Guy wrote:
I have no regrets about [...] having absolutely no
patience whatsoever
with anybody expressing support for banned abusers. Time for
people to decide where their loyalties lie. Mine lie with Wikipedia,
not with banned abusers of Wikipedia.
And later:
I think users that stand with one foot in the sewer
will, as a
result, leave shitty footmarks on Wikipedia. They should get their
foot out of the sewer, at least until the next rainstorm cleans it
out.
See, these are the kinds of statements that concern me. It seems
like you're making your distinctions based on assocations, not
behavior.
The reality is, there's substantial diversity, and a number of
different people. At one end of the extreme, we have hard-core
provacteurs who, though few in number, cause a large amount of
trouble. At the other far end of spectrum, we have users like DanT or
GTBacchus who, although they have participated in sites like WR or ED,
are nontheless outstanding members of the community, and make great
contributions to the project. And in the middle, we have a whole mass
of people who fall somewhere in between.
The problem is, through your words and your actions, you lead me to
believe that you regard anyone who has had absolutely any connection
with any site frequented by anyone you don't like as utterly
contemptible. If you edited WR once, well you might as well be Jon
Awbrey himself! (or Bagley, or Barber).
That you see no distinctions is disturbing. That you seem to act as
if NPA doesn't apply to editors of sites you disagree with is going to
be the source for trouble, I'm afraid.
---
To get us back to the concrete example:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-November/084961.html
In this you use Dan's affiliation as a way to dismiss his concerns,
and you basically imply that Dan is affiliated with Awbrey. Dan has
now explicitly denied your allegation.
To me, you ought to now either prove to us all that Dan really is "In
League" with Awbrey, or you should immediately apologize to Dan for
inadvertantly suggesting he agreed with someone he does not.
And again, if you DON'T want to apologize to Dan, that's fine. The
past isn't the point. But what you are gonna have to do in the
future, sooner or later, is cut this muckracking crap out.
NPA does not come with some special exemption saying it's okay to
attack somebody if you can link them through six degrees of seperation
to somebody you really really REALLY hate. NPA and AGF exist, you
should follow them in the future, starting with Dan and
PrivateMusings.
Alec