From idea to consensus

A Cross-Linguistic Study of Wikipedian Policy Development

Slow Editing Towards Equity Team
Steve Jankowski
Claudio Celis Bueno
Jakko Kemper
Ouejdane Sabbah*

University of Amsterdam & *Hogeschool Utrecht
Netherlands

Funded by the Wikimedia Foundation

Policies & Equity

  • While Wikipedia's policies ensure high quality content which is tied to Wikipedia's utopian pursuit of knowledge for everyone, policies can also be "major barriers for diverse content inclusion." ①




1. Miriam Redi, Martin Gerlach, Issac Johnson, Jonathan Morgan, Leila Zia. 2020. A Taxonomy of Knowledge Gaps for Wikimedia Projects (Second Draft). Wikimedia Foundation, p. 25.
2. Brian Keegan and Casey Fiesler. 2017. The Evolution and Consequences of Peer Producing Wikipedia's Rules. Proceedings of the Eleventh International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2017),
3. Beschastnikh, Kriplean, and McDonald, 2008; Kriplean, Beschastnikh, McDonald, and Golder, 2007; Menking and Rosenberg, 2020; Berson, Sengul-Jones, and Tamani, 2021

Wikipedians already know how to change policy.


How have Wikipedians successfully engaged in the process of changing policies?

Which types of social roles do they take on and activities do they engage in as cultural techniques?

What is the relationship of one language editions’ policy environment and another?

Skills & Roles

  • Mundane practices: Pentzold (2021) described that Wikipedians pursue their utopian goals through a set of mundane practices that require discrete sociotechnical skills.
  • Social authority: The performance and clustering of skills are interpreted and encoded as social roles that incorporate the authority to make specific kinds of decisions (Forte et al., 2005; O'Neil, 2011).
  • Cultural techniques: Policies (and laws) exist as communication logics, inscriptions, and storage formats that produce political subjects (Vismann, 2013).

Related literature

  • Computer science
    Kriplean, Beschastnikh, McDonald, and Golder, 2007; Beschastnikh, Kriplean, & McDonald, 2008
  • Communication studies
    O'Neil, 2009; Hargittai & Shaw, 2015; Shaw & Hargittai, 2018; Berson, Sengul-Jones & Tamani, 2021; Hwang & Shaw, 2022
  • Media studies
    Lovink, 2011; Tripodi, 2021; Pentzold, 2020 & 2021; Jankowski, 2022
  • Organization studies
    Keegan & Casey, 2017
  • Science and
    technology studies
    Menking & Rosenberg, 2020

Draft > Proposal > Essay > Guideline > Policy

Content Analysis

Language Rule name Edits analyzed
Arabic Citing Sources 180
Arabic Style Guide/Article Organization 109
Arabic Users' Page 112
Dutch Be Clear and Concrete 76
Dutch Balance 26
Dutch Criteria for Usernames 77
English Reliable Sources 564
English Proposed Deletion 289
English Disruptive Editing 223
French Comment your Edits 46
French Notability of Fanzines 53
French Transcription of Chinese 73
Spanish Conflict of Interest 129
Spanish Deletion Policy 179
Spanish Reliable Sources 418

When did Wikipedians change the authority of these rules?

What skills did they use to do this work?

60 Initial codes for edit types


Code Category Description
!-i Comment-Insertion An edit that inserts an html comment.
!-d Comment-Deletion An edit that deletes an html comment
!-m Comment-Modification An edit that modifies an html comment..
d-i Modal-Insertion edit inserts auxillery modal verbs such as 'must', 'have to', 'may', 'can', 'should' and 'ought to ' or adjectives such as 'obligatory', 'permissible' and 'impermissible' 'allowed' or 'forbidden'. Can include a infered "must" or "should" when giving directions.
d-d Modal-Deletion edit deletes auxillery modal verbs such as 'must', 'have to', 'may', 'can', 'should' and 'ought to ' or adjectives such as 'obligatory', 'permissible' and 'impermissible' 'allowed' or 'forbidden'. Can include a infered "must" or "should" when giving directions.
d-m Modal-Modification edit modifies auxillery modal verbs such as 'must', 'have to', 'may', 'can', 'should' and 'ought to ' or adjectives such as 'obligatory', 'permissible' and 'impermissible' 'allowed' or 'forbidden'. Can include a infered "must" or "should" when giving directions.
de-i Definition/Explanation-Insertion An edit that inserts a definitional statement of an object that falls under the purview of the policy. And/Or it attempts to make an abstract aspect of of the policy understandable, potentially through analogy or example.
de-m Definition/Explantion-Modification An edit that modifies a definitional statement of an object that falls under the purview of the policy. And/Or it attempts to make an abstract aspect of of the policy understandable, potentially through analogy or example.
de-d Definition/Explanation-Deletion An edit that deletes a definitional statement of an object that falls under the purview of the policy. And/Or it attempts to make an abstract aspect of of the policy understandable, potentially through analogy or example.
ce Copy edit An edit that apply for more than two different kinds of edits. With this tag include the two most important edit type of the edit.
w Wordchoice and phrasing edit that changes the wording or the phrasing of sentences that are grammartically correct (and the change does not affect the deontic mode)
g Grammar "correcting spelling or grammatical errors, as well as fixing punctuation."
tr-i Translation-Insertion An edit that inserts a translation from one language to another.
tr-d Translation-Deletion An edit that deletes a translation from one language to another.
tr-m Translation-Modificaiton An edit that modifies a translation from one language to another.
v Vandalism edit that is unambigiously off-topic for the policy (and usually followed by a revert)
u Undefined the edit cannot be categorized using the current version of the coding scheme
tp-i Talkpage-Insertion edit summary explains the new text reflects "discussion," "decisions" or "consensus" from a "talk page" or "noticeboard"
tp-d Talkpage-Deletion edit summary explains that the text deletion reflects "discussion," "decisions" or "consensus" from a "talk page" or "noticeboard"
tp-m Talkpage-Modification edit summary explains that the text deletion reflects "discussion," "decisions" or "consensus" from a "talk page" or "noticeboard"
rv Revert edit is a complete reversion to a previous version. Edit summary may include "rev" or "revert" or "rv".
i-i Information-Insertion edit affects the textual information content" for three lines of wikitext or less (excluding empty lines).
i-m Information-Modification edit affects the textual information content" for three lines of wikitext or less (excluding empty lines).
i-d Information-Deletion edit affects the textual information content" for three lines of wikitext or less (excluding empty lines).
s-i Substantive-Insertion edit inserts four consective new lines or more of wikitext (does not include empty lines, and is not a revert, or is a list of links)
s-d Substantive-Deletion edit deletes four consective lines or more of wikitext (does not include empty lines, and is not a revert, or is a list of links}
p (Re)Position Relocation / Move only moves entire lines without changes
m-i Markup-Insertion Insert typographic markup
m-d Markup-Deletion Delete typographic markup
m-m Markup-Modification Modifies typographic markup
r-i Reference-Insertion Inserts a "Reference [that] describes the source of the information, to help the reader who wishes to verify it, or to pursue it in greater depth
r-d Reference-Deletion Deletes a "Reference [that] describes the source of the information, to help the reader who wishes to verify it, or to pursue it in greater depth
r-m Reference-Modification Modifies a "Reference [that] describes the source of the information, to help the reader who wishes to verify it, or to pursue it in greater depth
t-i Template-Insertion edit inserts a link to a database object that is a template (excludes the {{cite}} template)
t-d Template-Deletion edit deletes a link to a database object that is a template (excludes the {{cite}} template)
t-m Template-Modification edit modifies a link to a database object that is a template (excludes the {{cite}} template)
f-i File-Insertion edit inserts a link to show a database object that is a file
f-d File-Deletion edit deletes a link to show a database object that is a file
f-m File-Modification edit modifies a link to show a database object that is a file
l-i (External) Link-Insertion Inserts "links from articles to web pages outside Wikipedia
l-d (External) Link-Deletion Deletes "links from articles to web pages outside Wikipedia
l-m (External) Link-Modification Modifies "Inserts "links from articles to web pages outside Wikipedia
a-i Article-Insertion edit inserts a link to a Wikipedia article
a-d Article-Deletion edit deletes a link to a Wikipedia article
a-m Article-Modification edit modifies a link to a Wikipedia article
w-i Wikipedia:Link-Insertion edit inserts a link to a Wikipedia Project page or Help page or Modele
w-d Wikipedia:Link-Deletion edit deletes a link to a Wikipedia Project page or Help page or Modele
w-m Wikipedia:Link-Modification edit modifies a link to a Wikipedia Project page or Help page or Modele
c-i Category-Insertion edit inserts a link to a Category page
c-d Category-Deletion edit deletes a link to a Category page
c-m Category-Modification edit modifies a link to a Category page
u-i Userpage-Insertion edit inserts a link to a user page
u-m Userpage-Modifcation edit modifies a link to a user page
u-d Userpage-Deletion edit deletes a link to a user page
P-i Protected The page is protected
P-d UnProtected The page is unprotected

18 Skills

Tentative axial codes

  • Administrating
  • Casemaking
  • Commenting
  • Copyediting
  • Defining
  • Deliberating
  • Drafting
  • Erasing
  • Expunging
  • Formalizing
  • Formating
  • Informing
  • Intraneting
  • Judging
  • Modalizing
  • Referencing
  • Translating
  • Vandalizing

Tentative social roles

  • Deontic experts: The language of the rules have to "work," which manifests as the deontic logic of modal verb use (should, must, may).
  • Policy translators: The Spanish rules spent a lot of energy translating English rules, and debating if that was the correct strategy for developing their own policies.
  • Policy explainers: Rules have to be made understandable. Wikipedians use their cultural knowledge of the community to think through the rule.
  • Policy analysts: Use their knowledge of the entire policy environment to identify contradictions, overlaps, and gaps with other rules.
  • Case reviewers: Specialize in presenting community precedents to think through how a policy will work in practice.
  • Scope definers: Have a passion and concern for thinking about how narrowly or broadly defined the rule is, and which problems it is attempting to solve.

Next steps

  • Publication (revision stage): Analyzed the history of interactions between users on the 15 policies to understand which editorial and democratic techniques they used to change the authority of a policy.
  • Additional passes: Finish the third pass and finalize skills; refine the social role descriptions; visualize frequencies of skills and roles for each policy; compare differences between policies.

Thanks!