Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-03-31/Op-Ed

Op-Ed

Pro and Con: Has gun violence been improperly excluded from gun articles?

Content disputes on Wikipedia can sometimes seem to drag on forever. The debate about including material on the criminal use of guns in articles on the guns themselves has lasted a decade. Much of the debate has centered on an essay in WikiProject Firearms and the weight that it should be given.

On this page two editors debate whether criminal use has been improperly excluded from firearms articles. Dlthewave gives the pro side, Springee gives the con side.

–Smallbones

Pro: Criminal use was inappropriately excluded from firearms articles

"But on Wikipedia, as in the real world, the users with the deepest technical knowledge of firearms are also the most fervent gun owners and the most hostile to gun control. For critics, that’s led to a persistent pro-gun bias on the web’s leading source of neutral information at a time when the gun control debate is more heated than ever."

—The Verge, 6 March 2018

By Dlthewave (adapted from User:Dlthewave/Firearms essay)

Weapons used in mass shootings often make headlines, and readers flock to Wikipedia to learn more about them. Despite this interest, many of our articles about guns excluded negative information such as "criminal use" due to an extremely restrictive WikiProject Firearms advice page that was enforced as policy for many years. Editors resisted change by corralling all discussion to the project page, citing "long-standing consensus" as if it were infallible and, when concerns were raised at community venues, dismissing the project advice as a harmless, unenforceable essay. The effort stretches back to 2007 and was finally curtailed in 2018 when an RfC established community consensus to decide mass shooting coverage on a case-by-case basis.

While editing US current events articles in early 2018, I became curious about "The AR-15", a weapon that had received extensive media coverage for its prevalence in shootings in the United States. I was surprised to find that our AR-15 article, which at the time was titled with the "modern sporting rifle" euphemism, did not make any mention of mass shootings. As I dug deeper, I found talk page archives filled with comments from editors similarly surprised by the lack of "criminal use" coverage across numerous firearms articles. These concerns were almost always rebutted by a small group of WikiProject Firearms members who made accusations of POV-pushing and cited the "WP:GUNS guideline". Editors who challenged the validity of this were directed to the WikiProject Firearms talk page, where any proposal to change the criminal use advice was quickly shot down by project members.

A typical example occurred when an editor tried to add mentions of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to Bushmaster Firearms International: "Sorry, that dog won't hunt. WP:GUNS#Criminal use is quite clear on this issue; this incident, unfortunate as it was, does not meet the criteria for inclusion."

A 2011 challenge to the criminal use advice received a fair number of responses pointing out that WP:GUNS is non-binding, and one editor helpfully added an "Essay" template to the advice page. Paradoxically, the advisory status of the page gave it a certain level of immunity: uninvolved editors felt that the advice was not problematic because it was clearly labelled as "just a recommendation." This consensus was ignored by project members who continued their strict enforcement.

In February 2018, I opened an RfC which proved to be a turning point: "Should articles about firearms include information about mass shootings?" The discussion was well-attended and reached clear consensus to decide inclusion of criminal use on a case-by-case basis.

Despite strong resistance at WikiProject Firearms, I added this is determined on a case-by-case basis in accordance with WP:WEIGHT to the essay, and removed Therefore, the addition of said information should be limited to a simple link in the "See also" section.

Although the changes seem fairly minor, they made the project advice far less prescriptive. Combined with the outcome of the RfC, this means that any editor who tries to enforce a blanket ban on Criminal Use inclusion is acting against community consensus and is subject to Discretionary Sanctions under the Gun Control ARBCOM case. Recent article-level discussions have focused on the relationship between the weapon and the crime: There is often consensus for inclusion when the weapon's specific characteristics have received extensive media coverage, such as AR-15 style rifle, while passing mentions usually do not merit inclusion. However, criminal use is often held to a higher standard than other sections of the article: At the Smith & Wesson M&P15 talk page, there have been numerous discussions about criminal use and current consensus is to exclude this content, while there seems to be little concern that the official users section (a list of police departments and agencies that use the weapon) is similarly sourced and arguably trivial.

