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Thank you,  

 Civility 

Dear reader,

You are probably reading this because you think I'm an obnoxious clown.  Okay.

The thing about wikipedia that is magical is that we are a community of equals.  When someone (like User:Crossmr) unilaterally deletes a large swath of content against the stated objections of a number of contributors, it does dishonor to this equality.  When someone (like User:Crossmr or User:Scobell302) uses a threat of authoritarian action to prove that they are right, it does dishonor to this equality.  If you want to prove you are right, use the rights of all wikipedians (like User:Michaelas10 and User:Richard Harvey): EDIT!

Hell, when someone like User:74.129.234.170 tells you you're an asshole for being an asshole (or, in the words of a more tactful wikipedian, ""too bold""), am I contributing to wikipedia?  No, probably not.  But am I honoring the spirit of equality?  Hell yeah!  We can swear at eachother until the cows come home without one of us depriving the other of the powers inherent in a wiki.  But if I wanted to contribute to an encyclopedia run by a community of rule-obsessed elites, I would submit to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Or, look at it from the utilitarian perspective.  I once tried to get in a revert war, and I found it was way too boring after only two rounds, so I quit (allowing User:Crossmr to get the last word...until a third party emerged from the community of equals to take my place).  But, man, throwing sand in the face of a pointless authoritarian?  Priceless!  I'll do it forever if you're willing to keep playing.  Bring it on!

Suffice it to say, I have a wikipedia alter ego, which has a couple serious contributions under his belt.  Or, to put it another way, I have a lot of IP addresses.

Convince, threaten, block.  Don't threaten, threaten, threaten.  It just doesn't work.

So if you want to revert my work, go for it.  I might argue with you, I might even be uncivil, but you can be certain that I won't block you or delete your contributions or even vandalize your encyclopedic content.  You won't find any proudly-displayed thank you notes from administrators on User_talk:74.129.234.170.

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