Some disputes aren't worth it

Opinion

Some disputes aren't worth it

I talk to curious outsiders here and there about the kind of drama that happens on Wikipedia. They always correctly guess that there's drama over contentious topics, like American politics or the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. They're generally also not surprised when they hear that interpersonal drama and grudges can happen when opposing personalities just find themselves in the same place at the wrong time. But they're always surprised and amused to find out that we have a storied history of serious drama and conflict over things that are objectively silly, like whether the 'i' in Star Trek Into Darkness is capitalized;^[a] precisely which dash to use in a given context; and whether or not various tiny categories for articles should exist.

These discussions and others like them have two things in common: (1) the end result of the conflict means little to nothing to readers, and (2) they have the potential to end wikicareers. These disputes are not worth the trouble they cause. If you see one of these disputes – or worse yet, find yourself falling into one of them – avoid getting sucked in at all costs. (But maybe let an admin know if there aren't enough eyes on a nasty situation.)

The problem

I'm not even remotely the first person to notice that Wikipedians have a higher-than-average rate of traits that correlate heavily with mid- to high-functioning autism. This project is a limitless sandbox for correcting other people and indulging your special interest – with a reasonably low barrier to entry and a huge audience – so we really self-select for those traits. Unfortunately, those traits tend to correlate heavily with other traits associated with autism, ones that aren't as good for a collaborative project. People who like making corrections and improvements tend to have a very particular way they think things should be, and sometimes aren't receptive to alternative styles – even very small changes can cause a kind of anguish. We're hardwired more for assessing details than the big picture, so it's no surprise that some editors really care about minutia to the point where it can make collaboration difficult. We're not optimized for assessing unfamiliar social situations or subtext, and being properly considerate of others' feelings can be something we take a little longer to learn. Text also removes a lot of the subtext that we think we're expressing, making miscommunications even easier. Combine that with a model where decisions are made by talking (optimistically speaking), and you wind up with completely insignificant disputes being blown way out of proportion and attracting lots of community interest, to the point where uninvolved, experienced users have to divert their attention towards cleaning it up so that the project can move on.

If these disputes basically only involved single-purpose accounts, that'd be one thing. It'd be a time sink, sure, but it'd mostly be a honeypot for people who wouldn't be productive otherwise. But over the years, Wikipedia has lost incredibly talented and prolific contributors to stupid disputes, either because they got discouraged or because they couldn't behave themselves. No one is irreplaceable – the project fills the void sooner or later – but the loss of a contributor is still a temporary blow at least, especially in undertrafficked niches. These silly disputes do real harm to the community – we lose good editors and good editor-hours trying to settle what can be huge amounts of controversy over a tiny change. If you find yourself in one of these controversies, consider whether this is the best thing you can be doing for the project.

What to do

When to walk away

When there's nothing to be gained from arguing or escalating, the best thing you can to is to just drop the stick. I'd encourage this wherever possible. The problem with that advice, though, is that dropping the stick can be really, really hard. These disputes become much harder to defuse when both sides feel like the other's conduct has been hurtful or unfair; walking away can feel like surrendering to a bully. It's a little humiliating, and it leaves that person free to control their fiefdom, intimidating whoever else might challenge them. I get it, I really do.

The best answer I have is eventualism: the project rights itself at some point down the road. Bullies leave, either on good terms or not; the right answer comes through with enough discussion from cooler heads. These things will probably happen with or without your involvement. It might be a short-term loss to walk away, but over time, the track record buildup forces a reckoning – the arc of the project is long, but it bends against unblockables.

When to escalate

Sometimes, though, the opportunity falls right in your lap – a bully is obviously, nakedly breaking conduct policies in front of you, ignoring every warning and off-ramp. If you know someone's betting the bank on a crappy hand, and you know everyone else can see it, calling their bluff can end up doing good for the project. Escalating conflict isn't fun, and it can be very, very risky if you don't know what you're doing. ANI has no shortage of overconfident filers who are in for a nasty surprise.

But escalating doesn't always mean going right to ANI. Asking an admin to take a look is often enough to deal with a bad situation. If they seem sympathetic to you, but aren't able to deëscalate, that's where ANI can be most helpful – ANI watchers appreciate it when someone tries to deëscalate first, and when someone they trust is on your side. If the conduct is egregious enough, ANI can be the first stop. If you're absolutely sure that escalating is the right move and you don't have another way to address that behavioral problem, it can be worth it, but overall, I would really encourage trying to deescalate as much as possible, up to and including just finding something else to do.

Notes

^ Mainspace summary courtesy of yours truly :)

← Previous "Opinion"

In this issue

2 October 2025 (all comments)

News and notes

In the media

Disinformation report

Discuss this story

These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache.

"but over time, the track record buildup forces a reckoning – the arc of the project is long, but it bends against unblockables." One could say the same about ageing or simply losing or finding other interests. That we notice bullies leaving, for whatever reason, doesn't mean there's no point in doing something about bullies, that "the universe" will deal with that problem eventually. Leaving things to natural attrition is not likely to see an overall reduction in bullies, because there's a new one born every minute, and the existence of unchecked bullying self-selects for more to join and dig in (MOS being a fine example).

