Wiki Butcher

Refers to those who indiscriminately destroy Wiki content by removing or rearranging it. Those who indiscriminately destroy Wiki content by adding to it are called something else.


Wiki Vandals start at the top of Recent Changes and work their way down. Wiki Butchers just pick some page or bunch of pages they dislike, or some correspondent or topic they dislike, and commence Disagree By Deleting.


Many Wiki participants keep locally archived copies of material on Wiki. Your attempt to destroy the conversation will prove futile. If you have anything to say, contribute; otherwise, go play somewhere else.

To what extent does this conflict with Why Wiki Works? If someone has to keep a backup to prevent a page being butchered, does this mean that Wiki only works because people have to struggle to make it work? I assumed that Wiki works because Wiki Butchers were rare.

Wiki works both because the butchers are rare and because those who care exist. In the end, we will outlast any Wiki Vandals.


How do people save pages? Do they just paste them into their favorite word processor? Do they have programs that archive them automatically?

Simple text file, named accordingly.

Whenever you contribute something that you think of value you can copy and paste the text of a page and keep it yourself in a safe place. Next after the Wiki Vandals have gone away, you can easily restore anything.

You can also find recent history at: c2.com

Ok, but if I deleted this page now, nobody could see it for minutes/hours! I still hardly can believe that this works, but it seems so... And if it really does, it means a victory of democracy to me.

Ever hear of Quick Changes and New Recent Changes? Shows up instantly...

It is a little victory. See Why Wiki Works or learn how to Refactor Mercilessly.


Sometimes content gets moved, not deleted. The contributions of Schizoid Gibberish Wiki Author, for example, are so unique and special that they may be moved to that page just to make them more easily accessible for analysis.

>;->


See original on c2.com