User:Jaredscribe/Diatribes

See also: User:Jaredscribe/There is justice

See also: WP:Systemic bias

Initiate with Contributions

I love wikipedia. I like reading it, and I like making small changes when I do through copy-edits and adding relevant wikilinks. Sometimes I even add new facts to articles. And when a new editor starts to contribute new facts on substantial or contentious topics, that editor must very quickly learn how to contend.

If you've survived here for a few months or a few dozen edits on topics of any real consequence, you'll probably have some mild post-traumatic stress from the many unexplained reverts, pointless arguments over the obvious, and stonewalling by "editors" who hide their subject matter ignorance behind tenure and superior knowledge of wikipedia policy or english grammar. Instead of concluding bad faith, apply Halon's razor, or assume incompetence (as they also assume of outsiders and ethnic "others", as this essay will discover later). If you persist in discussion, many fragile managing editors will use red herrings like "incivility" or failing to sufficiently WP:Assume 'good faith, in order to avoid the actual issue of content on which they may be demonstrably in the wrong but unwilling to admit. You may be tempted to resort to sarcastic pranks as a troll to point out some absurdity that editors are indulging, (as they sometimes do). Or if you can't beat 'em with the wit and grace of a clever troll, you might decide to join 'em and enter the wikiknighthood. These appear to be much the same type of person - people here to push a POV or enforce policy above and before the goal of building an encyclopedia. The difference is that one is on the outside and one is high up inside. And both are not-so-good, IMHO. We do need managing editors to defend articles from vandals and mentor inexperienced contributors, but if the knight who takes over who is a dark knight, the constructive contributors are treated like trolls.

Journeyman Editing and Defending an Article

If you remain past a hundred edits, you'll probably be tempted to act out your newly acquired priveleges and test your skills, by joining the knighthood: taking up the sword of reversion and the helmet of references, and valiantly defend the consensus opinion against intruders. But please read this closely first: WP:BRDR. Refining and improving is better than reverting. Many of the upperclassmen revert without even giving a reason in the edit summary in violation of the cardinal principle of the consensus stated therein: "When reverting, be specific about your reasons in the edit summary and use links if needed." WP:Don't bite the newcomers with the same pointy, bureaucratic obstruction, that you've suffered from the upperclassmen here who erroneously hold boldness to delete is equally or more necessary than WP:Boldness to contribute. WP:Dont Be Brazen. Instead, do the research for an uncited claim and provide the reference yourself. Find a way to reformulate an overly broad or non-neutral claim, rather than erasing it all together. Don't impose your own worldview and prejudices by saying "WP:Not Relevant" or "not significant" - move the claim to a better place in the article, or make a new section for it at the bottom. Practice humility.

Class Privelege is no Excuse for Ignorance

So you made it this far into the meritocracy cum "socialist cabal" of extended autoconfirmed users with over 500+ edits. In many ways, WP:Wikipedia is a bureaucracy, despite the contested and unverified claim that WP:Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Although the latter assertion is not true per se, it is useful in fighting back against lazy bureaucrats and against those who appeal to them. The bureaucrats and admins are not supposed to be in charge. I would like it to be an editor meritocracy, but I'm not sure its that either. There are some systemic factors that make this difficult.

As to most contributors, WP:Assume good faith. However, WP:Competence is required, and its not necessary or realistic to assume competence. The current regime of mostly male "first" world, anglo-americans think they can decide whats notable or significant to the rest of humanity on the basis of their very limited worldview. Martin Cohen generously describes it as the "youthful cab driver" perspective. Others have not been so kind. It is the known phenomenon called Systemic bias on wikipedia. In addition to the well-documented biases described in that article, it tends toward the post-christian modern rationalism and shares many of the basic assumptions and prejudices of the western christian or Graeco-Roman pagan - namely that it is intellectually and moral superior on all levels, in addition to being political supreme. This is the underlying POV that is sometimes assumed to be WP:Neutral, and tries to be, but often is not.

WP:Civility is a virtue that we agree to strive for here: comment on content or on editors merely in their role as such. In far too many cases, subject matter competence is not practiced by the Knighthood. Their competence is in the code of chivalry, and many use it to uphold the status quo of the articles they think they own. To cast doubt on an articles neutrality is permitted. To cast doubt on an editors competence, especially after he's reverted you while misunderstanding the policy or content involved, is permitted, its not a personal attack. I've had to challenge neutrality, and to call out incompetence after it is demonstrated in an obstructive manner, and to call this a personal attack or harrassment is an act of scapegoating that serves as a red herring, and is itself a form of disruptive use of process that serves to prevent or avoid debate on the underlying dispute. I've encountered this on more than a few articles from less-than-competent managing editors who are entrenched, and from others who defend them. This is a meta-edit war that I haven't been able to win yet, so what does one do? Many editors give up, start a new wiki, complain with unfortunate plausibility that wikipedia is biased, corrupt, controlled by the government, or by a capitalist or socialist cabal, or a gang of youthful video-gamers, or something of that nature. Here is our internal list of known cabals on Wikipedia. There may be others. But the good news is that no one owns the content, although they can kick you out.

