User:Cascadia/departure

Greetings, ladies and gents. I have had the pleasure of working with some of you here, and quite enjoy working on this project. However, I have been forced by continued actions and mindset of this community to consider a departure from the project. I have not made a final decision, but I wanted to explain why I even had the notion to distance myself from the project.

Elitist Mindset and mob mentality
Wikipedia has grown by leaps and bounds since it's first inception. It's editors consist of members of all walks of life, all personalities, and all backgrounds. Some conflict is generally expected when such a large and diverse group of people come together, but not on this magnitude.

Many editors will say the root of much of their frustration and stress comes from edit wars, vandals, and such. In my case, I tend to distance myself from articles that attract a high number of vandals, are somewhat obscure as to not warrant an edit war. The majority of my stress and frustration actually comes from the editors themselves. Overzealous admins, people that feel they are above all else, and other such mindsets. There are far too many editors and admins here that feel that because they have been around for a long time, and have several thousand edits, X number of articles with Y number of GA or FA's, that they now know all there is to know, and can read all other editors minds. In other words, they feel their tenure and edit count gives them a license to be a Dick. They straw man discussions, bring up frivolous reasoning for things, and are willing to attack established editors. They effectively push away good editors who are trying to help the project, but don't follow their line of thinking. This continued mindset of Elitism is detrimental to the project. I surely know that I am not the first to consider leaving, or to have actually left on these grounds, nor will I be the last.

On top of this, Wikipedia is home to a large mob mentality. The answer for everything, especially when brought up by a member of the elitist guild, is Delete, kill, burn, salt! It happens quite a lot. Areas of Wikipedia cease to exist because someone decides that they don't like it, so they will feverishly push to have it removed, or will watch it like a hawk until THEIR idea of reform is achieved. If it doesn't meet THEIR standards, it will be nominated for deletion again. And many people go along with the idea because the nominator drums it up as a evil beast worth killing. They present it to the community as it will do them a great service to kill this beast. This does not just happen with deletion discussions, but with pretty much any discussion involving some facet of wikipedia that has come under review.

Conclusion
The elitist mindset that currently has a strangle hold on Wikipedia will be the death of the project. Too many good editors trying to weigh in on the future of Wikipedia are being pushed away because they do not qualify for the inner circle. I see and hear frequently that there is no cabal. While I firmly believe this is the case, that there is no centralized secret society controlling all portions of Wikipedia behind the scenes, there is it's sinister cousin. The elitist movement within Wikipedia serves no purpose than to maintain an effective hold on the project by it's longest contributors. As if, by some grace of God and Jimbo, that edit count=clout=stature. If Wikipedia is to have more and more long term contributors, it has to be willing to put a stop to individual elitist and mob mentality. Long term editors need to discontinue assuming that their edit count and standing gives them a de facto free-pass, and to accept the fact that Wikipedia is a dynamic community, and that new editors will come about and their opinions and thoughts matter just as much as theirs.

The stress caused by consistently encountering elitist editors has caused me to very much consider discontinuing the project for a long time, probably never to return under this username should that be decided.

I hope that anyone who reads this will take to heart there is a serious and detrimental problem on Wikipedia that must be fixed.

Sincerely yours, CASCADIA Howl/Trail 14:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Feedback
Should you decide to add anything, please do so below this section. Thank you.
 * 1) I don't think you should go, from what I have seen; you are often a dose of common sense on pages such as WP:RFCN, it is the above view that gives you this ability of valuing the project properly, not based on what others say.
 * 2) The problems you have commented on here are present but not widespread, there is a sense of elitism but I don't believe it has yet gripped the project and is limited to a few cases where people think they are/want to be more important than they actually are. We are all 1 in about 4 million. GDonato (talk) 16:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) I think the problems are way to widespread, overzealous people come here after a day of work and try to virtually "duke it out" with some random user, even some admins. They won't admit it, or even notice it, but you have to ignore it.  You are a very good contributer, and also a good person.  I see where you're coming from, but well I have no reasons for you to stay, other than at least some people, like me, think that you're a good person, and contribute vastly to Wikipedia.-- Kk  rou  ni  20:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Decision
I have decided that I enjoy editing Wikipedia far too much, and enjoy assisting this project in any way I can, that I should not leave. My comments above are still my thoughts, feelings, and observations, and I will keep them here as a reminder of what I'm doing. I decided to lay down the following areas in which I will continue to assist this project:
 * Crete, grow and shape pages relating to North Central Washington and Arizona.
 * Expand road related articles the best I can.
 * Assist in defining and shaping policy using common sense and logic.
 * Act as an ever present advocate for users and editors that feel they have been wronged.
 * In cases where the editor has feel they have been wronged, but have done wrong themselves to get to that point, explain that matter to the editor in question to help them realize that "people in glass houses should not throw stones".


 * Continue to work to prevent the effects of Elitism on ALL Wikipedians.
 * Work towards advancing the principles of Wikipedia in a direction that meets the needs of the project as well as the needs of the editors.

I cannot change the world, and I cannot change wikipedia, but I believe I can help keep the ideals of common sense, logic, and integrity alive. There will always be elitist editors and admins, and there will always be fights, but there are things that I can do to keep it's effects to a minimum.

To those of you who commented, thank you for your feedback. It was greatly appreciated.

Sincerely, CASCADIA Howl/Trail 22:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)