Yomalolo

Babel:
en-1	This user is able to contribute with a basic level of English.
de-1	Diese Person hat grundlegende Deutschkenntnisse.
	Benutzer nach Sprache

How it started

I consider Wikipedia to be one among the greatest ideas in human history. To gather the knowledge of society, free for everybody to tap into, a product of many people working together as a peaceful collective - truly great. This I want to support.

Furthermore, I think that having someone write a Wikipedia entry about your person is a tremendable honour, much like having someone built a statue in your image, set there for the ages, a tribute to your achievements and efforts for society - naturally I myself dream of being honoured in this way. But this kind of honour only truly counts if somebody decided to write about you by their own choice and without an incentive from your side. What's more, I noticed that some people and organisations use Wikipedia not for the greater good but simply to project an ideal image of themselves, to use it as just another marketing tool or to give themselves more praise than they deserve - all under the cloak of objective truth that the concept of Wikipedia implies. In doing so they devalue said honour and metaphorically spit on the greatness that is Wikipedia. This I do not want to accept.

I therefore created this account for two reasons: Firstly I intend to contribute my knowledge whenever possible. Secondly I intend to sully idealizing or self-aggrandising entries by adding context and maybe even uncomfortable truth.

You may interpret this as an attempt at serving justice, righting wrongs, intellectual guerilla, peaceful protest, or just lunch break fun.

How it's going

After some efforts and quarrels I have come to the conclusion that I will not achieve what I had intended here. I was naive and thought I could freely add insights and bring forth truth without restraints. But alas, there are rules and regulations, there are people with their own ideas of right and wrong, implicitly endorsing factoids so as long as the system in which they have become valued members will be kept alive so they can keep feeling valued. I do understand the reason behind needing to add serious ressources behind every information that is added to the encyclopedia; but what if there is no such ressource? For Wikipedia it is then considered as being untrue even if everyone knows it to be true. One could rightfully ask: Do the rules serve to aid and protect truth or does truth need to adhere to the rules simply for the sake of the rules?

In the end, what makes Wikipedia so wonderful - it being a product of the many, open for everybody to contribute - is also it's greatest pitfall. In such a system the intentions of the many, no matter how corrupted they may be, will always win over the single individual, no matter how pristine they may (think themselves to) be. So even if I went through the effort to correct biased articles or add what I think of being valuable, there need only come along a group of people who want to nurture said bias for their own benefit and who need only but revert my changes and overrule any opposing attempts.

The only solution I see for myself is to accept the sadness of it all and withdraw for good.