I hope we are all proud of ourselves about how tolerant we are with people who consistently exhibit anti-social behavior. Andre has left the project due to fatigue with having to deal with these miscreants and I am so /disgusted/ with loosing yet another great en.wiki contributor that for at least the next several days I am going to concentrate on the Spanish Wikipedia and contemplate priorities on my own future involvement in en.wiki.
Just for good order: It wasn't just these miscreants, although it's a large part of it. I am also getting sick of the fights between ourselves, and of getting hateful remarks from some of you. Furthermore, I have to spend less time on the Internet anyway, as my work is suffering under it.
I don't think I will be gone forever, but for the time being I'm going to do very little. Probably just a few new pages and major edits, those are what still gives me fun.
Someone says that I do not have to deal with them. And that's true. But once I have created a page or made a major addition to it, I get a bit attached to it. And when they get changed, I want to look. Most of the time it's something inconsequential. Often it is an improvement, and I smile. But sometimes it gets worse, and that upsets me. And then I try to work on it. That's one way to get drawn in. Unfortunately, there are others as well.
It's hard to say what, if anything, should have been done differently to keep me. Because it's certainly partly my own fault, being too thin-skinned, taking criticism too much personally, feeling personally insulted when there is really just a difference in opinion. Maybe my involvement in Wikipedia was just a case of having the right man at the wrong place - or a lot of wrong places even.
Like mav, I am withdrawing, to WikipediaNL in my case. I'll probably be back in some weeks or some months, and see what you have done with the project in the meantime. I wish you luck.
Andre Engels