User blog:Explorer 767/Stop the fighting? STOP THE PROTEST!

People! What has happened to law and order! Stop the protests, or this wiki will crash and burn Everyone, DON'T CHANGE YOUR SIGNATURES! LET IT BE KNOWN THAT IT IS EXPLORER'S OPINION THAT THE PROTESTS ARE A BIG WASTE OF TIME!

But seriously. This is another one of my IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) blog posts, and now I question the users who are protesting against this so called "Crisis III".

Wut Crisis?
My first question: What Crisis III? Where is the mass quitting, where are the vandalism raidings, where are the countless arguments and debates that have TOTALLY taken over the recent changes?

The answer IMHO? NONE.

The two key aspects of any Crisis:


 * 1) Mass Quitting, all of which can be related to one reason. If mass quitting happens because a lot of people decided to quit for totally unrelated reasons and they all happened to quit at the same time, that doesn't count. Mass coincidental quitting can happen in perfectly healthy wikis.
 * 2) Ubiquitous flame wars and arguments taking over the recent changes. These should all be somewhat related.

Now, to prove why neither of these key aspects have been fulfilled.


 * 1) Mass Quitting -- As far as the recent changes can see, no users have OFFICIALLY quit this wiki due to the Swiss Ninja Debates. Tidal has semi-quit and is on the verge of quitting. Other than that, I see no other quits related to the debate.
 * 2) Key rule in totaling mass quitting from number of quits: many minor quits (such as relatively new users and semi-actives) add up to a mass quitting. A few major quits (such as important admins or frequent contributors) can also add up to mass quitting.
 * 3) Ubiquitous flame wars and arguments -- This has ALMOST been totally fulfilled. The Swiss Ninja Debates have been the spotlight of all activity lately. However, I doubt that they are really ever going to completely take over the recent changes unless fueled with extra fire. This is because they involve nothing controversial and worth debating about. If an argument topic is introduced into this wiki and that topic is not very controversial, the number of editors usually declines steadily or rapidly. Soon enough, the topic fades away from the spotlight. However, if people continue to rebut and extend the argument, it will survive the test of time, increasing the risk of it turning into a full-scale Crisis.

Right now, I'm pretty sure this isn't a Crisis III. It could become one, but right now it's just not big enough.

The Protest Against Protests
My second question: Is your protest REALLY going to help?

The answer IMHO? IT'S GONNA MAKE IT WORSE.

You see, as I said above, flame wars involving debates usually die out quickly if they're not controversial and/or they're not continuously fed and extended.

Well, don't you think the protests will feed the fire, too?

Think about it! Protests focus attention on the debate, thus stripping away from mainspace edits and also fueling the fire. People who haven't edited the debate in some time edit again, and people who haven't edited at all decide to do so, as hardly anyone else seems to be expanding anything else. Protests mean to stop a debate, but in reality, if they try to extinguish a debate prematurely, they only make it bigger.

Protests ALWAYS make debates bigger, but the only times they actually STOP debates is when the debates are larger and thus nearer the end of their lives. The protests increase awareness in the public (which, by the way, is already sick of editing the debate at this time) that the debate needs to stop, and the public, having already edited the debate extensively and getting sick of doing so, stops.

Put the Protest in the Fridge for Later
My conclusion? This protest should just stop. It's only drawing more attention to the debate, which fuels it like mockery feeds trolls. There is no need to change signatures, there is no need to stop editing mainspace, all you are doing is making the situation worse. Stop the protests. They're not helping.