Although the situation has improved significantly over the past year, our normal processes failed to swiftly address the disruption at WikiProject Firearms and allowed it to continue for years even after it was brought to the attention of the community through noticeboards and RfCs. This phenomenon can happen anywhere on Wikipedia, particularly when a small group of editors stakes claim to a relatively obscure topic that attracts little outside attention. There are a few ways to ensure that these articles are written to reflect broader community consensus:

Talk page conduct matters. Consensus determines article content and talk pages are where consensus is built. Problematic article-space edits often trigger admin action by crossing a hard line such as WP:3RR, but false consensus achieved through filibustering and misapplication of policy tends to receive far less scrutiny even though it has the same effect. Walls of text and personal attacks are not part of our consensus-building process; they are behavioral issues which should be addressed promptly.
Project space content matters. Concerns about Wikiproject Firearms guidance were often dismissed because it was "just an essay" with no formal standing. The fact is that advice which goes against our policies and guidelines does not serve a valid purpose and should not be tolerated. A project's interpretation of a guideline should reflect community consensus, not prescribe it, and project pages should never be used to host the opinions of project participants.
Consensus should not be based on a majority vote. When closing a discussion, editors almost always announce that it is not a vote before proceeding to count up the !votes and declare the side with the most !votes the winner. In Project space, project members can easily win the vote due to higher turnout. We need to do a better job of assessing policy-based arguments even if they come from the "losing" side. In the few cases where a closer actually evaluated the arguments made in a criminal use discussion, it turned out that many of the !votes on the majority "do not include" side were counter to policy.
Diversity is important. Often, the folks who are the most interested in and knowledgeable about a topic are also be the ones who push a certain POV. Firearms articles in particular are full of descriptions and statistics that are boring and bewildering to the average editor, and the few outsiders who dared to dip their toes in the water were often asked not to edit in this area due to their lack of specialized knowledge. However, experienced editors can usually recognize and call out policy and guideline violations in any area without having an in-depth knowledge of the topic. Long-term ownership behavior should have been obvious to anyone who gave these articles more than a cursory look.

Con: Criminal use content has not been improperly excluded

By Springee

Politically charged topics on Wikipedia are ripe for content disagreements where each side will use claims of WP:WEIGHT and where some will see the other side as engaging in unjust conspiracies to keep content in or out of articles. In most cases, including this one, we are simply dealing the gray area within WP:WEIGHT. In this gray area two editors, acting in good faith, can disagree and both believe they are following policy.

The pro thesis above is that over a decade, a group of editors excluded due material on mass shootings from articles about specific firearms such as the AR-15. It doesn't say why this information was excluded. The excluded information was almost always part of other articles about particular crimes and crime in general. The exclusion, it is argued, was accomplished by using a single paragraph located on the WikiProject Firearms page as a talisman to ward off all objections. Only the 2018 "turning point" Village Pump RfC broke the spell thus allowing WP:DUE content to flow, according to the pro view.

Like any good conspiracy theory there is some truth here. Some editors strive to add criminal use content to firearms articles, others see it as only tangentially related or as a coatrack for gun politics. This difference of views results in content disputes, but not the systematic, gross violations of WP:WEIGHT the pro view alleges. In virtually all cases content was decided by local consensus, not by a paragraph on the WikiProject Firearms page. Without discussing the question, the pro opinion highlights the real issue, WP:WEIGHT is simply not clear in such situations. Editors who are acting in good faith and in compliance with WP:WEIGHT may not come up with the same results.

The pro view is a stool that stands on three legs. The first is the "turning point" RfC. The need for an RfC was discussed by many editors on both sides. A pro side editor took the initiative but didn't get enough input from involved editors. The resulting RfC question was convoluted, resulting in a lost opportunity to get sound guidance on the issue. The result was an insignificant change to the project recommendation which had remained little changed for about a decade.

The pro view of the essay's content change - one phrase was added and another removed - is misleading. It starts with a version of the text that lasted less than a year. It ignores the largely stable version of the text that had been around for almost a decade. When compared to other versions of the text over a decade, the difference is almost exclusively in one sentence reminding that local consensus is the ultimate decider.

Criminal use

In order for a criminal use to be notable enough for inclusion in the article on the gun used, it ~~must~~ should meet some criteria. For instance, legislation being passed as a result of the gun's usage (ex. ban on mail-order of firearms after use of the Carcano in JFK's assassination ~~would qualify). Similarly,~~ or if its notoriety greatly increased (ex. the Intratec TEC-DC9 became infamous as a direct result of Columbine). This is determined on a case-by-case basis in accordance with WP:WEIGHT. As per WP:UNDUE, ~~editors "should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject”.~~ "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.”
Differences between the October 2008 version of the essay and the April 2018 version as changed by User:Dlthewave. Additions shown in bold, removals striken

The net result was an understanding, which had already been in place, that local consensus was ultimately going to decide these issues. It's too bad that the question didn't help editors understand the broader question of WP:WEIGHT.

