User:Dlthewave/Signpost Opinion Firearms

"WP: Firearms members coordinated their opposition to the inclusion of any mass-shooting coverage, instead limiting information to the technical details of the weapon."

—Newsweek 7 March 2018

Weapons used in mass shootings often make headlines, and readers flock to Wikipedia to learn more about them. Despite this interest, our articles about guns did not include negative information such as "criminal use" for many years due to an extremely restrictive WikiProject Firearms advice page that project members enforced as policy. Editors resisted change by corralling all discussion to the project page, citing "long-standing consensus" as if it were infallible and, when concerns were raised at community venues, dismissing the project advice as a harmless, unenforceable essay. The effort stretches back to 2007 and was finally curtailed in 2018 when an RfC established community consensus to decide mass shooting coverage on a case-by-case basis.

"Through countless exhausting debates, this small group of pro-gun Wikipedia editors – linked together through Wikipedia’s Firearms project (or “WikiProject: Firearms,” mentioned below) – has managed to control almost completely the discourse around the rifle, predominantly by making sure any potentially negative details about it be excluded from the original Colt AR-15 article."

—Haaretz, 18 March 2018

While editing US current events articles in early 2018, I became curious about "The AR-15", a weapon that had received extensive media coverage for its prevalence in shootings in the United States. I was surprised to find that our AR-15 article, which at the time was titled with the "Modern sporting rifle" euphemism, did not make any mention of mass shootings. As I dug deeper, I found talk page archives filled with comments from editors similarly surprised by the lack of "criminal use" coverage across numerous firearms articles. These concerns were almost always rebutted by a small group of WikiProject Firearms members who made accusations of POV-pushing and cited the "WP:GUNS guideline". Editors who challenged the validity of this were directed to the WikiProject Firearms talk page, where any proposal to change the Criminal Use advice was quickly shot down by project members.

A typical example occurred when an editor tried to add mentions of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to Bushmaster Firearms International: "Sorry, that dog won't hunt. WP:GUNS#Criminal use is quite clear on this issue; this incident, unfortunate as it was, does not meet the criteria for inclusion."

A 2011 challenge to the Criminal Use advice at Village Pump received a fair number of responses pointing out that WP:GUNS is non-binding, and one editor helpfully added an "Essay" template to the advice page. Paradoxically, the advisory status of the page gave it a certain level of immunity: uninvolved editors felt that the advice was not problematic because it was clearly labelled as "just a recommendation." This consensus was ignored by project members who continued their strict enforcement.

In February 2018, I opened an RfC at Village Pump (Policy) which proved to be a turning point: "Should articles about firearms include information about mass shootings?" The discussion was well-attended and reached clear consensus to decide inclusion of criminal use on a case-by-case basis.

Despite strong resistance at WikiProject Firearms, I made the following changes to the Criminal Use advice based on the outcome of the RfC (bold for additions, strikethrough for removals):

Criminal use

In order for criminal use to be notable enough for inclusion in the article on the gun used, it ~~must~~ should meet some criteria. For instance, legislation being passed as a result of the gun's usage (ex. ban on mail-order of firearms after use of the Carcano in JFK's assassination) or if its notoriety is greatly increased (ex. the Intratec TEC-DC9 became infamous as a direct result of Columbine). This is determined on a case-by-case basis in accordance with WP:WEIGHT. As per WP:UNDUE, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." ~~Therefore, the addition of said information should be limited to a simple link in the "See also" section.~~ (April 2018 version)

"But on Wikipedia, as in the real world, the users with the deepest technical knowledge of firearms are also the most fervent gun owners and the most hostile to gun control. For critics, that’s led to a persistent pro-gun bias on the web’s leading source of neutral information at a time when the gun control debate is more heated than ever."

—The Verge, 6 March 2018

Although the changes seem fairly minor, they made the project advice far less prescriptive. Combined with the outcome of the RfC, this means that any editor who tries to enforce a blanket ban on Criminal Use inclusion is acting against community consensus and is subject to Discretionary Sanctions under the Gun Control ARBCOM case. Recent article-level discussions have focused on the relationship between the weapon and the crime: There is often consensus for inclusion when the weapon's specific characteristics have received extensive media coverage, such as AR-15 style rifle, while passing mentions usually do not merit inclusion. However, criminal use is often held to a higher standard than other sections of the article: At Smith & Wesson M&P15, there have been numerous discussions about criminal use and current consensus is to exclude this content, while there seems to be little concern that the Official Users section (a list of police departments and agencies that use the weapon) is similarly sourced and arguably trivial.

Although the situation has improved significantly over the past year, our normal processes failed to swiftly address the disruption at WikiProject Firearms and allowed it to continue for years even after it was brought to the attention of the community through noticeboards and RfCs. This phenomenon can happen anywhere on Wikipedia, particularly when a small group of editors stakes claim to a relatively obscure topic that attracts little outside attention. There are a few ways to ensure that these articles are written to reflect broader community consensus:

Talk page conduct matters. Consensus determines article content and talk pages are where consensus is built. Problematic article-space edits often trigger admin action by crossing a hard line such as 3RR, but false consensus achieved through filibustering and misapplication of policy tends to receive far less scrutiny even though it has the same effect. Walls of text and personal attacks are not part of our consensus-building process; they are behavioral issues which should be addressed promptly.

Project space content matters. Concerns about Wikiproject Firearms guidance were often dismissed because it was "just an essay" with no formal standing. The fact is that advice which goes against our policies and guidelines does not serve a valid purpose and should not be tolerated. A project's interpretation of a guideline should reflect community consensus, not prescribe it, and project pages should never be used to host the opinions of project participants.

Consensus should not be based on a majority vote. When closing a discussion, editors almost always announce that it is not a vote before proceeding to count up the !votes and declare the side with the most !votes the winner. In Project space, project members can easily win the vote due to higher turnout. We need to do a better job of assessing policy-based arguments even if they come from the "losing" side. In the few cases where a closer actually evaluated the arguments made in a criminal use discussion, it turned out that many of the !votes on the majority "do not include" side were counter to policy.

Diversity is important. Often, the folks who are the most interested in and knowledgeable about a topic are also be the ones who push a certain POV. Firearms articles in particular are full of descriptions and statistics that are boring and bewildering to the average editor, and the few outsiders who dared to dip their toes in the water were often asked not to edit in this area due to their lack of specialized knowledge. However, experienced editors can usually recognize and call out policy and guideline violations in any area without having an in-depth knowledge of the topic. Long-term ownership behavior should have been obvious to anyone who gave these articles more than a cursory look.