Alas, I must leave. It's for my own personal sanity. I'm accustomed to a world of some order; of rules and structure, of actions and consequences, of humanity and responsibility. I was operating for too long under the misapprehension that Wikipedia was a community and that it functioned responsibly as one. I see now that at best, it can be considered an experiment, however it cannot be taken seriously as any sort of legitimate rererence. Its potential as a collaborative resource is undone by the very structure that invites editorship. Jim Wales has made a fortune from it, and good for him, but it can't be considered a success at what it purports to do.
When POV zealots such as NCDave ... Gordon Watts ... Ann Henneghan and Patsw can conspire to derogate a work while considered to be on an equal basis with genuine editors, all legitimacy vanishes. When ... administrators such as SlimVirgin are permitted supervisory oversight to the very projects in which they participate, the experiment falls apart. When terms such as mediation and peer review become hollow parodies of their real world equivalent the project becomes fatally flawed.
SlimVirgin's transgressions on one massive edit were utterly eviscerated and yet s/he, 1 instead of recognizing s/he was in a discussion with someone who is an expert in the field and defering to that superiority of education and experience, advised that expert to desist in his patronizing tone ... And yet that is the sort of administrator to whom one is expected to turn for guidance and justice ...
One day in my work years I was training an experienced journeyman on a new (to him) sector. We were having a conversation about another controller who was clearly on the posterior of the bell curve and he observed, "some people have twenty years of experience, others have one year of experience twenty times." ...
The joke that is Wikipedia is not for me. I am widely involved elsewhere in the internet community and I am recognized in those other venues for the qualities I exhibited in my turn at the 'pede, so I don't need to come here to have my abilities, my knowledge, my experience, and my character insulted by an irresponsible administrator who puts up a tag that says "major edit in progress" and then claims it wasn't a major edit, by ... [one editor], by ... [another] in Europe who argues British law in reference to a U.S. case, by ... [a third] who can't comprehend the difference between cardiac arrest and myocardial infarct…oh, the list goes on an on. And, oh, yes, a mediator whose sole contribution to the mediation process was to continually remind the parties that he's never failed—he'll have to modify that claim, for sure.
Although I'm sure there'll be some dancing in the streets, it'll be by partakers (I can't recognize them as contributors) for whom I care not a whit. I've had some marvelous interactions with some brilliantly gifted editors while here and I'll miss them.
1 I thought s/he was a she, yet s/he took offense at my polite reference, "madam" and hasn't issued one correction to others obviously confused by the gender. In any event, SlimVirgin would clearly be a sobriquet a woman would choose—I can't imagine a male who would come near it. Shame on someone who would choose a sexually ambiguous nom de web and then complain when confusion ensues.
Read a concise version of above from a former respected administrator at: User:RickK
