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A partisan is an editor who treats Wikipedia as a battleground in which editors are assumed to be on specific "sides" and fighting against each other, rather than working together to build an encyclopedia. A partisan is not a mere point-of-view-pusher. All POV-pushers violate the second pillar's call for neutrality, but a partisan's outlook also goes against the first pillar's holding that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and usually the fourth pillar's call for respect, civility, and assumption of good faith.
A number of essays have struggled to articulate the difference between "normal" POV-pushers and this more insidious kind, perhaps most notably Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing. Such essays run into the fundamental problem that the behaviors they identify as disruptive are only disruptive if the editor is wrong. A fringe POV-pusher might make many comments pushing their perspective and advocate for the use of sources that the article's existing editors think are unreliable... But so would a subject-matter expert who finds that the article on their area of expertise has been taken over by a clique with a fringe POV of their own. For topic areas like pseudoscience, it may be easier to distinguish one from the other, but the most contentious topic areas tend to be those where there is a legitimate dispute as to what the mainstream POV even is.
So this essay takes a different approach, shedding the misnomer "civil" and aiming to define this subset of POV-pushers not by their (supposed) demeanor, but by what really sets them apart: rank partisanship.
Inner monologues
To better elucidate the difference, let's look at how these types of editors approach Wikipedia.
A regular constructive editor:
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I am one of many people who contribute to it. I try to improve articles where I see issues. Sometimes other editors object to my edits. Occasionally this is because they are here in bad faith, but usually it is part of some good-faith dispute. I try to work together with them to find the outcome that best complies with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If we see something differently despite looking at the same evidence, I might delve deeper to try to find our disconnect, request a third opinion, or simply walk away from the discussion.
A constructive editor who strongly favors one side based on an honest reading of reliable sources:
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I am one of many people who contribute to it. I try to improve articles where I see issues. A common issue is that many articles don't give enough weight to the sources I've found are most reliable on a particular topic. I add the sources I find more reliable and remove or give less prominence to ones I find less reliable or unreliable. Some editors disagree with this, maybe because they assess the source reliability differently, or maybe because they are POV-pushers. I try to work together with them to explain why I assess source reliability the way I do, and to reach a consensus in accordance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines; I also consider their differing opinion and reflect on whether I might be wrong. If we can't agree, I might delve deeper to try to find our disconnect, request a third opinion, or simply walk away from the discussion.
A "normal" POV-pusher:
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Some of its articles are wrong because they don't match what I know to be true. I try to improve articles by correcting their POV to match my own. Sometimes editors try to stop me because they don't understand that my POV is correct. I try to show them why my POV is correct and thus, according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, should be the one used by the article. If we see something differently despite looking at the same evidence, I might show more evidence of why I am right or request input from editors who I think are more likely to agree with me.
A partisan:
Wikipedia is an information battleground. Editors on the other side have skewed many of its articles against my side. I try to reverse that skew, so that articles will favor my side, showing readers that we are right and the other side is wrong. I look for sources that I can use as weapons to this end, and look for reasons to delegitimize the sources the other side wields against me. Sometimes editors try to stop me because they are on the other side. I try to win the resulting battles by outlasting them in talk page arguments, getting them to stop editing, and getting help from others on my own side. They will never seriously consider my evidence, and I will never seriously consider theirs, because my side is right and theirs is wrong.
Foregone conclusions
A key distinction between partisans and other editors is a tendency toward motivated reasoning toward a foregone conclusion. While most people may have a tendency to find sources that confirm their biases, partisans will actively seek out sources that, if true, would support their position, and then take it as a matter of faith that the source is correct.
Selective source analysis
Partisans are often willing to defend sources' accuracy using whatever arguments they think will win, even if this is inconsistent with positions they have taken elsewhere. For instance, a partisan might reject an expert self-published source on one side of an issue as insufficiently reliable, but then promote use of a similar or less reliable source on the other side.
While all editors have idiosyncratic interpretations of policies here and there, or might simply misunderstand a policy, someone who routinely comes up with unusual policy interpretations, always benefiting the same side in a dispute, may be reasoning backward from a foregone conclusion rather than forward from the letter of the policy. Partisans frequently set high standards for the inclusion of sources or perspectives that are found nowhere in policy, like applying notability rules to due weight analysis, applying WP:BLP to a large organization, or applying WP:MEDRS to a non-biomedical claim.
Invariability
Many disputes on Wikipedia consider nuanced issues. Even a non-partisan who strongly favors one side in a dispute should sometimes find situations where the facts plainly favor the other side's narrative to at least some degree. Some of the most successful editors in contentious topics strongly favor one faction but can routinely be found in agreement with their ideological opposites in cases where the facts are clear. The absence of this tendency is a hallmark of partisans.One of the greatest tells of partisanship is when editors' opinions still follow partisan lines in disputes that are tangential to the core ideological conflict. For instance, if a person believes, based on a reasoned reading of sources, that Arstotzka is committing genocide against Kolechia, they may rarely if ever side with the Arstotzkan narrative in disputes about the war itself; that is not necessarily a sign of partisanship. But if they also consistently favor including negative personal information in biographies of people who happen to support Arstotzka, and oppose including such information in biographies of people who support Kolechia, it strains credulity that their honest, informed opinion will always by pure happenstance coincide with the interests of Kolechia.
