The Sorry Mr. Happy
Mr. Happy finds this "page really, really sad" and offers me some advice: "If you bothered to start enjoying life instead of fighting some terrible phantom, you might find your views would turn out a little different." (Comment on Scholarship).
Thanks for your concern, Mr. Happy, but Y am afraid that the more Y bother to start enjoying life, the more life bothers me. For example, Y thought Y would enjoy seeing the Patriarchy entry improved, but the patriarchal structure of wikipedia prevented me from experiencing more than a few moments of enjoyment. For, after placing my contribution on Nov. 14 at 5:14 am, about an hour and a half later Y found this:
Please revise your essay on the patriarchy in Gender Studies. There are no sources; patriarchy in your essay is poorly defined; much of it is blatantly spurious—e.g., [patriarchy] is predicated on the idealization of the sperm—; and the hyperbole is quite offensive. If you want to find a way to constructively contribute, please contribute verifiable, well set-out ideas. I will leave your contributions for a while, so you or someone else can rewrite it as necessary, but if it is essentially unchanged, I will remove it. Rintrah 06:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
As a habitually offensive hyperbolist, Y wasn't surprised. Well, the speed with which Rintrah found my change and published this vitriol was impressive. Especially since by looking at the Statistics page, and doing some math, Y estimated that there are 60,000 edits to wikipedia Every Day! (Sources: Wikipedia and math- but not that good at math, so check my figures). How did he do it? He does seem to be a busy boy. Although he claims he has no special interest in the subject of patriarchy
It might surprise you to know I don't really have strong feelings about this. If I did, I probably would have taken this page off my watchlist. I was trying to agitate people to improve this page.
he does say that it's on his watch list. Here we have an example of one of the consistantly effective tools of patriarchy- equivocation.
Thanks for your concern, Mr. Happy, but Y am afraid that the more Y bother to start enjoying life, the more life bothers me. For example, Y thought Y would enjoy seeing the Patriarchy entry improved, but the patriarchal structure of wikipedia prevented me from experiencing more than a few moments of enjoyment. For, after placing my contribution on Nov. 14 at 5:14 am, about an hour and a half later Y found this:
Please revise your essay on the patriarchy in Gender Studies. There are no sources; patriarchy in your essay is poorly defined; much of it is blatantly spurious—e.g., [patriarchy] is predicated on the idealization of the sperm—; and the hyperbole is quite offensive. If you want to find a way to constructively contribute, please contribute verifiable, well set-out ideas. I will leave your contributions for a while, so you or someone else can rewrite it as necessary, but if it is essentially unchanged, I will remove it. Rintrah 06:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
As a habitually offensive hyperbolist, Y wasn't surprised. Well, the speed with which Rintrah found my change and published this vitriol was impressive. Especially since by looking at the Statistics page, and doing some math, Y estimated that there are 60,000 edits to wikipedia Every Day! (Sources: Wikipedia and math- but not that good at math, so check my figures). How did he do it? He does seem to be a busy boy. Although he claims he has no special interest in the subject of patriarchy
It might surprise you to know I don't really have strong feelings about this. If I did, I probably would have taken this page off my watchlist. I was trying to agitate people to improve this page.
he does say that it's on his watch list. Here we have an example of one of the consistantly effective tools of patriarchy- equivocation.
- the patriarchy page is on his watch list
- if he cared about it, he would take it off of his watch list
- he tries to agitate people to improve the page
- improvements to the page are deleted
- he wants the page improved
- if someone tries to improve the page, he threatens to remove any hard work they might contribute if it doesn't meet his standards
- according to him and his cohort SecondSight, my contributions do not meet the high standards set forth by wikipedia
- my contrbutions were reverted to entries which also do not meet these standards, and are actually rediculous, erroneous, inadequate or downright idiotic
So, thanks, Mr. Happy for giving me the stimulus for this entry. Please continue to join us on our journey of exposing the patriarchal basis/bias of wikipedia and the world it purports to describe.
posted by Lesbesquet | 3:58 PM
4 Comments:
Hi Lesbesquet.
As someone you declare a hypocrite and a patriarchal agent, I should probably say a few words in defence. I shall deign to humour you in your cause then.
First, a minor point: you linked to my userpage history (which isn't interesting), and not to my Usercontributions (which actually shows what I do with my time on wikipedia.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Rintrah
(if you can be bothered looking through a tedious list.)
