Wikipedia:Editors with obsessive-compulsive disorder

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Shortcuts WP:OCD WP:ULTIMATEHOBBY

This page in a nutshell: Editors with OCD may have different "wiring patterns" in their brains, and you may have to learn how to interact well with them, but they can still make a valuable contribution to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is the ultimate honeypot for people with obsessive–compulsive disorder! If a group of researchers had been given the task of creating a working/hobby environment specifically designed to attract people with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), it's hard to see how they could have come up with anything better than Wikipedia. If you think you may have OCD, there are online screening tests that can give a general idea of whether you have some of the symptoms of OCD.^[1] (However, be aware that OCD can only be properly diagnosed by a professional psychologist or psychiatrist.)

Even Wikipedia editors without OCD are known to develop a strong urge to check and re-check watchlisted articles, favourite articles, or articles they are concerned about. Wikipedia editors without OCD are known to develop a strong urge to repeatedly change articles to reflect a preferred formatting or inclusion/exclusion of certain text, even to the point of edit warring. Indeed, the media has noted this, with one 2008 newspaper article entitled "Who Are These Devoted, Even Obsessive Contributors to Wikipedia?"^[2]

For editors with OCD, the urge to check and re-check articles and watchlists is even more powerful than it is for non-OCD editors, because one of the symptoms of OCD is the powerful urge to check and re-check things. For editors with OCD, the urge to keep changing an article back to a preferred version is even more powerful than for non-OCD editors, because one of the symptoms of OCD is to change things until they feel "right" or "perfect", which may involve ordering information in a certain fashion or following some sort of pattern that "feels good". For OCD editors, it can be easy to get fixated on changing an article in a certain way, and the OCD can make it very hard to "drop the stick" (i.e., "let go" of an issue).

As with many things some people would say that, when it comes to real-world applications, OCD is probably best not thought of as a "disability" and they would say that it is really about differences in ways of thinking. Adding the label of disability changes the way we think about things; it shifts us into the paradigm of "abnormality", whereas in real terms it can be just "less usual", in the same way that some hair colours, some eye colours, etc. are "less usual".