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This page summarizes the various processes and structures by which Wikipedia articles and their editing are editorially controlled, and the processes which are built into that model to ensure quality of article content. Rather than one sole form of control, Wikipedia relies upon multiple approaches, and these overlap to provide more robust coverage and resilience. [edit] Overview of editorial structureThere are tens of thousands of regular editors - everyone from expert scholars to casual readers. Anyone who visits the site can edit it, and this fact has encouraged contribution of a tremendous amount of content. There are mechanisms that help community members watch for bad edits, a few hundred administrators with special powers to enforce good behavior, and a judicial style arbitration committee that considers the few situations remaining unresolved, and decides on withdrawal or restriction of editing privileges or other punishments when needed, after all other consensus remedies have been tried. As a Wiki, anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, and everyone is encouraged to. Overall Wikipedia gets hundreds of times more well-meaning editors than bad ones, so problematic editors rarely obtain much of a foothold. In the normal course of events, the primary control over editorship is the effective utilization of the large number of well-intentioned editors to overcome issues raised by the much smaller number of problematic editors. It is inherent in the Wikipedia model's approach that poor information can be added, but that over time those editing articles reach strong consensus, and quality improves in a form of group learning, so that substandard edits will very rapidly be removed. This assumption is still being tested and its limitations and reliability are not yet a settled matter – Wikipedia is a pioneer in communal knowledge building of this kind. Balancing this, there are also a wide range of resources for editors seeking to improve their articles or within their areas of interest. These include several routes for general and specialist peer review, and thousands of editors in a wide variety of focus groups working on specific types of issue, reference desks and copyright resource checking to help source missing information, expert groups in various subjects for technical input, and subject related 'WikiProjects' which provide a comprehensive unified approach to editorial quality control and article rating in their respective subject areas. The Wikipedia community is largely self-organizing, so that anyone may build a reputation as a competent editor and become involved in any role they may choose, subject to peer approval. Individuals often will choose to become involved in specialized tasks, such as reviewing articles at others request, watching current edits for vandalism, or watching newly created articles for quality control purposes, or similar roles. Editors who find that editorial administrator responsibility would benefit their ability to help the community may ask their peers in the community for agreement to undertake such roles; a structure which enforces meritocracy and communal standards of editorship and conduct. At present around a 75-80% approval rating after a communal "no holds barred" inquiry, is considered the requirement for such a role, a standard which tends to ensure a high level of experience, trust and familiarity across a broad front of projects within Wikipedia. (Such rights are stringently restricted, ensuring that editorial and administrative matters are separated powers and only rarely lead to editorial conflict of interest.) [edit] Wikipedia's editorial control processWikipedia has somewhat more formal editorial systems of control than are apparent to a newcomer, with ten main areas of overlapping control in three main areas primarily responsible:
[edit] Types of control[edit] User oversight
Wikipedia's primary editorial control, that ensures the bulk of its quality, is simply the sheer volume of well-intentioned editors who regularly and constantly watch over its articles. At any given time, a large number of the thousands of active Wikipedians will be using, checking, or editing the articles held. Each of these has their own watchlist, a special page that lists changes to the articles they have worked on or are otherwise choosing to watch. Hundreds of Wikipedians use automated software tools (described below) to watch edits en masse. On average, only a few minutes lie between a blatantly bad or harmful edit, and some editor noticing and acting on it. Repeated edits tend to lead rapidly to escalation of the process, further safeguards and actions, and the involvement of others, including possible use of administrator powers or dispute resolution depending on the situation. The primary control therefore is not so much that "only approved editors" can update and improve articles. It is more, that even bad editors can edit -- but any vandalism and errors they add rarely get much of a foothold and their bad edits are very rapidly spotted and reversed by others. This is different to traditional knowledge and publishing, which attempts to limit content creation to a relatively small circle of approved editors in an attempt to exercise strong hierarchical control. A 2002 study by IBM found that as a result of this process, most vandalism on the English Wikipedia is reverted within five minutes.:
