I object strongly to DW being called an idiot. I resent the fact that it is considered ok to call him an idiot. He brought up some very legitimate complaints, not the least of which is that Zoe openly reverts changes based not on their merit, but merely because she doesn't like the user who made them. She is open about this, she has admitted it, she has argued, "But User:XX made the change, why should we listen to that idiot?" It is true that wikipedia is full of argument and that this is a problem, but the problem is not merely those, like DW, TMC, or even myself the mongrel troll Vera Cruz, which engage in inappropriate behavior not because we are incorrigible, but because we honestly don't always know better. For example, DW does not know that informing JW that he has a system of approved ignorance is not going to come across well, nor did I know that arguing that it is racist to refuse to use forign spellings would be bad. Certainly I have learned to be increasingly non-argumentative, and I am sure DW, TMC, 172, Danny, etc can definitely become even better contributors than they are. So no, I don't think we are the real problem, even if we can from time to time be offensive because we don't have a high enough level of class or protocol. I think there is a serious problem with people such as Isis, who insults people (me others), refuses to discuss the problem with the people she hates, and then winds up threatening to sue somebody for libel, a crime she regularly commits herself! There is an amazing difference between the two groups, the most notably difference being that Im no advocating banning anybody. Isis can call me names all day, I don't care. User:172 can go insane with insisting that his dry rambling articles are the ultimate nobel prize explanation of every subject every written. But I don't want to ban them. Banning is for people that load goatse or change the dates of WWII to 1836-2321. Banning is not for somebody who writes, "Columbus was a slavetrader" or "The Israelis are actively conducting genocide in Palestine". Yes, anyone with brains know those statements are absolute truth, but it takes time to learn NPOV. At this wiki, we have a group of people who are snide and elitist. They do not have perfect NPOV, they do not have perfect decisions, but they believe they do. They reinforce their belief because they are just about the only people who read or talk on the mailing list and they are arguing all over the wiki, thus making them feel that they are the wiki, and everybody else is a noobie or non-contributor. Those people should not be banned, they should not lose their sysop privileges. But, at the same time, the bullshit has got to fucking stop. You don't sue somebody from England because they tell u that as a paralegal you don't know jack about law. You don't call people an idiot simply because they don't agree with anything u think. Id like to talk about how I shouldn't be banned, its pretty obvious that Im somebody who is going to contribute valuable material. I don't think even my biggest opponents can deny the fact that just about every time I click submit I am adding something of value and just about everytime there is a problem, I back down or its eventually decided that I was correct. I know Im not a problem, but I can't convince anybody of it. There is a reason that legal courts do not require a defendant to prove their innocence, its IMPOSSIBLE to prove one's innocence. It cannot be done no matter what the crime or no matter how innocent you are. Not a single one of you can prove that you were not Adolf Hitler who committed a genocide and then, via parapscyhological phenomena, teleported himself into the future. Im supposed to apoligize to people or something so I can be unbanned. Ive apoligized, Ive apoligized ten-fold. Am I changed? I change every morning when I wake up, its a gradual sorta thing. Nobody has apoligized to me, and nobody can honestly deny that I haven't been the victim of rude abuse. I don't want your goddamn apologies, I want you to grow up and realize that from time to time somebody is gonna show up at the wiki and not only have info to contribute, but they are gonna start revising stuff that everyone of u thought was perfect. Its gonna happen next year, and ten years down the road, and its already happaned. Because Im not just a spell-checker or information-dumper, Im a reviser. Look at that ridiculous New Imperialism, its got to be just about the most boring piece of crusty lecture Ive ever looked at, you can't honestly expect some 4th grader, or working class stiff, or even an academic, to want to read that. Thats why none of you have actually read it! Don't tell me you've read that, I know you haven't read it. If you'd read it you'd be able to discuss it with me. Yes, I know, thats argumentative, maybe u even have read it and Im sorry if you have and I just libeled you. But the point is, that article needs revision and I need to revise it and nobody will let me simply because we don't get along. Why? Why can't we all just get along? I don't see any reason we can't get along. I've obviously taken numerous steps to try and reconcile things, Ive written a great deal of material which NOBODY has read. I admit that Im not the greatest writer ever, but Id like somebody else to take a step. Id like somebody else to consider the fact that I might be right, maybe a student of New Imperialism shouldn't be required to read a massive paragraph about the word imperialism, maybe he should just be able to click on imperialism when he decides he wants to read all that. In any case, thats what I was doing when I was last banned and I apoligize for not apoligizing enough and instead using this opportunity to make demands and concessions, but Im pretty stuck on this territorial dispute regarding New Imperialism, and I know, if you give in at all the floodgates will come crashing open and pretty soon Ill be over on Isaac Asimov or Charles Dickens insisting that he wasn't the greatest writer ever whose greatest book ever was such and such, but yah know, I did have a point about the Asimov article being POV. So let's like talk about articles sometime, cuz honestly, I don't know what to say about anything else. At least DW was trying to talk about whatever changes he was going on about on Jimbo Wale's talk page, I know for a fact that Zoe doesn't discuss things, she argues "This is the wiki way!", but the wiki way is to make a good encyclopedia. And I don't see how that can be done without a little more conversation and a little less resorting to law by commandment and imperial decree. Not to state that Jimbo is a King or some totalitarian, just to note that no matter how benevolent things may be, there hasn't been enough friendliness. Oh, I almost forgot, for about the hundreth time, plz add some simple chatrooms like even the most moronic of websites have. You can't honestly expect to go another year without even one chatroom, can you? --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now