Cabal nature of long-term editors and admins

(To all: This comment is not meant to be a venting session about my personal experiences on WP. As such please do not infer any kind of "tone of voice". I am simply passing along anecdotal information.)

I could not agree more with this topic and observation. The fact that there are so many Deletionists on WP appalls me. When I started out editing, I read through several help articles such as Newbies before attempting any edits. Then I finally ventured out only to encounter a kind of article territorialism. I now make it a point to stick to subjects or areas that I am fairly knowledgeable and informed. In some of these subjects, I am regarded as being knowledgeable and well informed within those communities related to the articles.

Recently I had an article nominated for speedy deletion with an amazingly strong emphasis on "speedy". After researching other similar articles (about websites) I proceeded to write mine. Within an hour, a more experienced editor nominated it for speedy deletion and tagged it. When I signed back on several hours later, I saw the tag and read that I could request a "stay of execution", but when I went to the article it had already been deleted by a different and apparently even more experienced editor. And the method used for deletion requires a editor with certain privileges to retrieve it, otherwise its actually gone from WP. I have to locate a senior enough editor and then convince them to retrieve my article. Rather than point out the perceived problems with my, the choice was to erase it. It was demoralizing to say the least. - Scalhotrod 03:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The editor that originally nominated it for speedy deletion was someone who I had previous communication. I'm guessing, but it seems I was on his radar and as such my articles and edits were getting extra scrutiny. This was not the first instance that an editor who is territorial about their articles had seemingly pursued me.

The first time that an editor chose to watch me in particular resulted in the reversal of edits made across of variety of articles. The only apparent connection that my pursuing editor had to these articles was that I contributed.

In each occurrence when I was challenged on edits, I made the effort to be gracious and thank everyone that commented on talk pages for their input. I didn't care if they were being vindictive or not towards me, I still gained useful information about editing articles and operating within the WP community.

All this said, I would speculate that I am not alone in these kinds of circumstances. As someone who appreciates the core values of WP, I chose to stick it out. It's great to see that this topic is being addressed.