As I m sure many of you have surmised there is something going on behind the scenes to which most editors of Wikipedia are not privy My purpose here today is to expose it In doing so you may be tempted to minimize the problem by vilifying David Gerard or Carbonite but their actions are only part of the surface manifestation and penalizing them will only accentuate the dilemma Finding fall guys to punish will not fix the problem because the underlying problem is the system of punishment Systems of punishment On Jpgordon s talk page we see Carbonite punish the administrator with a forced time out In response Jpgordon leaves a message on Carbonite s talk page saying Good call Jpgordon s subservience to the system of punishment is directly evident in this example Methods of indirectly empowering systems of punishment also exist We can disagree with Carbonite s methods while enabling them at the same time by acknowledging Carbonite s ability to control our will But does Carbonite have the innate ability to control our will or do we grant him that power Obviously Carbonite can not coerce us without our agreeing to allow him that authority Our mind is our own and our will is based purely on the systems we acknowledge When we buy into a system of punishment as many of us have at Wikipedia we are purchasing the whole package It come complete with vandals disrespect flame wars and content ultimately controlled by a very few individuals with little or no prescriptive editing experience Prescription Language requires prescription This is evident with a little thought experiment involving two extremes If you could only communicate with words that remained the same indefinitely after they are coined communication would be entirely possible However in the opposite extreme where official definitions instantly amended whatever meaning every disparate context assumed propaganda and misuse would soon render that language ineffectual Within the intended construct of Wikipedia we don t have to understand how strong singular definitions empower a civilization The Darwinism of thousands of disparate editors and competing ideas will naturally lead to a prescriptive definition In areas of Wikipedia where we don t have top down control of content this is exactly what happens Unfortunately systems of punishment have become the rule at Wikipedia instead of the exception Our love for this project creates expectations for its potential but the fear of not reaching these expectations allows others to control us closes our eyes to corruption and content control and ultimately destroys the thing we love More after I take a few more runs