If you’re an experienced Wikipedia editor, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you shouldn’t do when editing, and you can identify problems in others’ edits without going through a step-by-step review. While you’re still gaining experience, however, a systematic approach is a good way to figure out what not to do yourself, what you should revert and what you shouldn’t, and how to handle edits by others that aren’t bad enough to revert but aren’t good enough to stay as is.
The approach laid out in the following sections will help you improve articles and reduce the number of content disputes you’re in. For example, policy violations come first, since they’re easy to define and no one disputes the need to revert them. Then you’ll turn to more subtle points like sourcing and wording.
If you see any of the following, revert them (Reverting Edits), and cite the applicable policy in your edit summary:
Simple and obvious vandalism (WP:VAND); for more information, see Chapter 7.
Linkspam (WP:SPAM); see Chapter 7.
Copyright violations (WP:COPYVIO); see Possible responses.
Unsourced or poorly sourced controversial material about living persons (WP:BLP); see ???.
Privacy violations (WP:BLP); ???.
Most editors probably think of the policy Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (shortcut: WP:NPOV) as being about wording. For example, the following text wouldn’t pass the POV test, since it’s hopelessly biased (as well as unverifiable, and quite possibly a copyright violation):
The committee has become a significant force in enhancing relations between Somewheristan and Nowhereistan. With an in-depth understanding of both countries, the committee deepens the ties of friendship and addresses the concerns of all who are interested in the wellbeing of both countries.
But Wikipedia also defines “neutral point of view” to include the amount of text about different aspects of a topic. An article that goes into detail about extreme fringe views on a topic is violating the NPOV policy, as is an article that lists all the good legislation that an elected official has voted for. (The latter also is a violation of WP:NOT, since it’s a collection of indiscriminate information.) So while a chunk of text may have a neutral point of view, inserting it into an article could well unbalance the article, and unbalanced articles aren’t neutral.
To apply the “weight and balance” part of the NPOV policy, evaluate the importance of added information to a particular aspect of a topic. When a particular aspect or view is getting way too much coverage (usually because it includes a level of detail that isn’t appropriate for the entire article), the proper action is to remove the excess, leaving an appropriate amount of text, plus cited sources that readers can pursue if they’re interested in more information.
On the other hand, if an article is short, the addition of a lot of information about a particular aspect of the topic may seem to make the article unbalanced, particularly where that text is negative (say, about the problems of a politician, businessperson, or company). In fact, the article is not unbalanced—it’s simply too short. The real problem is the lack of information about other aspects of the topic, not the new addition. Someone who adds information to a short article isn’t required to simultaneously expand all parts of the article. The solution is for other editors to expand the rest of the article, not to remove valuable information.
Warning
Removing detailed, sourced information from a short article for balance is usually an honest mistake. Removing it after discussion has clarified NPOV requirements is borderline vandalism.
If editors provided sources for everything they added to Wikipedia, the number of content disputes would drop sharply. When content is controversial, editors have an extra responsibility to cite a source, in accordance with the core policies of verifiability (WP:V) and no original research (WP:NOR). If you add information to Wikipedia only when you have the source in hand (or onscreen), other editors are much less likely to find problems with what you add to articles. Unfortunately, not everyone has read this book or understands the importance of sourcing as well as you do. You’re going to have to deal with editors who don’t provide sources, or who provide inappropriate ones. This section describes what to do in such cases.
Unsourced content falls into several types. How you handle unsourced information depends what kind of information it is:
Non-controversial and plausible. Leave as is. It’s not absolutely against the rules to mark such statements as needing a source, but if every unsourced statement and section in Wikipedia articles were marked as such, it would make articles far less readable. It definitely won’t bring a rush of editors to fix things. Editors know when information is unsourced; you don’t need to mark it just to identify that you know this too.
Controversial or contentious, but not negative. Any controversial statement needs a source. You can request one by placing a {{fact}} template immediately after the unsourced sentence or paragraph, which tags the text with “citation needed”. If the problem is with an entire section, use {{Unreferencedsection}} immediately after the section heading.
If you doubt that a reliable source will turn up (perhaps the wording has an obvious point of view), move the information to the article talk (discussion) page, noting in your edit summary that you’re doing so, and comment on the talk page about your doubts.
