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An Emo Wikipedian at the breaking point, about to "rage quit" after his brilliant addition to an article was reverted. Twice.
A "rage quit" is when a player in sports or video gaming is too angry to continue playing a game and usually leaves before the end of the game or after a match. If it's the latter, the player may then throw or smash their controller/keyboard in response to their "rage" to the point where it is broken and unusable.
While this is mostly associated with gaming, there's a similar, emotionally charged behavior that occurs on Wikipedia, where editors, fed up with a dispute or disagreement, declare their "retirement" by slapping a {{retired}} template (or other similar messages) on their user page. Despite the dramatic announcements, most users who rage or diva quit eventually return to editing.
Stages of a Wikipedia rage quit
A typical rage or diva quit on Wikipedia occurs as follows:
Inciting event– Something happens that triggers the editor's anger. For example, Sally does something "inexcusable" to Joe, although it might seem only controversial to Joe and a few others. This could be a small edit, policy or guideline disagreement, a warning/sanction, or an unsatisfactory outcome in a discussion.
Rabble phase– Joe gets upset and can't understand why others aren't as angry as he is. He proceeds to rabble about it at a drama board or other high-visibility venue, or on a user talk page (typically on an admin's), in order to evoke a certain action (The Only Solution™) to be taken against Sally.
Stalemate– Either insufficient or no action is taken against Sally, thus prompting Joe to give even more of a fuck.
Rage quit– At this phase, Joe's frustration reaches its peak, and one of several things typically happen:
Joe throws up a {{retired}} template on his user page and stops editing permanently;
Joe throws up a {{retired}} template on his user page, but continues to complain on his talk page;
Joe throws up a {{considering retirement}} template on his user page, hoping to evoke sympathy from others into taking his side; or
Joe just won't give it a rest and ends up having The Only Solution™ ironically taken against him.
Threats of retirement
Much like a legal threat, an editor may simply make a rage quit threat or slap on a {{retired}} template hoping it'll work as a trump card to win an argument. However, this is frequently unsuccessful due to its highly coercive nature and typically results in embarrassment when people refuse to completely acquiesce to the quit threatener's demands. This leaves the threatener in an awkward position of trying to save face and leaves everyone else involved in the dispute with the task of trying to ameliorate the heightened anxiety and fundamental anger experienced by the threatener. This can even result in a backfire effect, whereby the perceived hostility of the threatener, alone, puts them at-odds with achieving their intended outcome.
The inevitable return
Just like rage quitting in gaming or sports, these "retirements" are usually pretty short-lived. Despite all the drama, most users who rage or diva quit eventually find themselves back on Wikipedia after their frustration dies down, usually within a matter of months, weeks, or even days. They may or may not remove the {{retired}} template from their user page.
Continuing from the rage quit example above, after the heated dispute with Sally that didn't go Joe's way, he slaps a {{retired}} template on his user page to announce his "retirement". The template prompts his wikibuddies to leave messages and barnstars on his talk page, praising him as a valuable contributor and urging him to not leave. Joe claims that he is done with Wikipedia for good, but within a few weeks, months, or sometimes even days, he is back to editing, though with a slightly quieter presence. Either he'll leave the {{retired}} template on his user page to signal that he's "still thinking" about quitting or "not fully back" (but we all know it's just to salvage his pride after his embarrassing exit). Or Joe might completely remove the template, acting as though the whole diva quit never happened.
Alternatives to rage quitting
Several preferable alternatives exist that avoid rage quits:
Leave Gracefully– Don't bother with threatening to quit in an attempt to garner sympathy. Don't go out of your way to air all your grievances. Especially don't go on a spree of disruptive editing. Instead just quit the project in a dignified fashion. Enjoy using your newfound free time to write somewhere else or engage in some other hobby.
Not giving a fuck– In all reality, whatever's pissing you off will probably piss others off and the problem will solve itself without your future intervention—just give it time.
Taking a break– Taking a break allows others to deal with the problem, and if you're right, allows sufficient time for a greater sample size to develop for your argument.
Finding another area to help out in– There are soooo many other things to do here. The Backlog, for example, has tons of areas you can help out in. You don't even have to be a wiki-expert, for example, to use Special:Random to find some random article that might need your assistance. Even if you're just helping provide input, things like articles for deletion and in-the-news are always in need of some neutral commentary.
Randomly choosing one of the 7,256,895 other articles– There are lots of other pages to work on! While some articles are hotly contested, with every edit resulting in a huge Talk page debate, on the vast majority of articles, you can edit freely, without any other editor reverting your additions or posting snippy messages on your User page.
