answer on what they intend to do about it. Once one is aware of such an issue, failure to wield the banhammer is treated as an implicit endorsement.

guscost• 9 years ago

This is an example of what Jo Freeman famously called "The Tyranny of Structurelessness": http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

dredmorbius• 9 years ago

Somewhat tangential, for those who think Wikipedia's ideologically-driven revert wars are anything new, a 19th century instance I ran across some months back involving Chamber's Encyclopaedia:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4xe2k1/chamber...

BrailleHunting• 9 years ago

One has to wonder about the logic of unemployed lute players (people like most armchair anchor "journalists" without a shred of topical understanding) given power to referee edits on highly-scientic topics or judging vital concepts/details "irrelevant" because they don't understand historical context or subject matter.

bjourne• 9 years ago

This is very interesting! So if anonymitiy isn't correlated with abuse, then what is? I believe the answer is community standing. Anonymous and low-ranking users know they will suffer the consequences for foul language therefore they moderate themselves. Users with thousands of edits to their name, knows they will get away with it.

About ten years ago when I edited Wikipedia, there was one particularily nasty user who accused everyone who didn't agree with exactly everything he wrote. I belive this person was mentally ill, but he spent a lot of time on Wikipedia and wrote a lot of content.

Several people brought complaints about him and his toxic behaviour, but he always had the backing of Jimmy Wales (the leader of the project), who would make excuses for him. If the community intervened against this person by for example temporarily banning him, Wales would intervene and undo the ban.

So this person kept being nasty because there were no repercussion. Eventually I believe he got tired of the Wikipedia project and left on his own violiton.

Handful of “highly toxic” Wikipedia editors cause 9% of abuse

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