I agree at an individual level, you have to decide "if I'm the only one making a fuss about X" then you are unlikely to be successful on a community/consensus project. So maybe it is the right choice, individually, to let something go, and leave it for others. But ultimately, someone has to make a stand and risk attack from the bully's friends for doing so. Those with "cooler heads" invariably don't change the world. They may well be useful in discussions, but change needs passion. In my experience, bullies were shoved out or encouraged to leave because someone got very upset one day. They did not have a cool head. It just happened that on that day, their complaint found a receptive audience. -- Colin°^Talk 11:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was a nice opinion piece. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 18:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I say this as someone has such a tendency to engage in protracted discussion over minutia. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 18:13, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I beg your pardon, Leeky and Howard! That's minutiae, not minutia! Incredibly important distinction which I'm prepared to take to ANI! Bishonen | tålk 18:33, 2 October 2025 (UTC).[reply]
My personal way of looking at this is that the best you can do is to try and understand someone else's whys (which is why my userpage has that last paragraph in its introduction). Sometimes, you don't understand someone else's point. But if you can communicate effectively enough to understand why someone else came to the conclusion they did, even if you don't agree with it, then that's a "win". As for bullies, I think enwiki's culture can end up quite victim blamey at times, with the expectation for people to just get over it. It's entirely normal for people to be upset for a very long time if they've been treated unfairly. There are still situations I've been through on wiki that have absolutely devastated me and I've never received an apology for. I don't think there's anything wrong with refusing to find forgiveness in situations where it was objectively wrong for someone to treat you that way. It's always easier for a bully to move on than it is for the victim. Generally, I've actually regretted the times I've walked away from arguments on wiki. There have been a few times I've gotten a bit too invested and probably could have walked away a comment or two earlier, but I'm way more likely to speak my mind in the moment and if I wait I tend to self-censor myself out of fear even if I was going to say something perfectly reasonable. Maybe that only works for people like me that have never insulted another editor, though. My version of getting angry is bluntly defending myself once it's become impossible to AGF instead of being a total pushover. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 01:02, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But they're always surprised and amused to find out that we have a storied history of serious drama and conflict over things that are objectively silly - worth noting though that this occurs in many different fields and communities, i.e. is by no means unique to Wikipedia. To the point that we have several different mainspace articles about such phenomena:

Sayre's law ("Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.")
narcissism of small differences in e.g. political activism (immortalized in Monty_Python's_Life_of_Brian#Political_satire as the bitter schism between the "People's Front of Judea" and the "Judean People's Front" )
bikeshedding/law of triviality in software development etc.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Of course this doesn't negate the advice in this article - if anything, it makes it more universal. But it does cast some doubt on the author's causality claim that such on-wiki conflicts happen because Wikipedians have a higher-than-average rate of traits that correlate heavily with mid- to high-functioning autism. (The linked page doesn't offer any statistical evidence for that "higher-than-average rate" claim btw, and engages in lots of dubious-looking popsci claims about brain "wiring" and autism in general. The only related data I'm aware of is this result from a new survey of editors from German Wikipedia.)

I agree that autism can cause serious behavior problems, and that the Wikipedia community can't accept an autism diagnosis as an excuse for disruptive or toxic editor behavior. But the Signpost/Theleekycauldron should offer better evidence when blaming autistic Wikipedia editors disproportionally for these objectively silly conflicts.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@HaeB: I don't mean to make MEDRS-level claims here about the nature of autism. It's just a useful shorthand for a set of traits that Wikipedia's environment heavily selects for – they are, to varying extents, present throughout the community, whether or not they would strictly constitute an autism diagnosis. Is it unique to Wikipedia? No, of course not, I'm just relaying my experience about what outsiders find interesting about the backrooms. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 17:08, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion piece is well written. The problem that HaeB touches upon is likely a necessary correction. Given that there are more people with obsessive–compulsive personality disorder alone (putting aside comorbidity with ASD), shouldn't we be pointing to that condition instead? Viriditas (talk) 23:58, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Very good piece. I am not sure which, if any, personality disorders or mental health conditions are responsible for excessive combativeness. There does seem to be excessive combativeness here over trivial or silly points. There are also extended arguments based on too strict interpretation of a few guidelines or even policies. A few of these are written in a way that might cause such extended discussions. I am not sure what, if anything, could be done about that. The piece in general is highly accurate and informative. Donner60 (talk) 23:34, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One of the things I have struggled with when I see the "ask an admin" advice is there is not a clear way to do that. The only admins have I have ever specifically asked to do things via their talk page have told me to take it to some other noticeboard. That often results in being told to take it to some other notice board. It gives the impression that many of these admins do not want to solve conflicts between users. Czarking0 (talk) 07:23, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your impression is well founded. See diffusion of responsibility, moral disengagement, compartmentalization (engineering), silo mentality, and bureaucratic inertia. Viriditas (talk) 23:26, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise healthy people can exhibit mental health issues when put into the situation of winner takes all and no clear correct choice. Like "i" or "I" or "The Beatles" or "the Beatles". Wikipedia has minefields like this all over. This essay makes a good point, avoid it where possible. If you must engage, do it in an RfC, state your opinion one time, let the chips fall where they do, then move on don't fight it. -- GreenC 03:38, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OWB#50. Nardog (talk) 13:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My own take on this does not rely on assuming a higher than average instance of autism, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, but more of an acknowledgment that while editing Wikipedia requires one to develop a thick skin, to tolerate different opinions -- not always politely expressed -- yet there is a limit to how thick one can develop one's skin, toleration is a finite amount. I've seen it time & again where a valuable contributor will be active & productive in their work, handle above-average amounts of hostility, yet suffer a complete breakdown over some issue that merits an entry in WP:LAME, & leave. Some trivial issue that otherwise the Wikipedian would shrug off & forget happened becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back. If I'm correct, then contributors should practice taking Wikibreaks on a regular basis. There is no reason to stay involved when the tasks a Wikipedia has set themself has become too heavy: just take a break & walk away for a while. Wikipedia will survive without any one of us going missing. -- llywrch (talk) 04:03, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost is written by editors like you – join in!

Home

About