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This is a humorous essay.
It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors and is made to be humorous. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. This essay isn't meant to be taken seriously. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Two or more people who agree with you constitute a consensus. Two or more people who disagree with you constitute a cabal. |
OnWikipedia the term "cabal" is often used loosely to describe real or imagined collectives of users who have chosen to group inside or outside of the mainspaceorproject namespace in order to pursue an interest. Whether any given cabal actually exists usually is impossible to determine conclusively. Often the existence of a cabal is posited by a group holding opposite views to those of the supposed cabal; they may look like a cabal to others.
In the early days of Wikipedia, annoyed by a huge amount of vandalism and other irresponsible editing, a number of persons, including "fathers-founders" themselves, considered the idea of "benign cabals". Larry Sanger was a strong proponent of giving editors considered to be experts an extra power, which was one of his major disagreements with Jimbo, and he even attempted to implement "expertocracy" in Citizendium. In 2001, Jimbo himself mused on the idea of "cabal membership",[1] which had eventually led to the concept of administrators.
Cabals can be roughly divided into three types:
Joke cabals are generally tolerated until they affect the project, at which point the matter often is taken up at one of the administrative noticeboards. Wikipedia pages used by individuals who are solely here to socialize, not contribute, may be raised at WP:MFD.
