Kurt Vonnegut: "There's only one rule that I know of, babies—'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "
Earlier this week, I stumbled upon an obituary for a Wikipedia editor I knew.
I found it in the course of searching for Wikipedia-related news stories for The Signpost. I’m surprised I hadn’t found it earlier, when the obituary was new. It was an editor I had a number of congenial interactions with on the encyclopedia and via email. We thought quite highly of one another, but I couldn’t call him a friend—after all, I barely knew him.
His obituary told me more than I ever knew when he was alive. I hadn’t known he had been an actor. Not that he was a particularly successful one, but he has a respectable IMDB page with a dozen credits, including bit parts on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I hadn’t known that he escaped being a victim of 9/11—where four of his co-workers died in the north tower—by being out of town for a job interview. I hadn’t known that we had a number of common interests outside of Wikipedia. We might have gotten along famously.
And I also hadn’t known that he and his family thought highly enough of his work on Wikipedia to include it and his user name in his obituary.
This surprise was a stark reminder to me on this Easter weekend that the other people we interact with on the encyclopedia are all actual people, with their own lives and feelings, and not just lines of text and pseudonyms. We know that intellectually, of course, but we often don’t act like we remember it.
Many of us, especially those of us who are active in the community interactions and institutions of Wikimedia, know people online we consider friends who are just as dear to us as friends in our immediate physical proximity. But for the majority of editors on Wikimedia projects, including myself for much of my tenure here, other people are just disembodied lines of text.
As a result, it’s far too easy forget that all of the words on our encyclopedia were written by another person.
We need to do a better job of remembering that. It’s 2016—we’ve had the internet for far too long to keep acting like it’s not “real life”, that we don’t have to adhere to responsible standards of interpersonal conduct, that the actions taken there don’t have real life consequences. The internet allows many people to be what they cannot be offline for whatever reason. That can be liberating and fulfilling in positive ways, but too many others indulge in negative behavior they are unable to get away with offline. All of the editors reading this can name at least one person in the latter category.
A popular quote circulating in some quarters of the encyclopedia likens Wikipedia to a shop floor, but through no fault of its author, this characterization is occasionally invoked to justify behavior that would result in immediate termination in an offline workplace.
Forgetting one another’s humanity is not treating the encyclopedia like a shop floor; it is treating it like a public playground; Wikipedia and other online spaces should not be consequence-free places for negative behavior by people who can otherwise pretend to be good people in the rest of their lives. What we do and how we act on Wikipedia matters just as it matters offline.
Why else would someone's family make a note of it in their loved one's obituary?
There will always be people who can’t or won’t look at their own behavior, because they have antisocial tendencies, or lack empathy, or simply need forums to address personal issues that would be better handed by professionals. But the rest of us can stop excusing that behavior. We can stop blaming people for “feeding the trolls” when victims justifiably complain, stop dismissing or minimizing the negative consequences of it, and stop indulging in it ourselves in our weaker moments.
We don’t have to be perfect. We can be angry when justifiably provoked. We can be snarky and sarcastic. We can make mistakes. But we should do that while remembering there are other people involved, just as we would in our interpersonal interactions offline.
We can do better. We can be better.
Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—"God damn it, you've got to be kind."
— Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Tom Lehrer summed up these sentiments best:『I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings — and I hate people like that!』-- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:04, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for these sentiments, Gamaliel. You've hit the nail on the head. I've struggled with how to express and encourage this kind of mindset to others. I wrote Wikipedia:Imagine others complexly some time ago having felt the same way you do about editor interactions, but it's one of those pages like Wikipedia:Competence is required where if there's a problem, you don't point the editor to it directly. How do we do a better job of encouraging interactions that both serve this project and treat folks as something beyond their contributions? I, JethroBTdrop me a line07:32, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent. I get around a lot on Wikipedia. I've now also met dozens if not hundreds at various conferences and meetups. If I were to write a list of the editors who couldn't be nice if they tried, and published it I'm sure it would receive a resounding consensus that those people are in fact a net negative to the collaborative spirit most of us generally foster. It only takes a few to spoil the pleasure and enthusiasm of many, and unfortunately on Wikipedia , they succeed with impunity. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:59, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It is much easier when we can regularly meet some of our fellows in person. Not only do we get to know those people; it also helps us to remember that the ones who remain faceless, sometimes out of fear, are also approximately as wise and stupid, as open-hearted and sneaky, as kind and cruel, as brave and cowardly, as we are. Jim.henderson (talk) 20:58, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This piece is unexceptionable, because it contains little more than platitudes. Who can disagree with "be kind", "show empathy" and so on? I will just pick up on the "shop floor" comment. Gamaliel states that this characterization is occasionally invoked to justify behavior that would result in immediate termination in an offline workplace. The whole line of argument is misguided and misses the point completely. Wikipedia does not pay its editors. The editors have few rights and few responsibilities. The analogy does not work. At all. The point of the "shop floor" image is simply that the focus should be on the content, rather than interactions between editors. The latter is important, but it is a means to the end, which is the former. Kingsindian♝♚22:12, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"The focus should be on the content" is also little more than a platitude. Who can disagree with that? But what happens the behavior of those who think they are on the shop floor gets in the way of focusing on the content, as we've seen again and again? Gamaliel (talk) 02:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I take part of the line of argument in this piece (just describing it) to be that Wikipedia should follow the social norms of, essentially, US academia and corporate middle-management. That is what's apparently meant by "workplace". As opposed to the somewhat different subculture prevalent in manufacturing and physical labor, "shop floor". It's simply labels for different groups. The latter would make the same "gets in the way" objection to the former. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:02, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt this is a blue collar/white collar clash. I suspect many or most people who engage in negative behavior on Wikipedia actually work in corporate and white collar workplaces and think they are too stuffy, so they idealize an imaginary blue collar subculture which prizes obnoxious displays of masculinity and rudeness forbidden in their own workplaces. But your comment raises a more interesting question: whose norms do we accept and why? Which norms actually produce a better encyclopedia for everyone, and not just for the person who advocates those norms and their friends? What tradeoffs do we accept when deciding which norms are acceptable? Gamaliel (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect you're right on the demographics, but the flip side is that white-collar corporate-office "professionalism" is also a creation of a male-dominated subculture. It's just a little harder to notice, because it's the one many of us spend a lot of time in. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:07, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
These are brief comments, so grant me some simplification for concise expression. Note from the other side, again being descriptive, an argument would be along the lines of that many people who are eager to seek sanction for supposed "negative behavior" are authoritarians who think Wikipedia is not stuffy enough, so they fetishize the rigidity and punishment of the strictest types of workplace subculture. I don't think this divide is intrinsically male/female, though there are common gendered archetypes. Now, there's a big difference between "who wins?" and "what's best?" - the necktie is the perfect proof (mandatory for a long time for many environments, though completely useless to downright harmful in terms of actual work). That is, "win" is politics, "best" is about evidence. I tend to think the evidence shows it's best to give workers wide latitude, because workers tend to ignore managers, while managers are often willing to abuse workers for internal political and status game-playing (i.e. "We must have programmers wear neckties, and I'll appoint myself head of the necktie committee, create necktie reports, have regular neckie-wear status meetings, and anyone who mocks the necktie initiative will receive demerits on their performance evaluation for having a bad attitude"). It's not absolute of course, let's not waste time with that. But the inventiveness of relatively low-status people who want to find ways to boss around even lower-status people, inclines me to think that dynamic goes bad very easily and very quickly. