Wikipedia:Don't whack the hive
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it 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. |
The internet suffers from several diseases, and Wikipedia is often the internet in microcosm. One of the diseases is the compulsive need to whack the hive.
Human beings can't resist this in real life: passing a bee hive, people will often give it a good whack just to set the bees buzzing. Done often enough, the bees will respond by attacking, and that leads to the exterminators being called to kill the dangerous bees.
On Wikipedia, there are two main types of hive whacking.
Vandals
[edit]When someone is vandalising Wikipedia, usually in a very blatant way, someone will feel the need not to just use a standard warning template but to extemporise upon it, adding additional stages to the four-warnings-out-the-door process by following the fourth warning with a tailored warning that they've now been reported and that the forces of hell are about to be unleashed upon them; or at least that, before they next edit, they'll be blocked.
This is a waste of bandwidth and time: either they'll be blocked or they won't. Telling them that it's now going to happen whatever is encouragement for them to give the hive another last whack before they get sent to the naughty step for a day or longer.
Issuing a warning after the previous warning but before the next edit is just whacking the hive and inviting the individual to attack Wikipedia. It makes the vandalism worse and is likely to increase the block length. Everybody thus loses: this is, after all, the free encyclopedia everyone can edit, And should. That's the default position.
Established editors
[edit]For established editors, whacking the hive takes two forms.
Entrapment
[edit]If you can get a group of friends or like-minded editors together, you can all whack the hive a little bit until it turns on one of you. This doesn't need to be formally organised - on the internet, people can sense when there's a good hive to be whacked and will spontaneously give it a smack - but with a bit of determination you can keep the whacking going for the number of hours, days or months required until the hive is truly buzzing.
Then report the angry hive to ANI as soon as it responds: the last whack will look like it exploding over nothing at all (or, if you're lucky, exploding with the use of admin tools as well) and the exterminators will be along very shortly.
If the hive stung you before it was exterminated, remember to be all self-righteous somewhere public on the 'pedia. Being stung by an angry hive is something you need to tell everyone about. Loudly. Especially since you only whacked it slightly.
On exit
[edit]When long-term, established editors quit the joint, there's a perfect opportunity to whack the hive as they leave. If you've already been whacking the hive to get them to leave, a good smack on exit could provoke them to sting more than just you: a little bit of socking, some vandalism, a brief return to misuse the tools... and the exterminators will be right there, only this time with the really, really poisonous fog. With luck, the hive will not only be exterminated but also the hive will be banned entirely.
If that happens, it's time to go public again, but this time, stop just short of crowing about it somewhere public. But do crow about how you got the hive exterminated. You put the effort in, after all.