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Context: Larry Sanger's Nine Theses

Disclaimer: I'm not associated with Wikipedia in any shape or form; I'm just one among the many users who have donated to the Wikimedia Foundation but have their accounts permanently banned even if after showing attitude of repent and civility.

This blog post is going to be all over the place as I write down what I think on the spot so that I won't forget.

My previous criticism on Wikipedia can be found here.

First of all, the Nine Theses is very long; one should without a doubt consider this effort to be praiseworthy just by its length alone. I write articles from time to time and I can't imagine the amount of effort it takes to even write one-tenth of its length. Second of all - I shall put what I've said on Twitter here:

Larry Sanger is a saint for ever suggesting Wikipedia is something that somehow can be reformed instead of something that must be completely removed and replaced with something better. I, however, am not, and would exercise my fury liberally…

…Their asks for anonymity is extremely stupid and in my opinion should never be granted. Politicians have their full name out all the time and a lot of them affect way less people than Wikipedia administrators do; they have the power to control the narrative of the world's greatest portal to knowledge and for some stupid reasons they think they don't deserve to be forced to own up the amount of risks fitting to their power? Fuck off.

The fact that Thesis 6 is the first issue they become worried about implies that they intuitively understand what exactly is the fundamental guarantee of their unbounded power and the consequences of their own behaviour that they should've received but never have.

To a lot of people in the West I might sound unforgiving (ignoring the fact that saying something or someone is "unforgiving" already comes with a hidden stance and bias) - this is what you learn to become when you're from a Chinese background (Proper East Asian PRC Chinese, not 2nd-gen immigrants overseas who in my honest opinion doesn't count) and having to deal with CCP and its supporters throughout your life. The ways modern leftists deal with opponents are not unlike the way the Chinese (thehh CCP-supporting ones) deal with opponents: denial ("Checkusers don't write the content you're complaining about" - despite the fact that if they do write the content w/ sockpuppets people would have no way to know due to anonymity), ad hominem ("This is the same guy who backed the Heritage Foundation's plan to doxx Wikipedia editors who disagree with them politically"), a-priori moral judgement ("Sanger has gone off the deep end", "and it became clear to me: This is just another sad attempt to get revenge & recognition by a disgruntled former employee."), artificial inflation ("Revealing identities can be dangerous for many of us" - despite Thesis 6 explicitly states that it's for the ones with power), appeal to emotions ("yeah that's just baseless and offensive"), straight-up refusal ("So, if you think you can do it better, well—go do that.") and many more.

The biggest difference between me and Mr. Sanger's stances, I think, is that he believes (at least that's what it seems to me through his essay) that many problems of the current Wikipedia can be solved and/or removed by reforming the current power structure of Wikipedia, and that the people of Wikipedia would want to see things differently and change for the better; I believe, however, that both Wikipedia and its crowd are (nearly) completely unsalvagable. (This, I believe, technically conflicts with Christian teachings; but one do have to move in a practical sense if he truly wishes to see things being done.) I think we can all agree that power (which Wikipedia now holds an immense amount of, whether you like the thought of it or not) and anonymity are not compatible with each other - combine both, and you'll have some of the most oppressive tyrrany in existence. All in all, I believe that those who holds power shall not have anonymity and vice versa; but to remove anonymity from Wikipedia is nigh impossible (those who're of power can simply do things through sockpuppets. It doesn't matter if they claim to have never done it and wouldn't do it in the future - the availability of this maneuver itself should already be enough for the distrust). This, in my opinion, leaves people with no choice but to come up with a system that does not allow any possible power structure to establish itself altogether.

A part of me do hope that Mr. Sanger understands that he's dealing with a group of people who's morally corrupt (or at least adjacent) here - not (necessarily) corrupted by the "woke ideology", but by the power over a piece of critical modern infrastructure that arguably should've never be allowed to reach this kind of status. Let's think about this question for a moment: they have the power here, the content is what they would like them to be, they get to banish people they don't like, and they get to be hailed as heroes guarding human knowledge by most people; in all regards, they're absolutely loving it here. Why would they ever want to give up all these and change?

Let's be honest here - none of the 9 theses would ever be carried out by Wikipedia. To tell a house of thieves and liars that they should repent and expect they do is commendable as a Christian but foolish as a practicalist.

This, by the way, is in no way an argument against the Theses themselves - I'm simply more pessimistic than some people would've been. I believe that Mr. Sanger's proposal to reform Wikipedia do be a well thought-out practical move, since creating a competitor - and more importantly, convincing the general public to switch - is insanely difficult; I also believe that should the Theses ever become a reality, it will bring forth a better situation for nearly every single one of us, and for that reason I wholeheartedly support it and wish its success.