Well, I’m sort of a present and former editor. I’m a present day editor in topics like Mars habitability. This is article for instance, recent one, is my work: Modern Mars habitability

So, I know how wikipedia works. Some areas are fine. But in others, a little cartel of maybe a half dozen editors may control an entire topic area. Wikipedia isn’t really one encyclopedia. It’s like several thousand encyclopedias smashed together, some excellent, some appalling, some mediocre, some okay-ish. For instance their “mini encyclopedia” on space missions and on astronomy are excellent, I use them a lot, always worth checking up details if you have to, even then, but I can be pretty sure that they got it right.

Basically, many of the low footfall articles are fine. Nobody is bothered to do anything about them and they are added by enthusiasts who wish to improve wikipedia, and they may have occasional mistakes. But they are often very good. And discussions on their talk pages are often between enthusiasts with no axe to grind and may be okay too, though sometimes with an occasional troll trying to start up a flamefest.

Articles with lots of editors, like, say, “Climate Change”, they tend to be okay. But it’s the in between ones that are worst. They are high profile enough for some editors to want to take over them, but not got enough editors to keep the others in check.

MY OWN INDEF TOPIC BAN ON BUDDHISM

I have just been indef topic banned Buddhism, broadly construed. I wasn’t trying to edit the articles. I wanted to add a banner to the top of the articles saying “The neutrality of this article has been disputed”.

I was topic banned as a result of a case taken against me by the editors who opposed adding these tags. Their argument was that the articles are just fine as they are, and don’t need any tags. This is a neutrality dispute and usually you resolve them by adding those tags and letting other editors comment on the article.

But in this case the opposing editors in the dispute said the tags had to be removed because the article was neutrally stated. This is not usually how such disputes are resolved. The reason they gave for banning me was mainly that I was too verbose in the talk page discussions.

The editors opposing me were very harsh. During the action against me,even when I offered to post a comment to the Buddhism topic area only once a day, as a way to deal with my verbosity this was not enough to change their views. Indeed they proposed more and more harsh remedies the more I tried to be conciliatory.

Discussion on Reddit here: About to be topic banned for trying to add a POV tag to an article on my Buddhist faith that is as misleading as an article about Christianity saying they don't believe in the Resurrection of Jesus

The indef topic ban against me is here Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents - Wikipedia

DARKFROG24’S INDEF BLOCK

I also have a friend Darkfrog24 who has ended up being blocked from editing wikipedia altogether. It all started with a short term topic ban on quotation marks and punctuation. She is a wikignome, who also has a deep interest in the Manual of Style for wikipedia

WikiGnome - they do minor edits and copy editing, fix punctuation, etc. Invisible to most users and editors but vital for keeping the encyclopedia looking good

Wiktionary has articles for four ways you can position full stops and commas relative to quotation marks:

• British quotation
• American quotation
• logical quotation, (similar but not identical to British quotation)
• typesetters' quotation (similar to American quotation)

The Manual of Style often has debates about once a year on quotation marks. The current guidelines are to use logical style throughout. Darkfrog24 always speaks up for the proposal to use British and American quotation styles for their respective articles.

One of the most serious claims made against her when she was topic banned was that she falsified an “ENGVAR” as they put it on wikipedia. I.e. that she intentionally lied when she said there was a distinction between British quotation and American quotation.

This is a very serious allegation that would justifiably get osmeone topic banned. Except, that it is obviously false. How could you, assuming good faith, say that she has falsified a distinction which is in wiktionary - a sister project. Surely the editors of wiktionary are good faith editors? So why can’t Darkfrog24 be when she says the same thing? With many citations to back up her arguments?

This is not about whether she is right or wrong about what the Manual of Style should say about quotation marks. Not even about whether she is right or wrong about whether the British and the Americans have a different style for positioning of quotation marks. She wasn’t banned for her views.

She was banned for, amongst other things, this truly bizarre allegation that she was lying about the distinction. It’s an allegation that would have been thrown out right away if there was any independent fact checking of the evidence presented to the admins.

It becomes particularly bizarre once you realize that the very same editor who took her to the admins to get her topic banned for submitting a bogus ENGVAR (see his statement here under Statement by SMcCandish) is the same author that contributed those wiktionary articles on British quotation and American quotation.