[edit] User collaborative knowledge-buildingUnusually, Wikipedia relies for a large part of its editorial work, upon editors drawn from the general public, who may well lack relevant qualifications in the subjects they edit. Experience suggests that any appearance of weakness which may be created is deceptive. It turns out that in some ways, analytic skills and neutrality often play a greater role than specialisation; editors who have worked for a time on a variety of articles usually become quite capable of making good quality editorial decisions regarding specialist material, even on unfamiliar technical subjects.[2] Again, questionable edits will usually be caught and explained by others more experienced. In general, the role of Wikipedia editors is guided by two principles. 1) Most editors will choose to edit subjects where they have personal interest, knowledge, and familiarity. 2) The editorial role in Wikipedia is not to produce original research so much as to collate and source existing reputable knowledge in an encyclopedic form, under strict policies of neutrality of viewpoint and verifiability of information thus added. Attempts to add information which is of poor quality or questionable are easy to spot, by the many other editors reviewing a given topic, who generally come with different viewpoints and understandings initially. For facts to remain in an article requires consensus amongst (often dozens or hundreds) of diverse editors with an interest in the article, that the fact is agreed, and neutrally and appropriately presented in a balanced manner, with any statement considered to require citation being properly sourced. Editors on most articles will often include coverage of a range of viewpoints on the subject, and will often include a number of specialists.
In addition, one should not overlook the effect of reader involvement - the millions of readers of articles are themselves encouraged to be bold and correct or improve any article they read. Over time, experience suggests that as a result of this collaboration on a large scale, articles do usually rise to this general standard, and many long-standing articles having survived this process of examination over the years are stable, robust, and well written as a result. Controversial articles often highlight the success of this approach - the process of developing a wording that satisfies a consensus of often-opposed editors is not a trivial one and can be watched repeatedly playing out on articles over time. [edit] The Wiki structureIt is possible that this selectivity for collaboration is in part due to the Wiki structure. Editors who disagree are unable to write alternative articles or versions to express their differing viewpoints. Ultimately there is only one page upon which all must edit. Since other aspects of the editorial process tend to reduce sustained "edit warring", and strong universally accepted viewpoints describe how opposing views are to be neutrally included and presented, ultimately there is great pressure in the long term, for a common agreed version to emerge on that one page. Once it has done so, then it is the usual stance of editors who have worked for this goal, no matter their viewpoint, that it will only be replaced by a better version. Another aspect is that because of the wide-open nature of the editorial process, there is no bottleneck of control through which the content can readily be controlled or massaged by any given individual or interest group. As well, all edits and actions, including past historical versions, are visible to all editors. The Wiki model itself mitigates extremely strongly against control of articles being manipulated by any one interest group, as there are no obvious applicable points of weakness or "approved circle", through which editorial decisions must pass. As a result, maintaining vandalism or a specific viewpoint is all but impossible in the long term, and Wikipedia is extremely resilient long-term against bias, censorship, or manipulation of its articles. An article examining Wikipedia's approach and outcome in depth, for the Canadian Library Association (CLA) commented that in controversial topics, "what is most remarkable is that the two sides actually engaged each other and negotiated a version of the article that both can more or less live with". [4] [edit] Respect for policies and principlesRules and policies must strike a fine balance between good and necessary practice, and abuse or game-playing, in order to be effective in dealing with would-be disruptive contributors. Wikipedia's policies reflect this dynamic tension quite strongly, with policies on user conduct and appropriate editorial approach, and also meta-policies - policies and guidelines which provide guidance on how policy is to be used, in order to ensure commonsense prevails over both disruptive editing and gaming the system. Examples of the former include core policies on neutral presentation and balance, proper verifiability and citation of sources, and policies on editorial conduct, dispute and disruption, and types of acceptable content. These policies are substantially agreed by the entire community as the basis for the entire editorial approach, and have very high 'buy