Tortuous justifications for incivility

[AndrewForson]

You seem to be trying to understand these so-called justifications in terms of some kind of rational discussion aimed at creating an intellectual consensus. They are not. They are utterances whose sole content reads "I can say this stuff and make you agree with it, because I'm more powerful than you are". An alpha player could say that they had blocked an epsilon because the moon was made of green cheese, and the betas nod sagely and say, in public at least, "Ah yes, WP:GREENCHEESE", or become epsilons themselves. They know it's nonsense and yet in some strange way believe it too. But what it only and always means is "I'm alpha and you're not".

The constant requirement to find intellectual justification in incoherence or nonsense or to find some sort of stable meaning in an ever-changing and arbitrary party line is the essence of brainwashing. It's how the cult both expresses and reinforces its control of its members.

[CrowsNest]

You seem to be trying to understand these so-called justifications in terms of some kind of rational discussion aimed at creating an intellectual consensus. They are not. They are utterances whose sole content reads "I can say this stuff and make you agree with it, because I'm more powerful than you are". An alpha player could say that they had blocked an epsilon because the moon was made of green cheese, and the betas nod sagely and say, in public at least, "Ah yes, WP:GREENCHEESE", or become epsilons themselves. They know it's nonsense and yet in some strange way believe it too. But what it only and always means is "I'm alpha and you're not".

The constant requirement to find intellectual justification in incoherence or nonsense or to find some sort of stable meaning in an ever-changing and arbitrary party line is the essence of brainwashing. It's how the cult both expresses and reinforces its control of its members.

As with the Manning thread, the issue here really isn't inconsistent or unclear rules. Nowhere will you find a rule which, for example given the last post, says it's fine, let alone desirable, to call a crank a crank, not even when you are ejecting him from Wikipedia for being a crank. That is the rule, and it hasn't really changed for as long as I can recall. The issue really is application.

Brainwashing to enforce an ever changing party line about what ever changing rules really mean, is the least convincing explanation for why the Wikipedians can't seem to approach enforcement here the way they claim they do, namely with rational discussion toward an intellectual consensus. Power dynamics to ensure maintaining an anti-crank ethos is considered more important than being nice, is more attractive as an explanation, but you really can't sustain it if it requires us to believe there is a silent brainwashed underclass who somehow know it is nonsense, but are powerless to avoid them being made to believe it is their truth by their reptilian overlords.

Power dynamics only played a role here at level of tribal warfare. Once the leaders of the anti-civility tribe made it clear they had won (with the help of the capture of the Tribal Council, a.k.a ArbCom), and once everyone understood that part of their power rested in allowing the policy to say one thing but for enforcement to do another, often in quite illogical, inconsistent and incoherent ways, there was nothing anyone who objected could do about it, least of all the underclass. Precisely because Wikipedia is about power, not consensus.

The only brainwashing here, is a what leads objectors to conclude they would rather remain on Wikipedia even though they are acutely aware of what their reality is. And unfortunately for the cult, this is really more about the powerful force of addiction, than an ability to bend the minds of your opponents to your will. They can only ever control people who are already addicts, and it's hard to convince smart people to become addicts when they are making it this easy for newcomers to realise there is something decidedly off about how Wikipedia really works.

That is a problem, because Wikipedia is on the clock. You can only fool some of the people some of the time. They need lots of smart addicts to achieve the demonstrable quality standards the real world will want to see in five or ten years, when they're asking the question, should we finally attempt to regulate or otherwise hold accountable this all powerful entity, or are they too beneficial to humanity to risk messing around with their recipe. Or they may not even get there - a critical lack of smart addicts might spell their doom if a halfway better replacement emerges, likely not an encyclopedia at all (hence their attempts to rebrand as a knowledge service).

[AndrewForson]

Brainwashing to enforce an ever changing party line about what ever changing rules really mean, is the least convincing explanation for why the Wikipedians can't seem to approach enforcement here the way they claim they do, namely with rational discussion toward an intellectual consensus. Power dynamics to ensure maintaining an anti-crank ethos is considered more important than being nice, is more attractive as an explanation, but you really can't sustain it if it requires us to believe there is a silent brainwashed underclass who somehow know it is nonsense, but are powerless to avoid them being made to believe it is their truth by their reptilian overlords.

