I published an article yesterday that later I realized was not fit to publish. It was a meltdown about Wikipedia. And not a good one. I realized it was a mess last night and deleted it. Then I stayed up all night trying to make sense of it. This is especially annoying because I didn’t consider it an important subject in the first place. It was just something I wanted to get out of the way so I could talk about a more important topic. But I learned something that I want to tell you about.
In this post I’ll explain what I learned from this mistake and I will try to rewrite it after more careful thought.
The Lessons
The first lesson I learned is that I should have discussed my experience at Wikipedia many times on this blog. Instead I politely mentioned it once or twice because I assumed everyone understood what happened to me there.
I knew I didn’t deserve to be blocked at the time, and so I didn’t feel the need to explain anything. And when I was suddenly confronted by its importance, I experienced the betrayal and injustice like it was yesterday.
The second lesson that comes to mind involves my impatience while writing this article about my time at Wikipedia. My impatience was based on the belief that it is a trivial subject.
It is not trivial. It’s important to set the record straight, if for no one else but myself. It also needs to be set straight for anyone who is influenced by editors on Wikipedia. This needs much more thought than I have given it.
A Meltdown Pandemic?
A meltdown is what happens when you are treated badly and you have no recourse. There’s no one to complain to and so you just continue on without a resolution. Then one day, 15 years later, everything spills out.
What really worries me is that I thought that article was fit to publish. I’ve heard there’s a lot of that going around. Some are calling President Trump’s most recent speech a meltdown, not to mention some of his staff’s interviews. It might be a good idea to avoid important interviews and speeches this week. Just a thought.
Wikipedia’s Editors
Overall,Wikipedia was a miserable, thankless experience. But the real hell of it was the absence of supporting voices.
I am aware that worse things are happening to people now. They are made to feel powerless in all kinds of terrible ways, including imprisonment and physical abuse. But no one ranks these evils when they appear. They are all terrible in their own way.
Wikipedia’s Cowardice
In my case, it is painful to realize that Wikipedia not only got away with what they did to me, but apparently the editors have continued to argue their case online at my expense. It never occurred to me to check on them. I would have thought they would be too ashamed to continue with this. Now, after it’s too late to dispute their claims, I have to wonder what effect it’s had on my progress here.
The word ‘cowardice’ is important with respect to Wikipedia. The editors and their allies remain anonymous. This is shocking considering their ability to delete contributions they don’t agree with and even deny access to the authors of those contributions. And the cowardice doesn’t end there. Even if we do discover what they’re doing to our reputation in secret, we don’t have the ability to dispute their statements.
Nameless, Faceless ‘Scholars’
My first experience on Wikipedia was the Patriarchy article. Working there was like combat. So, when I experienced something similar with the next article I thought it was normal.
Many people had been trying to edit the Patriarchy article before me but were held off by a few determined editors. You can see the current version here with contributions from many people. It’s much better than it was.
The main editor at that time claimed to be a college professor. I sincerely doubted it. I couldn’t imagine that a college professor would say traditional women walk a few steps behind their husband.
Even so, I thought the article just needed more information. He did not want information and happily deleted everything. I would not have accomplished anything with that article without the help of another editor who stuck up for me. That is the only way you can get anything done there.
The Dramatic End of My Wikipedia Job
When that article was complete, I decided to work on the Virgin Birth article. I didn’t start that article. It was already set up, but lacked content. All I planned to do was add information I already had. However, I got pushback right away.
It wasn’t long before everything I wrote was moved to the Miraculous Births article, without notice. Then the editor who moved it claimed he wrote it. It was all downhill from there.
Are They Doing Religion or Writing an Encyclopedia?
I didn’t know it at the time, but I stepped into a landmine. After the fight in the Patriarchy article I thought I knew how to proceed. However, I see now that the Virgin Birth article was not open to negotiation. There seems to be an unspoken agreement that the subject is too delicate for believers. I didn’t put this together until recently. Last week I discovered that the Virgin Birth article still has no content.
It has also occurred to me that maybe English was not the editor’s first language. Or maybe he’s a religious authority. I couldn’t be expected to know that because the editors use pseudonyms, but it might explain his authoritative manner.
Since I didn’t have the help of a referee, Miraculous Births continued to be a constant struggle. I would have liked a real discussion about the editor’s objections but that never happened, and I was eventually kicked out of Wikipedia without warning. This took place before 2011.
I still don’t understand why the material in Miraculous Births is less offensive than it would be in the Virgin Birth article. The majority of the information I added was from Boslooper’s book, The Virgin Birth.
A Pattern of Discrimination
I don’t mind if someone disagrees with me. If they will explain the problem I will fix it. But first I need the explanation.
A disagreement is logical. Its words and phrases actually relate to what the last person said. However, I was not dealing with a disagreement. I don’t even know the name of what he was doing, and no one ever addressed his problematic demands.
A large part of the problem seems to be that no one is paying attention. My struggle went on for a long time without interference from a helpful editor. It ended with me being blocked permanently.
Again, no one objected to what was happening, not at that time and not since I left. And in the end, another editor was allowed to make personal use of the Miraculous Births material that got me kicked out.
Wikipedia wronged me in many ways and used up much of my time in the process. It didn’t seem unintentional to me. It seemed malicious and personal.