Essay: Edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki

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Reasonable people at a wiki do not block others for capricious reasons such as protecting a false ideology, false political narrative, pet theory, etc.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary a "reasonable person" is "a fictional person with an ordinary degree of reason, prudence, care, foresight, or intelligence whose conduct, conclusion, or expectation in relation to a particular circumstance or fact is used as an objective standard by which to measure or determine something (as the existence of negligence)."[1]

The edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki measures the close-mindedness/intolerance and groupthink of a wiki.

Mathematically, the edits to blocked editor accounts ratio can be expressed as: Edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki = E % BE, where E is the number of edits to the wiki and BE equals the number of blocked editor accounts of the wiki.

A wiki with a low edit to block ratio tends to be a closed-minded wiki that is dogmatic and intolerant.

The inventor of this metric is one of the editors of the User: Conservative account at Conservapedia. According to a self-administered Political Compass Test, the inventor of edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki is moderately to the right on the political spectrum and slightly libertarian (In this particular case, the opposite is authoritarianism).

The case for not being a political partisan and being more objective

The abstract for the journal article At Least Bias Is Bipartisan: A Meta-Analytic Comparison of Partisan Bias in Liberals and Conservatives which was published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science states:

"Both liberals and conservatives accuse their political opponents of partisan bias, but is there empirical evidence that one side of the political aisle is indeed more biased than the other? To address this question, we meta-analyzed the results of 51 experimental studies, involving over 18,000 participants, that examined one form of partisan bias—the tendency to evaluate otherwise identical information more favorably when it supports one’s political beliefs or allegiances than when it challenges those beliefs or allegiances. Two hypotheses based on previous literature were tested: an asymmetry hypothesis (predicting greater partisan bias in conservatives than in liberals) and a symmetry hypothesis (predicting equal levels of partisan bias in liberals and conservatives). Mean overall partisan bias was robust (r = .245), and there was strong support for the symmetry hypothesis: Liberals (r = .235) and conservatives (r = .255) showed no difference in mean levels of bias across studies. Moderator analyses reveal this pattern to be consistent across a number of different methodological variations and political topics. Implications of the current findings for the ongoing ideological symmetry debate and the role of partisan bias in scientific discourse and political conflict are discussed."[2]

Arthur C. Brooks wrote in his article Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being: "A 2012 survey conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University asked a sample of Americans about their news-consumption habits, and quizzed them about U.S. and international political and economic events. They found that those watching the most partisan television news sources—on both the left and the right—were often less knowledgeable about world events than those who consumed no news at all."[3]

"In this article, we examine psychological features of extreme political ideologies. In what ways are political left- and right-wing extremists similar to one another and different from moderates? We propose and review four interrelated propositions that explain adherence to extreme political ideologies from a psychological perspective. We argue that (a) psychological distress stimulates adopting an extreme ideological outlook; (b) extreme ideologies are characterized by a relatively simplistic, black-and-white perception of the social world; (c) because of such mental simplicity, political extremists are overconfident in their judgments; and (d) political extremists are less tolerant of different groups and opinions than political moderates. In closing, we discuss how these psychological features of political extremists increase the likelihood of conflict among groups in society."

Reasonable person standard for blocking people at wiki

Reasonable people at a wiki do not block others for capricious reasons such as protecting errant ideologies/political narrative/pet theories, etc. Instead, they block for uncivil behavior or putting in untrue material.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary a "reasonable person" is "a fictional person with an ordinary degree of reason, prudence, care, foresight, or intelligence whose conduct, conclusion, or expectation in relation to a particular circumstance or fact is used as an objective standard by which to measure or determine something (as the existence of negligence)."[4]

As noted above, individuals who are political extremist exhibit psychological distress. Individuals at wikis with low edit to block ratios often display strong feelings of anger/hatred/frustration/anxiety/fear/dread provoked by people who point our various deficiencies in their errant thinking and web content.

Cognitive dissonance is mental stress or discomfort caused by simultaneously holding contradictory ideas. Wikis with low edits to block editor accounts often block others due to the cognitive dissonance of its editors.

Examples of individuals feeling psychological distress due to political matters

See also: Secular leftists and psychogenic illness

Donald Trump being elected president of the United States in 2016 causing a surge in demand for mental health services

The website Marketwatch reported concerning the aftermath of the 2016 presidential race: Donald Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services.[5]

Brexit and spike in mental health office visits

Brexit results. Blue-shaded areas stand for council areas that voted "Leave". Orange stand for "Remain".

See also: Brexit

Brexit is a campaign slogan for 'Britain's Exit' from the European Union.

The Guardian reported about Brexit:

In shrinks’ offices across the country, just as in homes, pubs and offices, people are trying to come to terms with the surprise and shock of the Brexit result. Strangers gather together to talk of how “the world is falling apart”.

Many people feel transported into a dystopian Britain that they “do not recognise, cannot understand”. Thousands are hatching plans to leave the country. Social media are full of suddenly violent flaming between former friends.

Therapists everywhere are reporting shockingly elevated levels of anxiety and despair, with few patients wishing to talk about anything else. Mental health referrals have already begun to mushroom. Why is the Brexit vote affecting us so personally? And, what does this tell us about the make-up of our psyches?[6]

The columnist Patrick West wrote in his article The Post-Brexit Ugliness of the left:

The liberal-left couldn’t understand why people would vote in the name of abstract principles such as ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’ or ‘self-determination’, because they view everything in terms of their own money and their own public image.

There was a time when it was Tories who sneered at the poor, who deplored them as stupid and feckless. This was in the loadsamoney era of the 1980s, during which the market ruled and we were beholden to the whims of capitalists and the sainted market. There was even a time, many years ago, when the left spoke of principles, of democracy and liberty. How the roles have been reversed. How strange that it’s mostly conservatives who now talk in abstractions, and it’s the left that obsesses about the markets and worry about the FTSE 100, about their own money.[7]

Religion, irreligion, tolerance/intolerance and charitableness towards others

Joseph Stalin's atheistic regime killed tens of millions of people.

The worldview of a person/community can affect behavior.

Religion/irreligion and tolerance/intolerance

The historical data and various psychological studies show that the irreligious are frequently more intolerant than the religious.

For more information, please see:

Religion/irreligion and charitableness, kindness, sociability and mental stability

In addition, in terms of being charitable/kind, sociable, having greater mental stability, the religious do better than the irreligious on the whole as can be seen by an examination of the articles below.

Religion/irreligion and charitableness/kindness:

St. Basil of Caesarea founded the first hospital. Christian hospitals subsequently spread quickly throughout both the East and the West.[8]

Religion/Irreligion and socialableness:

Religion/irreligion and mental stability:

References

  1. Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of a "reasonable person
  2. Comparison of Partisan Bias in Liberals and Conservatives by Peter H. Ditto, Brittany S. Liu, Cory J. Clark, Sean P. Wojcik, Eric E. Chen, Rebecca H. Grady, Jared B. Celniker, and Joanne F. Zinger, Perspectives on Psychological Science, May 31, 2018
  3. Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being by Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 2020
  4. Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of a "reasonable person
  5. Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services, Marketwatch 2016
  6. The EU referendum has caused a mental health crisis by Jay Watts, The Guardian
  7. The Post-Brexit Ugliness of the left by Patrick West
  8. The Christian origin of hospitals