So what's your convincing explanation of why apparently sensible people continue to devote time and energy to a project for which there is ample evidence that it does not work, never could work and never will work; whose daily experience of contributing that time and energy is wildly at odds with the proclaimed principles and policies of the project; and which succeeds only at funnelling donation money to a self-perpetuating clique of lazy incompetents and screaming sadists ("reptilian overlord" being your term for them, not mine)?

[Graaf Statler]

Tell me what is yours. My hypothese is it is because of the "middle class in the spectrum". I am convinced it is. But what is your explanation for this effect?

[CrowsNest]

Brainwashing to enforce an ever changing party line about what ever changing rules really mean, is the least convincing explanation for why the Wikipedians can't seem to approach enforcement here the way they claim they do, namely with rational discussion toward an intellectual consensus. Power dynamics to ensure maintaining an anti-crank ethos is considered more important than being nice, is more attractive as an explanation, but you really can't sustain it if it requires us to believe there is a silent brainwashed underclass who somehow know it is nonsense, but are powerless to avoid them being made to believe it is their truth by their reptilian overlords.

So what's your convincing explanation of why apparently sensible people continue to devote time and energy to a project for which there is ample evidence that it does not work, never could work and never will work; whose daily experience of contributing that time and energy is wildly at odds with the proclaimed principles and policies of the project; and which succeeds only at funnelling donation money to a self-perpetuating clique of lazy incompetents and screaming sadists ("reptilian overlord" being your term for them, not mine)?

Addiction, for most of them. Some simply have nothing better to do with their lives, and are seduced by the idea their wikiscribbling somehow benefits others, so they get an unjustified boost of self-worth. Some just like bullying people online, and Wikipedia offers a quite entertaining and varied means of doing that.

[Graaf Statler]

Addiction, for most of them. Some simply have nothing better to do with their lives, and are seduced by the idea their wikiscribbling somehow benefits others, so they get an unjustified boost of self-worth. Some just like bullying people online, and Wikipedia offers a quite entertaining and varied means of doing that.

I think so too. Combined with free lunches, status, meetings, a goal in there live. And maybe a job as a wikipedias in residence. Because be fair, who should quite a good job to become a Wikipedia in residence? And indeed the fun, bullying people with a clique. In the begin i had with some of theme some private conversations.
No job, no girly, no hobby's, no goal in live. Wikipedia often was there only hobby and social surrounding. And as we noticed many of them have "something in the spectrum". It's dangers cocktail, also for them. And there biggest fear in life is to lose Wikipedia, you have seen it, INevercry was complete in panic on the talkpage of Trijnstel.. A person who had posted a picture with all his medicines. (Removed) TBloeming and that other guy too, the two Dutch stewards in the street of Moira.
It's in many ways a depressing story. They obey the cabal, because if they don't do that they lose there only goal in life, so they are listing to them and do anything they want. And in that way the cabal keeps it power.

[Flip Flopped]

Then some of them seem to think they are making the world better and if they don't do it then nobody will. Mark Bernstein seemed to indicate that for a bit. Doomed as Sisyphus.

[Graaf Statler]

Then some of them seem to think they are making the world better and if they don't do it then nobody will. Mark Bernstein seemed to indicate that for a bit. Doomed as Sisyphus.

Absolute. For them it is a win-win situation. With there mission and work they are making a better world, and they are a part of that "revolution" what gives them a good feeling, and a boost of self-worth. You can't blame them many times. Life was hard for them often.

Look, I am perfect happy with my professional live. I like the shop level mentality, I love my tools, I love it to create something material. If you have made a great construction a rally gives you a kick. For years and years I had never a pen in my hand, because I told you guy's I can only write with a computer.
Give m e a paper and a pen, and a child of five years old writes better, the first serious thinks I ever wrote in my long life was on Wikipedia. I have nothing of a complex about that because I know what I am missing.

