User:Esperant/Oligarchy

Some thoughts on the Wikipedia oligarchy:

There are three types, three castes if you will, of Wikipedia users: admins, regular Wikipedians and vandals.

Vandals are generally kids messing around anonymously. Some however are fuckwits with a Username and a POV axe to grind. I've never encountered one who had admin status. Vandals can be identified by the fact they go around doing things that are counterproductive towards the encyclopedic aims of Wikipedia as their stock in trade (rather than just occasionally when they're tired like regular Wikipedians).

Regular Wikipedians are the salt of the Wikiearth, and go around being generally helpful and productive, occasionally getting into bitter disputes but living simply in in harmony with the Wiki.

Administrators bear marks of both groups. Admins, like vandals, are uncommunicative, unwilling to enter into discussion and believe their perspective to be correct. Unlike vandals they do what they do with the aim of making wikipedia better, and at a micro-level this is true, in that they generally make changes for the good. However, their tyrannical rule over ordinary Wikipedians is bound to breed resentment and makes Wikipedia function worse overall.

Jimbo Wales, self-appointed King of Wikipedia, beloved of the administrator caste as the source of their power, represents a hyper-administrator, taking all their tendencies to their maximum. He is completely unapproachable, believes himself to be a font of total wisdom, and is open to no correction.