Wikipedia talk:Tendentious editing

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Threatening to quit Wikipedia

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This section seems unrelated to tendentious editing. Should this be removed? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:48, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree to this removal – the section does not seem to be relevant to tendentious editing. Sweet6970 (talk) 18:30, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please see Wikipedia talk:Tendentious editing/Archive 3, where I raised a similar issue. Personally, I would like to remove it, too, but in the past there were other editors who felt otherwise. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:02, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would also like to remove it, and I'd like even more to remove the section "'Banning' otherwise constructive editors from your talk page". Unfortunately this essay turned into "list of things editors do which we don't like", which is not a good fit to the title. Zerotalk 10:22, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would weakly oppose the removals as behavior that tends to frustrate proper editorial processes and discussions. Indeed, we don't like these behaviors for good reason IMO. I do agree that they're only tendentious in the vaguest sense, but I'm not sure we want to substitute for something like pathological, insidious, or deleterious—those describe effects, not really mindsets. Embattled (in the sense of "poised to engage in conflict") is the closest I can think of. Remsense ‥ 论 10:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the section is probably important to note, and should be kept "somewhere", but I think the point may be well-taken that it's possible that maybe this page isn't the best "somewhere" for it to be. Does anyone have any suggestions for a similarly well-watched page where these sections might be more appropriately placed? - jc37 15:45, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:YANI? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:11, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting page. But while I could see linking to it there, I don't think that's quite what we're looking for here.
Is there a page discussing tendentious editing on discussion pages? - jc37 16:20, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Threatening to quit Wikipedia is simply in no way tendentious. I propose moving the section to WP:YANI. It may not be the perfect place for it but it's at least a much better place than here. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it ever is tendentious, it's a very small proportion of the time. Mostly, it's just editors who have sincerely become fed up at the time that they say it. To then accuse someone of being tendentious, disruptive, or just plain not doing the right thing, is punching down, bordering on cruel, bordering on gravedancing. YANI seems like a reasonable new home for it, but otherwise, I'd prefer to simply delete it altogether. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your point. However, that's not what the section is about, as Andre notes below, hence why it presumably is here.
What I was trying to get at above, is that I think we could focus "tendentious editing" on this page to be more about editing articles, than about edits which contribute to a discussion page. Or maybe even refactor this page to make clear what is being talked about.
As an aside, all of this reminds me of MeatBall:GoodBye. - jc37 20:56, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not seeing how what I described is anything other than a significant part of what the section is about. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, after a fashion, but, you seem focused on the goodbye of people who are merely leaving and less on those who are saying it for other reasons. Understandable. I think we all wish we could AGF about all of this. But unfortunately experience has shown us otherwise on this all too often.
In general, people leave a goodbye message for a reason. If they were merely leaving, they would simply do that. If they want to let their online friends know, there are ways to do that without the big "goodbye" message. Generally the statement "I'm leaving" after some dispute is an emotional statement of some sort or other, typically designed to elicit an emotional response of some sort or other.
Anyway, I don't strongly disagree that another location might be better, but it should be noted "somewhere", and not merely on an essay that is less viewed than this page is. I think there's a middle ground to be found here. (And seeing people edit warring over it, while it's being discussed, on a page called "tendentious editing", could be seen as a bit ironic, I think.)
Anyway, I'm happy to engage and talk this out (else I would not have commented here in the first place : ) - jc37 05:47, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And I hope restoring the removed portion isn't considered edit warring, as it was long-standing material that was boldly removed and I have reverted that to discuss it. Andre🚐 06:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"I hope restoring the removed portion isn't considered edit warring" Then you should probably self-revert given that it is 3-1 in favour of removal and you've not given a good reason it should remain. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:26, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think so. It appears that Remsense and jc37 also have a nuanced view on the removals. Andre🚐 18:02, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to jc37, I appreciate your clarifying that you see a distinction between editors "who are merely leaving" and editors "who are saying it for other reasons". But I see that as a false distinction. Editors who are "just leaving" because there are other things going on in their real lives and they have lost interest in editing, are doing so for different reasons than editors who are "just leaving" because they are deeply upset over something that has happened and their feelings were badly hurt. Having at one time been an example of the latter (and still, years later, feeling a bit sensitive about it, although I seriously doubt that anyone considers me to be a "tendentious" member of the community), I feel very strongly that this is not something that belongs on this page. I hear you, that there have been other people who never really intended to leave, and who use the threat of leaving as a sort of peacock-like strutting, in hopes of drama-mongering some emotional blackmail to get whatever they want, and that such conduct can, in fact, be tendentious. I suspect that there may have been some conspicuous examples of that in Wikipedia's early days. But I don't think it's been particularly common in recent years, and nowadays the community understands things like the "ANI flu" or similar acts at AE or in ArbCom cases. In my experience, good-faith "retirements", even when short-lived, are much more common than intentional manipulation, and I see only harm in lumping the infrequent bad-faith behaviors together with the good-faith ones.
Thinking about this gives me an idea (not yet fleshed out). Perhaps we should revise the focus, from "threatening to quit", to "making it about you". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:41, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think "AN flu" is a bit different than this. Instead of the threat to leave (seemingly in order to elicit a response), it's the vanishing act in the hopes that the issue will go away on its own.
And I don't think it's gone. For example, we even still see it occasionally when admins drop their tools (or have them removed).