For biographical information, check WP:BLP and WP:3RR about removing controversial but not negative information. As of late 2007, such removals were allowed, but the matter isn’t set in stone. So check the policy before you remove any information, and cite the policy when you do.
Implausible. If you have the time and interest, consider using a search engine to see if you can find a source. If you don’t find a source, or don’t have time, remove the information, but don’t cite vandalism in the edit summary. Instead, say that the editor is free to add back the information if a source is provided.
Controversial and negative. Generally, you can remove information like this on sight. It’s potentially libelous, and a clear violation of WP:BLP if it concerns a living person. In the edit summary, note that the editor’s free to add it back if a source is provided.
Ideally, whenever you decide not to revert an edit that added unsourced material to an article, letting some or all of the material stay in the article (because it’s not a serious problem), you should take a moment to post a note regarding the problem on the user talk page of the editor who added the material. The Needsource template makes it easy. Add a new section to the talk page with the heading [[Articlename]] and the text: {{subst:Needsource|Articlename}} ~~~~.
Note
Many editors don’t know about Wikipedia’s requirements for providing a source. It’s a chicken and egg problem—so much information is unsourced that it’s not obvious that adding more is wrong. If more editors posted Needsource notes, then the problem of unsourced information would start to shrink.
A reliable source is a published work regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Self-published works, particularly personal Internet blogs, discussion forums, and personal and social Web pages are almost always considered unreliable. Wikipedia:Reliable sources (shortcut: WP:RS) goes into more detail about the requirements of Wikipedia’s policy on verifiability (WP:V).
Note
An exception to the general rule about self-published information is if it’s published by an established expert on the topic. An expert is someone whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. These self-published sources are acceptable, but Wikipedia still discourages their use in favor of more standard sources. If nothing else, that policy eliminates arguments about whether a specific person is an acknowledged expert and whether the self-published information is relevant to her expertise.
You can often determine that a source is unreliable just by the URL, or by the citation information. If it’s not obvious, and the source is online, follow the link and make a determination.
If you find information that’s supported by an unreliable source, do the following:
If the cited source is online, be sure to follow the link. Sometimes an unreliable source, like a blog, has a link to a newspaper story or other source that is reliable. If you find a reliable source, edit the article to change the source.
If you can’t find a reliable source as a substitute (using a search engine is another option, if you have time), then evaluate the information as if it were unsourced (as described in the previous section), and take appropriate action.
If you decide to remove unreliably sourced information based on the previous section (treating it as if it had no source), make sure your edit summary includes an explanation, like source provided was not [[WP:RS|reliable]].
If you decide to leave the added information in the article, even though it’s essentially unsourced, edit the article to delete the unreliable source and put {{fact}} in its place. That action, and, ideally, a note on the editor’s user talk page, alerts the editor who added the information that it needs a reliable source.
If you’ve made it this far in the process, and have taken care of any policy and sourcing issues, it’s time to shift your focus to the wording of the information added to an article. In “Proper Weight and Balance” on Proper Weight and Balance, you saw how to evaluate information added to an article for neutrality and balance. Now you need to see whether these issues exist in the wording itself.
Even when information is taken verbatim from a reliable source, it can be problematical. Omitting key phrases like “Some critics in the opposition party have charged that” can shift an article’s point of view to one side of an arguments or the other. Also, as mentioned above, the added text may include excessive detail on certain points.
Note
Verbatim copying not only isn’t a solution to the issue of weight and balance, it also create raises copyright issues, particularly where a large percentage of the text in a source has been copied into a Wikipedia article. Don’t copy text except for direct quotes from a person, or when the source supports a controversial point (as in, for example, “The Washington Post reported that Fernandes ‘would like to see the institution become more inclusive of people who might not have grown up using sign language.’”)
Editing a Wikipedia article to get exactly the right wording is an art, not a science. It’s impossible to come up with a comprehensive checklist, because the English language is so diffuse and flexible. Fortunately, you’re not required to get the wording perfect, just to try to improve it when you see problems. If you do that, and other editors do the same, then the wording will improve with every edit.
Here are three pages to consult when wording is at issue. Each has a lot of good examples: