[WikiEN-l] Jayjg is not AWOL

[Raphael Wegmann]

I agree, that the Bush administration pushed back the idea of an open
government and started to act in secret way too often in the name of
"national security". But I do not agree to that development.

Demanding public scrutiny is neither naive nor desctructive.
It's an essential part of what the president is claiming to export:
Democracy

Puppy schrieb:
> Utter nonsense. For example, the president and the entire secret service 
> as well as judges and the police are all public servants, paid from the 
> publics pocketbook. And they all have confidential and secret 
> information, and taxpayers demanding they "tell all" or risk public 
> censure is beyond naive, its destructive, self and otherwise. ArbCom and 
> most of the entire Wikimedia family of projects are not even paid, 
> giving us even less "rights" over them than we as taxpayers have over 
> our public servants.
> 
> (I speak as an American, please excuse the US-centric verbiage)
> 
> Raphael Wegmann wrote:
>> George Herbert schrieb:
>>   
>>> Accountability in some situations is "we trust Arbcom and Jimbo, who
>>> we find to be honorable trustworthy people and who we expect to do the
>>> right thing for Wikipedia, and explain to the degree possible
>>> afterwards".
>>>
>>>     
>> I don't think so.
>>
>> Public's trust rests upon authorities being openly accountable.
>> If any authority refuses to disclose information to the public,
>> they are stripping the public of its ability to hold them accountable,
>> which will as likely as not result in a loss of public trust.
>> However, it is the authorities that first display a lack of trust
>> in the public.
>>