The following is a guide to editing Wikipedia from a Zen Buddhist perspective. This essay is unnecessarily long, though it is necessarily so, since people often seem to need to hear the words before they gain sudden insight. This essay can be briefly summarized as, "Do what needs to be done, without ego, and nothing else." It may also be summarized as, "Edit Wikipedia out of an enlightened self-interest." If you fully understand what this means, you do not need to read any further. If you are unsure, mindfully reading the following may be helpful.
"Wikipedia is suffering," does not mean that editing Wikipedia is inherently suffering. Nothing is inherent. On the contrary, editing Wikipedia is frequently an enjoyable activity. Why else would anyone do it? What this means is that, from time-to-time, we may find edits we disagree with, even blatant POV nonsense or vandalism, and our immediate attempts to remove it may prove difficult, if not impossible. When this happens, we feel suffering.
The origin of suffering is ego. One should not have attachment to articles. If they do, they simply suffer more or cause suffering for others. When a person is attached to an article, either they attempt to push their point-of-view or they feel an unhealthy obsession with removing points-of-view, which causes disruption.
Attachment leads to suffering and suffering leads to death. The cessation of attachment leads to greater freedom to edit Wikipedia and improve it as you see fit.
This is the core of Wikipedia Zen morality. Any good editor should make the following vows:
The first noble truth. Editing Wikipedia is boring, tedious, futile, and annoying.
Any edit you make is temporary. Tomorrow or the day after, it may be wiped clean and you must accept it. There is no past and there is no future. If there were, where would it be?
When did you read the previous sentence? Now. When are you reading this sentence? Now. When will you read the next sentence? Now. The past is a mental abstraction within the present moment and the future is a mental abstraction within the present moment. It is not true that we move through time, time moves through us.
Who are you? You do not need to accept this idea on faith. That would be stupid. But let's examine that question. Traditional Buddhist phenomenology (see Theravada) places all experience into five categories, called the Five aggregates:
Now, Psychologists may certainly object to the above model. But even if it could be re-modeled differently, it's a reasonable enough set of assumptions, right? Let's examine each aspect of this model and see how it relates to you.
Consciousness is made up of a flurry of cognitions flying by so quickly we see them as a continuous sense of self rather than a chain of sensations. Who are you, without your body? Who are you, without your feeling? Who are you, without your perception? Who are you without your mental formations? And who are you, in between each moment of consciousness?
You are emptiness and within that emptiness is Buddha-nature. Let go of yourself and be free.
How is there Buddha-nature? Being arises from consciousness, consciousness arises from mental formations, perceptions, and feelings. Mental formations, perceptions, and feelings, arise from form. Form arises from emptiness, and emptiness arises from form. Recognizing this, all things are connected. Within you is pure, undifferentiated consciousness which perceives the world as it actually is, with boundless compassion for all beings.
Pick up a pen and paper. Press the pen to the paper, then remove it. See the dot? That's you. That's me. That's everything.
The Way that can be told is not the true Way. It must be felt and practiced right now.
What is the way? Wikipedia has no laws, yet there is a spontaneous order. People from all over the world have come together to form the various software and hardware components (including vast telecommunication networks called "the internet"), from diverse backgrounds, all coming together to form Wikipedia, with most of them not even realizing the results of their action. This is the Way.
The virtues of the editors on Wikipedia determine the outcome. The method by which edits are made is arbitrary. The method is arbitrary, because the method itself is not fundamental or separate from the editors themselves; the method is founded upon the virtues of the editors, as they're the ones which write it. If editors are virtuous, the wiki process is always sound. If editors are not virtuous, any proposed method or process cannot possibly succeed. Wise editors are concerned with virtue, while foolish editors concern themselves with the arbitrary processes by which a decision is reached. Wise editors know that they cannot control anything beyond themselves, while foolish editors desperately cling to a particular outcome and try to control the entire wiki.
There are four types of editors:
Each of these is in order from least noble to most noble.
(...to be filled in later)
One cannot seek to impose their will on others, but must work through the existing order. How does one act in accordance with the Way? Through non-resistance, by doing through not doing anything at all. Where there is resistance, there is ego. The fool scrambles to grab everything he can. The sage picks up one stick but grasps ten.
There is a legend of a queen who once walked outside of her palace and stubbed her toe on the ground. Immediately, she ordered her servants to cover the entire nation with leather. One of her servants asked, "Why not just put leather on your feet?" and thus, shoes were born.
Don't worry about everything it once. Let it go. Do one thing right at a time and then move on. If you do it right, they will say, "Look, we did it! We got the article featured!" and no one will remember you.
Four monks were meditating in a monastery. All of a sudden the prayer flag on the roof started flapping.
The younger monk came out of his meditation and said: "Flag is flapping."
A more experienced monk said: "Wind is flapping."
A third monk who had been there for more than 20 years said: "Mind is flapping."
The fourth monk who was the eldest said, visibly annoyed: "Mouths are flapping!"
Never say more than you need to. It is a sign of ego, a waste of time, and foolish. Need I say more? The nail that stands up is hammered down.
All Zen Wikipedians see the enlightenment of all beings as inevitable, but a conditional inevitability that depends on continual contribution to Wikipedia. The question is a matter of when and how. There are two predominant schools of thought. Neither are contradictory, but simply see one approach as more effective than the other. Soto Zen does not advocate being disruptive and Rinzai Zen does not advocate bad edits.