User:Operation Spooner

Presidential candidate Ron Paul wreaks havoc at Grand Central Station: [1] UNBELIEVABLE FOOTAGE of a modern Jeffersonian revolutionary.

"The most important sovereignty we should protect is the sovereignty of the individual." - Ron Paul

"The fruits of our labor should belong to us 100%." - Ron Paul speaking in support of abolition of the IRS and income tax, as well as abolition of the Federal Reserve, at NH rally 9/29.

"Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less." - Ron Paul, What Does Freedom Really Mean? [2]

Wikipedia:Verifiability: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. [[3]]

Shady and ridiculous methods I've observed that individuals, or groups of individuals, use to prevent other editors from changing article content

See also: WP:OWN

Ownership strategies I have observed

1. Intimidation. They threaten to "report" an editor if he continues to make an edit that they do not like. They either say they are going to report him for violating some made-up policy, hoping that the editor does not research to find out that the policy does not exist. Or, they may claim they are going to report him for being "disruptive" (with "disruptive" meaning nothing more than the editor is making changes that they dislike or haven't authorized). Since they know that nothing is likely come of such a a report, instead of making the report, they continue to make threats, with attempts to make them scarier as if some big calamity is going to befall the editor if he doesn't submit to their authority. If this fails to intimidate the editor, they are likely to resort to a quite pathetic passive-aggressive Patronization strategy: They will try to convince the editor that they have Mother Theresa-like unselfish concern for the him and don't really want to see him blocked from Wikipedia, and that therefore it's in the editor's best interest if he obeys their commands because they will get him blocked if doesn't.
2. Prior Permission. They delete a new edit with the claim that before someone makes an edit, he's supposed to go through some drawn-out bureaucratic process to obtain permission for it. They hope that the editor has not read the Wikipedia Introduction thay says: "Don't be afraid to edit — anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold! Find something that can be improved, whether content, grammar or formatting, and make it better." There is no policy that I'm aware of that says a person has to obtain permission from anyone, or engage in any type of discussion, voting, or collaboration, prior to making a new edit.
3. Democratic Deception They remove an editor's change with the charge that "The Majority is Against You" or "The Consensus is Against You." This is often used in combination wit the Permission Required strategy. Aside from the fact that the claim itself is often a lie, the assumption they are trying to push is that Wikipedia is a democracy — that a majority has a greater right to make a change to an article than a minority does, that a minority is only allowed to make changes that the majority consents to, instead of both parties having the right to edit an article according to their own best judgements of what's best for the article. They hope the editor hasn't read the official Wikipedia policy that says: "Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy or any other political system...Although editors occasionally use straw polls in an attempt to test for consensus, polls or surveys may actually impede rather than assist discussion. They should be used with caution, if at all, and may not be treated as binding." Majorities factions, due to their very nature, can and will try to "own" articles, nevertheless Wikipedia is not a democracy.
4. Talk it to Talk. They revert an edit with the comment "Take it to talk" or something similar. This is disingenuous, because if they really wanted to "take it to talk" they would "take it to talk" first and begin a conversation. What they actually want is the editor to go to Talk first to make a plea and thereby put himself in a position of submission. If the person requesting to "take it to Talk" is genuine about wanting a discussion and recognizes the editor as an equal, he will initiate the discussion instead of making a demand that the editor start a conversation with him.
5. False Tattle. They go to a group of admins and make a untrue claim about the editor, hoping that at least one of the admins will not check up on the veracity of the claim and block the editor from editing. One claim that is sometimes used is that the editor is not discussing his edits, because it is known that an administrator will tend to not check the discussion page to see that the editor actually has been engaged in discussions. The word "disruptive," will be tossed around liberally, in order to stoke the emotions of administrators, because it has no objective meaning but sounds bad (One man's improvements to an article are another man's disruptions). The chances of False Tattle succeeding in getting the user blocked increases slightly if there is more than one person making the complaint, so they recruit fellow monopolizers join in. The reason they go to more than one administrator is because they recognize that it is a numbers game. That is, the more administrators they speak to, the greater the chance of getting the attention of a careless one, or one who does not know much about policy, who will block the editor so that they can monopolize the article.
6. Active Hypocrisy. This strategy consists of doing what the editor is doing but calling what the editor is doing by a disparaging name and commanding the editor to cease that action. For example, an editor addes new information to an article. They then delete it, and the editor later reinserts the information. They then delete it again and tell the editor to stop "edit warring," while hoping that the editor is naive enough to not realize that if that were true then their removing that material would also be edit warring. This strategy is often combined with the Intimidation strategy, by threatening to report the editor for "edit warring." They may follow through with the threat, but typically will not do so alone, knowing that their report will seem non-credible without a few buddies coming in to back his complaint. However, admins typically are privy to the fact that it takes more than one person to "edit war." Seasoned administrators will see through this strategy.
7. False Vandalism. They state in the edit summary that they are deleting "vandalism," when they remove an edit they do not like. It is unclear what this is supposed to accomplish, but it is possibly done in order to fool others into thinking that they were actually removing vandalism so that the edit will not be inspected. Other edit summary lies may also be used.
8. Obssession. They can't bear to see an article in a way that they do not want it for more than a few seconds, so they spend a lot of time on Wikipedia hitting "my watchlist" over and over making sure that no one has changed the article they're guarding, standing ready to remove edits or try to keep their own edit permanent. This is quite pathetic actually and a sign of weakness.
9. Interrogation. They interrogate the editor, trying to goad him into saying something incriminating so that they can report him to an admin for his comments, without realizing that anyone with average intelligence can see what is feebly and obviously being attempted.
10. The Featured Article Card. If an article receives a "Featured Article" award, which amounts to being awarded with a gold star on the upper right hand corner of the article — woopee — they will use a strategy which that is called "playing the Featured Article Card." This appears in two variations. In Variation A, they say because it the article is a Featured Article, the editor is not allowed to any changes to to it without obtaining a "consensus," which actually means without clearing it through them, the self-appointed stewards, first. The assumption being pushed, which is hoped that the editor believes, is that there are special editing rules to follow if it is a Featured Article. Under Variation B, they use the Featured Article award as leverage by telling the editor that the article will lose that award if he makes the edits he wants to make. They hope that the editor cares more about seeing a gold star on the article than improving it, otherwise this strategy will be unsuccessful. It's quite possible that some push for obtaining Featured Article precisely to prevent others from making changes to an article, with the expection that they will be able to play the Featured Article Card and "own" the article.
11. Change is bad. They claim that making changes to the article is "destabilizing" it, with the assumption being pushed that a dead stagnant article, or one whose content rarely changes, is better than a living dynamic one — as if information can be trusted more if it's written in stone than written in sand. This strategy is almost always combined with Active Hypocrisy, by reverting away an editor's change while claiming that the editor is destablizing the article. However, them reverting away the editor's change is also destabilizing the article. If they left the editor's change alone, the article would be stable — thus the hypocrisy, and absurdity.

