On 07/12/2007, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Personally I wouldn't encourage the sort of
irresponsible reporting El
Reg frequently engages in, and I don't approve of editors who would do
the same, but at the same time, I don't see why editors shouldn't be
free to do this. Making this verboten will only force them to become
anonymous and complicate matters further. It is irresponsible to drag
disputes off-wiki as was done here, but it will happen regardless of
what we do - that's the whole lesson of the BADSITES debacle.
Absolutely - we respond to stuff because we feel that doing so will
advance the encyclopedia and the project to write the encyclopedia.
The problem is that the only agenda advanced by feeding an ad-banner
troll is that of the ad-banner troll.
But I certainly wouldn't deny anyone the important educational
experience of having done so, nor the powerful personal in just how
reliable those things that have been arbitrarily deemed "reliable
sources" actually are.
(I would also take exception to the suggestion that
simply answering
questions from a tabloid hostile to Wikipedia is automatically
tantamount to dragging our good name through the mud - the chair of
Wikimedia UK has responded to El Reg in the comments section, but this
doesn't mean she has somehow harmed Wikipedia simply by virtue of
participating.)
Though she did gain a powerful personal lesson in the effectiveness of
feeding the ad-banner troll.
The more openness, the better, if you ask me.
Sometimes it is better
for us to comment when newspapers pose questions to us. The risk of
tabloids abusing our openness is just something we have to tolerate.
Definitely. Mostly, being ourselves to press queries is just the right
thing to do. I'm surprised and pleased how well random normal
Wikipedians the press talk to tend to come across.
- d.