Inspired by Antandrus, here are a few observations about Wikipedia of my own.
Rule 1. The more important the topic of a Wikipedia article, the higher the probability of conflict over content. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 2. So-called "anti-canvassing" rules are a mechanism by means of which a narrow clique can avoid broad discussion and decision by a larger and more inclusive group. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 3. The slogan "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth..." is an Orwellian idiocy. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is actually veracity and verifiability. (Feb. 2012; modified Jan. 2016)
Rule 3½. The flipside of rejecting the Orwellian idiocy of "verifiability-not-truth" is acceptance that there is such a thing as objective truth — a House POV, if you will — which must be defended. (March 2020)
Rule 4. Starting articles on Wikipedia is like building sandcastles on the beach. Down by the surf the sand is nice and wet and the building is easy, but your work will soon be wiped out by an incoming wave. For your work to last, build farther up the beach. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 5. There are five basic types of participants at Wikipedia: content creators, copy editors, vandal fighters, problem solvers, and people who are just there for the perpetual soap opera. The first four of these groups are useful, the fifth is not. (Feb. 2012, modified June 2013)
Rule 6. Wikipedia says of itself that it is "not a democracy" and "not a bureaucracy." That is half right. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 7. Honest people may differ about matters of interpretation. Dishonest people are unable to admit this. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 8. Everyone has bias, both conscious and inherent. The doctrine of Neutral Point of View doesn't legislate human nature away, it simply requires that one be fair and proportionate to all sides of a debate and dispassionate in the delivery. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 8½. In the long run Neutral Point of View will always triumph over the tendentious distortions of the moment. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 9. Without the doctrine of Neutral Point of View Wikipedia would have disintegrated long ago. It is the glue that holds The Project together and as such it is the single most important creation of Messrs. Sanger and Wales. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 10. Anyone who says "Wikipedia is not censored" has never paid particularly close attention to the way talk pages are treated by third parties. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 11. Starting an article at Wikipedia is like raising a kid. You try to set them up on a good foundation and hope they'll develop and progress in the right way, without getting mixed up with the wrong people and getting themselves killed. Ultimately, however, all you can do when you post a piece is wave goodbye and hope for the best. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 12. Most vandalism is caused by anonymous IP editors. The only reason IP editing is allowed at all is that it makes vandalism easier to spot. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 13. Since such a high percentage of anonymous IP editors are vandals, they are all treated like shit. Trying to make serious edits to Wikipedia as an IP editor is like blindly blundering through the countryside on the first day of hunting season dressed like a moose. (Feb. 2012)
Rule 14. Whenever you see multiple stacked footnotes in a lead to document a subject phrase as encyclopedic, it probably isn't. (March 2012)
Rule 15. There's unnecessary confusion about how a paid Conflict of Interest editor can edit successfully at WP. It's actually as easy as one-two-three... 1. Declare your COI on the talk page. 2. Commit no spam — stick to uncontroversial, sourced content. 3. Invite scrutiny. (April 2012)
Rule 16. The slogan "Adminship is No Big Deal" is a joke. Actually, RfA is a 7 day proctological exam conducted by a tag team of 150 people of differing intentions — some of whom wish to subject the patient's rectum to blunt-force trauma during the process. Only people who REALLY like proctologists would be advised to run. (July 2012; modified Jan. 2016)
Rule 17. Then again, proctological exams do help ward off certain types of cancer. (Oct. 2012)
Rule 18. Content should be content, in accordance with established policies — factual accuracy, verifiability, neutrality of tone. The desires and whims of biographical subjects should be completely separated from this; their concerns may be voiced and taken into consideration in debate, but content absolutely needs to be independently derived. (June 2013)
