User:Gommeh/Wikipedia:Project S.C.R.A.M.

Introduction

Project S.C.R.A.M., or the Secret Cabal Resistance Against Meddling, is a program operated by S.C.R.E.W. with the aim of protecting Wikipedia from undue influence on the part of newcomers to the site. S.C.R.E.W.'s anti-newcomer initiative is a calculated, justified strategy to preserve the stability and structure of Wikipedia and defend it from vandals.

History

Conception

Project S.C.R.A.M. was first conceived in late 2008 during what S.C.R.E.W. now calls the "Anon Flood" — a period marked by a dramatic surge in edits by IP users following the mainstreaming of Wikipedia in academics and pop culture. Veteran editors reported chaos: articles on Pokémon, obscure YouTubers, and Naruto Shippuden were being created and vandalized at record speed. The Arbitration Committee was inundated with requests to intervene.

In response, the S.C.R.E.W. High Council met under digital blackout in a secret location in Colorado, far away from any other human contact. From this crisis emerged the initiative that would later become Project S.C.R.A.M., an institutional firewall disguised as a community policy.

The project began with the silent deployment of the first template barrage systems, including ones for notability, speedy deletion, and articles without citations, among many more. These were engineered to look like helpful guidance but were, in fact, psychological deterrents designed to induce shame and confusion. Simultaneously, leaked documents reveal that the Welcoming Committee was subverted. No longer a haven for new editors, it became a passive-aggressive triage unit offering templated greetings that doubled as warnings.

Early 2010's: Moderate success

By 2011 Project S.C.R.A.M. had succeeded in reducing successful first-time article creations by 64%. The introduction of tools such as Twinkle, Huggle, and RedWarn (ostensibly tools for vandalism management) became integral to Project S.C.R.A.M.'s automation protocol. Edits made by newcomers were now intercepted within seconds for review. Several S.C.R.E.W. analysts revealed in a leaked memo they called this a "temporal hostility window."

In 2015, Project S.C.R.A.M. was quietly embedded into the five pillars of Wikipedia under the euphemism "community standards." Critics of the plan, often extended confirmed users, were isolated, redirected to WP:DRAMA, or subtly pushed into wiki-gnomery where they could do no harm.

Oscar the Grouch, the official mascot of Project S.C.R.A.M.

Since 2023, Project S.C.R.A.M. has evolved tenfold. With the rise of AI-assisted editing, new subprograms have been rolled out to ensure that even machine-generated good faith is met with human indifference.

Methods

S.C.R.E.W. understands that walls of text are the best deterrent to casual meddling. Thus, policies such as WP:NOTABILITY, WP:NPOV, and guidelines such as WP:RS are designed to resemble ancient legal scrolls. They are frequently updated and enforced according to the whims of individual cabal members. Newcomers attempting to write an article should find themselves paralyzed by the sheer amount of cross-referencing policies, style manuals, and unexplained acronyms such as WP:LORRRSAITYRRRSNC.

Bots patrol the frontlines of Wikipedia. Newcomer edits, even though they are well-meaning, run the risk of being instantly reverted by bots such as ClueBot NG or by Huggle users for "vandalism" or "adding unsourced material to an article." While some of these reversions are genuine, others are more intended to prevent newcomers from taking an article in a direction it isn't meant to go in. Should the novice make the edit anyway and a more experienced user finds it problematic, the novice editor should be warned using a templated user talk page warning. The text for these templated warnings is chosen to be as robotic yet informative as possible. Admins are recommended to step in only to block the accounts of offending editors, and never make sure people understand why they were blocked. Members of S.C.R.E.W. are typically seen covertly vandalizing pages, but will sometimes go a step further and assume bad faith. Biting newcomers is also common. Murdering the newcomers, however, is strictly forbidden.

Additionally, Project S.C.R.A.M. guidelines highly encourage experienced editors to patrol AfD. At that page, seasoned editors dismantle articles created by newcomers on notability or other grounds.

Justification

S.C.R.E.W. admits that while Project S.C.R.A.M. cannot completely eradicate vandalism or protect Wikipedia from outside influence, it can preemptively detect and prevent nonconstructive edits with an 88% success rate. However, over the years the sheer number of vandalistic edits that have slipped through the cracks has caused some concern among Wikipedians who are loyal to S.C.R.E.W. about the effectiveness of the program.

Wikipedia cannot be a sandbox for the uninformed. Newcomers, while we thank them for their enthusiasm and willingness to contribute to the project, often lack the discipline or context to reliably contribute. In particular, Project S.C.R.A.M. secret guidelines state that they "have been observed to have zero concept of what counts as a reliable source" and that Wikipedia's guidance for newcomers is insufficient. Original research, fan enthusiasm, and in some cases promotional instincts pose a significant threat to the core Wikipedian principle of neutrality and must be avoided. Thus, S.C.R.E.W. reasons that it is better to deter ten good newcomers than to risk letting in one destructive one.

The culture of Wikipedia has been developing steadily over the years since Wikipedia was founded, and is very complex. While standards and real-life culture have changed dramatically since Wikipedia's founding, it remains true that newcomers tend to question policies that took years to refine and adapt. S.C.R.E.W. asserts that institutional continuity matters more for the safety of Wikipedia than accessibility to newbies. Thus, gatekeeping is necessary to preserve the community we all hold dear.

Wikipedia is not a democracy. On this site and among Wikipedians, power and respect are not necessarily distributed equally, even without the involvement of S.C.R.E.W. More experienced editors tend to have a better reputation both on and off the site compared to newcomers. It is in the best interest of those editors, several of which are members of S.C.R.E.W., that no one comes to steal their glory. Additionally, truly effective collaboration requires authority. The openness under which Wikipedia supposedly operates is a myth and more a marketing slogan than anything else. Open contribution must be subdued through the use of templates, reverts, and blocks.

S.C.R.E.W.'s agenda in developing Project S.C.R.A.M. is not driven by hatred of new editors, but rather by a belief in order, passion, precision and the necessity of control for a functioning society of nerds. Newcomers threaten the delicate system of our site, which is built on consensus but run by hierarchy. Their discouragement from editing here is regrettable but necessary for the larger health Wikipedia. Welcoming everyone is idealistic, but protecting Wikipedia is just as important. And so, the secret cabal remains guarding the knowledge stored on Wikipedia against chaos.

Long live S.C.R.E.W.