Black-and-white thinking
It's often the case that a source will have some features pointing towards reliability and others pointing against it. A non-partisan, even one trying to promote a POV, will usually be able to acknowledge the features of the sources they like that would normally point against the use of that source, and vice versa. However, because partisans fear conceding any ground, however small, they are much less willing to make these sorts of small concessions. So for instance, in the case of a paper authored by an expert known to be biased, a non-partisan might say "Sure she's known to be pro-Arstotzkan but she is a recognized expert in the field, so we should include her expert opinion" or "I know she's a recognized expert in the field but she's so strongly pro-Arstotzkan we should probably wait for a more neutral source". Meanwhile a partisan is more likely to say "This is a scientific paper written by an expert" or "This is propaganda by a known propagandist" and react to any mention of the confounding information with "How dare you criticize/defend such an obviously good/bad source!".
Contrived claims of conduct policy violations
Foregone conclusions can occur with user-conduct matters as well. Partisans will often see evidence for sockpuppetry where there is little to none, for instance arguing that two users with tens of thousands of edits must be sockpuppets because they've overlapped on editing a handful of articles, or merely because they share a POV different than the partisan's own. Similarly, partisans may hold their opponents to absurdly high standards regarding conduct policies (e.g. "It was a personal attack to call my edit unhelpful") but hold themselves and their allies to very low standards (e.g. "It wasn't a personal attack for Alice to call Bob an Arstotzkan supremacist, because Bob once said he was proud to be Arstotzkan"). These may be intentional misrepresentations on the partisan's part, or may be a sincerely-held belief based on their own skewed view of the topic area, but in either case are evidence of partisanship.
The looking glass
One of the most reliable signs of a partisan is the way they tend to characterize disputes. The unifying theme in these examples is that an editor assumes that others' views in on-wiki matters will be predictable based on partisan logic; this assumption serves as a mirror for how the speaker themself views things.
Inferring ideology from identity or vice versa
If an editor assumes that someone holds a specific view based only their identity (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.), or assumes that someone holds a particular identity based on their holding a particular view, this is a strong sign that they view themself as on one side, and people with that identity on another. See also Wikipedia:Hate is disruptive.
Inferring one view from another
Wikipedia editors are assumed to be free thinkers, and there is no reason to assume that, for instance, someone's view on abortion dictates their view on gun control. If an editor is making that assumption, this suggests that they expect editors' views, presumably including their own, to follow partisan platforms rather than free thought.
Inferring ideology from position in a dispute
If someone thinks that !voting in a way that happens to favor Arstotzka means that someone is ideologically aligned with Arstotzka, this suggests that their own !voting in favor of Kolechia is itself ideologically motivated.
Assuming that others cannot separate ideology from !vote
If Alice says on her userpage that she supports Arstotzka, and she consistently !votes for material that favors Arstotzka, this may be indicative of POV-pushing. However, if Bob accuses Alice of bias based only on a single !vote, while Alice actually has a track record of even-handed participation, this suggests that Bob sees no difference between ideological views and what side one takes in on-wiki disputes.
Assuming editors on the same perceived side will always !vote in lockstep
Stratification of perceived allies and enemies is a core aspect of the partisan mentality. As with above, "Alice and Carol always !vote the same way" might be a good critique if that is in fact true, but a partisan editor is liable to say this even when it isn't.
Reading apolitical statements as political
Editors who, for instance, take statements about wanting a war to end as evidence of bias in favor of one side or the other, or see someone's statement about their identity as a statement about some political issue, are betraying a strong bias of their own.
Right makes might
Because partisans tend to think that they are unquestionably correct, they will often make arguments that presuppose their own views are superior.
Explicitly arguing from within their ideology's framework
Wikipedia policies and guidelines have their own ideological basis. Among other things, we care about accuracy, source reliability, and not harming people. Many popular ideologies share these views. Furthermore, specific topics will inherit the prevailing ideologies among their sources; for instance, coverage of women's rights inherits the generally feminist slant of most reliable sources in that topic area, and we explicitly favor scientific points of view over pseudoscientific ones. Arguments that coincide with various movements' positions in these ways are fine. However, arguments that are framed in terms like "This contradicts the anti-terraformer understanding of things", "This could endanger Arstotzkan interests", or "This article shouldn't present the Robotologist narrative, as the prophet Zarquon disproved it" tend to indicate partisanship.
