User:Michael Rawdon
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Michael Rawdon contributed to Wikipedia from 2003-2004.
I decided to stop contributing to Wikipedia after getting involved in an edit war with User:Rorschach567 (a.k.a. Nick Kepler, pnk@pitt.edu - info he provided on WP talk pages) over the X-Men article. My characterization of Keppler is that he is uncompromising, arrogant, inflammatory (for instance, making changes with comment lines (http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:X-Men&action=history) like "Michael Rawdon is insane") and often self-contradictory. As you might guess, it was very frustrating.
User:Danny attempted to mediate the process, but mediation was glacially slow. After suggesting an avenue to reach a compromise, I (and presumably Keppler as well) submitted proposed revisions which Danny was to knit together - and then I never heard from him again. In my judgment, mediation was a complete failure. (You can read the whole story - in which no one, myself included, comes out smelling like a rose - at Talk:X-Men. It is, I guess, just a petty little argument - but aren't they all?)
Eventually I realized that I just didn't need the stress involved in this process. I decided that although contributing to Wikipedia has been enjoyable, my confidence in the site's mediation process had been reduced to nil and I didn't want to risk further grief as a result of editing other pages. So I decided to stop contributing to WP altogether. I realize one encounters undesirables such as Keppler from time to time on the Internet (hopefully I'll never encounter him in real life), but it's still an unpleasant shock to lock horns with one in this way. Two months later, I feel certain that I've made the right choice.
I bear no ill will towards Wikipedia, and am happy to see it continue. Sometimes these things just happen, and hopefully both myself and WP will be better off for my choosing to drop the matter.
Best wishes to those folks still doing good work and fighting the good fight on Wikipedia.
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Michael Rawdon
14 November 2004