Wikirot, Wiki Rot, or Wiki-rot, is a pejorative term used to describe the process of a Wikipedia editor who becomes so entrenched in Wikipedia's policies that nothing else matters. It can also be used as a noun to describe an editor who has succumbed to the process. On a deeper level, it represents a trend typified in Wikipedia editing that translates to many other similar areas, that on a larger scale our gradual day-to-day conversion to digital technology and our evolving over-reliance on it results in the dehumanization of civilization.
The word is a perversion of Wiki bot (Wikipedia Robot), and endorses the belief that the humanity of an editor has "rotted" away due to overexposure to Wikipedia, its policies, and the lack of engaging with real life, to such a degree that only the "robotic" elements remain.
Uses of the word include "You've been wikirotted", which can have 2 meanings:
- 1) you have have turned into a wikirot, or
- 2) you have been owned by a wikirot.
Examples of wikirotting would be when a new editor with an unintentionally anti-consensus view joins a discussion, and experienced editors automatically assume bad faith, rudely treating the new editor as a troll instead of an editor trying to improve an article. The article talk page then rapidly becomes a confusing morass of policy-related digressions and sub-threads responding to minor points, instead of engaging on a basic human level. The irony is that the experienced editors end up selectively quoting policies that suit their temperament in order to either win an argument or kill a discussion. Because the new editor is probably not well versed in policy, they don't know that these experienced editors are in fact secretly pushing their point of view while appearing civil. When editors hide behind policies to control a discussion and discourage a new editor, instead of engaging with them, the process of wikirotting has taken place, and the said editor has become a wikirot.