User:Bushytails/Ignore all consensus
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
Often times, as an administrator, there will be times when you KNOW you're right, but all those pesky wikipedians keep disagreeing with you - a distinct dilema indeed! Fortunately, the solution is simple - ignore them! Wikipedia tells you to ignore all rules, right? So just ignore the one about consensus too! It doesn't matter what people think -- you KNOW you're right!
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[edit] Overview
Often, in your duties upholding Wikipedia's highest honors of community trust, there will be times you KNOW you're right, and all those annoying plebes proving you wrong are just getting in your way. Sure, Wikipedia may be built on consensus, but what if you don't like that consensus? What if consensus says a topic you dislike should have an article? That a person you dislike should be an admin? That rain is wet? But not to worry, consensus is flexible, like a lump of clay, for you to shape however you want.
[edit] Methods
Depending on what kind of bind you're in, and what ways people are proving you wrong, there's many things you can do - the right action may depend on the situation, but since you KNOW you're right, any or all of them will work in a pinch.
[edit] Block
Got a small group of people who keep giving those painfully long, tiresome, air-tight proofs of why you're wrong? Don't think anyone else would go through the effort? Block them! Either block them outright (claim they're disrupting Wikipedia - no one will argue with you!), or lure them into a revert war for the added benefit of the appearance of legality. Quick, easy, and the end of the debate - they can't prove you wrong if they can't respond, now can they?
[edit] Ignore through claims of bad faith
More people than you can block without arousing suspicion? Claim their input should be ignored due to bad faith! You can invent a conflict of interest for any user if you try hard enough - their dog was the same breed as a Hitler's 27th-steps-removed nephew - they once edited an article about pornography (even though it was just a vandlism revert) - anything! Clearly these people are only trying to push an agenda with their votes, and must be ignored to maintain the neutrality of Wikipedia.
[edit] Ignore through claims of policy violations
Most people won't bother actually checking policy. If you claim something violates a policy, most times you'll get away with it scott free! Claim a policy decision says that their topic shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Claim Jimbo said in private email that the topic hurts the community. Claim anything you want - most people won't notice!
[edit] Ignore by deprecating arguments
So, there's too many of them for blocks, and the topic is so blatantly acceptable that there's no way you could claim it violated policy... But never fear, there's arguments you don't need to hear! Rather than debating the actual subject at hand, debate their very right to make their argument. Cite the list of arguments to avoid, even if theirs isn't on it. Claim arguments of the form they made are invalid - say they're not allowed to argue the point they made. After all, you know best! This works especially well if many people make similar arguments, as there's even less explaining you need to do later. While "This article must be bad, because your argument is invalid" may not pass the muster of anyone who's spent 5 minutes in a class on logical debate, not to worry - most of your fellow admins haven't spent those 5 minutes, and wouldn't care anyway! Remember - it's not a vote! You don't have to give any reasoning behind your actions! You know you're right, so you have the freedom to ignore every argument you dislike!
[edit] Wear them down
If you don't think you'll get your way the first time, they're always the option of doing it again. and again. and again. Often it'll be much less work for you to cause problems than for other people to prevent them, so you can waste countless hours of people's time with just a few keystrokes! If you're really lucky, eventually people will get so fed up with having to argue, they'll just go away!
[edit] And when all else fails... do it anyway!
So you tried all the above. You blocked the few smart ones that proved you wrong at every turn. You eliminated every vote by anyone for whom you could invent any smear upon their record. You thought up a bunch of reasons the article must violate policy. You even came up with reasons why people's arguments were invalid. But, alas, the horde of voters looks to have won... Or did they? Just do whatever you originally wanted to do! Thanks to the way Wikipedia is set up, it's much, much harder to undo something once it is done, than to prevent it in the first place - and, like wearing them down, it's easy for you but hard for them! Forcing people to prove you closed the discussion inappropriately, speedied a good article, etc is a lot of work - many people won't have the time or energy to do it! So even if you're blatantly wrong, you'll likely get away with it anyway! And don't worry, in order for you to get de-adminned, you have to screw up in neigh-unheard proportions - just like undoing something you screwed up, it takes a huge amount of work to even try to get an admin removed, and pretty much never happens.
[edit] Policies
If you've read this far, you've probably realized it doesn't matter at all what policies say - it's so easy to get away with anything, and if you try hard, you can even look good doing it. While things like Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, except for the one about consensus may exist, you don't need to actually read them - holding someone accountable for their actions is essentially imposible! And if you're really good, you'll even make it look like you followed consensus! You didn't ignore consensus... you changed consensus. By carefully ignoring arguments, you were able to chose to look at the few remaining ones - and amazingly, the remaining consensus agreed with your opinion!
[edit] Conclusion
Now that you know some of the ways you can safely ignore community consensus, you'll never look at a vote the same way again. Consensus is just a concept thought up by the masses of informed editors, to prevent you from doing whatever you want. Since you've learned that consensus can be ignored, you'll never be subject to the well-reasoned arguments provided by them again - Ignore all consensus!
