Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Editorial

Editorial

"God damn it, you've got to be kind."


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