Wikipedians: Hi New Guy. Feel free to make an edit request. Otherwise, just fuck off yeah?

[ChaosMeRee]

So, the Wikipedians heard all the mainstream media babble about how they're just a bunch of hostile pricks who act like editing Wikipedia is some great privilege that must be earned. And they heard all that fringe media babble about how they're biased as fuck. And they heard all that babble from the Foundation about how donations are down and the young people are losing faith in the Wikipedia brand.

They heard all that, and decided to reverse course on several years of building ever higher barriers to participation, right?

Don't be stupid. They just built yet another barrier, and it seems to me like they didn't think very long and hard about it. It may be relevant to that, that this barrier was hastily erected in response to a flood of new users to Wikipedia due to the Isreali genocide of Palestinian refugees living in the world's largest open air prison (that is an NPOV statement, given the only people who disagree with It are the jailers and their American financiers).

The new barrier is actually more of a tweak to an existing barrier they built in 2015 as a response to, you guessed it, editing disputes in the Israeli-Palestinian topic area. It was called "Extended Confirmed Protection" (ECP), adding to the already quite complex suite of protection levels they can apply.

Put simply, it bans anyone who hasn't yet been registered for 30 days and made 500 edits (people who are "Extended Confirmed"), from editing.

ECP is now widely used for any remotely controversial area. Because Wikipedians don't like newcomers messing with stuff that is important. They need to know you can be trusted. They need to know you have skin in the game. Because if you don't have skin in the game, how can a Nazi Administrator successfully control you by threatening to skin you? You would just laugh and tell them to fuck off. I gather than happens a lot on Wikipedia.

This was probably the time that Wikipedia should have dropped the "anyone can edit" slogan, because thanks to this little known piece of Nazi doctrine, for any page remotely controversial, "anyone" is the small cadre of Extended Confirmed users. Which is at time of writing, a mere smidgen over 68,000 Wikipedia accounts. So that's probably roughly 30,000 humans. Which is a mere 0.0004% of the world's population. Rounded up.

If 500 now sounds like it was a figure that was just plucked from the air, a figure high enough to put people off even bothering to commit to Wikipedia, it's because it was. It is an absurdly high bar, if all you are trying to keep out are people who are going to be net negatives. According to Wikipedia's own measurements, if you make it to 500 edits all, let alone in 30 days, you are in the top 0.75% of all Wikipedia editors by number of edits.

Maybe it's unrealistic to think that you can expect any editor in the top 50% of people by number of edits to be a net positive to Wikipedia. But whatever the number, it sure as shit isn't anywhere near 0.75%. By that measure, 99.25% of people who ever made a single successful edit to Wikipedia, are net negatives.

Holy cow.

If you have ever interacted with an experienced Wikipedian, you will quickly realise they are not rock stars or rocket scientists. Not even close. Most are clearly failures at real life, so they spend their days and nights hiding out on Wikipedia, hoping to change the world. And failing. In the same way that the lifetime of Wikipedia charts the rise of the Era of Great American Stupidity, it also parallels the slide in hopes for peace in the middle East from slim to none. The two not exactly being unconnected.

But it never mattered to the Wikipedians that this limit doesn't do what it as designed to do. It only matters that it keeps newcomers out.

But it wasn't fool proof. ECP stops people editing an article, but it didn't stop them using the talk page.

Evidently the Wikipedians got very tired very quickly of people misusing the talk pages, so they have come up with this genius solution. Non-Extended Confirmed users now cannot use a talk page for anything other than making an edit request.

"Edit Request" is a formal term in the giant bureaucracy that is Wikipedia. It is a post to a talk page that asks for an edit to be made in precise detail. As in tell them exactly what to change, word for word. I'm not even joking, if you deviate from that format at all, you request is rejected out of hand.

So, as a newcomer, a non-Extended Confirmed user, for an ECP'd page, you can no longer make general enquiries about the article, or offer vague suggestions as to how it could be improved, or even ask other editors working on the article for feedback on a specific suggestion. All of these were previously allowed.

If this sounds insane, it is because it is. The obvious flaw is obvious. The 99.25% of people subject to this restriction includes every single person out there who understands Wikipedia enough to make those general comments, but isn't confident enough to craft a specific edit request. W

Do not be fooled into thinking they have allowed this small mercy because Wikipedians love nothing more than the learning opportunity that is a correctly formatted edit request that nonetheless has to be rejected for reasons. They definitely see that as a waste of their time. You can tell, because a hilarious unintended consequence of this farce, is that if an editor does submit a properly formatted edit request that has to be rejected for a reason that can be fixed, the editor cannot seek advice on how to fix it. They can only guess at the solution, and file a new request. And after the third declined request, they probably get banned.

This new restriction is surely hilarious to anyone familiar with Wikipedia in an observer/critic way, because in their universe, any user who can actually submit a proper edit request that is accepted first time, after making only 500 edits to Wikipedia, is a sock-puppet.

Seriously, this is how badly the paranoid and grandeur delusions of the Wikipedians have messed with their heads.

They couldn't spot the absurdity of this new barrier, because they do not live in a world where anyone should be allowed to edit Wikipedia. This was never meant to be some kind of filter, excluding noise and allowing only signal.

To an experienced Wikipedian, anything anyone has to say, if they haven't made more than 500 edits to Wikipedia, isn't worth hearing. You might listen to it if you're just goofing off. But if you're doing serious business? If you're saving democracy? If you're saving the planet, the trans people, the Sea Turtles? It's unwanted noise, distracting you from your important works. They can get fucked, in short.

And I can ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE that not very many of these freaks had any clue that this excludes 99.25% of people who are entitled to call themselves a "Wikipedian". Worse still, a tiny minority did, and did it anyway, having never been on board with the whole "anyone can edit" nonsense in the first place.

[Ognistysztorm]

There's a name for describing Wikipedians who are willing to work so hard in the encyclopedia even as if it's failing - vocational awe.
https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe ... ional-awe/

[journo]

This was probably the time that Wikipedia should have dropped the "anyone can edit" slogan

Anyone can edit the autistic hobby and obscure interest pages. In fact, they encourage randos messing with those articles. But, like other wikis, if the article is of interest to administrators, only a select few can edit.

[Bbb23sucks]

Anyone can edit the autistic hobby and obscure interest pages. In fact, they encourage randos messing with those articles. But, like other wikis, if the article is of interest to administrators, only a select few can edit.

Kind of like the mainstream news media. You have creative freedom - unless it goes against the narrative.

[ericbarbour]

This new restriction is surely hilarious to anyone familiar with Wikipedia in an observer/critic way, because in their universe, any user who can actually submit a proper edit request that is accepted first time, after making only 500 edits to Wikipedia, is a sock-puppet.

Seriously, this is how badly the paranoid and grandeur delusions of the Wikipedians have messed with their heads.

Lol. I expected no less. Almost 15 years ago I predicted Wikipedia would slowly fall apart in this manner---increasing paranoia, increasing bureaucracy, decreasing editor interest. In NO way is Wikipedia any different from any other internet forum or gaming website. Only the paranoid (and their sockpuppets) survive. And only a matter of time before it becomes "the encyclopedia no one can edit".