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 | This page contains material that is kept because it is considered
humorous. Such material is not meant to be taken seriously. |
 | 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. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Fuck it. Cut your losses. Go do something else. |
There are times on Wikipedia when the amount of effort you must expend to resolve a dispute, relative to the amount of gain that could be accomplished by that effort, becomes a losing battle, and even if successful, will be a net loss to the project and only be personally frustrating to yourself and others. In cases like these, it's best to let people who are wrong be wrong, even and especially when they are wrong in ways that would take so much time and effort to effectively explain, that you could have promoted an article to GA status in the meantime.
In cases like these, follow these easy steps to fix yourself:
- Take your hands off of the keyboard.
- Take a deep breath.
- Say aloud (and this part is important) "Fuck it".
- Unwatchlist the page, and go find something else to do.
It may be helpful to remind yourself that people do stupid things every day, and many of them go not only uncorrected, but entirely unappreciated in all their wrongful glory. Take this time to appreciate how wrong the other side is, feel the euphoria of being superior to them in every way, and carry on with yourself knowing that Wikipedia is not a democracy and even if the majority of people are wrong, they probably won't win in the long run.
Consider also why you are arguing, and the possibility that you may, deep down, actually be more concerned about being right, than you are about whether being right itself in this particular instance would actually meaningfully help build an encyclopedia.
Finally, if you just can't bring yourself to say fuck it, you may have found yourself in a position where you give too much of a fuck, and it may be beneficial to visit some remote corners of the project in order to help put things in perspective. For example, the fact that we have a 60k article on Fuck, or the existential questions posed by:
- The fact that fucking Austria is sometimes appropriate in polite conversation if one is referring to Fucking, Austria, and not just in discussions about World War I
- The fact that there has been a legitimate need to create disambiguation pages for not just fuck, but also for fuck me, fuck you, fuck it, fuck off, and holy fuck.
- And just maybe, the fact that someone may have linked you to this essay because they figured you were the type of person who would be amenable to some lighthearted humor, and they honestly think you are an asset to the project, even if you sometimes take things a bit too seriously.
| This page contains material that is kept because it is considered
humorous. Such material is not meant to be taken seriously. |
| 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. |
| This page in a nutshell: Fuck it. Cut your losses. Go do something else. |
There are times on Wikipedia when the amount of effort you must expend to resolve a dispute, relative to the amount of gain that could be accomplished by that effort, becomes a losing battle, and even if successful, will be a net loss to the project and only be personally frustrating to yourself and others. In cases like these, it's best to let people who are wrong be wrong, even and especially when they are wrong in ways that would take so much time and effort to effectively explain, that you could have promoted an article to GA status in the meantime.
In cases like these, follow these easy steps to fix yourself:
- Take your hands off of the keyboard.
- Take a deep breath.
- Say aloud (and this part is important) "Fuck it".
- Unwatchlist the page, and go find something else to do.
It may be helpful to remind yourself that people do stupid things every day, and many of them go not only uncorrected, but entirely unappreciated in all their wrongful glory. Take this time to appreciate how wrong the other side is, feel the euphoria of being superior to them in every way, and carry on with yourself knowing that Wikipedia is not a democracy and even if the majority of people are wrong, they probably won't win in the long run.
Consider also why you are arguing, and the possibility that you may, deep down, actually be more concerned about being right, than you are about whether being right itself in this particular instance would actually meaningfully help build an encyclopedia.
Finally, if you just can't bring yourself to say fuck it, you may have found yourself in a position where you give too much of a fuck, and it may be beneficial to visit some remote corners of the project in order to help put things in perspective. For example, the fact that we have a 60k article on Fuck, or the existential questions posed by:
- The fact that fucking Austria is sometimes appropriate in polite conversation if one is referring to Fucking, Austria, and not just in discussions about World War I
- The fact that there has been a legitimate need to create disambiguation pages for not just fuck, but also for fuck me, fuck you, fuck it, fuck off, and holy fuck.
- And just maybe, the fact that someone may have linked you to this essay because they figured you were the type of person who would be amenable to some lighthearted humor, and they honestly think you are an asset to the project, even if you sometimes take things a bit too seriously.