We all know about "POV warriors." I'm fortunate or wimpy enough not
to have been involved in articles with serious long-standing POV
wars, but my impression is that _for the most part_ these things seem
to stay under reasonable control.
On the other hand, I think we are developing "topic warriors" who
feel that a specific subject area deserves very detailed coverage,
systematically watch VfD for any cases where articles on their pet
topic are nominated for deletion, and oppose deletion of _any_
article on their topic on principle, regardless of the quality of the
article.
Unlike POV, a relatively small number of topic warriors CAN
effectively achieve their goal. (And, of course, they are assisted by
Wikipedians who do _not_ accept the premise that "Wikipedia is not an
indiscriminate collection of information.")
NOTE NOTE NOTE ---> topic wars are FAR, FAR less damaging to
Wikipedia and FAR less of a concern than POV wars.
Some Wikipedians undoubtedly feel that topic wars do not damage
Wikipedia at all. My feeling is that they do, because they
deliberately _create_ systemic bias, and create an area in which the
average quality of the articles is lower than the rest of Wikipedia.
They certainly damage the Wikipedia community by factionalizing it,
creating an "us versus them" mentality, and, in some cases, publicly
gloating over their "success."
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at
http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/