Rule 19. Having underwent the RFA process through no fault of my own (trying to get temporary reading rights for deleted material in connection with an ArbCom case) I can say this with authority: "Yes, Virginia, there is a cabal." (July 2013)
Rule 20. Nobody ever accused the cabalistas of being active builders of Wikipedia, speaking as a caste, just like nobody ever accused John D. Rockefeller and his cronies of being oil workers. (June 2014)
Rule 21. The wise slogan "Don't feed the trolls" has a corollary: Don't feed the grouches. (Sept. 2014)
Rule 22. There will always be drama at Wikipedia. Whereas writing articles, correcting grammar, tagging new submissions, and rolling back vandalism can be boring, drama is usually fun and people like to have fun. (Dec. 2014)
Rule 23. Wikipedia has a voluntary allocation of duties in which writers write, copyeditors edit, administrators administrate, and it takes a lawyer or a lunatic to want to serve on ArbCom. And there sure as hell aren't enough lawyers... (Nov. 2015, revised Dec. 2015, Sept. 2019)
Rule 24. Having closely watched a number of ArbCom cases, with different defense strategies and different results, I think that we can generalize as follows: if a person is brought before ArbCom, they should admit error, apologize and promise to do better, and shut the fuck up. (Jan. 2016)
Rule 25. Biographies of Dead People are easier to source out than Biographies of Living People. The subjects also tend to complain less about the content. (March 2016; revised April 2019)
Rule 26. It's not about the race or age or gender of the editors or where they live or whom they sleep with. Demographics, schmemographics... If you want better content at Wikipedia, write better content for Wikipedia. (June 2016)
Rule 27. The drama pages (including ArbCom) are a cross between Game of Thrones and The Godfather, Part 3. Fortunately, all one has to do to avoid the circus is not go to the circus. (Aug. 2016)
Rule 28. The only way administrators can actually end edit warring is by sending all warriors from the battlefield. (June 2017)
Rule 29. The whole notion of a "reliable source" is a false one, implying that historical sources in their entirety are either a 1 or a 0. In actuality, no source is perfect, no source is without value, evidence can be gathered and marshaled leading in a multiplicity of directions. The bottom line is that writers need to be intellectually honest and to properly exercise editorial judgment. (Feb. 2019)
Rule 29½. Wikipedia needs artificial rules like those governing "reliable sources" since there is no barrier to entry and publication — Any Opinionated, POV-pushing Fucktard Can Edit™, I think that's the official company motto. So rules have to exist to rein in abuse — to stop those who are not intellectually honest, those who do not properly exercise editorial judgment. This is fine as long as that nonsense is only enforced against those for whom the somewhat arbitrary and ridiculous rules about so-called "reliable sources" have been crafted, i.e. those who are not intellectually honest, those who do not properly exercise editorial judgment. (Feb. 2019)
Rule 30. Edit-a-Thons do not work. Long-term Wikipedian content people are simply not "made" by assembling random crews at a university for a few hours one afternoon and feeding them pizza. (Sept. 2019)
Rule 31. As topics at Wikipedia become more esoteric, factual accuracy and reliability increases correspondingly. (Sept. 2019)
Rule 32. Don't bite the newbies, Wikipedians. Some of them will stick around and bite you back. (May 2020)
Rule 33. Wikipedia is not censored,™ except when it is. (October 2020)
Rule 34. If there is porn of it, there is a Wikipedia page about it. (June 2025)
Rule 35. AfD is not the Articles for Improvement workshop. (Feb. 2024)
Rule 36. Drama is fun. It beats working. (Oct. 2024)
Rule 37. The media calling the Wikimedia Foundation "Wikipedia" is a bit like calling the employees of the Bruce Wayne Foundation "Batman". (June 2025)
Rule 38. There's NOTHING stopping a pro athlete's biography from being improved to worthwhile status, given time and a sufficiently motivated editor or editors. (Feb. 2024, renumbered June 2025)
Rule Infinity. - Let the stupid people congregate among the widely read, News of the Day, general interest type pages and fight amongst themselves. Find something unwritten and write it and improve the encyclopedia on the edges. That's the secret to life at WP. (July 2016) Renamed June 2017.
