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User:The Ungovernable Force/manifesto

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The Consensus Manifesto

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Wikipedia has a serious problem. Administrators believe they have the right to speedy delete any political userbox they disagree with, and unfortunately, they do have the power. Not only do they delete political userboxes, but they delete any userbox that is critical of their actions. This is a serious problem and it has to be stopped.

They are using a new dictate by Jimbo that makes "templates that are polemical or inflammatory" worthy of speedy deletion. This new policy is refered to as CSD T1. First of all, we as a community should not recognize Jimbo's authority to dictate commands that fly in the face of previous group decisions. Wikipedia should be run based on consensus as much as humanly possible, and one person disregarding the opinion of thousands is NOT consensus. And even Jimbo has said that this policy should be eased into slowly to keep things like this from happening.

Unfortunately, many admins have taken it upon themselves to crusade against any opinion that might be "divisive". How is displaying our opinions in userboxes divisive? We will find out each others opinions eventually while editing, so we might as well lay our hands out on the table now.

In fact, userboxes have actually united this community. These abuses of power have led to strange alliances between groups that might otherwise have no support for one another--leftists are coming to the aid of Republicans when they have their userboxes deleted; animal rights advocates are now advocating for the free speech of pro-vivisectionists; anti-war activists are on the front lines defending pro-war userboxes. The only division within this community is due to their uncontrolled deleting of our userboxes.

These concerns illustrate a larger problem wikipedia has--too much power in the hands of too few people. In order to combat this slip toward authoritarianism, these four guiding principles are proposed:

  1. All policy should be agreed upon by a consensus of a significant number of editors. No one, not an administrator, and not even Jimbo, should be able to make unilateral policy decisions without some strong mechanism whereby the community can easily overturn it.
  2. Wikipedia policy discussions need greater publicization to help keep policy debates from turning into an elitist game. If no one knows what policies are being debated, then power will be consolidated in the hands of the few editors who are in the know. This must not happen.
  3. Power within the community must be decentralized to help decrease the likelyhood of abuse of authority. This can be accomplished in any number of ways, including rolling adminship, increased privileges for users with good edit histories and strong impeachment procedures for cases when administators abuse their power.
  4. We must respect each other's differences in opinion and should work to create a truly pluralistic on-line society. This includes open discussion of opinions, which cannot be accomplished by banning "divisive" opinions from userpages. Most people are able to respect the differences of others, and the few who are not will still have to answer to the rest of the community for any disruptions they may cause.

If we work together we can make this encyclopedia and its associated community work, we just need to have faith in each other and in ourselves.

Notes

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I understand that I am being quite vague with some of my proposals, because quite honestly I think we as a community need to decide what we want, and I don't think I can or should decide exactly how to run wikipedia. The one thing I am sure about is that consensus is a must. If you agree with the principles, please sign in the next section. If you have any ideas for how to actually go about implementing these priniciples into policy, add an amendment in the section below that. You may also add a new priniciple to the amendment section if you wish. If you want to discuss or debate this, feel free to do so on the talk page. Thank you all.

Signers

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  1. Agreed. Well, I wrote it, hopefully I would agree ;) The Ungovernable Force 06:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  2. Agreed. Was just cruising by the listing of Political Party Userboxes and was disappointed to find them all arbitrarily deleted. Typos 08:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  3. Agreed. Jimbo is suppose to be losing power (like the monarchy). Mass unilateral deletion and no debate isn't helpful for Wikipedia. Canadianism 10:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  4. Agreed. It is a shame that certain admins will look at this policy and go "Na na na na. I can't hear you. I'm an admin, therefore I'm God." --D-Day Somebody talk to me. Please somebody! Anybody! 14:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  5. Agreed. See further discussion on The Wikipedia Review. --QWERTY keyboard 14:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  6. Agreed Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess. The only way will stop the way things are becoming is by communication and cooperation -- two things that are supposed to be Wikipedia's hallmarks, but are rapidly fading away. Karmafist 16:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  7. Agreed --BostonMA 17:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  8. Agreed wholeheartedly. See also {{User:Misza13/User no Big Brother}} (unless it's speedied). --Misza13 (Talk) 17:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  9. Agreed. We need to abolish this Oligarchy and overthrow the Cabal. The current state of affairs is wikityranny, and we need a voice in these matters. Sociocracy will usurp the power of the totalitarian admins, eventually. Эйрон Кинни 18:51, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  10. Agreed particularly with the pluralism ideal. We are not here to become a homogonous entity, but rather to create a balanced encyclopedia...that can't be acheived by forcing everyone to have, or at least appear to have, the same POV...how can true NPOV be acheived in the articles without the representation of all varying POVs? bcatt 18:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  11. Agreed Save the userboxes. --JamieBattenbo 21:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  12. Agreed We must put an end to this terrible abuse of power. --Revolución hablar ver 23:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  13. Agreed. Editors have a good sense of what policies will work, and ones created unilaterally without confirmation are prone to major problems. T1 is especially problematic, and it ironically divides the community far more than it unites it. Also, it is far more dangerous for editors to pretend they don't have a POV than actively acknowledge their own biases. For instance, in ethnographic studies, it is very common that researchers make a list of their own biases before pursuing a study, so as to be actively aware of these problems and not simply push them in the background. Sarge Baldy 01:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  14. Agreed. Continued abuse of adminship, especially attempts to chill freedom of debate over the userbox issue, must be stopped immediately. Those admins who are rudely telling editors "if you don't like it, you can just quit" should be given their own rude awakening that Wikipedia can't exist without us; however, it can (and should), exist without abusive admins. -Daniel 03:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  15. Agreed. Count me in. --CJ Marsicano 06:19, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  16. Agreed. --Aaron 08:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  17. Oui. --Neofelis Nebulosa (моє обговорення) 10:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  18. Agreed. Count me in. People are allowed to have opinions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cjewell (talk • contribs) .
  19. Agreed. -- Tvaughn05e (Talk)(Contribs) 11:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  20. Agreed. Wikipedia should not be controlled by just a few authoritarian administrators. --Horses In The Sky 11:55, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  21. I agree Userboxes assist the encyclopaedia. The attempts to stiffle debate must stop. Avalon 12:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  22. Agreed. helohe (talk) 12:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  23. Agreed. --UVnet 16:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  24. Agreed. Jimbo needs to either start listening to the community or step down/be forcibly removed in favour of someone who will. I don't honestly care which it is at this point, but if Wikipedia is to survive it has to be one or the other. Cynical 17:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC). Note Jimbo left a question about this statement on my talk page Cynical 08:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  25. Agreed. —Guanaco 23:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  26. Agreed. It's perfectly silly to give everyone a userpage then tell them they can't use it to identify themselves however they see fit. And to use speedy deletion for anything other than removing patent nonsense, correcting mechanical errors, or resolving user-requested deletions is completely inappropriate in every possible way. Speedy deletion is far too disruptive a power for it to be left open to anyone's interpretation ("divisive or inflammatory"). Microtonal 06:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC) --- Addendum: Admins who abuse their privileges should have their privileges revoked. Unilaterally. Microtonal 07:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  27. Agreed but nothing will be solved until Wikipedia -- in concept, in name and in content -- is completely removed from Wale's control. That means fork and start over with a new government. Forcible removal is a second option. Consider legal action. DrueBea 10:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  28. Agreed. Userboxes are useful, specially to mantain NPOV in wikipedia, people have to accept no person in the world has a NPOV, they should be able to display their POV, if they so wish, only in a user space, this helps understand a user background. The same could be done in a non-template text format, but a userbox is an easy reference and an aid in categorizing users which helps to find peer reviews, etc. Speedingly Deleting them like it's being done is just abuse of power. --A/B 'Shipper 女 (talk) 18:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  29. Agreed. Very well put. Users should be able to identify their interests and beliefs. Those who become engaged with these users will find these things out eventually, and they serve an important purpose: they allow users to be upfront about their motivations, as once they find these things become known they will be used to help identify where a Wikipedian's actions are coming from. btm talk 07:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
  30. Agreed. Consensus, not dictatorship. --Thorri 13:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  31. Agreed, somewhat. It is my opinion that T1 is actually an acceptable tool, and that Jimbo's endorsement of it was a grand idea (It is common sense, after all, to delete template that are truly divisive and of no value to the project). The issue comes with the interpretation of it - which flies in the face of what Jimbo has stated. Jimbo's endorsement of T1 was an attempt to initiate discussion. It was discussed by a handful of deletionists who reached a consensus amongst themselves that T1 meant they got to delete whatever the felt like deleting, and screw anyone who thought otherwise. Most people weren't even aware of T1 until it had already gathered a so-called consensus and certain admins began deleting every userbox they felt like - even ones that had passed TFD, or even some that passed both DRV and TFD. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) | (contribs) 12:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
  32. AgreedWolfpackfan72 23:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
  33. Agreed - see also User:Revolución/Statement against Jimbocracy. -- infinity0 23:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