The Science of Success

If giving up is not an option, and you do not wish to become acculturated to this corruption, then the only choice is to endure and win. But how? WP:Ignore all rules works only for newcomers. Eventually, you'll have to find an ethical way to break the statutory consensus. Here is my way: User:Jaredscribe/Encyclopedic Ethics.

While you're wading through the guidelines, policies, and consensus documents of the meta-wiki while trying not to get distracted from your original encyclopedic mission, compile your own study notes into statement of editorial ethics, as I did. While doing so, I suggest you move on to other articles in the subject matter, edit the subject matter in a different language.

I found that even when I knew my contributions were verifiable and relevant, and that I could eventually win, it wasn't worth wasting my time arguing with proud ignoramuses who think they're in charge. Fortunately, wikipedia is a big place. Best option I found was to move on to different subject matter altogether, bide my time, and gain experience. Learn some science and history, and make connections with wikilinks while you're at it. There is alot missing in fields that are not particularly controversial, and a few glaring errors. There's half a dozen or more wikiwars that I walked away from months ago - or even a year ago, now - and someday I will go back and win them.

Many wikiknights will edit and will war, but often will not write, and will not bother with further research. They underestimate the limitedness of their worldviews, and overestimate the goodness of their own faith. With some notable exceptions, the dragons have been driven away, and the elves aren't holding them accountable. Consult my User_talk:Jaredscribe if you wish to see evidence of this, and feel free to comment.

Foreign Specialists vs. the Knights of English

After some constructive, encyclopedic but poorly worded contributions have been reverted by an "editor", who has taken no pains to either improve the wording or research the issue, the "editor" goes to the talk page of the foreign contributor to ask him or her, unhelpfully, "do you speak english?" He could have refered the contributor to language help or offered it himself, but instead the incompetent editor decided to implicitly challenge the competence of the contributor. A subtle and widespread form of uncivil behavior, leading to systemic bias and impoverishment of the encyclopedia.

The contributor responds: "If you can ameliorate my engrish please, do ameliorate it and not reversion."

That may sound strange to you, but the meaning is perfectly clear. If the contributor knew about WP:BRDR, he would cite that, but might not have the extensive quotable knowledge of wikipedia policy that I've been forced to suddenly acquire (and had the privelege to do so), and he may not have the energy or time to waste on a discussion with an entrenched "editor" whose specialty is WP:Wikilawyering on policy or hiding behind his proficiency in mere language, in order to compensate for his general laziness and lack of intellectual curiosity or WP:Subject Matter Competence. This is the phenomenon which I describe as "ignorance".

The "editor", or often a gang of two or more wikiknights devoted to preserving the status quo of whatever prejudicial worldview has currently taken consensus status as "neutral", write to the contributor: that "obviously you do not speak the <national> language, please refrain from machine translation because your edits are not helping the articles".

A Foreign Outlander Fights Back.

I encountered the Knights of Spanish when I added this section, which prior to my contribution, was entirely missing:

Constitución_española_de_1978#Capítulo_III:_De_los_principios_rectores_de_la_política_social_y_económica.

He ought to have been embarrassed that a contributor with Spanish as poor as mine was filling such a glaring hole on such an important article, with such relevant description and wikilinks of such an important topic. Instead, he reverted. I improved the diction and humbly obverted, whereupon he reverted again without making any attempt to rework the content himself. Then, instead of taking it to the article talk page, where we could have collaborated on the actual subject matter, while also improving my convoluted academic castilian into the "simple spanish" that he preferred, he decided to lecture me on the language arts. Usuario_discusión:Jaredscribe

Whether the purpose was to bully me into giving up, or else just waste my time on tendentious triviality as if grammar was the issue, I don't know. Assuming good faith, I imagine that he was simply indulging his own pedantry, by imitating the bad practice of us on the English wikipedia where he is also a contributor, but mistaking it for a virtue.

Adding to my confusion, he was extremely polite: I couldn't accuse him of incivility. And I must admit that my Spanish is rather outlandish. As are the many other dialects of English into which I sometimes lapse, when I get disappointed, or slightly angry, or sometimes make typos, or else decide to temporarily stop indulging the average WASP's superiority complex by assimilating to it.

I told him that the hole in his article was even worse than my Spanish, moved the conversation it to the article talk page, where it should have been started in the first place, and challenged all comers to improve my spanish and add the content.

Discusión:Constitución_española_de_1978#Capítulo_III:_De_los_principios_rectores_de_la_política_social_y_económica

Waited six months for someone to respond. No one did. So I added it myself, for the THIRD TIME, where it now remains.