...and a couple filched from former ArbCom member and Wikipediocracy Trustee Kelly Martin:
Chicago Kelly's Rule No. 1. Any time you have to beg for the assumption of good faith is an indication that you probably do not deserve it. (Jan. 2016 on Wikipediocracy)
Chicago Kelly's Rule No. 2. Battles over the appropriateness of a source for use in Wikipedia have always been settled through collateral attacks such as accusing one's opponent of incivility or other violations of the rules. This is largely because Wikipedia has no mechanism at all for authoritatively deciding disputes over content, but does have mechanisms for settling disputes over conduct, which causes disputes over content to be transformed into disputes over conduct. (March 2016 on Wikipediocracy)
Chicago Kelly's Rule No. 3. - It's my belief that Wikipedia's ready enabling of undisclosed "point of view warriors" to advance their preferred positions is what makes Wikipedia the lasting success it has been. Any successor that attempts to mediate or interfere with that will not win out against a successor that embraces it, at least in terms of attracting editors to write content in quantity. (Aug. 2016 on Wikipediocracy)
Chicago Kelly's Nonchronologically Sequential Rule No. 4. - The ArbCom is in fact the disciplinary committee of an unincorporated voluntary association, so calling it one would be far more appropriate than its present name, which is indeed quite misleading. (Feb. 1, 2015 on Wikipediocracy)
Chicago Kelly's Rule No. 5. - The biggest problem with Wikipedia's policies is that people believe that Wikipedia has policies. (Oct. 11, 2024 on Wikipediocracy)
More information An essay by Chicago Kelly: "Arbcom as it really is, and how to fix it..." ...
| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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Preliminaries
Vigilant: I'd prefer that there were some people on ARBCOM with actual successful arbitration experience from the real world...
Carrite/Randy from Boise: The name of the committee is a misnomer. In the words of Kelly Martin, posted at WPO on Feb. 1, 2015: "The ArbCom is in fact the disciplinary committee of an unincorporated voluntary association, so calling it one would be far more appropriate than its present name, which is indeed quite misleading." Ideal experience for Arbcom isn't real world arbitration experience, it would be more along the lines of having worked for 20 years as a junior high school vice principal.
(another user): This is quite correct. Arbitrators listen to both sides and possibly independent witnesses, yes, but they then try to find a solution reasonably acceptable to both parties. ArbCom rarely does this. More importantly, arbitrators do not punish either party, still less any independent witnesses. That is the function of a court or a disciplinary committee.
Kelly Martin's post
More significantly, an arbitrator is charged with finding a solution that is maximally acceptable jointly to the parties of the dispute (either by finding in favor of one or the other, or by finding a middle ground that both parties are at least partially satisfied with), without any obligation to considering the impact of that solution on third parties not part of the dispute (except insofar as such an impact might relate back to one of the parties). This does not describe the behavior of the ArbCom; the ArbCom has fairly frequently issued "a pox on both your houses" decisions which leave neither party remotely satisfied. An arbitrator who resolves the dispute he is charged to resolve by maximally screwing both parties has completely failed in his duty as an arbitrator.
A disciplinary committee, on the other hand, is charged with dealing with individuals whose conduct disrupts the purpose of the wider body it serves, by finding solutions that mitigate the effects of such disruptions and seek to prevent their recurrence. This is exactly what the ArbCom does. A disciplinary body has no obligations to the interests of the parties before it, other than to refrain from manifestly unfair behavior; its duty is to maximize the interests of the larger body it serves.
There isn't really a need to make real-world analogies here, because the ArbCom actually is the disciplinary committee of the (at best vaguely organized) "Association of Wikipedia Editors". It's not analogous to one; it is one. There is no need to use analogies to judicial courts when we already have countless examples of other disciplinary committees to look for for guidance. Nearly every long-established voluntary organization has a disciplinary committee of some sort, and anyone familiar with parliamentary law is aware of this concept. I suspect that the main reasons Wikipedians reject this model is that legitimately operated disciplinary committees of these bodies tend to operate behind closed doors, generally seek to minimize drama, and usually issue mostly-opaque rulings.
The fact that the ArbCom persistently fails to conduct itself as a proper disciplinary committee ought doesn't make them not one; it just makes them one that is very poorly operated. This could be mitigated if the "Association of Wikipedia Editors" would acknowledge its own existence and organize more formally, such by electing a governing board, setting down proper bylaws, and establishing committees related to its broader purpose; this would relieve the ArbCom from its dual role as both disciplinary committee and "highest governing body", and allow the ArbCom to actually act as a full-time disciplinary board.