All the above methods are used to avoid simply using reasoned argument, and citation of actually-existing policies, to convince the editor why his edit is not good for the article. Perhaps it is because they are afraid the editor will disagree. And if he disagrees, then there is nothing they can do to stop an editor from changing content, because afterall, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit." And, that's what would-be monopolizers and bullies don't like about it.

My take on Quality versus Featured Article stability

One of the criteria for the Featured Article award is that an article is "stable." However, this is not because an article of higher quality because it is stable, but because an article can be given an award only if it's stable. It's difficult to judge the content of an article that is in a constant state of flux. It must be still in order to be judged. So, the criterion of stability is to assist in determining quality, rather than being a determinant of quality. It's less work to judge and article once for quality and give it a certification than it is to allow it to be dynamic and have to re-judge it daily. Therefore, the stability criterion of receieving a Featured Article Award becomes a hindrance to improvement by leading some individuals to believe that stability is a characteristic of quality, or at least to try to convince others to believe it so that they can prevent an article from edited and monopolize it. I say if the mere act of editing frequently causes an to lose Featured Article award or prevents it from obtaining the award, so be it. Stability is not an indicator of quality or informativeness.

Freedom

"This right of the people, therefore, to resist usurpation, on the part of the government, is a strictly constitutional right. And the exercise of the right is neither rebellion against the constitution, nor revolution – it is a maintenance of the constitution itself, by keeping the government within the constitution. It is also a defence of the natural rights of the people, against robbers and trespassers, who attempt to set up their own personal authority and power." - Lysander Spooner

"The purpose of the Constitution is to restrain government, not to restrain the people." - Ron Paul

"America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long." - Ron Paul

"Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference." - Ron Paul

I support Ron Paul and will vote for him in his bid to be the President of the United States and restrain government power to its constitutional limits.

"Ron Paul is the Thomas Jefferson of our time." - Judge Andrew Napolitano

"It is as if Thomas Jefferson had come back to lead us again. We must support this great man and his movement for freedom, peace and prosperity." - Burton Blumert

"As long as the president limits himself to tearing down illegitimate power, he can be acting in accord not only with minarchism, but also with free market anarchism. Yes, there are very few people I would trust with such awesome responsibilities. Ron Paul is one of them." - Walter Block [4]

Paul a philosophical anarchist? See picture of free-market anarchist Murray Rothbard on his office wall: [5]

An amazing FERVENT BOISTEROUS SPEECH in support of Ron Paul by the Reverend John Killian at the Alabama Straw Poll on August 18 (Which Paul won, btw. Looks like the Mises Institute found an appropriate home): http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZZTpYTQLz6c

MUST SEE FOX NEWS INTERVIEW: Ron Paul mentions Lysander Spooner twice, and endorses peaceful refusal to pay income tax (video): http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZnzGredcIs

A good Ron Paul video that sums up his traditional American anti-authoritarian perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X96l2o6GGYw

Extensive interview on Fox Business Channel, where Paul explains that he wants to eliminate the Federal Reserve, and allow parallel currencies to compete so that money supply will be set by market and government can't tax through inflation: [6]

My Heroes: Lysander Spooner (hence my name), Ron Paul, Thomas Jefferson, and others

"Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" Ronald Reagan First Inaugural Address (which he wrote himself)