in'. Examples of the latter include guidelines on how policy should and should not be used, such as Don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point, The rules are principles, Don't be a fanatic, Ignore all rules (for exceptional cases where some rule inhibits good quality and appropriate work), Avoid instruction creep, Avoid wikilawyering (policies exist to achieve positive purposes and support principles, their use in legalistic-style games will not be supported), and the rather bluntly named Wikipedia:Don't be a dick. These meta-policies in turn are unlikely to be sanctioned if it is the perception that their use is motivated by a wish to game the system rather than bona fide reasons. (Full lists: Official policies and Official guidelines). [edit] Consensus based ethosThe community has a very strong buy-in to consensus decision-making, underscored by guidelines such as Wikipedia:Consensus, and Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion. Consensus is not the same as majority, it signifies that the concerns and views of minorities should be taken into account in the attempt to gain a decision which reflects community values and which most can live by to some extent or other. Most policies and procedures also develop and become refined in this same manner. The time taken to reach some decisions is often considered to be outweighed by the wide agreement when decisions are reached. Editorially, article by article, Wikipedia editing ethos strongly encourages the incorporation of views in a policy-compliant encyclopedic style, when they meet content criteria, and the seeking of independent others' input when consensus is unclear. Even in the event of dispute and escalation, the process remains the same -- even Arbitration Committee decisions are based upon communal input, consensus, and transparency. [edit] Escalation processes and dispute resolutionThere are a number of escalation processes inherent in the Wikipedia model. Some function autonomously, others are accessible to anybody who notes a concern. Autonomous escalation includes, as a simple example, that repeated vandalism of an article will tend to gather attention from more editors, who will begin to specifically watch that article for changes, or who add it to their Vandalism Software (if in use) to flag every edit as needing checking. Articles in good order and lacking obvious problems also have a comprehensive review system, in this case one which obtains communal input and addresses quality and standards compliance, including quality based peer review upwards. Other editor-instigated escalation processes include the entirety of the dispute resolution process (ie, Request for comment, Request for mediation, and Request for formal arbitration). Editorial decisions such as page deletions likewise have fine grained policies and escalation processed, with speedy delete for obvious nonsense and prodding for almost-certain violations, which can be escalated into the full communal review system of Articles for deletion in which articles and their justifications are discussed communally for up to a week in order to reach consensus on their treatment. Wikipedia regularly explores possible new tools for escalation, for example as of June 2007 mediation with community sanctioned enforceable decisions is/was an experimental approach to certain types of editorial issue. As well as editors' pages, pages such as Administrator Notices/Incidents are used to report current status quo and problems to interested users in general, and serve as a noticeboard for current situations and developments worth watching. An arbitration committee sits at the top of all editorial and editor conduct disputes.[5] Its members are elected in three regularly rotated tranches by an established inquiry and decision making process in which all regular editors can equally participate. [edit] Edit monitoring and software facilitationWikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits lists some statistics on editorial involvement. However this page only lists edits made by the 3 million or so editors; it does not show editors' monitoring of articles and edits in cases where no correction was deemed necessary. Reputable editors who decide to monitor recent edits more seriously will often use software such as VandalProof, a program written for Wikipedia by AmiDaniel, as well as functionality that automatically flags changes by known problem editors. They will use this software to watch hundreds of recent edits in "real time" as they happen. Other automated corrections, such as bad links, typographic errors and spellchecking, bot-assisted identification of unused fair-use images, and some forms of vandalism, are automatically fixed by bots, automated programs written by Wikipedians and operated by authorisation. There are also large user-groups dedicated to rapid reversal of vandalism, such as Recent changes patrol and the Counter-Vandalism Unit. These systems are often near-immediate. For example the article on the United Kingdom, vandalised at 06.55 10 Jan 2007, was detected and repaired by AntiVandalBot, also at 06.55 10 January 2007. As of 2007, approximately 700 editors use VandalProof alone, providing significant overlap in monitoring editorial quality. Other tools and user-groups focussing on monitoring edits as they happen or