BoyWiki:Agora/25 April 2016

Agora/25 April 2016

A protest, for the record, of a very important implied change in administrative procedures at BoyWiki which is at odds with the essential principles of the operation of a wiki.

(NOTE: I realize that the following comments may appear to be very strong, but there are certain things which are best nipped in the bud.)

A recently appointed Assistant Curator has just advised me of the following:

• [after you have complied with all the administrative demands regarding the article] you can feel free to request that [the article] be moved back into the main namespace... (emphasis added).

It is probably futile to protest, and the subtlety of the situation will most likely escape those reading this who may lack sufficient education and understanding to do so, but the above statement sets a very dangerous precedent here at BoyWiki.

Until now, any editor had the right to make whatever changes that he/she wished to make to an article, and then an administrator had the right to take any action that the administrator felt was appropriate after the fact.

Until this point in time, the administrators did not have the right to set preconditions or to forestall future edits.

The normal procedure until now has been that an editor edits as he sees fit, and then his edits are reviewed and either approved of or disapproved of by the administrators. This is the policy which is in effect at every other wiki, including Wikipedia. This policy has now apparently been abrogated at BoyWiki.

According to the statement of the newly appointed Assistant Curator cited above:

editors have now been prohibited from exercising their normal and accepted rights to edit any article as he/she wishes, and then to subsequently have those edits reviewed and either approved of or disapproved of by the administration.

I would like to point out that this is a horrendous change to the normal rules of wiki editing, and is a highly fascistic censorship policy which is guaranteed to have a chilling effect that will stifle the work of all editors, now and in future.

But, I repeat--I doubt that the subtlety of this change will be appreciated (or even understood) by those reading this protest. User4 (talk) 13:47, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

In the coming months, you may find that a good many changes will be forthcoming. The plan is to do a complete review and the possible restructuring of Category:Encyclopedia. This may unfortunately mean that some entries my need to be re-categorized and in some cases, removed completely. The criteria for this has not yet been decided as we are still in the planing phase. Thank you for your cooperation. --Etenne 19:47, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

In this Agora discussion back in November, I raised the issue of an unaccountable cabal dictating conditions under which the wiki is being operated, including issues that in the wiki world is customarily relegated to consensus discussions and decisions. I wrote among other things "What is this clandestine cabal of remote personages whom we as active users are apparently supposed to humbly revere and await the edicts of?" I further wrote " Is there an utter lack of adherence to the consensus principle at play here? Is there an elite here that asserts ownership and dictatorial privileges with regards to the function and development of BoyWiki?", to which Lysander replied "Meco, yes, it appears there's an elite here that asserts ownership and dictatorial privileges with regards to the function and development of BoyWiki." He also added "Most wikis (including RationalWiki, Dramatica, etc.) are like that."

Much due to this realization I have reduced my presence here considerably, I might add in proportion with my waning enthusiasm for this project.

To clarify, I realize and respect the need for particular consideration being made with regards to issues relating to privacy and security. I also respect that the Free Spirits Council is the governing body for this project. What I can not understand is the need for dictatorial, authoritarian behavior and a perceived license to issue and enforce edicts in cavalier disregard for the dignity and integrity of the wiki's contributors. __meco (talk) 17:04, 26 April 2016 (UTC)