[WikiEN-l] Category:<Subjective-pejorative>, weak consensus, and ! NPOV

Thu Jun 22 21:33:32 UTC 2006

stevertigo. Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:11:12 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

>I dont know what else to say. Either we have a culture
>which respects NPOV or we do not.

We don't. We have policies and guidelines... but the
admins who close AFDs don't read them, and if they
do they don't act on them. We have a deletion process
that is deliberately opaque and awkward to prevent
people from using it and getting the idea that deleting
anything from WIkipedia is a good thing.

We also have large chunks of Wikipedia with hardly
any editors applying the basic rules of Wikipedia.
These areas are controlled by organised groups
who make Wiki-life extremely difficult for anyone
who tries to clean it up. Editors with the best
intentions but without the stomach for a fight try their
best and end up being driven off after being
reported for vandalism or 3RR violations, or
just being wiki-stalked and hassled on any
article they edit.

To clean up these areas, any legitimate editor
has to have the patience of a saint and an
encylopedic (heh) knowledge of the Wikipedia
rules system. He's got to be able to put up with the
most extreme provocation and obvious bad faith...
all the while smiling sweetly and assuming good
faith while dozens of sock-puppets play stupid
games. He's got to have the support of a group
of editors, or a tame admin, to help him out too.

Naturally, most editors don't have this. So the
way Wikipedia is set up right now, under the
auspices of welcoming newbies, is a vandal
paradise that treats legitimate editors
as an endless renewable resource. it uses them
up and throws them away by giving them little or
no support and instead it defends the rights of
vandals to edit. It even makes the finding out
of who is socking up a tedious and officious
process... just for that extra kick in the teeth
for legitimate editors who do play by the rules
and are faced with those who don't.

In summary, the system is broken. But you won't
get any sense on this mailing list, because most
of the people here don't actually edit Wikipedia
these days. They just pontificate and have faith
in some mystical power of the Wiki.