Wikipedia:Rouge editor

This is a humorous essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors and is made to be humorous. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. This essay isn't meant to be taken seriously.

This is not a decree by the Supreme Cabal Regime of the English Wikipedia (SCREW). It is nonobligatory and shouldn't be considered equivalent to a religious belief that all users are to follow.
When editing this page, please ensure that your revision does not reflect Supreme Cabalism because that would upset the Grand Cabal. When in doubt, please ignore the talk page and just keep reverting.

Shortcut

WP:ROUGEE

This page in a nutshell: Editors have been known to annoy another editor or admin, for having the audacity to actually work toward building an encyclopedia, not being cogs in a bureaucracy, playing a MMORPG, arguing on a webboard, or making pals on a social networking site. Some editors really treat their time here as public-interest volunteer work, not a political sim, and this obviously just will not do.

Rouge editors (also known as rouge users or rouge non-admins)^[1] are a cabal of editors, governed by the Five Pillars of Untruth, who stand in the way of what must surely be Wikipedia's true purpose, which is to make up, catalogue, and enforce as many obscure rules as possible, then brow-beat any so-called "intelligent" contributors mercilessly to conform and grovel, until they give up in disgust and leave the project to its proper, good-old-boys'-club echo chamber. No rouge editor has ever seen anything posted on Uncyclopedia.

How to identify rouge editors

“

If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business.

”

— The original formulation of what became WP:IAR.^[2]
(perfected today to soulless economy by rouge admins)

Rouge editors are the non-administrative yin to the yang of rouge admins. They annoy all admins, including Jimbo, as well as other editors, because – although not outright wikianarchists – they just don't need no stinking^[3] mob-rule permissions or admonitions. They may also be fairly easily hounded into violating #2 of the Wikipedia:Trifecta; this is a good way to smoke them out.

Rouge editors differ from rouge admins primarily in not having faith in the latters' Five Pillars of Evil. And in being powerless non-admins. And in probably not giving a damn about the crucial changes you and your friends demand in their behavior.

Rouge editors and rouge admins are, however, united in opposition to trolls, vandals, PoV-pushers, fringe nonsense, unsourced claims, and total bollocks. They simply think you're probably in one of these buckets, and really don't want to hear it.

The seriousness of the threat

Lack of administrative prerogative or other privileges doesn't stop the collective menace of rouge editors from editing millions of articles, in ways that sometimes don't fully adhere to the exact letter of every rule.

The frightening thing is, every new editor is a rouge editor until rounded up and verbally whipped into submission. All long-term regulars have a duty to domesticate and cull this herd. Rouge editors are especially a threat to WikiProjects' and GA/FA authors' rightful control over their own articles. Suppression of rouge editors by ruthless enforcement of policies and guidelines is therefore vital, especially when you're certain your policy interpretation is more correct or your version of an article is the right one.

Rouge editors, even after several warnings from admins, may just say, "oh, I didn't hear that". This is especially frustrating for admins who have it out for the rouge editor and are deeply involved in the background of the dispute, and thus clearly know best, and should treat any back-talk as disruptive editing. Spokescreatures for the Rouge Editor Cabal have pledged to continue their passive-resistance campaign, of tendentiously volunteering to edit without being hassled over trivial matters, until November 5, 2055. On this date, rouge editors plan to immanentize the long-forseen Wikiapocalypse with an ArbCom case involving all rouge admins at once,^[4] although the editors promise to ignore ArbCom regardless of the case's outcome. They will also vandalize the userpages of all rouge admins on April Fools' Day,^[5] and get away with it.

Scarlet letters

Rouge Editor Cabal ~~motto~~ incantation

All hail LOLcat! And long live IAR! ^[6]

To identify yourself as a rouge editor, just act like one and go about your editing business. Or add one of the following userboxes to your userpage (or better yet to someone else's):

{{User rouge editor}} gives you:

This user is a
Rouge editor.

{{User:UBX/rougeeditor}} yields:

This user is a
Rouge editor.

{{User:Adolphus79/UBX/RougeNonAdmin}} provides:

RNA

This user is a rouge non-admin

Note that {{User rouge wannabe}}, for rouge-admin hopefuls, is distinct (and not necessarily compatible, unless you are deeply rouge and just here for the entertainment value).