I also agree with "Randy" that the people most qualified for this role are those who have spent years finding ways to minimize and mitigate disruption. Middle school vice principals are a good example; another good example would be those with experience as community moderators on online services such as Steam or reddit. It's not the job of a vice principal to decide who of two fighting seventh graders was in the right, but rather to terminate the disruption their fight causes to the educational environment and take steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Similarly, the job of a Steam content moderator is to try to ensure that Steam's product is enjoyable to the bulk of Steam's users, and to remove from that environment influences that make that product unenjoyable to Steam's customers. Often, this will mean ejecting both disputants from the fray, even when one of them has the merit of being right, but that's often how it works in civil organizations. Wikipedia is not, as presently constituted, a civil organization.
Experience with mediation or arbitration would be better utilized on Wikipedia's committee for resolving editorial disputes, except (of course) Wikipedia doesn't have such a committee. The failure of Wikipedia to establish any sort of meaningful process for systematically resolving editorial disputes in its nearly twenty years of existence, to me, leads me to conclude that the core of Wikipedia's committed members is not actually all that interested in "knowledge".
Of course, the reason why the ArbCom is so important is precisely because Wikipedia lacks any meaningful way to resolve editorial (that is, content) disputes; the ArbCom has long insisted that it has no authority to resolve content disputes. The way to win an editorial dispute on Wikipedia is therefore to transform the content dispute into a behavioral dispute, typically by egging one's editorial opponent into some sort of misbehavior that can then be used as the basis for a disciplinary action that, if parlayed correctly, will result in one's editorial opponent being silenced. This can often then be parlayed into silencing everyone else who tries to advance the same editorial position as a proxy for the restricted individual. This has turned the ArbCom into a de facto editorial board, even as it refuses to acknowledge that it is doing so, but with editorial decisions made not on a sober evaluation of whose editorial position has the merit of appearing to be "most accurate", but rather on the basis of whose editorial position was expressed with the least raucously screeching voice, and also quite commonly on whose position was backed by the largest (or at least loudest) number of influence peddlers within Wikipedia's community. The sad thing is that committed Wikipedians generally think that this is somehow better than having a group of people who could credibly be considered subject matter experts examine the facts under dispute and issue a ruling based on what appears to them to be the most factually accurate representation of the matter under dispute; that somehow a mudslinging competition is a better way to determine truth than a panel discussion among generally acknowledged experts.
If Wikipedia had a functional content dispute resolution process that could resolve content disputes before they became behavioral disruptions, there might possibly be fewer behavioral disruptions. Or, more likely, not, since, in my experience, at least, the vast bulk of Wikipedians who are not willing to compromise on content issues are going to become behaviorally disruptive when they don't get their way. But I'm not convinced that this is obligatory in a project like Wikipedia; the fact that it has evolved to that state may simply be a consequence of the decisions made early in Wikipedia's life. A project with different core principles would attract different participants. |
Close
And a couple swiped from others...
- Beeblebrox's Law of File 13. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained as one just doing a half-assed job when they're in too big of a hurry. (Dec. 2, 2019 on Wikipediocracy)
- Beeblebrox's Concise Summary. The job of the [Arbitration] Committee is to stop disruption to the project, not to punish the wicked. (June 20, 2022 on Wikipediocracy)
- Eric Corbett's Arbcom Law 1. Every Arbitration Committee is as bad as every other, just in different ways. (Feb. 20, 2020 on Wikipediocracy)
- Vigilant's Axiom. Almost every bad thing that flows from en.wp and the WMF is as a result of ethically challenged dipshits trying to take a shortcut to get the result they know in their heart is right. (Jan. 6, 2024 on Wikipediocracy)
- Valjean's Very Wise Statement. People who claim to be unbiased and neutral are delusional. The best we can hope for is to align our biases with evidence and reliable sources, and then be willing to follow the evidence and change our minds like any good scientist should do. (June 24, 2025 on Wikipediocracy)
