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I nominated an article for deletion from Wikipedia. It got deleted. It stayed deleted during a deletion review. All the other related articles in the little walled garden of what I considered, and still do consider, "vanispamcruftisement" were also deleted.
These actions, despite the fact that they were performed in good faith, and that the Wikipedia community seemed to agree that Wikipedia would be a better encyclopaedia without those articles, earned me a few months' worth of concerted harassment and insult from two editors who took umbrage at my actions. They manipulated, deceived and distorted the facts in order to portray me as an imbecilic, incompetent, dishonest troll. I created a page of notes documenting their actions, in order to try to protect myself, but this too drew their wrath. I tried opening an RfC, but that simply seems to be a venue for two factions to argue with each other, with no real results. It simply increased the nastiness, the deceit and the manipulation.
But eventually I realised I had better things to do than waste my time on them, and on a project which is geared towards supporting people like that. So I nominated my notes page for deletion (along with my other userpages), and shall no longer be editing this encyclopaedia on a regular basis. I thought this might be an enjoyable hobby, but I cannot deal with trolls, vandals, crackpots and loonies any longer, especially when it is nigh impossible to seek censure for their actions, and the only reward I receive is personal insult and frustration. As far as I am concerned, they can shill all they like for their theories, their organisations, and their egos.
This is a small battle as Wikipedia goes, and I never did very much here. But I know that what happened is emblematic of a pattern, and it is not a healthy pattern. It worries me that Wikipedia is so high on Google's hit list, and used by so many, and yet it is wide open to systemic abuse at the hands of people wily enough to slip through the net of "policy" (not very hard), and determined enough to win at all costs.
But I have no interest in dealing with this any longer.
