User:Factchecker atyourservice/Wikipedia is an incorrigible, destructive cesspool of agenda-pushing by sneaky, dishonest POV warriors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia is an incorrigible, destructive cesspool of agenda-pushing by sneaky, dishonest POV warriors.

Ok, that's a bit much. It's not usually destructive, and I suppose "cesspool" isn't entirely fair. And it's corrigible, for sure. But there's just too much dishonesty, or gamesmanship, or agenda-pushing, or something that has taken hold of it.

Is it a net drain on society? Well, it isn't now... but it is my belief that standards of discussion are declining rapidly. And I don't mean salty language. I mean that people are openly practicing sophistry that would never have been tolerated 10 years ago.(two years before I started editing)

Increasingly I suspect that whatever value it provides to society in the form of genuinely informative articles (on topics that encyclopedias actually write about) is being overtaken by misleading propaganda spewed forth in various articles which, either in whole or in part, serve as a platform for the unhindered fabrication of whatever axe-grinding narrative the "editor" wishes to see (but doesn't see) in mainstream sources. The conduct is rarely sanctioned, and so it continues unabated.

Got an axe to grind? Write an article. Better yet, write two. Pick a headline from the news and decide for yourself that it's really a "topic" that should have an "encyclopedia article" written about it (by you, of course!) Then link to that article from numerous others, thereby molding a dozen topics at once to the message you wish to project. After all, you're a precious snowflake and your uniquely thoughtful, well-informed views should obviously be given an international audience, even if those views have failed to garner any attention or support in the real world outside Wikipedia. Massage the language in your organization's utterly inconsequential, self-serving press release—until it sounds like the President, the Pope, and MLK have all personally approved of your organization and recommended your product or service to those they love. You've read a political tract by someone? Published by a university press, you say? And it was by a person? Undoubtedly, then, that person's views are relevant to every topic they alighted upon. After all, he went to Oxford! Although he teaches at Columbia College—Hollywood. Sub-articles are your friend; WP:POVFORK is rarely enforced and only the very largest topics that have many large sub-articles see enough cross-article editor traffic, or admin attention, for the talk page discussions of sub-articles to be reasonable. Get cracking!

Reality is yours to fabricate and reinvent! Inject whatever outrageous opinions and manufactured falsehoods you like, wherever you like, and slap a footnote on them.

It doesn't even especially matter whether the footnote you place leads to a good source, or any source, or one that actually supports the text you have inserted. Wikipedia policy is carefully designed to punish anyone who dares remove just about any kind of article text that contains a footnote after it (so long as that text doesn't read "ASS DAMN FUCK" and the footnote doesn't point to a locked thread on 4chan). Heavens, no! That would be unthinkable without cordially inviting the authoring editor to begrudgingly discuss the deconstruction of his utterly unsupportable pet project, over tea, for several weeks. At the challenging editor's time and expense, of course. And woe betide the challenging editor who isn't just as sweet as tea cakes in the process.

Nor, as you might think, is there any notion of a burden of discussion on a Talk page. You can claim a text says something, and not bother to cite the damn text you are arguing about, and just point at a URL and demand that somebody both identifies the text you found instructive and fully works out whatever your thought process is. Nope, no need for silly rules like that, all you need is love...