  34. Agree - It is a joke that only the politically correct userboxes are allowed. It's OK to say your a vegetarian and not a carnivore?? THis is political correctness gone awry because of a small amount of people. How do we have the cajones to keep the pictures of the Mohammed cartoons up yet be squeamish about something like this?--Looper5920 10:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
  35. Agreed. The actions of these admins are far more divisive than any userbox could be. Consensus is the way. Iapetus 02:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  36. Agreed. Consensus decision making and free speech! Consensus decisions are harder to make, but they are more powerful when agreed upon by all. The user pages are a space for free speech. Wikipedia editors should not feel that the user pages reflect official policy. With an open space, the wiki community can become better informed about the diversity of ideas. People looking for others who have certain values can find them more easily with the user boxes. r3 05:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  37. Agreed - This userbox issue iz da tip of tha iceberg -- max rspct leave a message 16:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
  38. Agreed. The power has gone to administrators' heads. My userpage was recently vandilised (or 'improved') by an administrator, and when I spoke out against him, I was blocked. He changed the layout, and removed many of my userboxes, however, he was not blocked for vandilism. They need to be stopped. Sergeant Snopake 11/03/06 20:22
  39. Agreed. --HK 15:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  40. Agreed - WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship Cordially SirIsaacBrock 09:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  41. Agreed - This is precisely what I've said to admins in the past. -- WGee 07:18, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  42. Agreed - I agree, I think all anarchists should agree. You can't be a real-world Anarchist and a DICTATOR on Wikipedia at the same time; the two are incompatible!--Ishango 05:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
  43. Agreed. Consensus is important. That should be self-evident. --Switch 13:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
  44. Agreed. Mgekelly - Talk 08:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
  45. Agreed. Your proposals are truly excellent. heqs 12:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  46. Mostly agreed. I actually think userboxes are rather silly, and am mystified how anyone gets so defensive about them. On the other hand, they're harmless. Any imposition of anti-consensus actions, whether by Wales or by other admins, is far more disruptive than some minor vanity on a userpage. Consensus is the key thing. LotLE×talk 18:48, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  47. All The Way One person's rants may be another person's poetry. Let the people express themselves the way WE think is best. Spyco 05:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  48. Agreed Dwnsjane2 02:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  49. Agreed Best proposal I've seen yet. — Nathan (talk) 02:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
  50. Agreed. --85.187.44.131 14:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
  51. Agreed. I see no point in deleting "political" userboxes. If not for politics, WP wouldn't exist. Anyway, WP has a political system, too. Would an admin delete a userbox saying that the user supports x or y a philosophy or policy? Alethiophile 18:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
  52. Agreed. -- The culmination of different viewpoints, backgrounds and perspectives is vital, even quintessential to the success and effectiveness of any grassroots idea, and Wikipedia is by nature a grassroots entity. While this applies more strongly to the information of the articles, this should certainly be extended toward the contributors for two (Although likely more) reasons: First, to have a complete understanding of the perspectives of contributors helps in discussion; and second, Wikipedia is a human, organic creation, and it needs that to be represented somehow, and it is best done so through the self-expression of the users in their own areas. Ecopirate 17:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  53. Agreed. -- I support this. I hope that the CfD of the Category:Wikipedians by politics (being considered at time of this signing) does not wipe out userboxes which allow association with others based on beliefs, religion, creed, etc. Our diversity is what makes this online encyclopedia most valuable and interesting. JungleCat 21:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
  54. Agreed.-- The best way to combat bias is to recognize that it exists. Pelegius 18:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
  55. Agreed. -- I'm very late, but that's because I've gone from this place for about six months. We are all equal means that we are all have the same worth. Nevertheless each person is unique and has a unique view. Not allowing expression of politics and expression of religion leads to a totalitarian society. KittenKlub 21:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  56. Agreed. --I'm completely alright without userbox deletion of any kind. Son of Bríghde 20:06, 02 August 2006 (UTC)
  57. Agreed. --Censoring the contentious ones is basically saying 'you're all sensible adults but no, you cannot play with that!'. It's bullshit. Hide&Reason 09:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  58. AMEN. —Nightstallion (?) 09:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  59. Agreed. Without user boxes my page has no colour --WikiSlasher 11:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  60. Consensus knock Aye. Canæn 05:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  61. Agreed. Aufheben 15:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  62. Aye. Just stumbled into this thing. Don't know how I got here. But I agree with it. Why not? Yes. Gardener of Geda 21:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
  63. Agreed I don't use political usedboxes myself but I agree they shouldn't be deleted for those who want to use them. Lord Metroid 17:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
  64. Agreed I don't have any userboxes, but I think letting people know your own political slant should be considered "Expressing an interest" and hence lead to more transparecy awareness of the risk of POV pushing A Geek Tragedy 14:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  65. Agreed VanTucky 18:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  66. Agreed. This is becoming a concern given my involvement with anti-racists at the Encyclopedia Dramatica. Ottre (talk) 18:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Amendments

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Amendment(s) by Shell <e>

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The Ability for Categorization

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This document forgets to mention that admins still think they have a right to remove categories even though they have been struck down multiple times. [1] is a good example of Cyde. Therefore, I propose an ammendment that requires the ability to add and keep categories.

Signers

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  1. Agree As above. Shell <e> 22:23, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  2. Agree. — Nathan (talk) 02:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
  3. Agree. Sergeant Snopake 15:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  4. Agree. ØřêōşGo Italia! 16:28, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  5. Agree. KittenKlub 21:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  6. Agree. Chili14 00:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
  7. Agree. The categories should be in the form Category:Wikipedians blah blah blah... to distinguish from other categories however --WikiSlasher 11:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
  8. Agree Dion 07:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Amendment(s) by ~~~

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Signers

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Amendment(s) by ~~~

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Signers

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