The stool's next leg is the idea that the RfC broke a logjam and now WP:DUE material will no longer be held out against policy. The pro view implies that prior to the 2018 RfC, criminal information never made it into a firearms article. Earlier article level RfCs disagree. Sometimes content was kept out by consensus such as in the 2017 Smith & Wesson M&P15 RfC. The pro view sees these outcomes as the result of editors citing the project firearms paragraph. In fact, in 2018 a small local consensus used that exact argument to ignore the 2017 RfC and a new RfC was the result. The conclusion? Same as before. Many previous examples of exclusion were just consensus working as it is meant to.

The last leg of the stool supporting the pro is the assumption that all the excluded material should have been included per WP:NPOV's subsection on WP:WEIGHT. Is that a valid assumption? WP:WEIGHT says that we should treat aspects of a topic in proportion, "to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." Note that last part, published material on the subject. In almost all cases the subject of the cited source is the crime and that source mentions the gun. Rarely do articles about the firearm mention crimes committed with that firearm. So, if we follow WP:WEIGHT, according to this argument, we have to assume a reciprocal relation. We have to assume that weight to include mention of the crime in an article about the gun is established because articles about the crime mention the gun. Is that following WP:WEIGHT?

Some editors will intuitively say that is correct and follows WP:WEIGHT. But how do editors feel about the same relationship in a different context, automobiles? A 2016 RfC with over two dozen participants offers an idea. That RfC asked if the Ford F-650 and Chevrolet Caprice articles should include discussions of the Oklahoma City bombing and D.C. sniper attacks respectively. In both cases the automobiles played a very significant part in the conduct of the crimes and reliable sources clearly established weight to include discussions of the vehicles in the articles about the crimes. The outcome of that RfC was overwhelmingly a consensus to exclude. So, when the subject was "automobiles", not "guns", there was a clear consensus that a reliable source about the crime does not establish WP:WEIGHT to include the crime in an article about the automobile.

Some editors argue that when the topic is firearms, rather than automobiles, WP:WEIGHT should be viewed differently. That view can be debated. That's my point. If WP:WEIGHT was clear on this matter, we wouldn't have a debate and cases like the Smith & Wesson M&P15 would include (or exclude) gun crimes every time. The pro view just doesn't acknowledge the possibility that local consensus and WP:WEIGHT might not support inclusion of material on gun crimes.

The pro view has a bit of the smell of sour grapes.

Examples don't prove the rule. Yes, there may be examples of material improperly excluded, just as there are examples of material properly excluded.
Consensus changes. Local consensus can change and is unpredictable.
Don't ignore advice from a Wiki project. Yes, people have cited the Project Firearms style guide improperly but that doesn't prove the guide's intent is wrong or that the guide should be ignored.
A lost opportunity. The landmark RfC was little more than a lost opportunity to get better community consensus on how to handle WP:WEIGHT in these cases.
Content disputes and WP:WEIGHT. Ultimately this was and likely will continue to be a content dispute, due in part to the question of reciprocity in WP:WEIGHT, mixed with the ebbs and flows of article content, and promoted to into a grand conspiracy... but not much more.

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Well done to both sides for putting their viewpoint forward and making it fit the editing requirements -- and well done to the editorial team for making this happen. It appeared there were quite a few hurdles along the way. MPS1992 (talk) 00:35, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, I rather liked the "Modern Sporting Rifle" name, so blatantly euphemistic. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:58, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say, as the guy who copyedited the most of the thing, I found this to be one of the most thought provoking debate I came accross in a while, and not just on Wikipedia. I don't agree with everything on either sides, of course, but both were very well argued. I have my own opinions on the topic, and both sides have challenged them. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:10, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This Op-Ed has parallels to recent controversies and criticism regarding Wikiproject Military History and the "clean wermacht" thesis. It was a significant/divisive Arbcom case (don't have the link handy--apologies). Interesting article on the Clean Wermacht and Wikipedia here. It can be easy to underestimate the power of Wikiprojects.AugusteBlanqui (talk) 10:53, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can see the parallel if the assumption is a project has influence on the articles related to that project. However, I think there difference between the clean wermacht issue and this. Here it isn't a question of interpretation of material or if such material is reliable. Rather it's a question of if the basic material is within the scope of a particular article. Springee (talk) 02:18, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The broader issue, relating to Wikipedia in general not just Nazis and guns, is how weight and wp:due are used tactically by editors. For example, the argument that war crimes details in a biography article are wp:undue. Or in the case of Pennsylvania State University, the argument that including the sexual assault crimes there was wp:undue.AugusteBlanqui (talk) 13:55, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think that hits on one of the questions I had, weight is somewhat gray in these areas. Do articles about PSU normally mention the crime (I assume we are talking about those related to the assistant coach) or are people using articles about the crimes to establish weight for inclusion in the university article vs an article about the crimes. Also, even if a one or two articles about the school talks about the crime is that sufficient to say articles about the school include discussion of the crime? The closing of the automotive RfC mentioned in the Con OpEd closed with a statement that suggested that when in this gray area it basically does come down to the subjective opinions of seasoned, and hopefully, uninvolved editors to give it their best judgement. Springee (talk) 18:01, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

