jayjg wrote:
How can I put this, Dan; your constant railing about an "untouchable" cabal sounds, um, kinda crazy. Perhaps even more seriously, it's boring. People don't read rants.
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You will note that he didn't refer to a "cabal". Only those truly ignorant of Wikipedia culture tend to believe in the existence of such a group. Wikipedia's power structure is difficult to dissect and analyze, having elements of a techno-religious cult, an anarchy, a democracy, and a monarchy, However, "cabal" is inadequate and inappropriate for describing this power structure. I'm not entirely thrilled with the fact that you brought it up in an attempt to derail Dan's point.
There does certainly appear to be a group of untouchable users on Wikipedia. Let's take MONGO, for example. If a user who had been editing for just a few months began aggressively campaigning in the way that MONGO does, he would be quickly indefblocked as a "disruptive troll". Now, I don't believe that MONGO is trolling, and he likely means well, but nonetheless he is overly aggressive, incivil, and abusive toward other editors, yet he seems to get a "free pass" for acting in just this way. To be fair, he has a good deal of experience behind him, and it's only reasonable to assume that those with seniority will be granted a bit more leniency. "Leniency", however, shouldn't translate to "being able to act in whichever way he wishes without being called on it".