I do agree that this could be a broader topic than merely TE. But I think it's something of a similar vein to WP:SPIDER. - jc37 05:56, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree with you who say that "Threatening to quit" be removed from tendentious editing. What happens now? who removes it? Can someone now just go ahead and remove it from the list? thank you I&I22 (talk) 13:49, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that dramatically retiring or threatening to quit or putting an aggrieved retired template on one's page is indeed a form of drama-mongering and weaponizing self-pity. I am not thinking of any specific recent occurrence of this. So this section might be a little outdated because this type of grandstanding behavior is less common than it once was. However, I do think that it fits with a pattern of concern trolling and should be discouraged. This page is a fairly well-accepted page, one even used by arbcom and the like in case decisions, so probably any change to this page should be well-publicized as a centralized discussion and not changed on the say-so of a few editors. Andre🚐 20:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the section describes a disruptive behaviour, but it doesn't belong here since it not "editing that is partisan, biased, skewed, and does not maintain an editorially neutral point of view." IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That seems a little pedantic to me - tendentiousness can be a behavior on discussion pages, and I don't see that at least historically, a separation was observed that tendentiousness is limited to mainspace edits and not discussion topics. Nor was it strictly limited to partisanship per se. It seems that many of the components of this syndrome of behavior take place on talk. At the very least, if we remove these sections they should find another place to live. (Not responding to the immediately above section also, since it seems repetitious.) Andre🚐 23:16, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a logical response to what I said. I didn't mention talk pages or mainspace edits. You need to respond in the above section since you need to give a reason for your revert. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:31, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not pedantic to say that an essay about tendentious editing should stick to talking about tendentious editing, and not become an essay about all kinds of disruptive editing. And surely threatening to leave Wikipedia is the easiest kind of disruptive editing to deal with – just ignore the threat, and the editor will leave or not leave. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:43, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I said in the previous discussion, this essay describes tendentious editing as biased editing, and to me the connotation on Wikipedia is that the editor ignores other viewpoints as long as they are personally unconvinced. I don't feel that making threats to stop editing necessarily correlates to biased editing, although it is certainly not a good approach. There is a lot of description of poor behaviour that has been added to this essay over the years that I personally don't think is a good fit for the essay's topic. I do think in theory it's a good idea to move the content elsewhere to avoid editors using this essay as a link target for behaviour unrelated to tendentiousness, because that just encourages a meta-dispute to break out in the middle of a dispute. I appreciate, though, that this type of cleanup is difficult to achieve, as typically there aren't enough people willing to engage in restructuring discussions until a consensus can be worked out. isaacl (talk) 06:26, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I split the discussion-related sections to a different subsection of the page. I think that might help us see what we're talking about, and whether we do need to split such sections from this essay to a different essay.
Looking them over, I was surprised to see that there's actually more of them, than the non-discussion-page ones. - jc37 17:53, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the title and introduction to the section "Characteristics of problem editors" is part of the problem. I feel editors are lumping a lot of problematic behaviours under the section, without considering the sentence in the lead section, "This essay is about how to recognise [tendentious] editing, how to avoid it, and how not to be accused of it." isaacl (talk) 18:19, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Using the word "problem", just makes it unnecessarily adversarial, I think. - jc37 18:31, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I replaced "problem editors" with the more neutral (to this page) "tendentious editing". I hope that helps. - jc37 18:34, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I think that's a helpful initial step. However we need to follow through and find appropriate homes (if desired) for the descriptions that aren't related to biased editing, particularly when the editor is choosing to ignore other viewpoints based on being personally unconvinced. isaacl (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. I think these fall under the examples listed under "Common tendentious behaviors" at the top of the page. - jc37 05:56, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand. Previously you said you agreed when I said I thought a lot of problematic behaviours were being put under the section without considering if they were tendentious editing.
I think if editors are going to use the term "tendentious", it should have a narrower scope than just "uncollaborative" or "combative". Going through the list of characteristics:
  • I think adding inadequate, ambiguous, or not sufficiently explicit citations is poor behaviour, but not a defining characteristic of tendentious behaviour. Deleting the pertinent cited additions of others comes closer, depending on context, such as if there is already an agreed-upon consensus for the inclusion of the content. I think the real tendentious part is disputing the reliability of apparently good sources.
  • Assigning undue importance to a single aspect of a subject is biased editing, but I think it becomes tendentious when the editor only accepts the outcome of discussion if it meets their own personal standard.
  • As previously discussed, I don't think threatening to quit Wikipedia is tendentious.
  • While I agree with the advice that pointing out tendentious editing may not be helpful, I don't agree that it's a significant characteristic of being a tendentious editor. I think it's a categorization at least as likely to be used by those dealing with a tendentious editor.
  • I think asking for the benefit of the doubt (directly or indirectly) is a common approach to try to find areas of agreement. I understand why, given the Wikipedia culture, saying "please assume good faith" may generate defensiveness. But when a tendentious editor accuses you of editing out of malice, it's typical to try to reduce the amount of combativeness by describing your reasoning and how you've listened to what the other editor has been saying, even if you still disagree with their viewpoint.
Alternatively, if editors would rather just combine all combative behaviours in one list, this page could be renamed to something like "Combative editing". (Pointing out combative editing or asking for the benefit of the doubt would still not necessarily be indications of combative editing.) isaacl (talk) 16:34, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the door(knob) reference. I think its dismissive attitude is a bit contrary to the text that follows it. I also deprecated the related shortcut as well. If anyone has any concerns on this, I'll happily discuss. But I think this removal should be pretty uncontroversial, especially considering the discussion above. - jc37 19:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jc37: Was this supposed to go above in § Threatening to quit Wikipedia? I don't really have an opinion on removing the quote and changing the shortcut to GOODBYE, but I came to this discussion because people's comments on Committee pages were changed. I'm not sure that 'deprecation' of a shortcut should involve changing others' comments as well. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you.
And I didn't change anyone's comments, I merely disambiguated a redirect. It's housekeeping that is not uncommon when re-targeting a redirect. Please feel free to revert on the arbcam page if there is some rule there that I may have unintentionally crossed. - jc37 20:45, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that there is an explicit rule against doing so on Committee pages, but just a general principle against editing others' comments. I guess the issue here is that DOORKNOB didn't get retargeted anywhere, so links to DOORKNOB shouldn't be changed, even if we may not like them (though changing the shortcut on this page is fine, of course). Sdrqaz (talk) 20:49, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about deleting it so that it could be used for another page, but in the end, I just left it in place, as, since it's now orphaned, it's available for use should someone decide to. - jc37 20:57, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Generally speaking, I feel that decisions on orphaning or deleting redirects should come at RfD (unless they come under CSD), not from a local consensus or decisions by single editors. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:12, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that, but WP:BOLD happens.
There were very few links to fix, so the bot wasn't needed. - jc37 21:18, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive reliance on a single source

