On 4/21/07, Dick Clark <crotalus(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Where you say that you aren't sure that there are
any Wikipedians who could
write a neutral article about Brandt... I think that you are vastly
overestimating the number of Wikipedians who even keep up with the whole
Brandt/WR saga. Don't get me wrong, I think lots of Wikipedians know about
it, I just think that most don't really care.
Well, what I said was that I don't think Wikipedians [as a group] can
write a neutral article about Brandt. I do think some individual
Wikipedians could probably do so.
I frankly have no opinion one way or the other on the
guy. I think that the
people who attack Brandt because they think they have a right to privacy or
confidentiality are deceiving themselves, since editing what is essentially
a public document sort of makes each Wikipedian a public figure, if only in
a microscopic way.
In any event, I am sure there are plenty of editors who could do the
research, interpret the sources, and render a pretty reasonably accurate bio
of Brandt. Do you really think that every Wikipedian is following this
story?
No, I don't, but I think any bio of Brandt is going to include
significant references to Wikipedia. Right now Wikipedia is mentioned
in the very first line. I suppose it'd be possible to write a decent
bio which didn't mention Wikipedia, but maintaining it on a wiki would
be a nightmare.
Anthony