Why The Joy left Wikipediocracy

[The End]

What I wrote in Wikipediocracy's Campaign Room on July 21, 2017:

I learned years ago that with Wikipedia criticism (and Wikipedia in general), you have to deal with and tolerate people on the spectrum from "barely sane" to "absolutely nuts." If you ban all the nuts, you would have no community, no connections, no content, no site, and no purpose. So, I'm working with this site, Auggie's site, Eric's site, and my own site to do things that interest me about Wikipedia criticism. I have my limits, but years of working on old WR and just plain surfing the Internet has made me more numb to some random pseudonym yelling like an old man telling kids to get off his lawn. Someone really, really, REALLY has to go out there for me to give up on an entire site. When you deal with Wikipedia, you deal with crazy. You have to tolerate the crazy.

[The End]

I left once and then came back. This time, I'm going and not going back as an active user or "inner circle" member. I'm just going to be a reader and once-in-a-blue-moon poster (if that). I still need those threads for research, so thankfully I didn't ask for my account to be deleted. Privately, regrettable things were said and I've had enough. I wish everyone there good luck in their future endeavors.

[ericbarbour]

Sounds good to me.

How many times did I say that "Wikipedia is a crazy magnet most of all", and how many times did the "Wikipedia critics" ignore me? Because, of course, some of THEM are crazies. And it's a major reason I'm really sick of the whole subject. You can't discuss things "rationally" with people who want to tear Jimbo's massive ego down by needling him on a forum; or who write thousands of articles about videogame characters; or who demand to be allowed to fiddle with their own WP biographies. Nowadays we also have freaks who are right-wing and want to remove Wikipedia's house left-wing bias. As if that were even possible.

Blu Aardvark, Blissyu2, Selena, Gomi, etc. etc....a large chunk of the old WR participants wanted to bias WP for their own dubious reasons. Most migrated to Wikipediocracy--but a fresh start didn't really make for a better forum. Bill Burns is obviously a WP camp follower and it is a BAD IDEA to let him run a "criticism forum". You're one of the few actually-rational people who could recognize a serious problem with Wikipedia's neutrality and "governance". Sadly such people are in the minority and always have been.

Go over to Reddit's r/wikiinaction; it's one of the very few online places where serious WP criticism occurs today. And it only exists because furious Gamergater manchildren post there after their involvement in the editwar and arbitration, which got many of them kicked off WP. Even they want to insert some kind of bias into WP content.

[Flip Flopped]

I left once and then came back. This time, I'm going and not going back as an active user or "inner circle" member. I'm just going to be a reader and once-in-a-blue-moon poster (if that). I still need those threads for research, so thankfully I didn't ask for my account to be deleted. Privately, regrettable things were said and I've had enough. I wish everyone there good luck in their future endeavors.

Yeah, you'll be glad that you haven't asked for your account to be deleted. It sounds like things got heated behind the scenes. That stuff will die down again. I think you'll feel much better not witnessing their emotional ventings.