This is a collection of some of my favorite quotes from other editors:
"Yep...unfortunately it happens sometimes. People come here thinking they can do what they want, misunderstanding "free encyclopedia" then when they find there are actual guidelines and policies in place, they throw temper tantrums." -- Collectonian[1]
"I really hate the term 'cruft' It's needlessly agressive and needlessly insults the contributors. In my experience, I'd estimate that half of the time the term in invoked as a reason for removal, it is content that I agree should be removed. But not because it is cruft, but because it fails WP:VWP:N and WP:NOR.
"It also gives the impression that the invoker is on a quest to remove all detail related to various fandoms. This forces the dissenting arguer into an aggressively defensive position which hinders communication and impedes WP:Civil discussion." --Verdatum[2]
"The Eternal Struggle The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment. - Lore Sjöberg [4]
"Wikipedia is really, really, really strong in the area of Japanese cartoon characters. And if you push that random button, I think about 33% of what you find, in Wikipedia, is Japanese cartoon characters." - Jimbo Wales[5]
"The proliferation of mediocrity is never its own excuse, and the absence of good information does not obviate the need for that information." -Geogre[6]
"Delete - some people have strange ideas, what is a RS, it is not random stuff you find on internet. Reliable, independent sources people!" -RetroSimone[7]
I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. - Jimbo Wales[8]
I want to clarify that when I mention contributions I'm proud of, I'm not talking about sheer content adding ...but often something like starting a stub in an important topic ...which later evolves with the help of other editors; or significant copyediting/rewriting, grammar fixing, code/layout tweaking, etc. My interpretation of pride is thus, appropriately, a personal and inherently subjective feeling of attachment and satisfaction, regarding articles I care much about, either because I started them or because I significantly expanded them ... It's not a claim of quality or amount of content. Lack of sources, for example, is something that can be addressed over time as the article organically grows. My belief is that Wikipedia editors should work out of pleasure, not out of pressure to comply with the guidelines and policies (even though these should ultimately be followed). Waldir[9]
I learned early on that what POV pushers do is bait and troll until you lose your cool and then report you for violations... Good editors then get discouraged by being repeatedly wrist-slapped or even sanctioned by well-meaning admins. Hence, if you are going to edit in controversial areas you do need need to cultivate a rather painful degree of calm civility. Fainites[10]
