User:David~enwiki/The Great WikiWar of the 21st Century
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The Great WikiWar of the 21st Century (2011–2020) was a major war between the Wikipedia Incletionist Alliance and the Vandarchist Horde. Escalating tensions over the previous three years led to an outbreak of open hostilities on April 12, 2011.
Battling Factions
[edit]The two most powerful contingents of the Atlantic Island Nation Wikiwiki participated in the war. Many members of the United Lurkers were registered and joined the Incletionists later in the war, the Grokker Consortium was one of the few factions not to join in the conflicts.
Wikipedia Incletionist Alliance
[edit]The Wikipedia Incletionist Alliance (formed May 10, 2010) was a loosely connected collaboration of three seperate, smaller organizations: The Inclusionist Party, the Deletionist Alliance, and the Delusionist Association. Prior to their unification against the attacking Vandarchist Horde, these three factions had been historically at odds: the Deletionists were characterized by the others as "Nazis"[7], while the Inclusionists were maligned as "Crufters"[8] and the Delusionists as "Delusional."[9][10][11]
Vanarchist Horde
[edit]While the Incletionist Alliance was a rough collection of fueding factions, the Vanarchists were unified in their desire to bend Wikipedia articles to their "on wheels" agenda. Despite a common desire of disruption, the Horde was not formally unified until the rise of Warchief Eric Saindon, who officially rose to power on May 12, 2010. With the factions thus crystallized, conflicts between the two powers were imminent.[12]
Causes of the War
[edit]The creation of the diametrically-opposed factions, and the resulting organization thereof, can now be seen as the "first last step" in starting the conflict. On May 16, 2010, not long after Warchief Saindon, together with his able commander, William Wheeler, began staging raids upon Wikipedia articles, setting up deliberate acts of vandalism and misinformation. These attacks were quickly repelled by the Incletionist Alliance, along with the Independant Consortium of WikiEditors, who would be nuetral in the upcoming fight at large. Realizing the Incletionists were too powerful for head-on attacks and highly resilient to vandalism and sockpuppetry, Saindon set his Horde to batter the defenses of the Alliance while he developed a sneak attack.
As the edit warring grew more frequent and frenzied, the Alliance planned a sneak attack upon the Horde. As it was, the Horde would make the first move. On November 20, 2010, A large contingent of 2,000 Horde forces descended upon the Elephant article in an attack of vandalism more brutal than ever seen. They were bankrolled by a shadowy figure known only as Mr. Wikiality, as aided by rough sleeper cell administrators who subverted protection on the article. In an open clash, more than 3,400 Alliance editors lost their lives, caught unawares by the onslaught. The following day, J. Wales, de facto ruler of both the Wiki and nominally the head of the Alliance, passed the motion to declare war. More than 25,000 editors were mobilized by 21:35 UTC.
The War begins
[edit]The First Attack: April 12, 2011
[edit]
Despite small skirmishes and resultant parries by the Alliance, after the Massacre at Wikiality little overt military measures or campaigns were taken. Both sides were too busy gathering reinforcements and waiting for the other to make a move. Mobilization techniques varied; with the overt expulsion and desysopping of the rouge admins, Wales was able to take the cause directly to the remaining community. Wales also activated select units of the shadowy Arm of Arbitration, whose activities would remain shrouded in secrecy. Their actions were known only to those on a select IRC channel. Confident the forces of the Incletionists were ready for any attack, Wales and his lieutenants circled the wagons and waited.
The Horde, on the other hand, took agressive steps to consolidate off-wiki power, to the point of invading Wikirage.com and Veropedia, spreading destruction and chaos. They also gathered and mobilized anti-Wikipedia sentiments on other sites such as Conservapedia; though most of these third-party sites contributed no fighters to the conflict, they bankrolled many of the initial operations. They also recruited former troll mercenaries to perform attacks on select wikipedia pages to probe for weaknesses. Finally, on April 12, a massive offensive was launched against Elephant, still reeling from earlier, as well as various front-page featured articles. This established the clear pattern of the Horde to attempt to destabilize and corrupt high quality articles. The attack lasted non-stop for nearly three days.