You said you are a 'habitually offensive hyperbolist' (is this supposed to be an irony or is the syntax of your sentence wrong?), yet it seems you want your readers, whoever they may be, to believe I wield the tools of the patriarchy to suppress your purportedly well-written entry on the patriarchy. Secondsight is allegedly my cohort in this strategem, even though I haven't said anything to him and don't really care what he does. If my contributions to wikipedia really fascinate you (they don't fascinate me), you might like to point out the evidence of our collusion against you.
I also wonder, if I have a special interest in the Patriarchy article, why are there so few edits to it in proportion to the total number of edits listed on my Usercontributions? If I had a special interest in it, might I not try to write some of it myself? Your lack of sources and obvious hyperbole were my reasons for posting that warning on your userpage. Yet you call this vitriol and want to undermine one of the most important guidelines of wikipedia to publish your purported 'truth' on wikipedia.
This is how a watchlist works: It lists all the changes in order of date and time to articles that are selected for the watchlist. By pressing the 'diff' link, one can see what changes were made to the article in question in the last edit. This is how I detected your changes to the Patriarchy within 1.5 hours of you posting them.
Your assertions:
'the patriarchy page is on his watch list'
Yup. Well done!
'if he cared about it, he would take it off of his watch list'
The article is shite. If I cared deeply about it I would be extremely frustrated. The most rational thing to do then would be to take it off my watchlist.
'improvements to the page are deleted'
You haven't actually shown your work actually improved the article.
'he wants the page improved'
I do, but no so much that I could be bothered doing the work myself.
'if someone tries to improve the page, he threatens to remove any hard work they might contribute if it doesn't meet his standards'
Is 'someone' meant as the indefinite pronoun or the second person one? You almost expressed this accurately: you did say 'tries' to improve the page', and not 'improves the page'. I acknowledge, you did try. But you made it worse by inserting some ridiculous rant (my specific objections are outlined elsewhere). One of my standards is that controversial statements at least need sources. You did not satisfy that.
'according to him and his cohort SecondSight, my contributions do not meet the high standards set forth by wikipedia'
Yup. My 'cohort' and I noticed there were no sources and a you were expressing a point of view with little objective information. There are policies in wikipedia. One of them is "wikipedia is not a soapbox." My 'cohort' even made a sympathetic comments about you on the talk page. He even seemed to regret reverting your changes.
'my contrbutions were reverted to entries which also do not meet these standards, and are actually rediculous, erroneous, inadequate or downright idiotic'
Yes. I suppose this is the part that exposes me as a hypocrite. Although the article is awful, your work actually made it worse. Are you trying to make an argument that I approve these stupid entries?
I could spend some time on wikipedia now, but I think I will read a book instead. Good night.
Good to see you here, Rintrah.
I shall deign to humour you in your cause then.
Thanks, because Y just love humor. And they say we Lesbian Feminists have no sense of humor...BALLS!
Notice that you and Mr. Happy both have suggestions for me of ways with which to bother myself.
Really, Y am a habitually offensive hyperbolist. And it's hard, too, since Y find it impossible to exaggerate most aspects of our human condition due to the fact that it couldn't get worse. The good news is, it can only get better (this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarious - that's from a song: http://janfox.com/sixties_live_lyrics.htm#Aquarius. Most of my hyperbolic statements must be reserved for observations about individuals.
The issues you mention in your comments will certainly be addressed in further posts.
Here is the kind of thing that makes it worth getting out of bed: the word verification for me to post this comment is "gfuck".
So you are a habitually offensive hyperbolist? Thank you for the clarification. It would also help if you underlined your hyperbole, so at least if you, for instance, allege SecondSight is my cohort, I know whether to take you seriously.
I did a Google search on "gfuck". This is what I found: gfuck = Gesellschaft Für Unsinnige Copyright-Klagen. But that doesn't sound right. I don't get it.
You cannot exaggerate the terribleness of the human condition? Do pancakes and strawberries really taste bad? Are there not children in third world countries who run around and smile? Read Crime and Punishment. I'm sure that will make your day brighter!
rintrah-
Already read Crime and Punishment when Y was 12 and in 8th grade. Wrote a paper on it and got a B+. While we are giving out recommended reading, why don't you read Woman Hating by Andrea Dworkin, who is bizarrely cited on the patriarchy page?
Since you accused me of hyperbole when you first posted to my talk page, don't think you need any formatting aids from me to help you find whatever you think is hyperbolistic.
On the other hand, look this up on Google: Go fuck yourself. Don't take it personally. Just trying to show you why Y found this word verification so amusing.
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