DARKFROG24 NEVER TAKES PART IN MOS CONVERSATIONS AFTER THE BAN

From then on, she never once took part in any conversations in topic banned areas, or edited any of the articles. But first she got the topic ban extended to the whole of Manual of Style (the style guide for wikipedia), then blocked, then indef blocked.

TOPIC BAN EXTENDED TO ALL THE MANUAL OF STYLE FOR A SINGLE TALK PAGE COMMENT

Her extended topic ban was on the basis of a single comment she did in reply to a former colleague SmokeyJoe who asked her on her talk page why she wasn’t commenting on the latest dispute on MoS. She answered saying “I can’t because I’m topic banned” which was okay but added an extra sentence which could have conveyed to SmokeyJoe a hint as to how she would have commented on the discussion (as if they didn’t know already). That one casual comment on her own talk page, which in wikipedia of course stands in your contributions record for everyone to see from then on - was enough for a topic ban extended to the whole of MoS .

She then got an indef block from something she said to Thryduulf, the closing admin to that case - and has now had her appeal against this block rejected three times. In none of that time has she done anything to evade her block or topic bans, at least not what most of us would think of as an evasion. She hasn’t ever tried to edit any of the articles in the topic ban area or to engage in discussions on her talk page. Mainly she has been talking to the admins.

Since the admins who take on her case are naturally required to be uninvolved in the dispute, then there is no way any of this could be seen as an attempt on her part to influence the article content in any way at all.

The topic ban guidelines are interpreted just incredibly harshly there. They say that what Darkfrog24 said to SmokeyJoe is a violation of her topic ban, clear and simple, because of one extra remark that could be interpreted as indicating her views on the matter indirectly. They said that was sufficient cause for an immediate increased sanction. Well, presumably they know how things are done there. But if it leads to a situation like that, the whole system is in need of an overhaul in my view.

NATURAL QUESTIONS THAT TOPIC BANNED EDITORS HAVE

I think topic banned editors need to have someone they can talk to on wikipedia, and that the admins should be required to answer questions. Most of her questions to them, which lead to these increased sanctions were along the lines of:

“What was I topic banned for?”

“What was I blocked for?”

“What do I need to do to get unblocked?”

“Can you say which of the many accusations against me you support, if any?

Can you at least agree that the worst accusations made were false (the worst ones of falsifying an ENGVAR and gaslighting would be easy for an independent uninvolved researcher to prove false with a few minutes of research)?”

None of these questions are permitted in practice. Not only won’t they answer them, you risk increased sanctions just for asking them, especially if you persist in asking.

So, that’s at the highest level, it is way too harsh. Here she is mainly dealing with ArbCom, who have been elected as the twelve best admins on wikipedia by the community. There is no authority higher than them on wikipedia with the exception possibly of Jimmy Wales himself. But he only steps in very rarely and hardly at all in recent years.

I think ArbCom should be accountable to some kind of oversight.

I also think admins should not be permitted to impose additional sanctions to an editor just for asking them questions about their topic ban on their own talk page or responding to comments by other editors on their own talk page - unless for obvious violations such as asking another editor to vote for them or to present their views on a banned topic.

I think in addition that editors like Darkfrog24 should not only be permitted to ask such questions. I think the admins should be required to answer them too. Or if they are too busy, find a way to ensure that someone else can answer their questions for them.

As to how to make that happen, there may be many ways, but the starting point is to recognize that a change of some sort is needed and to begin some kind of investigation and search for a solution.

OPEN LETTER TO JIMMY WALES PLAN

I plan an open letter to Jimmy Wales saying this, and to post to my Science20 blog about it. I think the situation there is just appalling as it is now. The way topic banned and blocked editors are treated is just so extraordinarily harsh, and the admins don’t even seem to see how harsh they are being.

They don’t get that much feedback because most editors soon learn there is no point in asking your closing admin about the many things that puzzle you. If you try you find you are walking on a thin line, and you feel that an inadvertent remark can lead to increased sanctions at any moment, as indeed happened to Darkfrog24 multiple times. I think everyone can agree that she never had any intention to break the topic ban guidelines.

