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Scales of Justice


Thoughts on Arbitrary Topic Ban edit

This ban was explained in the notice from the banning admin, archived, as being due to alleged "slow edit warring" which allegedly "wasted other people's time".

I'll address the allegation of wasted time first. My position is that other people only got involved as much as they wanted to, so I cannot accept responsibility for their inability to wisely manage their own time. I certainly wouldn't characterize any of my interactions as a waste of time, because they are instructive. So, the error was with the banning admin.

Regarding the edit warring allegation, first it is helpful to define the term, seeing as it was described as "slow", i.e. over a period greater than 24 hours with presumably no upper limit on time. Whether fast or slow, it is possible for the collaborations of different people in the community with different perspectives to occasionally be mistaken for "disruption" by misguided admins who lack the ability to discern a legitimate attempt to improve the encyclopedic quality of an article from the gripes of lazy non-editors who prefer to conserve a poorly-written article as a pile of garbage.

It is impossible for a single editor to have ownership of any one article. This is because each article is the work of all who are available to contribute to it. So, when there are more people available who want an article to stay a certain way, than those who want to change it, the article will inevitably stay the same. I did make a series of different edits over a period of days to an article, similar enough that the folks not in favour of my edits began to let the accusations of "edit-warring" fly, even though they were not interested in editing, only warring. As an editor, I sought to improve the article, and explained my reasons for my edits on the talk pages. Those intent on keeping the article as it was began warring with me, the editor. And so it became plain, after much discussion, that the rightness or wrongness of anyone's intent, or the truth or accuracy of the editing in such cases is quite irrelevant: when it's just a numbers game, of one side versus another with no real collaboration happening or allowed to happen, it is best to bow out and try not to worry too much that there is a bad Wikipedia article.

Additionally, the articles that are classed as "pseudoscience" allow would-be editors to be arbitrarily banned without due process, and that is exactly what happened to me. The banning admin was initially so hasty and lazy as to try to ban me without even logging it!

There is much idealistic talk of consensus, which is a nice, democratic-sounding term, but in practice it has all the qualities of an echo chamber: Not only are all concerned parties not summoned, many are explicitly EXCLUDED. Previously, and only out of a legitimate albeit human frustration, I have compared the enforcers of such "consensus" to a "vicious cyclic gang of thugs", speaking strictly in the intellectual sense. I have also likened the proceedings and remedies effected to those of a kangaroo court. Unfortunately, I am disappointed to acknowledge that this is the world we live in. Life isn't fair. People are born, live for a short while, and die, and life goes on.

So, I'll continue making the small edits I can, with the wisdom that some of the admins, as much as they excel in certain areas, are really as flawed as anyone in some of the judgments they make. While on here, one doesn't have much choice but to play along.

You the man(converse) 21:44, 10 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia has no other choice than to render mainstream science for what it is. I also have a couple of articles wherein I disagree with the medical consensus (abortion and health effects of salt). The simplest way to avoid problems is that I refrain from editing those two articles. I'm not a POV-pushing warrior, I respect Wikipedia for what it is. I know that I'm expected to abide by the medical consensus even when I think it's wrong. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:59, 10 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

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Voted! You the man(converse) 22:36, 30 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

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