Yes, but surely the problem is that what is really being defended is not the Wikipedia, per se, but the addictive reward mechanism and whatever personal mental hooks keep the adherents involved in it as it is, e.g.
the sense of self-importance, the opportunity to act out, nationalistic agendas. Like someone wrote as I was posting, a raison d'etre for the vandal fighters who don't and can't actually write.
I mean ...
where am I going to invest my neuroses if they take it all away from me!?!Its obviously a wind up ... so what's the big deal. If folks are taking it serious, they really have to be nuts. Even the one's not yet past puberty.
What I would asking myself is why should I be bothered, or concerned enough, to want to fix or change it without being asked, paid for and or empowered to do so?
I can see a genuine 'public interest' in doing so, many public interests, but how great really are they in comparison to the other "evils" of our world? Based on past records and other examples, is "joining them" (for no wages) and reasoned discussion likely to bear fruit? I doubt it. Its ruled and protected by a rabble.
So probably what others here are proposing (and, in a sense, the unrepresented persistent and genuine vandalism enacting) ... "trash it until it becomes so stigmatized that it has to be seen to change to survive" (the old "squeaky wheels get oiled" equation) is likely to be the quickest way forward. That genuine vandalism is partly a sign of culture's disrespect for it.
The investment of your suggest diplomatic approach would probably be better made to the big funders and financiers of the project. The trusts' trustees not the Mediwiki's. Your "eye glass" equation being based upon the pornography, the racism, the admin abuse, the waste of resources goodwill and so on.
There is no quicker way to grab anyone's attention that to take away or threaten their meal tickets. Elsewhere on this forum, there was a review of financial accounts. The Wikipedia's accounting should include a review of all the waste time and energy the unpaid laborers. I suspect that is VAST and in that you see the real inefficiency of the current model.
This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy: