User:Squiggleslash
A project which punishes editors for defending the good names and reputations of living people from vicious internet trolls does not deserve to survive.
-- NorthBySouthBaranof.
So, once more, goodbye.
First time around I left because I felt I didn't really have the stamina and aptitude for handling conflict, which happens all too frequently. I was, looking back on it, far more brash and far less smart than I should have been as an editor.
Second time around I'm feeling the same faults apply to the people in charge of the project. In fact, I think the people in charge of Wikipedia right now are of a mindset that's harmful to the project's future. They are incapable of handling or understanding conflict, they impose disproportionate and clearly unjust punishments (there was a time it was possible to justify bans as "not necessarily punishments, just a way to keep people away from areas they're not helping in", but today it's obvious Arbcom does, actually, see its role as meting out punishment and not as protecting Wikipedia), and then seek excuses to continue those punishments. They refuse to fix the problems they create, instead arguing that they need to do more of what they're doing.
And very real people have been victimized by the Wikipedia establishment's attacks, most infamously recently the so-called "Five Horsemen", a group of decent editors who tried to uphold Wikipedia's own standards on an article where truth - and the reliable sources that reflected that truth - was overly negative to a small group of Internet thugs.
After suffering non-stop harassment for months from those thugs, including in at least two cases "Doxing" and other serious attacks, those editors were punished by Wikipedia's Arbcom. They were told they'd been "edit warring" because they'd tried to keep the article in line with the consensus. They were told they were uncivil because they had reacted badly to months of attacks on them personally, on and off Wiki. Obsessed with being seen to punish the editors involved, Arbcom even fabricated at least one allegation it upheld, that one editor had misrepresented sources, by juxtaposing a Wikipedia edit with an entirely different source to that being summarized.
One of Wikipedia's primary rules is WP:AGF, "Assume Good Faith". It's a well intentioned principle, though open to gaming as we've seen the last few months. I resumed editing under this handle because I thought I would try that with Arbcom, try to reason with people I assumed had just misunderstood the grave consequences of what it was they were doing, and who had apparently not investigated the real background of the attacks on the Five Horsemen, and how they'd come to Arbcom in the first place, instead merely assuming a two-sides-to-any-conflict position.
I cannot, any longer, AGF. Having interacted with them, I've drawn the conclusion that those in charge of Wikipedia's direction have no humanity and no sense of decency or justice, and no understanding of the damage their actions have on people personally and on the project.
One only has to hope that one day one or more will wake up, have an epiphany, and say "My God, what have I done?", and try to fix the damage. Until then there's no point in arguing with them, and there's no point in me being here.
I'll be closing out this account permanently. If you need to contact me, I suggest Wikimail. I wish the rest of you luck.
--Squiggleslash (talk) 13:30, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
Articles I'm proud of:
Articles I wish I'd been more successful fixing:
So long, and for the good people still positively contributing to this project, good luck, and don't let the bastards get you down.
 | This editor has decided to leave Wikipedia. |