User:Jodon1971/sandbox



sample of how to redirect an article

Probably the most important policy on Wikipedia

Preparation of retirement note
Hello All,

Here are a few of my thoughts on why I no longer wish to contribute to this project.

Wikipedia as the Community of the Blind
Wikipedia is really about the blind leading the blind. That is the only platform upon which its community of editors can succeed. The policy-makers either don't understand logic, or the English language properly, and then editors who blindly follow policy or who don't object to policy also don't understand logic or the English language.

For example:


 * Wikipedia's core policy of Neutral Point of View, is a basic contradiction in semantics. Nowhere does this term exist outside of Wikipedia, it is entirely a Wikipedia construct. If you separate the word "neutral" from "point of view" you can immediately see that one is distinct and opposite from the other. The word neutral means NO point of view, and the term point of view means biased or not neutral. Neutral means a lack of a point of view, therefore neutrality cannot exist within a point of view. This is a fundamental error editors get locked into (and therefore ignore the obvious error) when citing this policy which has essentially "vandalised" (correct English spelling, without the "z") its component semantics. This vandalisation of the English language is a not uncommon practice within American culture, and it is safe to say it thus derived from its American founders.


 * Wikipedia's core policy of Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth, is another basic contradiction in semantics. "Verifiable" means "to prove the truth of". Separating the 2 as if they were autonomous is like saying "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, IT IS NOT A DUCK". This is therefore an application of faulty logic through a poor understanding and/or deliberate misuse of language.

The page explaining Neutral Point of View policy, one of “five pillars” fundamental to Wikipedia, is almost 5,000 words long. Citing “WP:NPV” (the neutral point of view policy) or threatening to take a matter to ARBCOM (the arbitration committee for dispute resolution) in a way that suggests you know a lot about such arcana is easier than having a more substantive discussion.

Wikipedia as Mediocracy
Because Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, the majority of people contributing are average people and therefore not experts in the subjects they treat or the articles they edit. The overall result becomes average result or mediocre result, therefore a "Mediocracy".

Wikipedia as a Collective Dictatorship
Although Jimbo said: "Wikipedia is not a democracy, and never has been" (Jimbo's talk page, 18 May 2008), Wikipedia nevertheless claims to have democratic elements.

When there is a disagreement, one of its methods for resolving a dispute is by a consensus majority. People are either randomly selected, or are watching, or have already participated in a discussion, who then cast votes on whether a point in a topic is justifiable or not. Editors are given a limited time to repsond, so editors that might otherwise support a point may not get involved until well after the discussion is closed. If Wikipedia is a work in progress, then consensus should be also. Just because one vote is taken on a subject doesn't mean the matter is closed on a subject for all time, which is a common error made by editors trying to force their Point of View into a discussion ("it was discussed already, so the result stands"). Since the motivation behind this is already founded upon the faulty logic as described above, this entire apporach would be redundant, if it were not detrimental. Consensus building is something that is actually positively re-enforced here, which makes its proliferation even more detrimental to the overall project.

The loose collective running Wikipedia today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage.

People who do object to policy, either get targeted by bullies, or get disenchanted with the whole project (like myself), because they get lost in the crowd or their objections fall on deaf ears. This is an untenable situation for an allegedly positive mass constructive effort. Even though I can “see” that, (just as in The Country of the Blind the one-eyed man is King), I don’t wish to stick around here any longer (like Nunez in the story, who was misunderstood because they couldn’t relate to him having “sight”). It just doesn’t feel right participating in something I don’t believe in.

Wikipedia is leaving Wikipedia
More than 49,000 editors left Wikipedia's English-language edition during the first three months of 2009, compared with only 4,900 for the same quarter a year earlier. Volunteers are leaving more rapidly than new ones are joining.

People leave Wikipedia for a variety of reasons. One reason that is frequently overlooked is that Contributors are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the process of adding to it. Even though Wikipedia has far fewer active editors than it did in its heyday, the number and length of its articles continue to grow. This means the volunteers who remain have more to do.

I still think Jimbo’s original intentions were honourable, but because the entire project is founded on faulty logic and self-contradiction the current incarnation is a twisted mesh of endless edit wars and personality conflicts (instead of being a seamless and enjoyable endeavour), too much to justify those intentions. The beast is now too large to be tamed by the minority of those with valid concerns, ignored by the majority of blind followers. The end, in this case, does not justify the means.

For things to change, Wikipedia needs to change. Wikipedia is not operated by a sophisticated corporation but by a leaderless collection of volunteers who generally work under pseudonyms and habitually bicker with each other. It rarely tries new things in the hope of luring visitors; in fact, it has changed little in a decade. And yet every month 10 billion pages are viewed on the English version of Wikipedia alone.

Whether change happens depends on whether enough people still believe in the notion of online collaboration for the greater good—the ideal that propelled Wikipedia in the beginning.

Farewell.

Yours sincerely,

Jodon |  Talk  14:46, 27 March 2014 (UTC)