Orcs
From Anarchopedia
Revision as of 23:37, 23 April 2005 by Troll Bridge on the River Kwai (Talk | contribs)
In the metaphor of Wikipedia as an MMORPG, orcs are "irksome contributors" who are incapable of holding their own in debate and thus cannot achieve the status of trolls.
As Wikipedia User Xiong puts it, "what distinguishes the orc is his lack of any real commitment to the positions which he advances." In their constant struggle to oppose trolls, orcs often resort to underhanded, unethical or destructive tactics.
- "The result far outlasts whatever immediate destruction the orc causes. [] But there is a lasting effect, too: the atmosphere of contention itself, the contamination of the body politic, the precedents set for bad, ruthless, self-centered action. [] Substantive work on the project either grinds to a halt, or is abandoned to the care of second-raters." - Wikipedia User Xiong
Many orcs climb the Wikipedia [power structure] by going after their most unpopular critics:
- "[Name witheld] made his Wikipedia "career" by attacking those critics. Some of them were genuinely bad editors, and many Wikipedia users were relived to see them gone and willing to overlook the way [he] got rid of them, by means fair or foul. Because in many cases, [he] got rid of people by relentless, petty harassment, until the victim finally broke a Wikipedia rule in his frustration (usually the rule against personal attacks). [He] pretty much called anyone who questioned his tactics a "troll", and implied that arguing for due process was a "delaying tactic" only used by trolls. [] So it became politically highly costly to oppose [him].
- "And those in the power structure were delighted to have [him] as their attack dog. Due process and fair treatment got thrown out the window. [W]hether or not his targets were real threats to the encyclopedia, they all questioned the power-structure.
- "[U]nfortunately for Wikipedia, the free flow of information it relies on gets dammed up when dissent is removed, dismissed or derided without due process. While the majority of Wikipedians continue to diligently and honestly add to the encyclopedia, any viewpoint that seems at all threating to the reigning group-think is crushed []. Eventually, you'll have an encyclopedia, but an encyclopedia that reports only the narrow viewpoints of its most zealous and intolerant members." English Wikipedia User Orthogonal
