CreepyCrawly

Wiki-empowerment! Arming honest editors to deal with Wiki-bullys! Let's take our encyclopedia back!

Primer material: WP:OWN; WP:AGF

Methods that article "owners" may employ in their attempts to prevent good-faith editors from participating in the improvement of the Wikipedia collaborative encyclopedia project:

Permission: The "owner" may delete the editor's contributions with a summary note stating that the edit needs to be discussed on the article's talk page before proceeding. Editors should always remember that prior consent is not necessary in order to participate in the project. There is no need to engage in a long, drawn-out bureaucratic process every time an editor has something to add -- if there were, nothing would ever get done except by the "owners"! To the contrary, editors are encouraged to be bold, and they should exercise that privilege liberally and with gusto! Sadly, reverting does occur far more often than policy warrants, by "owners" who are either ignorant of policy or who wantonly disregard it (and some who even game the system). As unfortunate and frustrating as this can be, editors should not engage in a "revert war." This will only lead to their being banned. If an article is "co-owned," an editor may find themselves being reverted more than once, in quick succession, by different names. This may be an attempt to bait the editor into breaking the three revert rule; s/he must take great care not to fall into this trap! Instead, the editor should take it to the talk page, present their reasoning and evidence firmly and confidently, then redo their edit -- but only if they haven't used all their reverts! Note that manually redoing an edit that was previously made is the same as using the revert function.
Consensus: Related to Permission, where the "owner" may revert an editor's contributions with the charge that "consensus has been reached." Firstly, this is never really the case. Consensus can never truly be reached, as there will always be an influx of new editors (much to the chagrin of the "owners"!). While it is true that consensus is desired and striven for, it is not an inviolable wall between editor and article, as much as the "owners" wish that it was. Secondly, Wikipedia is not a democracy! Editors should never accept the argument that a collective majority has higher editing privileges than a dissenting minority, or that the minority is only allowed to make changes that the majority agrees with. This argument not only violates policy, it restricts an individual's ability to participate in a meaningful way and it inhibits progress. The privilege of editing the Wikipedia collaborative encyclopedia project is held equally by all editors, and that privilege is weighted individually. Editors should contribute to an article according to their own judgment, based on what they believe is best for that article -- no more, no less. Note that straw polls are occasionally employed as a means to test for current consensus, but such polls or surveys may actually impede the progress of an article rather than help it along. When a poll conflicts with what an editor believes in good faith to be the right decision, s/he should be bold, and should feel confident in the knowledge that polls are nothing more than helpful tools, and are non-binding.
Intimidation: The "owner" may threaten to report an editor who continues to make edits that the "owner" does not like. They might say that either they are going to report the editor for violating a nonexistent policy, hoping that the s/he does not check to see if the policy actually exists, or they might claim that the editor is being disruptive. Assuming the editor has not engaged in flagrant vandalism, flaming, or some other clear policy violation, "disruptive" will usually mean that the editor has made changes that the "owner" has not "authorized." Editors should never give in to intimidation; more often than not the threats will be empty, as the "owner" does not want to get in trouble for filing an unwarranted and frivolous report. Fortunately, administrative collusion is relatively rare, due to the risk of a dirty administrator being stripped of power. If a report is filed, good-faith editors have nothing to fear, so long as they have taken care to always remain civil. Remember: "owners" will be on constant alert for ways to eliminate editors from "their" articles; editors should never provide ammunition to the "owners," but should force them to cook up a flimsy excuse, if they be so bold, and to risk their own reputation and status in doing so. Also note that intimidation may be cleverly veiled in a passive-aggressive display of benevolence, where the "owner" expresses concern that the editor might end up banned if they continue editing, and offers a friendly suggestion to move along. Good-faith editors may safely ignore this.
Tattling: The follow-through on Intimidation, where the "owner" may actually go to an administrator, although perhaps on an unofficial basis at first, and make false claims about an editor's behavior, hoping that the administrator will not check the veracity of the claim and will simply ban the editor on the "owner's" word. One claim that may be used is that the editor is not discussing his or her edits, hoping that the administrator will not check the discussion page, and knowing that there is a nearly universal ignorance regarding the necessity for Permission and Consensus. Words like "disruptive" may be freely tossed around, in an attempt to play on the emotions of the administrator (certain words have no objective meaning, but they sound bad -- one editor's improvements are another editor's disruptions). Beware! The odds of this shameful tactic succeeding are higher when there are multiple complainants; this is why "owners" like to travel in packs and scratch each other's backs, and why editors must always strive to remain civil! Make the "owners" resort to all manner of treachery in their attempts to squelch participation. Also be aware that the numbers game works the other way around; if an "owner" tattles to enough administrators, s/he will inevitably find a sympathetic one, or just a tired and sloppy one. Leave a exemplary "paper trail," it will work in your favor when cleaning up the mess!
Hypocrisy: Example: a good-faith editor adds new information to an article, which is then reverted by an "owner." Seeing no justifiable reason for the revert either in the summary or the talk page, the editor reverts the revert. The "owner" reciprocates in kind, then warns the editor to stop "edit warring." What should be readily apparent here is that if the good-faith editor is "edit warring," then so is the "owner." The problem comes when the "owner" releases the hounds, or perhaps even logs in with a sock puppet, in which case the honest, policy-abiding, single-account editor is at a disadvantage (as in real life, the good guys are often disarmed, while the bad guys ignore the laws). Hypocrisy is closely associated with Intimidation, as it will invariably lead to threats of administrative intervention. Editors need not despair if they did not instigate the tit-for-tat reverting, as any seasoned administrator that is called to the scene should see through this childish tactic quite easily.
