G'day Chris,
On 4/10/2007 9:59 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
The opposite scenario deterioratres relationships
between
admins/bureaucrats and regular users, and makes people feel that
their>
opinion is worthless.
Perhaps if people are made to feel their opinions are worthless,
they
will respond by developing opinions that are less subject to that
characterization. People whose contributions to the process are
not
reasonable and thoughtful damage the process by their
participation, and
coddling them by insisting on equal valuation of their opinions is
counterproductive.
All very true. However, also rather dangerous.
Put simply: who gets to decide which opinions are worthy and which are not? Once you
declare that certain Wikipedians are so worthless that their views must be ridiculed, you
have introduced not one, but two, new ideas. The first is obvious: if Erik Moeller says
something silly, we get to ignore him. The problem comes with idea number 2: I get to
decide whether Erik is making sense, and treat him with the appropriate level of rudeness
as a result. But what happens if *I* am the one being silly? What happens if *Chris
Parham* is the one being silly?
I can --- and do --- rant and rave and whinge about the failings of Wikipedia and
Wikipedians, of the CVU admins and the userboxies and the Chinese Whispers brigade and so
on, but I don't get to suggest they're all morons or that they should be silenced
until they stop holding the opinions that cause me to rant and rave. Our right to try to
persuade people that they are wrong only exists if we extend to them the same courtesy.
Cheers,
--
User:MarkGallagher