People like to claim there are more important things in life than Wikipedia. The Wikipedians even regularly remind each other of that obvious fact. When you see shit like this, you realise it really is only words to them, none of them really appreciate what they mean.
Addiction. It rots your brain.
Last month, a 61 year old Wikipedian dropped dead of a stroke. Contrary to reports, he was not a nice guy. They day before he died, he was doing the usual Wikipedia bullshit. He may have even been doing it from his hospital bed.
If you think for a second that news of this sort of thing happening to one of their own makes the Wikipedians sit up and reflect, to ask themselves what they're doing with their lives, if this is how they want to die and be remembered for, I would be interested to know if you have any examples. Because I don't think they do. I think they have absolutely no idea what this all looks like to normal people.
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First example is BullRangifer. I've covered him before here.....
https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... f=19&t=836
Apparently he was caught in the California wildfires......
20 November:
13 December:I don't need the grief. I've got more than enough for several lifetimes. Right now nothing in life for many thousand people, my family included, is functioning normally, and won't for a very long time, maybe never. We're alive, barely. My memory is totally out of whack
14 December:Life's a bit of a mess right now, but we're alive.
So he's homeless, barely alive and in a nightmare. And yet in the last 45 days (November and December), he has edited for 35 of them. He has not taken more than two days off consecutively, and even then only twice.Being homeless is a busy situation. Time flies with seeking aid, meeting appointments, and waiting in long, long lines. If this were a normal "lost their home in a fire" situation, we'd be able to buy another home quickly and get on with our lives. In this area there is absolutely nothing available. Dumping 45,000 plus people, within a few hours, into a city of 90,000, just doesn't work. Every single rental, home, and storage container was immediately taken, with most people left without proper shelter. Many have left the area to stay with family elsewhere, but many are forced by other circumstances to stay in the area. We are among those. It's more difficult for us. We're safe, warm, and okay for now. This nightmare will end someday.
As you might expect, much of that editing has focused on his usual activity, griefing on Trump, but rather disturbingly, he is all over the wildfire article, with a special interest of course, in Trump. The guy never really looked like he was a neutral editor at the best of times. The chances he is capable of adhering to the NPOV now, during this emotional turmoil, is next to nil.
Which all rather ignores the main issue. What the fuck is he doing even editing? Granted, his activity is way down, some days he only edits once, albeit this is down from a pretty low steady average of only thirteen edits per day.
But that's kind of the point. He is clearly thinking about Wikipedia. Every day. From his edit history, it is hard to even nail down exactly when he might have been fleeing for his life. Why?
Well, his reason is pretty fucked up......
(14 December)Editing here preserves my sanity.
If his areas of interest were out of the way, the rare oases of calm you can find in Wikipedia, usually because it is only you who cares about the topic, then you might understand. But they are not. He is in daily battle, in the most contentious area they have.
I hope he is not the responsible figure of the family. You would sympathise with the dependents if he was. And if he is not, if he were my responsibility and he was seemingly more concerned with playing on Wikipedia than in helping get done what needs to be done, I'd definitely start wondering if I really needed to be worrying about him at all.
Burnt out and barely alive. But still a Wikipedian. That Trumps even heroin, surely?
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Second example is The Rambling Man. He has recently had a death in the family, his Grandad, but he was more like a son to him, or so he claims. He still hasn't even been buried yet. As I've documented at length, there are really compelling reasons to believe this entire story is complete horseshit, made up only to get him out of a spot of wiki-trouble. If you're wondering who could do such a thing, he could.
But I'm going to add him here, because if this story is true, if this Grandad is really dead, then how The Rambling Man has reacted, is the surest sign yet of just how addictive Wikipedia is. His participation in Wikipedia has barely skipped a beat. He has edited every day, even when he was supposedly going through his stuff.
Full details from here onwards.....
https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... 7193#p7193
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There are other obvious examples of Wikipedians editing when they really shouldn't but obviously can't stop. The seriously ill (to take their minds off their chronic pain of even impending death), including the seriously mentally ill (to do whatever they need to do to cope). Out of respect, I'll not add them here.