Vandalism: The "owner" may resort to outright lying, by stating in their edit summary that they are deleting "vandalism" when they remove an edit that they do not like. Vandalism is used here only as the most common example, but any edit summary that lies about the reasoning behind a revert has the same purpose: to convince others that the revert is just ordinary run-of-the-mill maintenance work and not worth looking into. Editors who are abused in this manner should revert the revert, but keep track of the count! Sadly, this is among the most commonly abused tactics, and with roving packs of "co-owners" it can be quite tedious to deal with for the lone scrupulous editor. Remain calm, come back another day, then get back to the business of building a better encyclopedia! And never forget that a good-faith editor will always trump an abusive "owner" in the end!
Obsession: Some "owners" take their participation in the Wikipedia project to unhealthy extremes. These pitiable creatures cannot suffer "their" articles to be altered for even a moment, so they will spend an inordinate amount of time repeatedly clicking their "watchlist" to make sure that no unsuspecting editors tread on "their" turf. Most "owners" suffer from this condition to varying degrees, but it is worth noting that there will be certain articles that are almost literally uneditable due to extreme Wiki-obsession. Good-faith editors should not fear these "owners," but should pity them, and if so inclined should make a concerted effort to improve upon "their" articles, with hope that as a side benefit the "hyper-owners" will become exhausted and collapse into much-needed slumber.
Interrogation: This tactic may be employed as a component of any number of Wiki-bullying strategies. An "owner," or perhaps even a dirty administrator, will often interrogate an unsuspecting good-faith editor, assailing him or her with a barrage of questions in an attempt to goad them into saying something incriminating, or otherwise violating policy. Informed editors are safe editors, so always stay abreast of the most recent policies! And remember: just as the motorist is not required to divulge irrelevant personal information to a police officer who pulls them over for speeding, so too are editors under no obligation to play twenty questions with -- or even speak to -- any other Wikipedian. Editors may safely ignore any messages posted on their user pages, but may wish to acknowledge administrative alerts and good-faith recommendations.
Stability: A successful "owner" is one who has managed to create the illusion that "their" article is finally "stable" and requires no further editing. Worse yet, if any edits were to be made, they would cause it to become dangerously "destabilized." This means that all potential editors become de facto enemies of the article, forcing its "owner" to violate the good-faith policy. Stability is essentially a radicalized form of Permission. The assumption being pushed here is that a dead and stagnant article is better than a living and dynamic one -- as if words written in stone were more trustworthy than those written in sand. When performing their guard duties, the "owners" of "stable" articles will display Hypocrisy without ever acknowledging that in doing so they are also "destabilizing" "their" article. If they would leave the good-faith editor's contributions alone, then the article would immediately become "stable" again. They may in fact not even recognize this absurd contradiction in the midst of their zeal. "Owners" of "stable" articles will also display hyper-vigilant Obsession and make liberal claims of Vandalism in order to combat good-faith participation in the Wikipedia project. Indeed, all the aforementioned tactics will be employed in whatever manner necessary to protect the "owner's" time investment. They cannot backslide now, if they ever hope to play...
The "Featured Article" Card: Stability taken to its logical end, the ultimate goal of every "owner" is "Featured Article" status, denoted by a gold star ( ) in the upper right corner (just like Kindergarten!). Wise editors will brace themselves for a level of nurturing and overprotectiveness that will not be seen in "lesser" articles. There are two variations in the way this card is played. Under the first variation, the "owner" states that because the article is a Featured Article, the editor is not allowed to make any changes to it without clearing them through said "ownership." This is Permission on steroids, where not even grammatical errors may be fixed without reaching Consensus. The presumption here is that there are special editing rules to follow if an article has achieved this pride of place, which of course there are not. Under the second variation, the "owner" uses "their" gold star as an appeal to popularity, by telling the editor that the article will lose its pride of place if s/he makes any edits. The "owner" hopes that the good-faith editor cares more about a gold star than an improved article, and that s/he will not see through the fallaciousness of the argument to begin with. Well-intentioned editors may of course edit any article they wish, at any time, regardless of the state of the article, and should disregard all attempts to scare them away from this "hallowed ground."

Epilogue: In the end, all the above tactics are employed with one goal in mind -- "ownership." The "owner" does not want to engage you in a reasoned argument. The "owner" does not want to discuss anything at all with you. The "owner" wants you to just go away. S/he doesn't want to be forced to cite actually-existing policies in the proper context, or to convince you why your edit is detrimental to "their" article. Perhaps it is because they are afraid that you, the honest editor, will disagree. And if enough good-faith, policy-abiding editors were to begin standing up to the Wiki-bullying, the "owners" would lose their power and simply vanish, leaving only a memory in some old diffs. Because, after all, Wikipedia is the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit." And that's what the "owners" don't like about it.

Addendum: You may be thinking that it is a violation of the good-faith policy to presume that an "owner" is malicious. You would be correct in so thinking. But editors can, and in the opinion of this editor, should ignore that policy in the case of "owners." WP:AGF is consistently used as a weapon to silence editors; if an "owner" can claim to be acting in good faith, no matter how badly s/he misbehaves, then the policy loses all useful meaning. It is the duty of the honorable editor to oppose the tyranny of "ownership," for the sake of future generations of Wikipedians.

Now get out there and get editing, and BE BOLD!

(Credit for the above goes to Operation Spooner, who wrote the original version, which I have edited.)