Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MilesMoney (talk | contribs) at 16:03, 28 October 2013 (Bye.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Post mortem

On July 16th, I made my first edit. Today I was topic banned, so I'm closing down the account. All told, that's 104 days, exactly two weeks longer than my initial estimate. But it took only a few hours in the middle of the night to go from a false report on a different topic to this ban. And let's not kid ourselves; this is the intended outcome of a topic ban. When you tell someone they can't touch any of the articles they've worked on, you expect them to leave. You want them to. And that's how Misplaced Pages works, or fails to.

I had come to Misplaced Pages because I read that it was failing. I don't have the original article that motivated me, but like this one, it referenced the research of Aaron Halfaker. The gist is that the site has lost a third of its editors since 2007, and the ones who remain are increasingly inbred and crazed. There are many articles to this effect, and some are less gracious than others. Still, I knew better than to put all of my trust in such sources, and even if they're right, they offer little insight into causes. So I came here to see just how little good I could do before I was attacked and finally shut down.

Turns out that it doesn't take much. If you actually fight to make articles comply with policy and sources, it really angers the editors who have a strong bias on the subject of the article. It doesn't matter how solid your sources are, how directly policy supports you, how airtight your arguments are; you will be bitterly opposed using any excuse possible. Worse, they're entirely willing to lie, scheme and cheat to get their way. Rules exist, but they're used as a means to an end, twisted and misinterpreted instead of followed. Misplaced Pages is not merely as corrupt as a banana republic, it is a failed state akin to Somalia. It is not in decline; it has fallen.

The sad reality is that editors whose goal is to make Misplaced Pages live up to its own standards are routinely hounded into leaving. The only thing unusual about my case is that I decided in advance that I would stick around long after the injustice and absurdity would have driven any reasonable person off. The initial hostile reception was surprising, but not enough to shake me. Still, I would have otherwise left after that sloppy IP block inadvertently silenced me, and certainly after the second or third time I was falsely accused of being someone else.

Anyone would, and that's why Misplaced Pages is bleeding editors. It's a hostile environment controlled by incompetents and sociopaths. Sane people do not thrive in such a place; they leave. They back out or they're run out; the end is the same. There is no due process, there is no way to appeal, there is no justice. There is no reason for normal people to even want to stay. All their work will be reverted away, anyhow.

The worst part of Misplaced Pages is not how it provides a safe home for anti-social misfits, or scares away experts and academics, but how it twists the behavior of the relatively sane to turn them into zealots. I felt the pull, myself. There is a War on Vandalism here that's as artificial and endless as the War on Drugs or War on Terrorism, and which has likewise become a way to channel paranoia and bigotry, justifying harsh and arbitrary punishments.

Like any cult, Misplaced Pages culture actively encourages in-group thinking with concomitant hostility to outsiders, leading to a lynch-mob mentality. This is first aimed at the vandals, then at newcomers, and then at ideological opponents. Put simply, it rewards participants by giving them an excuse to act out their rage in a socially acceptable way, feeding their delusions of righteousness, martyrdom and persecution. It's directly parallel to frat hazings, except it has no mechanism for stability. It is this perverse dynamic which underlies and explains all else, and I wouldn't have understood it if not for researching it in person. Thank you!

With this insight, there is little room for anger. Try as I might, I can only muster up pity and disgust for the otakus trapped in this web. I could go on in more detail about the who and how of my exit, but it's all right there in history. I could go on about my methodology, and list out my degrees and experience, but this isn't the right medium; it would only come across as bragging. I could go on writing this post mortem, but while there is much more I can say about you, I have no reason to say it to you. We'll see how it goes. MilesMoney (talk) 16:03, 28 October 2013 (UTC)