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Similar to the current assigning undue importance to a single aspect of a subject criteria, I feel that another possible indication of tendentious editing is when an editor assigns clearly undue weight to a single source (especially a WP:BIASED one, and especially in controversial topic areas.) Controversial topics tend to have many sources covering them; excessive reliance on one source may indicate that someone is editing tendentiously in support of the position taken by that source. This could include attempting to give a source undue weight in a particular article, or insisting that one source must be included when there's little other coverage, or citing the same source over and over, but it could also include eg. constantly attempting to introduce a source across multiple articles and discussions, in a way that generally treats it as more significant and authoritative than due weight can justify. Obviously there's a caveat in that some sources are legitimately high-profile and intrinsically significant, but even then, for important stuff, more than one source should exist; fixation on one source ought to be a red flag for tendentious editing. --Aquillion (talk) 18:08, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I discussed previously, I think assigning undue importance to a single aspect of a subject is biased editing, but not tendentious in itself. I think it only becomes tendentious when the editor only accepts the outcome of discussion if it meets their own personal standard. I feel similarly about excessive reliance on a single source: I don't think it's tendentious in itself. Additionally, I think whether or not the use of a single source is excessive depends greatly on the specific circumstances. isaacl (talk) 03:33, 3 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rethinking Wikipedia:Tendentious editing

