Wiki Mule
A Wiki Mule (mule) is a new Wiki account identity created by an actively contributing Wikipedophile or Wikithug, usually for the sole purpose of carrying offloaded negative or unflattering activity tied to his original (or "primary") account.
Unlike the common, everyday sock puppet, which normally exists to support the original account identity in "edit wars" and other Wiki nastiness, the mule exists primarily to carry its creator's psychological burdens, and is left to wither and die if the charade is successful. Normally this involves Requests for Comment, arbitration rulings, cat-fights, character-assassination attempts, and so on, but can also include obsessive hostile editing, which usually means the insertion of needless categories, templates, and deliberately inflammatory images (as opposed to actual content, which would require at least a modicum of brain activity).
Psychological Profile[edit]
| UNPSYCHLOPEDIA |
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Your Handy Guide to the |
| Personality Disorders |
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Wikithuggery • Wikiphrenia |
| Behavioral Disorders |
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Creeping featurism |
| Complexes |
| Self-Help |
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Seeing Through the |
| Professional Help |
| Treatment |
The Wiki Mule is an integral part of the Veil of Smoke and Mirrors used by pathological Wikipedophiles (and Wikithugs) to protect a main account name that has significant ownership capital (what normal people would call "significance"), or that contain all or part of the user's legal, real-world name. Some mules also exist simply to allow the possibility of a "fresh start" for users who have, for whatever reason, developed a negative reputation and have become unpopular to the point of being unable to sufficiently enjoy the wiki experience, even though that enjoyment often comes solely from offending and angering other users.
Those who use mules believe that if they transfer the edit history and other account information "through the veil" into a mule account, they thereby expunge not only their own negative records, but all activity which they believe has been unjustly put upon them by beings of lesser intelligence than their own "sooper genius" selves.
Once shed of the negative behaviors that had previously gotten them into trouble, they symbolically detach from any responsibility that they ever had in those past behaviors, as if unloading onto the mule represents a form of mental mikvah (ritualized cleansing).
Pathetic, Just Pathetic[edit]
When caught using a mule, the standard response from the Wikipedophile (or Wikithug) is to call their revealer (i.e., the person who reveals their mule activity) “pathetic, just pathetic”, both as a form of non-denial denial, and as a means of asserting their own “sooper geniusness” by employing polysyllabic words that indicate disdain.
However, generally speaking, any user who calls attention to Wiki Mule activity, no matter how blatant, is generally viewed by the rest of the community as either paranoid, hypervigilant, or simply nasty. In effect, the messenger is killed, becomes a pariah within the community, and in many cases must resort to "muleteering" himself to expunge the record of his own whistleblowing. For this reason, Wiki Mules are almost never caught. The fact that poorly-executed sock puppetry sometimes is caught (though only on larger wikis) only gives the muleteer additional aid and comfort when the whistleblower is inevitably banned for disruption and "stirring up trouble."
When You Have a Stinky Fish[edit]
As Oscar Wilde once said, "When you have a stinky fish, you have to get rid of it, or you'll end up smelling like a stinky fish yourself." The source of a mule is like a stinky fish; if the person fails to obtain professional treatment, he will continue to behave as his pathology dictates.
According to Dr. Sigmundheimer F. Rhoid, author of Fourteen and Three: A Retrospective, the success of breeding and using mules depends solely upon the innate cleverness and deviousness of the Wikipedophile (or Wikithug). "The most bellicose Wikipedophiles (or Wikithugs) seldom get away with the use of mules, because of their need to be an authority on their addictive topics. That need is something that their egos cannot and will not release. They usually unmask themselves through their urge to control, fight, insult, and belittle anyone who questions them or their genius. Therefore, like the sex addict, those who are topic-addictive enough to employ mules on Wikis require constant monitoring."