[WikiEN-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia

[Snowspinner]

I am responding to nobody in particular, because there's such a wide  
variety of hysteria to respond to that I can barely choose.

The objection that Seigenthaler is having to Wikipedia is not even to  
the process or to the speed at which we fix vandalism. It is not to  
our current quality, it is not to anything fixable.

The fundamental objection that Seigenthaler has is that we allow  
people to post freely. His objection is to the belief that we ought  
not carefully monitor our users and that we ought avoid turning them  
in to the legal authorities in a dispute. His assumption that the  
article was posted by a vandal is dodgy at best - I would be shocked  
if he were not the subject of some conspiracy theory or another, and  
if whoever posted the article were anything more than a particularly  
stupid POV pusher. If Wikipedia were to in any way assist with  
turning a mere stupid POV pusher in to legal authorities, I know my  
support for the site would drop off swiftly.

The entire goal of this project is freedom and openness. That opens  
us to stupidity, and we have an obligation to deal with the  
stupidity. And if Seigenthaler wanted to criticize us for our  
failings in reverting this stupidity and to the process that let it  
sit there for 153 days, he'd be right. But to criticize us for being  
open and free in the first place is not a problem we can or should  
fix. And to my mind, it is a problem that puts Seigenthaler so far  
outside of any of the core beliefs of this project that the point is  
only narrowly worth debating.

A final comment - we have been adamant and active about finding ways  
for our Chinese contributors to participate even as their government  
tries to shut them down. On what possible grounds can we even  
consider acquiescing to an argument that amounts to "It should be  
easier to sue if I don't like my Wikipedia article." Think of what  
would have happened in the Bogdanov Affair, or with John Byrne, or  
with dozens of other cases if what Seigenthaler were calling for were  
to come true.

-Phil