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I am responding to this statement in the article on Tendentious editing: "Wikipedia doesn't lead; we follow. "

I believe that these guiding principles may need to be discussed and re-thought out or reworded.

With the advent and proliferation of AI technologies, Wikipedia has moved into the forefront as a cultural leader/influencer.

Wikipedia is no longer a behind-the-scenes follower. Wikipedia articles directly feed the chatgpt etc. apps. The fact that funds and conferences and grants exist in Wikipedia suggests that Wikipedia is influencing culture en masse.

I well understand the pov re: only providing reliable source citations and remaining as neutral and unpromotional as possible. However, real neutrality is impossible andwith that we must choose what we support. The time is now.

it is important to be self-aware of the thoughts and povs motivating the texts and articles.

It is important to assess what, who is prioiritised.

It is important to have protocols in place to support democracy, free neutral expression and progressive humane aka emotionally mature EDI practices (equity diversity inclusion accssibility +).

I appreciate that Wikipedia is a grassroots project that has blossomed into a galactic universe with many contributors directing the resource, maintaining Wikipedia's cultural relevance and philosophical direction. Many of the contributors are now corporate institutions.

I do not know if there is any point or benefit in writing these thoughts out?

However, I have encountered a few classic glitches while learning about and participating in Wikipedia that are ringing my alarm bells.

Under Neutrality

Whitewashing - this term is problematic and the Wikipedia definition is incomplete

So much more to write and think out and don't want to waste time soapboxing!

Thank you @Narutolovehinata5 for sharing this resource with me, much appreciated.

I&I22 (talk) 13:00, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @GoldRomean! I am here :)
Still thinking about accountability and " practices of neutrality" in Wikipedia....hmmmmm...
I welcome any thoughts that you may have although I don't know if I have specific questions.
Perhaps I would like to see Wikipedia develop protocols to hold editors to be more accountable and specific in stating why they refuse things. I am thinking about articles and publishing and the often wildly subjective opinions and opinion-led discussions that I have sometimes engaged in.
Perhaps I would like to better understand Wikipedia hierarchies and power structures.
Thank you I&I22 (talk) 13:15, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations
By Wikimedia Foundation•11 August 2025
"UPDATE: On Monday, 11 August, the High Court of Justice dismissed the Wikimedia Foundation’s challenge to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) Categorisation Regulations. While the decision does not provide the immediate legal protections for Wikipedia that we hoped for, the Court’s ruling emphasized the responsibility of Ofcom and the UK government to ensure Wikipedia is protected as the OSA is implemented.
The judge recognized the “significant value” of Wikipedia, its safety for users, as well as the damages that wrongly-assigned OSA categorisations and duties could have on the human rights of Wikipedia’s volunteer contributors. The Court stressed that this ruling “does not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia’s operations”,  and indicated they could face legal repercussions if they fail to protect Wikipedia and the rights of its users. In order to achieve that outcome, he suggested that Ofcom may need to find a particularly flexible interpretation of the rules in question, or that the rules themselves may need amendment in Parliament.
“The Court has an opportunity in this case to set a global precedent for protecting public interest projects online,” said Stephen LaPorte, General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation. “Wikipedia is the backbone of knowledge on the internet. It’s the only top-ten website operated by a non-profit and one of the highest-quality datasets used in training Large Language Models (LLMs). We trust the Court will protect Wikipedia—a vital encyclopedic resource—from rules crafted for the internet’s riskiest commercial sites and, in doing so, safeguard the open internet for everyone”.
...
"Information on Wikipedia is written and curated by a global community of nearly 260,000 volunteer contributors. These volunteers set and enforce policies to ensure that information on the platform is fact-based, neutral, and attributed to reliable sources. Over the last 25 years, this human-centered content moderation model has established Wikipedia as an unparalleled resource for reliable information in over 300 languages; its 65 million articles are viewed more than 15 billion times per month worldwide."
Excerpts from today's article, related tangents... I&I22 (talk) 13:30, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, I've heard of this... not good. Regarding power structures, they shouldn't exist, but they probably do. Maybe m:Wikimedia power structure is of interest? GoldRomean (talk) 19:06, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of a proposal to revise this page, which is what this talk page is for (as opposed to what is discouraged in WP:NOTFORUM), I'm finding this post kind of tl;dr, but I think the basic premise misses the point of what this page is about. It's true that AI supercharges the effect of Wikipedia as an input used by LLMs, but that doesn't mean that, when editors here write content, we should "lead" public opinion instead of just reporting it. We should instead adhere to our policies, without needing to revise this page, and whatever reuse of our content is made by LLMs, is the responsibility of whoever runs the LLMs, not us. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Failure to agree with me is not tendentious

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Butlerblog said something at ANI yesterday that I think could be developed into one or two appropriate sentences for this page: arriving at an impasse [is not] behavioral...Just because both sides arrive at "all-or-none" positions does not make one side of that position tendentious while the other side is holy.

This was prompted by a long-term disagreement about the scope of our article on Floppy disk – hardly a hot-button issue, but with the same editors disagreeing on the same point for years, one of them decided that the problem was "tendentious editing" (always by the other editor, of course).

The basic concept that I'd like to introduce is this: Even if I'm right, even if I've explained it to you a dozen times, even if I'm frustrated with you, even if I believe all the sources are on my side, even if it's upsetting to me to see you persist in such obvious wrongthink, your "refusal" to agree with me is not WP:TE.

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(But refusing to agree with me is TE. Just kidding.) I'm inclined to be very cautious about adding anything that says that X is not TE, because that can be an open door for TE users to claim that they are doing nothing wrong. Perhaps we can turn it around, to something along the lines of accusing someone of disruption simply because they disagree with you, even after you have tried to explain it to them, is TE. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Disagreeing with an editor, or even disagreeing with consensus, is not inherently tendentious; however, editing articles against consensus can be"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's taking it in some different directions than what you proposed at first. There's currently a textbook example of WP:1AM going very tendentious (to the point of an indef) all up and down Talk:Acupuncture. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:18, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's non-collaborative to edit against consensus, and an admin can block for that behaviour, regardless of whether or not we choose to label it as "tendentious". So I'm not sure how useful it is to try to refine the definition of tendentious to cover this case. (Personally, I think whether or not editing against consensus is tendentious depends on circumstances, but in the end it's just semantics.) isaacl (talk) 00:42, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I've said previously, I think there is a connotation that an editor is being tendentious when they ignore other viewpoints if they are not personally convinced. (I've previously discussed some of the content on the page that I don't think fits.) I agree that just disagreeing isn't tendentious. But in my opinion, trying to stop others from reaching consensus because you aren't personally convinced is tendentious behaviour. isaacl (talk) 00:36, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]