There is also no emotional support for topic banned and blocked editors who are often in considerable distress, and often are not sure what happened and why they were blocked or banned. The admins are far too busy to answer their questions and also seem to have no understanding of what it is like to be topic banned or blocked.

WIKIPEDIA AS THE ENCYCLOPEDIA ANYONE CAN EDIT

As it says on the head of the main page: the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. All the admins see is a user name such as Darkfrog24 . Some people disclose information about themselves including a photograph - I do. But I’m in a minority there. For most people, you know nothing at all about them and their personal life off wiki.

This means that these sanctioned editors could be

• Old people with Alzheimer’s
• Young children still at school
• High functioning adults with learning disabilities
• High functioning autistic people
• Aspergers spectrum
• Have bipolar disorder
• Be in extreme pain (this can lead to erratic behaviour and confusion)
• Be in a hospital bed
• Be in an old person’s home

In some cases wikipedia, before the sanction, may have been their main contact with other people. It may have been their social group, pretty much their entire world of communication.

They may be in considerable personal distress. They may be suicidal, bankrupt, in the middle of a marriage breakup, their parents or children have just died

ADMINS’ ONE SIZE FITS ALL SOLUTION - TO KEEP INCREASING SANCTIONS, IF NECESSARY BLOCK AND REBLOCK, UNTIL THEY UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WERE BLOCKED OR SANCTIONED

The admins have this theory, that the best way to treat them after they have been sanctioned, is to be very harsh, to say to them that they must not talk about the topic ban on wikipedia at all, and to increase the sanctions if they break these rules immediately on the slightest infraction.

They seem to think that if they tell them not to discuss the topic ban with anyone on wikipedia, that this will help them to calm down, and return to productive editing. AFAIK it’s not based on any empirical evidence.

WOULD IT NOT BE MORE EFFECTIVE TO JUST LET THEM TALK, ON THEIR OWN TALK PAGE, TO THE ADMINS?

Maybe it works with some people. But I think for most people it would be far more effective to

• Talk to them, and let them ask questions
• Help them to understand why they were sanctioned
• Help them to understand clearly what they need to do to get unblocked - not just make this a guessing game where you continue to block them until they guess right
• Assume good faith, that they are not trying to game the system, unless you have clear indisputable evidence that this is what is happening
• If they say the accusations against them were false, then there should be some way that someone can investigate that, independently of an appeal. An independent group of fact checkers - paid if necessary.
• Recognize that sometimes as in any system where judgements occur whether or not it is a system of justice, then flawed judgements from time to time are inevitable. No need to blame anyone for that, just have some system in place to deal with them.

I understand the admins are very busy. But wikipedia is now wealthy and has plenty of money to use for a problem. So why not employ some skilled people to do fact checking, to talk to the editors to help them understand their topic bans and blocks, to find solutions, to help them back to productive editing, and to strike out obviously false accusations on the spot.

TWO READINGS OF THE TOPIC BAN GUIDELINES

I think this is the nub of it actually.

• The TBAN guidelines I think are most naturally read by a newly topic banned editor as guidelines to protect the article content.
• The admins interpret them as guidelines to also protect user talk pages from any mention of the banned topic.

I don’t think it is at all clear from the guidelines that this is how the original authors of those guidelines intended them to be interpreted. In my view, it’s not justifiable as a way of protecting the wikipedia article content as these are edits that are not in any way going to affect the content of the articles themselves. The user pages are not part of the encyclopedia that the public read.

So, I don’t see why there is any necessity to protect the user’s own talk page from any mention of the topic however tangential, such as asking those questions.

THESE SUGGESTIONS ARE COMPATIBLE WITH THE GUIDELINES IN MY VIEW

As far as I can see, the current very harsh interpretation of TBAN is not in the guidelines themselves. They say that you can ask the closing admin to reconsider their decision as part of the appeal process. They also say you can ask for clarification of the scope of your ban.