Retaliation: Initial Blocks and Protections
[edit]Wales used the sudden blitzkreig attack to consolidate his power, officially promoting himself to 'godking' status in an effort to "stem continued loss of data."[13] Using his expanded powers he appointed several trusted admins to 'steward' status, as well as single-handedly promoting editors up to adminship to swell the ranks. By April 30, there were an additional 2,000 sysops among the ranks. This group, calling themselves the Great Cabal, mass-protected pages and disabled anonymous editing; these harsh measures largely stopped the offensive and put the Horde in defense mode. Special strike teams were sent by Wales and the newly created Arbitration Tribunal to perform sneak attacks on known Horde sympathizer's sites, and blocked thousands of IP addresses. Suddenly, the Horde found its numbers of able-bodied fighters greatly depleted, and subtly switched tactics. For the next three years, the Horde would implant spies and insert cruft into numerous articles in an effort to discredit Wikipedia. Largely, the Alliance was able to repel these attacks with ease, although the inter-Wiki political system was changed irreperably; Wales, finding the head editors of the video games WikiProject "unable to stem the cruft accumulation in video game articles", threw the editors in a gulag for two years and put a freeze on all new articles unless they were specifically reviewed by the Arbitration Tribunal.[14]
The Second Attack: September 23, 2014
[edit]The relative outward calm would not last. Gradually, facing a lack of serious opposition, the Tribunal and Cabal lost power, and page protections were slowly lowered. The Horde's mercenaries, finding little work, went rogue; their solo operations were easily foiled. Most of the Horde's financial backers, seeing their traffic to Wikipedia-alternatives diminish in the calm, abruptly stopped their funding. Willy on Wheels led a coup against his mentor, Eric Saindon; in a long but relatively bloodless civil war, Wheels took over and reformed and energized the Horde. Ready to draw blood again, Wheels initiated a large attack on biographies, with the plan to spread libel and slander on articles and talk pages.[15] Nearly 40,000 troops were involved in the frontline battle, aided and abetted by sleeper cells of 'respected' editors and disaffected admins numbering at least 2,100. This extra strength proved crucial, and for nearly thirty days, beginning on September 23, Wikipedia was in a state of chaos. The Alliance, which had during the long peace largely fallen apart, clashed with itself as well as the Horde, leading to collateral damage on a scale never before seen. Policy pages were deleted and protected; nearly 1,337 sysops were banned in less than three hours.[16]
Retaliation: Operation Revert-and-Ban
[edit]Wales used the Arm of Arbitration (AoA) to great effect in the aftermath; using the legendary artifact, the Banhammer of Power, Wales and the AoA reverted nearly 120,000 edits and banned 5,000 users within just a few months. Once the situation had stabilized, Wales took the time to root out the admins who had threatened him, branding and banning them after a hearing at the Tribunal. Wales also created an admin prison located deep in the Cyberspace Sea to isolate the elements from wikisociety. All good and featured articles were forced to undergo reassessment and review, ensuring proper content. The level of protection and security was once again increased.
Overall, casulties were horrific, 1,000 users were lost on the Alliance, with more than three times that lost to the Horde. Wheels, faced with a loss of support, brutally supressed uprisings and a coup; more than 900 horde warriors were executed for turning traitor to the cause. Tightening his grip on the Horde once again, Willy vowed to wait, bide him time, and modify his strategy once again; this time, he would strike directly at the nerve center of the wiki.[17]
The Third Attack: June 5, 2020
[edit]To further his plot to behead the Foundation's chair Wales, Willy planted more users and cultivated them in the community. These sleeper units reverted staged troll raids, contributed to dozens of featured articles; some even penetrated the Upper Halls of the Tribunal and even the Wikimedia Foundation. In October of 2019, Willy learned from a spy that the Foundation had recently given Wales the command of the Halberd, the main attack ship in the Incletionist fleet. Seizing on the opportunity, Willy began to sow dischord amongst the 'NonKings', a group nominally in the Incletionist fold. These editors, numbering some 3,000, were usually associated with the neutral Independant Consortium of WikiEditors; however, since the Second Attack they had voiced their lack of faith in Wales as godking, and wished for a democratic assembly of the Foundation to take his place. Willy, under the alias "Publius", convinced the leader of the NonKings to boldly profess their claims and succeed from the Foundation as it stood; the resulting break sowed dissention and suspicion in the ranks of the Incletionists. Willy sought to destabilize the common editor's sympathies, and while they sought for a more democratic Wiki, attack the disorganized Incletionists. However, his plan hung on removing Wales, and preferably much of his Arm of Arbitration leadership, from the picture entirely.
On June 4, 2020, a cruise missile was launched from a secret base within the Wiki-controlled space and scored a hit on the Halberd, commencing the Third Attack. Wales, 5 members of the Foundation, 12 heads of the Tribunal and AoA, in addition to at least 200 admins were believed to have perished. As planned, the NonKings launched their Squashy Court Parliament and wrote a constitution; the Loyalist Incletion faction promptly attacked the NonKings. Then Willy, seizing the Banhammer, attacked with every single troll, sockpuppet, and malcontent he could fine. For nearly fifteen days, the three-sided fighting continued, and it appeared Willy had won, but the arrival on July 5 of the Foundation destroyer Uncle Ben put an end to its plan. On board was Wales- wounded, but able- and fresh reinforcements. The tide turned back to the Incletionists, and with the unmasking of Publius as Willy, the Horde retreated.
Retaliation: Operation Fighting Back: June 7, 2020
[edit]The Incletionists then began to push the retreating Vandarchists back, several hundreds of vandals were banned, but Willy, still in possession of the Banhammer, began deleting articles hundreds by hundreds, The Incletionists then began to ban the remaining Horde members, eventually, only Willy was left, in a one on one duel between Jimbo Wales and William Wheeler, Willy was defeated and banned, signalling the end of the war.
Aftermath
[edit]The Incletionists defeated the Vandarchist Horde.
Long-Term Effect
[edit]Many articles were vandalized and deleted, the Elephant article suffering the most vandalism edits in the history of Wikipedia.
Rebuilding
[edit]See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ These are the actual start and end dates of the American Civil War. Well, except for the years.
- ^ Yes, that was intentional.
- ^ Fearless Leader!
- ^ Returned from retirement
- ^ You should click on the link.
- ^ him too
- ^ Are you kidding? There are no references! This is a joke page!
- ^ Huh?
- ^ multiple
- ^ references, to seem
- ^ more important
- ^ Fuchs, 10.
- ^ Disclaimer: Wales is not a godking. Also, the cake is a lie.
- ^ Oh noes!
- ^ Slander is only speech, so it doesn't belong... oh well, let english majors challenge me!
- ^ Leet.
- ^ Dum dum dummm....
References
[edit]- Fuchs, David. An Administrator's Account of the Most Treacherous and Deadly WikiWar. Das Wohltiempre Fuchs Publishing: Syracuse, New York.
- Wales, Jim. (2024-06-02). Address on the Third Anniversary of the Fourth Attack.