On one hand, it feels good to win a high stakes edit war in such high form, with my own dignity intact and that my challenger's in the dust. But I don't consider this a victory for several reasons:

1. It had to wait six months.
2. It wasted alot of my time and energy.
3. He never acknowledged the matter or conceded.
4. No one else thanked me or gave me a barnstar.
5. I ended up on the Spanish wikipedia only after going into voluntary exile from that of my mother tongue English, after getting disgusted with similarly ignorant behavior practiced by the incumbent managing editors here, where language isn't even the issue.
6. I am a scholar, an athlete, technically skilled in many fields, speak 4 languages (outlandishly) and read two others, have a college degree, WASPost-christian privelege, and a high level of confidence to go with it, and have a moderate amount of wealth and spare time. Therefore I had the endurance to continue the edit war over the Spanish Constitution, and the confidence to know that I would eventually win, despite that I'm a newbie to Wikipedia and a vulgar speaker of outlandish Latin, and not even a citizen or resident of Spain. Because in other areas of life, I usually do. For 1 editor like me, there are 99 other aspiring editors from Asia, Africa, and South and MesoAmerica who may have the same verifiable knowledge, the same intelligence to advocate and promote it, but they lack the privelege, confidence, and spare time that enabled me to win. The de facto exclusion of them impoverishes us all. And I don't have the time or inclination to repeat this fight all over the encyclopedia.

So here I raise the banner for the immigrants, the outlanders, the foreign students, the sub-altern natives. Please learn from this example, fight back, endure, and WIN and fulfill the WP:Encyclopedic Mission.

Subject Matter Competence and CHOPSY

See also: WP:Competence is acquired and Draft:Wikipedia:Competence is desired

In 2021 I offered the following observation to an popular explanatory essay called "Competence is required":

Be aware that many non-native speakers may have superior subject matter knowledge, especially in fields pertaining to their national culture, despite poor use of English.

Conversely, established editors with high competence in English may also have very low competence in the subject matter at stake.

But the "Hive mind" and "Borg colony" of CHOPSY fans who think that it owns both wikipedia policy and content, is opposed to this principle. In reverting my common sensical and quite obvious contribution, their spokesperson informs me in his edit summary, as if he speaks for us all, that "wikipedia takes an emic and not an etic view." That is a fancy way of saying that "locals are in charge here, not you outsiders". Academic bias is a valuable was of excluding pseudo-science, but it can also have the effect of making "Cambridge/Harvard/Oxford/Princeton/Sorbonne/Yale somehow the expert not only on "Western Tradition" which it represents in an "emic" manner, but also now the expert on Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. For topics outside the "western tradition", CHOPSY supremacism represents a decisively "etic" view, and by adopting it Wikipedia is refusing to allow Asians, Jews, and Africans to tell their histories or expound their own texts. Sometimes they are not even allowed as an attributed minority opinion, alongside the estimations of CHOPSY which is always neutral WikiVoice. When they try to add their own commentators or exponents to articles about their own histories, philosophies, texts, and traditions, this can be considered "Non-neutral" POV-pushing and one who persists is considered "incompetent". These "Disruptive editors" get blocked one or twice, and then indefinitely, for Not-getting-it.

However as our own article on the subject states : "the complementarity of emic and etic approaches to anthropological research has been widely recognized, especially in the areas of interest concerning the characteristics of human nature as well as the form and function of human social systems."

We ought to learn from what appears to be a scholarly consensus on the matter. But the aforementioned spokesperson will not, and concludes his essay Academic bias with these words:

What Wikipedia is can be summed up in these memorable words: "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

To call it white-supremacism can miss in diagnosing the ideological grounding of the bias.

Systemic bias of Graeco-Roman imperialism and anti-Judaism

Its not racial or even ethnic bias - its Graeco-Roman imperialism with a diversity and inclusion program. As Tacitus himself remarked of his city's conquest and colonization of the conquered European barbarians, "they think it is civilization, but actually it is servitude". And nowaday they may accept you if you're an Asian, African, Jew, or Arab, but they will force you to assimilate. And if not, you are likely to be expelled or eliminated.

Among this class of others, the the Jew holds a unique place, since western civilization is build on appropriations and adaptations of Jewish texts, stripped of their original meanings and given new meaning and uses. Christianity, we are taught by the pastors and heirophants, is the "spiritual Israel", having superceded and replaced the Jewish people, whose only remaining role in history is to assimilate, convert, or otherwise disappear. There mere continued existence, therefore threatens the very identity of the Christian, which is why anti-Jewish Straw man figure so prominently in evangelical polemics. Whereas most Asians, Africans, and Middle Easterners are exotically "other", Jews are an "other" who is "inside" and not just because many of them sojourned in Europe during their exile, but because their figure and typology is foundational to the Western Civlization as we know it. This line of critique is largely based on the magisterial intellectual history of Anti-Judaism and the Western Tradition by David Nirenberg, and echoed by many of his colleagues, although he is certainly not the first to raise it and surely neither of us will be the last. Although not a widespread concern of the average person, it is hardly a "fringe theory".

Despite the apparently adversarial tone of this "diatribe", this Academic opinion and that of his colleagues in CHOPSY and beyond, should be carefully considered.