They don’t however say

• “You must not mention in casual conversation with another editor anything that might indirectly suggest to them what your view is of the topic - even if they already know your views - on your own talk page and if you do you face immediate increased sanctions”

Or

• “You can’t ask admins which of the accusations against you they consider to be true”

Or,

• “You can’t ask the admins to explain what you need to do to get your block lifted”

Or even

• “You can’t talk about your plans for working in the topic area when the TBAN expires to anyone in wikipedia once you are banned”

The upside of this is that perhaps this whole issue could be fixed without contradicting anything currently in the TBAN guidelines, just adding clarification that these questions can be asked, and extra clarification that admins are actually required to answer them, or to appoint someone else to answer those questions for them.

I think an editor should be commended, not sanctioned, for talking about their plans for ways to return to editing on wikipedia after the topic ban is over. I think also that it would be good if someone on wikipedia can be assigned to them to help them with those plans. How does requiring complete silence from the sanctioned editor on wikipedia for six months help them towards returning to wikipedia editing?

AGGRESSION ON THE TALK PAGES

So, back to your question.

I think the aggression you see on the talk pages is connected to this. That the editors (I’m talking about ordinary editors now, not admins) know they can get their opponents topic banned by taking them to admins, rather easily, for not much by way of evidence at all.

So they then, to not put too fine a point on it, start bullying other editors. Some of them are notorious for this and editors who are well informed steer well away from them.

WikiBullying

Often a single editor will hold sway as a wiki bully over an entire topic area. I’ve seen this happen in the astrobiology topic area until last autumn, and at present it is happening in the Buddhism topic area in my view. These bullies, like bullies at school, are also often able to gather a crowd of half a dozen or so other editors who go around with them and support them in what they do.

They wouldn’t see it like that, I know. They think they are defending wikipedia against others who are trying to change their articles from what they consider to be the ideal state. And their followers agree with them. And they feel that they have to use strong measures like reversing edits because the editors who keep disturbing their articles never seem to get the message unless they do that.

But to those of us who are at the receiving end, it is just bullying basically, or can be. And they are very experienced and they know how to present situations to the admins in such a way as to get the outcome they want.

These wiki bullies are very skilled at what they do. One of the most extraordinary cases here was of a bewildered newbie editor topic banned and blocked for writing an article about the housing estate they live in, Clarawood estate. I go into that in a little detail in my Alice through the looking glass themed answer to What are the most frustrating aspects of being a Wikipedia editor?

When you encounter wiki bullying and aggression -well the simplest thing is just go away to another article. Or to leave wikipedia. It’s an endemic problem there in my experience. But there are many articles and topic areas where the editors are much more friendly. It is possible to have a good experience editing wikipedia.

SUGGESTION FOR NEWBIES - DON’T FIGHT THE BULLIES

My suggestion for newbies to wikipedia editing - don’t try to fight the bullies if you fall foul of them. Just go away, stop editing for a week or two if you got worked up. Find an area of wikipedia that you are interested in which is much quieter, with friendlier people.

If this was a school you’d add “report them”. But that doesn’t work on wikipedia. If you try to report on bullying, you are very likely to get a “boomerang”. This happens many times. A newbie editor takes one of these bullies to arbitration enforcement and to their astonishment the bully manages to gather a long list of “diffs” which the newbies have probably never even heard of, which proves to the admins to their satisfaction that the newbie editor has to be banned for a series of breaches of obscure wikipedia guidelines with strange acronyms that they had never heard of before.

My advice is, sadly, don’t try reporting the bullies on wikipedia. It almost never works.

I think that actually the majority of wikipedia discussions are friendly, for the minor articles especially. And on the big articles you re just one of many commentators. It’s the ones middle in popularity that are most tricky. Just you and another editor, or maybe two other editors.

If the other one is a bully - as with school bullies the safest thing is just to back off slowly and go away.

I went into my wikipedia Buddhism dispute this time with clear eyes. I knew there was a chance I would be topic banned. I was sailing close to the wind. I didn’t think it would happen but then got a bit verbose, and the opponents saw their advantage and took it, and wham, now I am topic banned from the entire Buddhism topic area.

The safest thing is to back away slowly even when you feel you are quite experienced. Of course don’t accuse them of bullying, don’t say you are going away because they have made things impossible for you. Just stop talking, take a break and go somewhere else.