What You Didn't Know About Wikipedia

For the constant use Wikipedia is put to, it's remarkable that the public at large doesn't really understand what Wikipedia's goals are, how its internal mechanisms operate, and what its rules are. Many gung-ho people click the edit button and make changes, only to find out someone has reverted their changes. You aren't being snubbed--but if you're going to wade into the world behind the article front page, you'd better be prepared. Here's a primer to the often-hidden world of Wikipedia.

#1. ON WIKIPEDIA, NOT EVERYONE CAN EDIT

You know how you should never trust a corporation? Well Wikipedia is run by Wikimedia, a nonprofit organization, and while it might not be an evil capitalist venture, it still subscribes to the mantra of "keep it simple, even if the simple is slightly misleading." Yes, you can edit the vast majority of pages, but there are some exceptions. Pages can be "protected" to varying degrees to prevent large amounts of vandalism. "Semi-protection" means anonymous editors (those who haven't registered an account) and new members cannot edit the page. Full protection means that ordinary users can't edit it at all. The only users who can are called administrators, who we'll get to later.

#2. YOU CAN BE BLOCKED

Schoolkids often find it fun to vandalize Wikipedia, adding in random phrases, inside jokes, slurs, or profanity. Generally, it's reverted quickly, often in seconds, especially on high-traffic pages. Anonymous or new users who vandalize will often receive warnings to desist from people who monitor recent changes, or people who have edited the page and have it on a "watchlist". The warnings go from "experiment somewhere else, your edits have been removed" to "if you continue to vandalize, you will be blocked." Administrators can block other users, including themselves, preventing people at the internet protocol (IP) address or under a username from editing for durations as short as an hour to an indefinite ban from the site. Repeated vandalism coming from a single IP or a group is more likely to get longer and longer blocks as vandalism continues.

#3. NOT ALL USERS ARE EQUAL

Regular users have a set of editing privileges called "rights", but administrators (also called sysops) have several rights normal users do not have. Administrators can protect/unprotect pages from editing (and can edit fully protected pages), block users, modify block durations, delete most pages, and view deleted revisions of pages. Adminship is granted by a quasi-vote; users request or are nominated for adminship at Request for Adminship or RfA. But it takes a higher rank of user to grant administrator rights to others.

Above administrators, there are bureaucrats, and there are an even smaller number of "b'crats" to administrators than there are administrators to regular users. B'crats judge whether or not their is consensus (more on this later) to promote an admin. Other tasks 'crats can do is revoke automated account or "bot" status, and rename users. There are even higher levels of users, known as stewards and developers, but these users are rarely seen are work across language wikis.

Here's where it gets confusing. While each "rank" comes with a set of tools, regular users can also acquire some (but not all) user rights associated with the other ranks. For example, admins have automatic access to "rollback", a fast way for reverting vandal edits; the rollbacker tool can be given to users who apply for it. Likewise, users who aid other users apply to change their usernames can gain the right to change user account names.

Finally, the final layer of complexity is rights that are granted only to trusted users, but which do not require a rank as well. Users with the 'oversight' capacity can remove items from an article's history completely; even administrators cannot see these oversighted edits. (This action is usually only done when there might be libelous remarks in a page history.) Accounts with the 'checkuser' right can see normally private data about user's IP addresses, which helps in determining whether users have multiple accounts in violation of policy (a process known as sock-puppetry.)

That said, there are steps to prevent the "elite" administrators from suppressing normal users. First off, administrators are bound by rules to prevent them from using their rights to suppress users they disagree with; for example, if a user and administrator are locked in an edit war, where they are reverting each other's edits, it is improper for the administrator to block the other user himself; he should bring it to the attention of other administrators. Admin noticeboards are set up for specific policy violations and discussion amongst admins. While it's hardly a perfect system, generally admins check up on each other and check abuses of power.

#4. THE STAR MEANS SOMETHING

Wikipedia's articles can be written by hundreds of editors, thousands of editors, or even just one dedicated user, but what distinguishes regular Wikipedia content from "featured" content is independent content review. There are two main levels of content review for articles. The first is "Good Article" or GA status. An article is submitted to GAN or Good Article Nominations, where an editor who has not edited the article in question reviews the submitted candidate against a set of criteria; it must be reasonably well-written, properly referenced, and have proper licensing on images used. If the reviewer believes it meets criteria, the article is listed as GA.

A more rigorous content review system is the Featured Article Candidates; "Featured Articles" or FA all have a small bronze star at the top right of the page to distinguish them from other articles. The FA criteria are more stringent than GA, requiring professional prose, full compliance to image criteria, complete and comprehensive content, and factual accuracy. Multiple users weigh in on the article's merits, and a FA director determines whether it should be promoted to FA or not.

Article standards on Wikipedia have slowly crept up over the years, and thus old FA and GA may not meet the higher standards of newer articles. If so, editors can nominate the article in question for review, where multiple editors once again weigh in; either the article is improved and maintains its featured status, or it is demoted.

Separate from these content review processes are letter ranks which correspond to WikiProjects. WikiProjects are smaller groups where like-minded editors collaborate on specific topics--for example, there is a Films project, a military history project, and a video games wikiproject. Projects have no set size or scope, although inactive projects may be merged, reorganized, or deleted. The letter scale corresponds to the project's standards for what an article should contain at each level; while there is overlap and similarities between project's criteria, they may also vary dramatically. Articles with little content (a single line or paragraph) are classified as "Stubs". Articles with a little more content become "Start"-class. From there, the more references and complete the article's coverage of the topic, it proceeds from "C"-class to "B"-class, to "A"-class. When you're interested in seeing how complete an article is and can't immediately tell from the article itself, check the article's talk page. In headers at the top of the page, WikiProject's rating of the subject, along with its ranked importance in the project's scope, will be listed.

#5. WIKIPEDIA IS NOT FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE

Wikipedia has policies for what is included; articles are expected to meet a standard of notability, which are codified in guidelines and policies. Policies are essentially immutable and fixed principles; guidelines are just that, guidelines--to be followed generally, but treated with common sense. Most generally, articles should have secondary sources independent from the subject to be considered notable, but the threshold depends on the type of article; different types of articles, from biographies to video games, have different standards.

The short and sweet meaning of this is that your cat is not notable, and you probably aren't notable (writing articles about yourself or family members is a big no-no on Wikipedia.) Guidelines can, however, be changed through consensus. Consensus is essentially how must business gets done; rather than a strict head-count, arguments are weighted depending on their evidence (citations of policies) rather than sheer numbers. It's a muddy subject, but one that is central to Wikipedia's core.

So there you have it: a quick introduction to what makes Wikipedia it is. If you're interested in editing, make sure you read Wikipedia's policies; while no one begrudges a newbie to editing, it is important to fully understand how it works before diving in. The more you know, the more enjoyable reading and editing Wikipedia can be.