Claims of immaculacy from POV
Everyone has a POV because everyone has beliefs. Even statements like "genocide is bad" or "scientific evidence is more reliable than gut feeling" represent POVs. While some editors choose to be explicit about their beliefs and others implicit, most editors will not deny that they have some sort of personal opinion. However, whether it's because they tend to treat their correctness as axiomatic or because they understand they are trying to violate WP:NPOV, partisans will often treat any assertion that they have a POV as an accusation no matter how obvious it is that they do. For instance, in response to a neutral observation about their focus on Arstotzkan territorial claims, a partisan might reply, "I'm not writing about the Arstotzkan position. I'm writing about the historically accurate one. It's the biased Kolechian sources that fabricate history." There would be nothing inherently wrong with the editor tending to write about the Arstotzkan position—sometimes this is an important part of balance—which makes the tenor of the denial all the more telling.
Demanding "fairness" based on false balance rather than matching the consensus of sources
It is entirely reasonable, and indeed commendable, to go to an article's talkpage and propose edits that would bring it more in line with the consensus among reliable sources, thus making it more fair. Editors who do this tend to come with an array of reliable sources at the ready to show the current imbalance in the article. On the other hand, editors who object that an article is "unfair" based solely on a general sense that the article should look more like their own side's narrative, without any attempt to argue that doing so would comply with WP:NPOV, are admitting that they think Wikipedia articles just reflect the winning side's version of reality, and that their side is entitled to its own version.
Expressing shock or outrage at having to work with "the other side"
People are allowed to express support for any ideology on Wikipedia, provided they do not express it disruptively. Someone's stated support for a cause might form part of a case for POV-pushing, but if Alice thinks that Bob's views are on their own grounds for sanction, this often shows that Alice sees the topic area as an ideological battleground.
Treating opposing views as inherently hateful
In the previous example, a distinction might be drawn if Bob's views are hateful. But partisans often draw this line in a very different place than others do. For instance, a partisan might insist that "I support Kolechia" is a call for violence against Arstotzkans, or that "Robotology makes scientifically falsifiable claims" is hate speech against Robotologists. While hate speech is a very real concern in contentious topic areas, partisans will use its specter to delegitimize opponents' views.
Treating opposing views as monolithic
In the course of becoming convinced of their ideologies' supremacy, partisans often succumb to reductive thinking about their opponents. To a literate non-partisan, it may be obvious that Alice supports a nationalist Arstotzkan party and refuses to ever admit that Arstotzka could do wrong, while Carol is a member of a centrist party and generally supports Arstotzkan geopolitical interests while remaining critical of Arstotzka's government. This distinction will often be lost on a partisan, who might complain that a thread is being overrun by pro-Arstotzkan-government accounts like Alice and Carol.
I know it when I see it
For as much as they've vexed Wikipedia at its highest level of dispute resolution over the decades, partisans are usually not that hard to spot. When most people are here to build an encyclopedia, it will usually stick out to an experienced user when they're dealing with someone who is instead here to push an agenda. However, given that "partisan" will also be bandied about as an accusation, this essay can be a useful framework for making that case.
Keep in mind that there are a few kinds of editor who can be mistaken for partisans:
The POV-haver but not -pusher
Some people have userpages plastered with their opinions on political subjects, but nonetheless edit nonpartisanly. Do not assume someone is a partisan just because they have a strong opinion.
The NPOV-compliant POV-driven editor
Even when someone's POV does inform their edits, there's no requirement to ever make an edit that goes against your POV, so long as you're not making disruptive edits in favor of it. An editor who only edits about crimes committed by Arstotzka and never those committed by Kolechia is not necessarily a partisan, unless they are doing so in a way that creates undue weight within an article.
The disinterested opinionated editor
When politics and factual questions intersect, someone might approach the facts at hand and walk away with an assessment that coincides with one partisan viewpoint.
The good-faith POV-pusher
Some people are generally here to build an encyclopedia, but have a blind spot for some issue and make POV-pushing edits that they think are helpful. These editors need to be dealt with, but they should still not be conflated with partisans.
Once someone has ruled out those misidentifications, and can point to partisan behaviors identified in this essay that an editor exemplifies, they should not be afraid to call a spade a spade and say so.
Remedies
A topic ban is the minimum appropriate remedy for partisan editing. Where the partisanship has been egregious, or has coincided with violations of conduct policies, an indefinite block or site ban is preferable. There is no short-term prospect of someone switching from partisan to constructive editing, although they may of course mature in time and earn an unban.
Notes
↑The usage of the word partisan in this essay is not limited to cases where literal political parties are involved.
↑However, cultural views in particular may reasonably influence matters of editorial discretion. For instance, the community has tended to factor in differing cultural norms when deciding whether to name private individuals in articles.
↑One set of ideologies (pro-pedophilia ones) are considered inherently disruptive to express as a matter of policy. Another set (bigoted ones) are also considered inherently disruptive to express by many editors. In other cases, the expression of an ideology might be disruptive due to manner rather than content; see generally WP:NOTFORUM, WP:NOTSOAPBOX, and WP:UPNOT.
