Charter/Sources/Cassandra

Wikipedia:User:Mirv's views on what is wrong with Wikipedia. The title is, of course, a reference to the Trojan prophetess, but on reflection this is more of a jeremiad, isn't it. There's some overlap and duplication between this and Charter/Drafts/Conflict Points.

172's departure and the reactions to it crystallized some worries I've been having about Wikipedia. He elucidates the central issue well:

whether nor not you are taken seriously depends not on the merit of your work but rather how many friends you have made with the users who dominate the mailing list, IRC, and the administrative pages.

Instead, we have a dispute resolution process fetishizing increasingly rigid (and idiosyncratic) community norms and customs without reference to who's writing encyclopedic material and who's not.

This fetishization of process is the worst issue. There are others:

• The ever-increasing power of sysops, which leads to:
  • Sysops using their increased power to bully other users (cf. MeatBall:PowerAnswer), and
    • Those users responding by attempting to undermine the sysops at every turn (bad), or else
    • sucking up to sysops, acting like wannabe secret policemen: gleefully pointing out everyone else's trangressions at every opportunity (worse). See Orcs.
• The common tendency to overlook the resolution part of dispute resolution; nearly everyone is focused on proving that the other guy is worse.
• The hell pit that is VfD. A sampler of the problems: the high number of new users who jump right into it without first learning the ropes, especially the ins and outs of fixing bad articles. The fact that voting "*Delete, nn. ~~~~" or "*Keep. Stop deletion trolling. ~~~~" is so much easier than research, editing, and organization. That this leads to insane listings like Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Mayor of Galway. That these listings just reinforce the aforementioned bad habits in the next wave of VfD newbies. That VfD is increasingly used as a means of solving content disputes: witness Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/History of Christianity/Jesus, pre-4th century Christianity, and syncretism (nothing especially remarkable about this one, it's just the most recent listing of this type.) And so on.
• Overreach by the Arbitration Committee: attempting to go beyond its writ of enforcing community norms and trying to set policy, without input from the broader community, through private communication channels. The insane "POV paroles". Obviously prejudiced arbitrators without the integrity to recuse themselves.
• Cliquishness. Why bother working for an NPOV article when you can just round up half a dozen friends and gang-revert the opposition until they quit in disgust?
• Rampant wikilawyering. Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement was a great idea that has turned into an unmitigated disaster. Let us hope that Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks dies a quiet, lonely death. It did. A certain user tried to claim it was "semi-policy" anyway.
• Crucial discussions taking place, not on the wiki where anyone can join in, not on the mailing list where anyone can read or join with only a little more difficulty, but on IRC. These discussions going unannounced. Jealously guarding what was said on IRC. Cabal, anyone?
• The complete lack of taste and discretion in image use. Failure to consider the effect on our public reputation. Blinkered insistence on using images front and center, no matter how tasteless or shocking they might be.