subsequently, are listed at: Category:Wikipedia counter-vandalism tools. [edit] Blocking and protection systemsA variety of timed and untimed controls for blocking problematic editors and protecting pages from poor editors are accessible within the Wikipedia software. These can intelligently filter out combinations of accounts, IPs or named users, and protect pages from IP, new or non-established editors. They are used to enforce both short and long term blocking decisions, and to lock pages and deter vandalism, as necessary, if lesser steps seem to be inappropriate. [edit] Tagging of informationArticles and individual facts can also be brought to others' attention by means of a wide range of inline and article tags, used to flag individual statements and citations, or articles as a whole, to request checking or citation, and to indicate to other editors and readers that a fact or presentation is unsupported or questionable as it stands. A number of editors deliberately look for such tagged articles to work on them. For example: Category:Pages needing expert attention, and the assistance with neutrality user-group. [edit] Effects of control systemsAn average time to revert edits is usually a few minutes on most articles, and if an article is hit with repeated vandalism then more editors will tend to notice, and start to actively watch the article to reduce the risk of recurrence (or "lock" it if it becomes necessary). Popular articles (especially on current affairs) might get hundreds of edits a day, and be reviewed by dozens of editors out of the several hundred thousand on Wikipedia. This degree of watchfulness around the clock makes it hard for vandalism to get established in most articles. [edit] Types of accessThere are various permissions within the Mediawiki software, allowing users to perform various communal functions. The most commonly known of these are:
[edit] Individual editors' power to control and correct poor editorshipA typical case inquired about by a reader: A vandalistic edit was added to the article Global warming on January 7 2007 (UTC). It was noticed and reported by a reader, but when the reader when to check it again, it seemed to have vanished. In this case study, the reader had noticed vandalism added by user Arnold19 at 04:55, January 7 2007 (UCT). The vandalism had been reversed by Raymond arritt at 05:11, 16 minutes later. A vandalism warning was separately added to Arnold19's user talk page at User_talk:Arnold19 just three minutes later at 05.14, by another user, Amos Han, who also spotted it. By the time the original reader had sought to quote it in their vandalism report, the vandalism had already been fully removed and the user warned, by two separate people. One can actually see the "differences" of those two edits, known as "diffs", here (vandalistic edit) and here (fixing edit), which highlight the changes made in the vandalistic edit, and in the rectifying edit, respectively. These diffs are the authoritative version of "who changed what with which edit". If there is ever any question of bad editorship, one will see people requesting (or citing) "diffs" as evidence of who did what to an article. In the two DIFFS linked it can be seen that the vandalistic text was added in the 1st edit and then removed in the 2nd. The editing history of an article and the list of edits to date can be looked up by any user, by clicking "HISTORY" at the top of the article page, which will list the history of edits to the article. Clicking on DIFF next to any edit will show the details of any changes made at that time, old text on the left, new text on the right. All users have a "watchlist". Its a way to keep an eye on articles which they are interested in. It will list changes to these articles. Editors can list and de-list articles that way for their own personal interest. The following pages contain further information and resources, since this form of editorial control is probably one not much seen outside electronic collaboration systems: About Wikipedia, Researching with Wikipedia and Reliability of Wikipedia might all be useful. For dealing with vandalism see Wikipedia:Vandalism. For editing Wikipedia oneself to fix obvious vandalism and errors, see the section Contributing to Wikipedia on the 'About' page. Note that editors are encouraged to fix errors themselves; however if a mistake is made, other more experienced users will usually step in to help fix these if the original editor does not. [edit] Editorial quality review and article improvementAs well as systems to catch and control low quality contributions, Wikipedia also has a variety of positive systems for article review and improvement. Examples of the processes involved include:
In addition, specific types of article or fields often have their own specialized and comprehensive supervisory projects (such as the WikiProject on Military History), assessment processes (such as biographical article assessment), or are the subject of specific focus under projects such as the Neutrality Project, or covered under editorial drives by user groups such as the Cleanup Taskforce. [edit] ExamplesSome examples of Wikipedia's editorial control system at work:
[edit] See alsoFor dealing with vandalism see Wikipedia:Vandalism.
General editorial groups:
[edit] References
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