This essay is in development.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors.

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Field Notes on Wikipedia[edit]

A collection of observations on how Wikipedia, as a system, behaves. This is my empirical judgment of how Wikipedia works. It's not official. Furthermore, when I say "empirical," I'm explicitly not saying that Wikipedia should or should not work like this--only that it does work like this.

World's Most Frequently Ignored Good Advice, Quarter-Finalist, Pro-Am Heavyweight Division[edit]

If your goal is edit Wikipedia in such a way that your proposed changes are accepted, you shouldn't adopt an approach that's intrinsically self-defeating. For example:

Calling other people names just plain doesn't work. It just makes people ignore you. "Fascism," in particular, is a word that gets tossed around a lot.
Complaining about other people's behavior also doesn't work. As in, quite literally, never. If you've been blocked, that means that some other Wikipedia users took a look at your own personal behavior and judged it disruptive. Arguing about other people's behavior doesn't change anybody's mind about your behavior.
It doesn't matter how correct, useful, well-sourced, insightful, etc. your content is. Once you start acting disruptively, the people who have the power to permit you to add or change content aren't looking at any of that stuff. They're only looking at your behavior.
The reason this is so is that Wikipedia is a collaborative project. If people feel that you're difficult to collaborate with, then your best course of action starts with not giving them any further reason to think so.

An analogy[edit]

Let us imagine that you have walked into a bank. You climb on top of the nearest desk, and scream:

GIVE ME A THOUSAND DOLLARS! I DEMAND MONEY! I HAVE A RIGHT TO A THOUSAND DOLLARS! IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME MY THOUSAND DOLLARS YOU ARE FASCISTS! YOU GAVE RALPH A THOUSAND DOLLARS SO YOU MUST GIVE ME A THOUSAND DOLLARS! PEOPLE WILL SUFFER IF I DON'T GET MY MONEY!

. . . and so on.

Under these circumstances, you will not get money. You will get escorted out of the bank (if you're lucky) or arrested (if you're not).

This is true even if it is your own bank, where you have an account in good standing with ten thousand dollars in it. In other words, even if you really do have a right to the thousand dollars, this is not an effective way to get it.

Food for thought.