User:The Cunctator
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The Cunctator is a proud non-member of the Anarchists for a Past, Present, and Future World of Goodness. See K-Band Communications (http://www.kband.com) for more information.
The Cunctator was a member-in-protest of the Arbitration Cabal, which came into being through discussion not on Wikipedia, but on the vile mailing list. He lost the seat in the elections of late 2004 most likely due to his being a big slacker.
The recent tendencies toward deletionism and agglomeration are troubling. Are the gigantic image-heavy "we look like Encarta" entries really better for the Wikipedia than more atomic Jargon-file-esque entries? There are some interesting backend search/sort/display technologies that could bridge the divide. For example, the default editing allows people to independently edit sections, instead of the whole page at once. Those sections act in a way as independent wiki-pages that just happen to be hierarchically linked. One can imagine giving these section-wikis more autonomy.
To be a good Wikipedian, be respectful, overly combative, self-critical, vulnerable, hortatory, ambitious, and analytical.
Above all, to be a good Wikipedian, edit and create entries.
To ensure the health of Wikipedia:
- Be in Charge and Be Humble
- Understand Bias
- Appreciate Idiosyncracy
- Redesign the Wikipedia Software as a Community
- Make Big Plans on Wikipedia
- Avoid Cabals
- Follow the Spirit of the GFDL
- Be Respectful but Firm
Commentary
- Please help build 911 Attack memorial.
- Project Sourceberg.
- How to Destroy Wikipedia.
- How to Build Wikipedia
- WikipediAhimsa -- Avoid harm. A principle the Cunctator strives imperfectly towards.
- TMC's sysop request
The nearly immutable law of government is that while over the short term dangers to the health of society come from individual actors, over the long term the dangers come from the system.
It should be everyone's goal to figure out ways to eliminate potential problems before they can happen.
A good real world example of that is drugs; because it is a criminal act to use illegal drugs, millions of dollars and manhours and lives are spent in combatting drug use (the "war on drugs"). But if the drugs (such as marijuana) are decriminalized, a host of downstream costs to society disappear. There *are* different complications and needs (tobacco is a good example of the potential problems of having drugs be legal to use) but it's a lot easier to deal with drugs as a health issue than a crime issue.
The censorship of offensive, particularly anti-gay content (e.g. fudgepacker, santorum, AIDS Kills Fags Dead etc.) on Wikipedia is deplorable. So is the censorship of "minor" places (e.g. Sunset High School (Portland), etc.).
As the Wiki Turns
Check out the brilliant humor of Wikipedia's writers.
Wikipedians who have left:
ManningBartlett (returned), Piotr Wozniak, Corvus13, JHK, AndreEngels, Isis, KQ, User:Kat.
Kick-outs: Mathjis, 24, user:H.J., Lir, Clutch