USAmerican bias

The notion that the use of guns are permitted is very USAmerican centric. In the rest of the world this is not at all accepted or acceptable. As this is not reflected in the reporting on guns and gun violence it is proof perfect that Wikipedia is biased. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 13:37, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In the rest of the world this is not at all accepted or acceptable -- citation needed? Actually the difference is that in countries like New Zealand or the United Kingdom, when terrible things happen due to widespread legal availability of guns, democratically elected politicians bring in measures to change that, and these changes are not shouted down or drowned out by interest groups or lobbies or whatever. (1988 and 1997 in the case of the UK.) MPS1992 (talk) 18:58, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure how this is a US biased discussion. The crimes discussed aren't limited to the US though in terms of shear numbers the US has more such events. The firearms articles aren't country specific in general. Springee (talk) 02:18, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The language itself in the comments betray the bias. First, this is not a discussion about crimes, it is about guns. At this moment it is even framed in specific types of guns. My statement is about the use of guns, legal and otherwise. The other is in the absurdity to ask for "citations". When you are really interested in this discussion, when you are truly engaged in the subject, you know statistics, publications et al. In a talk page, asking for citations is posturing to defuse a point made. To illustrate my point in a personal way; I have never ever carried a genuine gun. I will not, I abhor the notion that I would have a gun of any type. I am not alone in this, the majority in my country is like that.

To make you appreciate more the difference in the outlook on guns and gun violence. In Utrecht a guy shot four people dead in a tram. Our country went into lock down.

When the point is made that "the firearms articles aren't country specific", it is EXACTLY the point that I am making. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 05:25, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Going to agree here with @GerardM: that to a non-American, this debate is clearly an American one, if only because Americans are downright obsessed with guns compared to the rest of the world, what happens is that these articles tend to reflect the American voice. The same is true of this debate. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:09, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's an American one (but we will still let others join the discussion ;D ). However, bias has baggage that saying this is an American debate does not. Debates about Cricket are largely not American as few people here follow or even know the game. However, I guess that also might impact what is seen as significant. A parallel might be an article about the Ford F-150 or another full size pickup. A reader in one of the markets where such trucks have been common might be interested in knowing about what engines/options were available in a specific generation while someone from a country with narrow roads and high gas prices might only be interested in why Americans want to drive such things. I could see that leading to a debate about, "Should criticism of the environmental impact of driving full size pickups be included in the F-150 article just because it talks about the consumption of the Ford F-150?" Anyway, I would agree this is very US centeric but I don't think bias is the correct term. Springee (talk) 18:01, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for the discussion is to resolve two positions. However both positions should be in a separate article about the USA and its issues with guns. The problem I signal is that guns and its acceptance is globally a much bigger problem because of the effects of the USA crisis with guns. The comparison with cricket is false because the dominant discussion in the USA drowns out any NPOV as there is not even an acceptance that its discussion does not reflect the global realities. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 08:58, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Quite an interesting debate. Perhaps we could get more articles in this style in the future? --Joshualouie711^talk 21:58, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly agree with that opinion. It mostly depends on finding 2 people willing to submit the articles. There are some technical difficulties - and I have to ask the 2 writers to solve these in good faith, even though they disagree on the topic (Thanks @Dlthewave and Springee: for helping in this part). The basic difficulties are similar length and style, not crossing certain lines, e.g. nothing close to a personal attack, and which piece is published on top. The top-most writer has an advantage in setting the scope of the debate, but the writer of the bottom-most piece has the advantage of having "the last word". If you know of two folks who can agree to disagree in such an agreeable manner, *please* send them to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:28, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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