Wikipedia:Embrace Stop Signs

A good-faith and respectable editor making sure everyone takes a long, good look at every word in a discussion in all universes where that discussion may take place before they can move along.

Sometimes, when a discussion has come to its natural end and a rough consensus has been set, you may feel that you still need to contribute more details or expand on your previous argument. It does not matter how minor your perspective is within the general opinion, it does not matter how many times you have already given the same argument, or even if you agree with the proposed closure. The mission is clear: you must keep talking, make sure no one moves anywhere else, and above all, teach these fools to start embracing stop signs and marinate in the juices of a stale, increasingly heated discussion.

Oh, how smart you will seem! Or, the benefits of forcing eyes on you

There are certainly many advantages to forcing as many editors as possible to acknowledge your crucial, continued participation in the discussion. Certainly, your in-depth opinion must be forever preserved for future editors to find, blow the dust off, and marvel in your ancient wisdom. Oh, what blessings have befallen on these lucky editors who have discovered The Truth!

There is also the certainty of those disagreeing with you suddenly, supernaturally realizing how right you were all along. They will then most definitely shower you with barnstars and gleefuly close the discussion in your favor. Their thoughts until that point had been so clouded, so misled, but it is only through your endless repetition that the clarity and overwhelming logic in your comments has finally made sense to them. Good job!

If they already agreed with you, then now certainly they will recognize you as a leader among them, the one editor whose knowledge runs so deep and detailed that the discussion must be left open indefinitely just to hear more from such a gifted mind.

For generations to come

If a discussion closes and does not look like this, has a full discussion even taken place?

From time to time you come across an ongoing discussion that is longer than a book. You have just identified an ideal stop sign. The best way to proceed is to:

1. Fight back against all attempts to close the thread or move the discussion to a more appropriate channel.
2. Keep adding or referring to increasingly unrelated diffs, arguments, past discussions, WikiProjects, articles, and experts.
3. Call your friends, and let them get a chance to also encourage others to embrace the bright red and inordinately large stop sign.

See also

• Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process
• Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass