Grants:IdeaLab/Evaluate Wikipedia's guides to address people with personal/political agendas better

Inspire campaign

Evaluate Wikipedia's guides to address people with personal/political agendas better

Wikipedia's user guides and promotional department should address people with personal/political agendas better

idea creator• DivaNtrainin

advisor• Vibrantmatter

this project needs...

volunteer

community organizer

created on04:14, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

My experience with some disruptive editors is that they approach Wikipedia with a political or personal agenda and when other editors revert their edits, they take it personally. Often the disruptive editors are soapboxing some issue and feel that their personal or political beliefs justify disruptive behavior. I dealt with one disruptive editor who seemed to have an attitude that "this is the one time that I have to make a difference on this one issue and I am not going to be silent on it."

Although I am familiar with the What Wikipedia is not page and I often cite when talking with people about Wikipedia, I think more can be done to educate new users about what to expect from Wikipedia, what Wikipedia is not and to encourage people who have personal agendas to realize that although they can edit Wikipedia pages, they still need to make sure their references are well sourced and their edits meet Wikipedia's style guide.

What is your solution?

The message that I want to send to disruptive users are "Wikipedia is not the only place to share your ideas. That if your edits are not well sourced at this time, we can always edit the page at a future time, and that this one Wikipedia page is everyone's page to edit." - review all the user guides with the mindset of "how would a person with personal/political agenda" see this guide. - change/update/add some of the standard lines being used on disruptive editor's talk pages to address people with political or personal agendas - when thinking about promoting Wikipedia, not being afraid to say to people "Wikipedia is not the only place for your opinions, there are other ways to promote your beliefs"

Get Involved

Participants

• Advisor Crafting of project goals and structure. Evangelism. Partnership development. Dev. Vibrantmatter (talk) 21:35, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Endorsements

• Since the 2008 Obama/Clinton primary this has been an issue that strikes at the essence of wiki's disruptive tension. Congress Tweets that track government ip addresses are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to transparency around government necessary. Vibrantmatter (talk) 21:30, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

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