Wikipedia:Cabals

This is a humorous essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors and is made to be humorous. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. This essay isn't meant to be taken seriously.

Shortcuts

This page in a nutshell: Two or more people who agree with you constitute a consensus
. Two or more people who disagree with you constitute a cabal.

On

mainspace or project namespace

in order to pursue an interest. Whether any given cabal actually exists usually is impossible to determine conclusively. Often the existence of a cabal is posited by a group holding opposite views to those of the supposed cabal; they may look like a cabal to others.

History

In the early days of Wikipedia, annoyed by a huge amount of vandalism and other irresponsible editing, a number of persons, including "fathers-founders" themselves, considered the idea of "benign cabals". Larry Sanger was a strong proponent of giving editors considered to be experts an extra power, which was one of his major disagreements with Jimbo, and he even attempted to implement "expertocracy" in Citizendium. In 2001, Jimbo himself mused on the idea of "cabal membership",^[1] which had eventually led to the concept of administrators.

Types

Cabals can be roughly divided into three types:

Secret cabal – This type of cabal is restricted in its membership and secretive about its functions or existence. The aims of such groups may be
point of view on the encyclopedia. While speculation exists about how much influence such groups have over the encyclopedia, social groups are a fact of life, and some users have been known to use off-wiki means (IRC
, e-mail, external websites, etc.) to coordinate their actions on-wiki.

Editor cabal – This type of cabal went through discussion on Wikipedia. In August 2005, a group called
MfD.^[3] In December 2006, the group was disbanded. The Counter-Vandalism Unit
is an example of a sanctioned cabal, dedicated to fight vandalism.

Joke cabal – Wikipedia is often accused of operating hierarchical cabals which most editors would not know the existence of. To satirize the theory a number of editors formed joke cabals. Some examples are
The Bathrobe Cabal, The Rouge Admin Cabal and The Penguin Cabal
. They can offer light relief to editors especially after periods of heavy editing.

Conclusion

Joke cabals are generally tolerated until they affect the project, at which point the matter often is taken up at one of the administrative noticeboards. Wikipedia pages used by individuals who are solely here to socialize, not contribute, may be raised at

WP:MFD

.

References

^ Jimmy Wales Thu Oct 18 19:22:46 UTC 2001 post on Wikipedia-l: A proposal for the new software
^ Signpost Introducing Esperanza 19/09/05
^ "This highlights a perennial and worrying problem about Esperanza: that they constantly set themselves apart. They say they give Wikipedians hope – but who has any interaction with Esperanza who isn’t Esperanzan? Why is there even a special term for someone who's in Esperanza? This organization ought to be deleted because they’re targeting new and vulnerable users, who then see everything on Wikipedia through green-tinted lenses, and it is not good. It does lead to superiority complexes, regardless of what the front page says. Esperanzans, at least the active ones, see themselves as Esperanzans first and foremost. We have to delete Esperanza for their own good, to show them what Wikipedia is like outside the wall of their sub-culture" (from the Esperanza MfD)

[1] Jimmy Wales Thu Oct 18 19:22:46 UTC 2001 post on Wikipedia-l: A proposal for the new software

[2] Signpost Introducing Esperanza 19/09/05

[3] "This highlights a perennial and worrying problem about Esperanza: that they constantly set themselves apart. They say they give Wikipedians hope – but who has any interaction with Esperanza who isn’t Esperanzan? Why is there even a special term for someone who's in Esperanza? This organization ought to be deleted because they’re targeting new and vulnerable users, who then see everything on Wikipedia through green-tinted lenses, and it is not good. It does lead to superiority complexes, regardless of what the front page says. Esperanzans, at least the active ones, see themselves as Esperanzans first and foremost. We have to delete Esperanza for their own good, to show them what Wikipedia is like outside the wall of their sub-culture" (from the Esperanza MfD)

[1]

History

Types

Conclusion

See also

References