User:Ritchie333/Annoying user, good content

Jimmy Wales thought we should kick out problematic users even if they wrote great content. The community didn't always agree with him.

Wikipedia has always had a problem with annoying users who create good content. These users can generate a huge amount of time and discussion that would be better spent on writing and improving the encyclopedia.

Typical cases

The following types of editors may have semi-regular threads at discussion forums like WP:ANI, which often close as "no consensus for action". Examples include:

• A longstanding editor who has thoroughly researched and written on a topic, who requires high standards from other editors, prefers to call a spade a spade, and doesn't like arguing with Randy from Boise.
• A "straight talking" editor who comes from a culture where certain phrases and norms are different from other cultures
• An editor who has had a bad experience with one or more administrators, believes their opinions speak for the silent majority and found like-minded people on the project to rally to their cause
• An expert in one area of Wikipedia maintenance (eg: anti-vandalism, sockpuppetry) who thinks that part of the project is more important than all the others

The common theme is that the editors both do good work (improving the encyclopedia) and bad work (stopping it from being improved). In extreme cases, the editors don't merely cause disruption by their own actions, but even more disruption arises from extended discussions leading to a lack of consensus to do anything about it.

Problems

Diversity

Wikipedia has increased to the extent that the project has diversified into a number of distinct areas. While all long-term editors contribute to improving the encyclopedia in a number of ways, this happens with radically different skill sets. Typical terms used are:

• Anti-vandal - Anti-vandal workers' priority is keeping the encyclopedia free of vandalism and obvious defacement.
• Arbitrators (or "Arbs" for short) - These are the members of the Arbitration Committee, and their clerks.
• Content creator - This editor spends most if not all of their time in mainspace, either creating new articles or improving existing ones, often to good or featured article status. They may ignore discussion outside of disputes, and only then on the general topic area of interest. Some content creators specialise in topics such as Military History, Mathematics, Medicine or women's history; others write about whatever sources are in their collection.
• Gnome - These work on many different articles fixing spelling, grammar or formatting, and generally making content presentable.
• Main page maintainer - These editors look after the quality of the main page, including Today's featured article, In The News and Did you know? They work on a wide variety of topics, often focused on factual accuracy and good presentation.
• Sock hunters - These editors deal with sockpuppetry. These may include administrators (including those with the checkuser right) and clerks.
• Techie - Techies write and maintain scripts, including templates, metadata and bots, and are focused on programatically improving the encyclopedia. Example works include ClueBot NG, SineBot and AnomieBOT, which most longtime editors will be familiar with.

All of these groups work differently, all contain people who have contributed enormously to the project, and all can clash.

Blocks

See also: Wikipedia:Unblockables and WP:FANCLUB

Wikipedia only has a few technical tools available to stop long-term disruptive editors. The principal, and most contentious one is the blocking tool, which prevents a user from being able to edit. However, any longstanding editor is likely to have friends and allies, who will complain about most blocks served on this editor. Despite the rhetoric that "Wikipedia is not a social network", people do form friendships amongst editors with like-minded interests and skills, and will naturally take a defensive stance against sanctions against an editor they're friends with.

The introduction of partial blocks, whereby an editor is blocked from a single page, has in my view ameliorated this issue, as now an edit warring block can be simply be responded with something like "there are 6 million other articles they could edit". However, even then it's possible for a sufficient groundswell of opposition to get a short partial block overturned, which eventually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the unblock stops the disruption of everybody arguing about the situation.

Solutions

"Our biggest unsolved community problem is that we lack an effective way to deal with people who do a lot of good work, but who are completely and unrepentantly abusive."

Antandrus

Years and years of discussion, and attempts to resolve things amicably such as Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance, have failed to find any satisfactory solution to the "annoying user, good content" problem. These users are usually eventually banned or sanctioned in one way or another when everyone's patience runs out, but only after a lot of time wasting and arguing back and forth.

The simplest way of dealing with these users is to ignore them. If you need to communicate with them, stick to the facts, and only say something if you are certain it will be well received. If you dispute the content, try and get a third opinion or seek dispute resolution quietly and tactfully. If you're not sure of your ground, it's probably best to drop the issue and work somewhere else.