But, imagine I had the big dream to be a in that time famous professor just like my father was. In that case Wikipedia had given me a big opportunity.
I can say I am a decent, grey old gentleman, and most of my inner circle are academics. I have not any problem to have a conversation on academic level. Why? because I have read a lot, read newspapers. What was more attractive than the wiki movement to pimp myself?
They love to have such people in there house. You start to be day and night on line, you start to go to meetings and to make wiki- friends, and in that way your star is rissing. And of course you play the game with them. Yes, you have to play the game.

And slowly slowly you become a wiki-celebrity, and you get stuck in the wiki-spidernet. And you have to do immoral things, otherwise you fall back or all your wiki-stars and stripes are taken off in public, just like what happend to INevercry, TBloeming and that other guy. And then you are again than lonely losser you was before. No wikimeets anymore, nor are free lunches anymore, no visits anymore to musea, university's and even to the European parlement. You are the big nothing again you was before.

I don't blame this people very much, in a way I am really sorry for them. Because they are living in one big illusion, one big lie. And for me it's easy talking, I am living a interesting live, can buy whatever I want, are make a good living. But they most times are immense losers in this live. Like I said before, no job, no girly, no hobby's, only a stupide computer they have. So they start often gaming, find there a social surrounding, start with Wikipedia where they feel welcome as long as they play the game.

I have found out many of the accounts of people who should know better are "managed" by others, by this kind of people. To many, many accounts more than one person and sometimes a whole group of users has access to that account. Passwords are shared, I have seen that again on Wikisage, the Lidewij account is a multiplied account, just like the Wikischim account on Wikipedia. The sock puppet world is much more complicated than your think, sometimes the "pilots" of a account change in the middle of a conversation seats.

I think they are doing this for legal reasons, or some other extreem stupide reason. I really don't know who made this plan, but in my opinion it's the most stupide thing you can do in a legal way in Europe. But in this way a wiki like the Dutch is managed I have found out.

[CrowsNest]

I'm loving the supreme irony that it was a non-admin who buried this latest episode of 'we have a civility policy' vs. 'grow a thicker skin'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =846992162

People don't really need to grow a thicker skin in order to be able to cope with comments like this being seen as normal discourse on Wikipedia......

I am sorry. I had not realized that you are a delicate flower who gets triggered by such mild comments. True, being able to survive the rough and tumble of a normal conversation is a rudimentary skill that many of us "normal" people assume everyone has an easy time of mastering, but we sometimes forget that there are "challenged" persons in this world who find these things to be difficult. If I had known that this was true in your case then I would have never have exposed you to even the slightest criticism. It just wouldn't have been "right". Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:40, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

They need some form of spray. Like a bug repellent. Or a great big mallet. The sort you might use to break someone's legs with.

[CrowsNest]

This is the tail-end of a massively self-serving question from Ritchie333 to a potential admin candidate....

You're going to be signing up for the "everyone calls you an asshole" side of adminship, and so you need to ask yourself if you really have a thick enough skin to be able to take that sort of abuse on a regular basis.

That is now easy it is for Wikipedia's own Administrators to pull the wool over the eyes of new recruits.

He many never see this, but for the benefit of the candidate, let me take this opportunity to tell him you are not expected to put up with, be happy with, or otherwise tolerate being called an asshole, simply for being a Wikipedia administrator. A thick skin is neither expected, nor required. You are in theory at least, merely expected to accept that it can happen, and you may have to accept a small delay before the person is blocked, assuming they do not apologise and retract, unreservedly.

The person most likely to call him an asshole, and not be blocked for it due to some creative bullshit, is probably Rtichie333 himself, given he will be most displeased his prediction this guy would get major pushback, appear to be unfounded (he's already at 187/1/0, which is impressive for a self-nom). To cover his ass, he's found an unconvincing reason to support, so he doesn't have to carry through with his threat to vote neutral, while still having registered his grave doubts on the basis that Rtichie333 thinks admins who don't create content are more prone to bad blocks. Which is simply a pathetic rehash of the time-worn way people have previously tried to excuse or otherwise minimise incivility.