message to community about community decline

In my opinion, the decline in participation by new editors — especially editors with relevant academic credentials and academic depth in their chosen field — is due to a pathological hostility toward outsiders.

The core community has grown insular, territorial, and antagonistic toward those outside the sphere of influence of the tribal leaders who run the various territorial cabals of the projects.

Instead of engaging in collaborative learning and collaborative editing (as one would naively expect from a 21st Century learning community), the established editors have mastered the art of competitive editing, ofttimes gaming the complex and bewildering hodge-podge of ad hoc rules to gain an editorial advantage over less experienced rival editors. At times this departure from the norms of fairness and collegiality borders on dispiriting levels of sociopathy.

One of the most off-putting and offensive practices of Wikipedia is the cavalier application of such inflammatory tools as blocking and banning of scholars who have come in good faith to improve the accuracy and quality of the content of the English Wikipedia and its sister sites under the WMF umbrella.

As I have said before (on more than one occasion), I defy anyone to find so much as an ounce of collegiality or congeniality in reprising such anachronistic Bills of Attainder.

Thomas Jefferson was demonstrating collegial insight when he led the civilized world in eschewing and abandoning Bill of Attainder, having recognized that it's a corrosive and corrupt tool of government that inevitably sinks any regime that comes to rely on it.

Shortly after the Founders outlawed Bill of Attainder in Article I of the US Constitution, the British followed suit, similarly abandoning both Parliamentary Bill of Attainder and Monarchial Bill of Attainder.

I am disturbed and dismayed to witness so many misguided administrative officials reintroducing this antiquated relic from the rubbish heap of political history into the prevailing practices of Wikipedia. Is this the kind of unwise practice the Trustees of WMF wish to teach to impressionable youth of the 21st Century? Can you imagine what would happen to anyone who tried to adopt and employ that hoary and unsustainable practice in the real world of an authentic 21st Century learning organization?

Well Moulton, you got that right. And to all you others who might see my comment, imagine how gobsmacked I was when requesting advice and possible assistance from an administrator on the English Wikipedia admin noticeboard, only to be booted to the incident noticeboard by an admin whose edit comment was something like 'into the mouth of hell with you'. Coincidentally and in a completely unrelated context, that same editor was quite conspicuous on the Jimbo Wales page very shortly later ingratiating himself in a most charming manner. Dr Jeckyll and Mr Admin.

Then, on the incident noticeboard, in short order, three admins more or less (mostly less) politely told me to go away, accused me of trying to pursue a hidden agenda, and threatened me with admin sanctions for disruptive editing, all because they persisted with the assumption I was trying to side-step an existing article's talk page; none of them looked to verify my repeated assurances that this was not the case. My original request for advice and assistance is in limbo, possibly waiting to drop off the admin incident noticeboard because no administrator will now touch it with a barge-pole.

We have administrators who refuse to offer advice and assistance? I am absolutely astonished. What sort of culture have we created where being approached for advice is seen as a subversive nuisance rather than as the pre-emptive flattery it is?

But enough about the whiney 'me, me, me' act. Before we have more of the Gardner infantilism about barnstars and page banners, and all the other shiny nothings some people collect, that's not, in my experience, what makes intelligent, dedicated people want to edit or create articles. What motivates them is the prospect of being able to contribute to an information repository they already use, but in which they see flaws. Those same people, however, won't put up with any snotty bullshit to give freely of their time and expertise. If you want to work out how to attract and keep such people, put the damned statistics away and get in here to find and talk to a few of them. Regards Peterstrempel 14:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

In some cases, the level of hostility from the Adminstrative Cabalistas crosses the line into Cluster B Sociopathy. I've begun to poll world-class experts on how to deal with tin-badged wikicops who manifest the telltale markers of Abusive Personality Disorder. The world-class experts tell me that solving this problem is not only beyond my pay grade, it's beyond their pay grade, too. One of the experts (whose name is Hope) ironically urged abandoning hope, declaring the problem intractable and insoluble.