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 17:17, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, a "wide latitude" for workers or editors is generally a good thing, and who will disagree with that? If rules are pointless or get in the way of productivity, let's get rid of them. I don't think many people in the pro-professionalism crowd on Wikipedia want to make everyone wear neckties or the electronic equivalent of rules like that. (Despite my fancy title, I've worn a tie a total of three times to my workplace, and one of those times was for a funeral of a co-worker. And I am, after all, the guy who likes to publish headlines withprofanity in them, something that I recall was specifically called "unprofessional".) What we're actually talking about is not pointless bureaucratic nonsense, but rules and mores based on not being terrible to other editors. The evidence shows that giving people a "wide latitude" to engage in those toxic behaviors is incredibly damaging to institutional culture and productivity. Gamaliel (talk) 18:42, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Focus on the content" can also be a platitude, but it is impossible to comment in a non-platitudinous way to platitudes without recourse to specific cases. However, let's take one specific conclusion that flows from such a focus. The Arbitration Committee page states, quoting an Emory University study that Committee has generally adhered to the principles of ignoring the content of user disputes and focusing on user conduct. This is in direct contrast to the heuristic I mentioned above. Kingsindian♝♚12:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The devil is in the details with phrases such as "not being terrible". There's much potential for mischief via interpreting that as the equivalent of neckties (where a similar phrase would be something like "not being dressed unprofessionally"), or using it for group political in-fighting. The profanity example is especially illuminating, since it was clear from your comments that it's not highly offensive to you. But I suspect someone who claimed it was a case of toxic behaviors, and hence both you and the writer should immediately profusely apologize and never ever do something like that again, would not be praised by you for fighting damage to institutional culture. That is, it's no great feat to be willing to offend a relatively distant and locally weak cultural outgroup. This is a core of one of my objections - a "kind"/"toxic" dichotomy that has no other considerations besides one's cultural ingroup is simply a power-play for abuse of everyone else. It's just a relabeled "piety"/"heresy". And that's a classic setup for ideological authoritarians, who gain power by being holier-than-thou (no personal implication intended to anyone, but rather more at the principle of power-corrupts). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 13:57, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Seth Finkelstein I've been meaning to thank you for your recent comments on the Signpost, they have been thought provoking even though we don't seem to agree on much. I realize that some people feel like the use of profanity is unprofessional or otherwise inappropriate, but has anyone serious made a case that the occasional swearing is really a toxic behavior? If so, I'm willing to listen, but mostly I hear it brought up by others tactically to deflect complaints about civility, pretending not to understand the difference between "this sucks" and "you suck". I understand your objections to civility and conduct codes being misused as a power play. There are plenty of examples of this: tone policing, the right-wing meme of calling Paul Krugman "shrill", every Homeowners Association in America. Yet anything has the potential for abuse, so that's not really an argument for not doing it at all. Many teachers have abused their authority over students, but that's not a real argument for not letting them have any. It's an argument for doing it differently - checks on authority, stricter rules for its use, oversight, etc. - not an argument for not doing it at all. While there may be a slight chance of Wikipedia coming under the grip of ideological authoritarians, in many parts of the encyclopedia it is already a reality, but instead of using piety as a power play, they take the much more expedient approach of mob rule, using unchecked rudeness and harassment to abuse others until they flee and they are left to edit as they see fit. I'm much more concerned about the abuse that is actually happening than the possibility of hypothetical rule abuse down the line. Gamaliel (talk) 04:23, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking of this editorial when I read an interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education which had an interview with scientist A. Hope Jahren author of a new memoir Lab Girl. The interviewer asks about the public perception of science, and Jahren responded (substitute "Wikipedia" for science):
This is something that science does to protect itself. We have this language that we write in, that we don’t ever speak, that is full of words that are inaccessible to people who aren’t us. We tell ourselves that it’s the only kind of writing that matters. And most of the rewards we give each other are based on our assessment of that activity.
It keeps science in this protected realm. It’s the ultimate demonstration of the fact that science is not something everybody can do. And it’s odd because out of the other side of our mouths, we increasingly say, "Science is something we need to get more people involved in."
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