[WikiEN-l] Bus Uncle

[Joe Szilagyi]

On 6/4/07, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've just performed some radical surgery on an article called Bus
> Uncle.  This unspeakable piece of shit somehow managed to make it to
> "Featured Article" status without anyone actually reading it.  All
> references to names of private individuals have now been removed.
> I've also removed it from the Featured Article list.


Raul seems to pretty squarely disagree with, as do others. If people do
something--even something negative, which garners them notoriety--and then
TALK about it, to the media, guess what? They've identified themselves to
the world quite well, and no BLP concerns exist for the privacy of their
names. The man went nuts; he was recorded going nuts; it got press; he
garnered more press by going to the media about it to milk it for what it
was worth. What privacy violations exist in regard to his name, and who made
you the arbiter of anything? Your voice has no more weight than any other.
That goes for all the recent self-appointed BLP Cops that are doing the
equivalent of using Rodney King level arrest methods in enforcing what their
personal opinion of BLP is.

I still assert quite well that the "old timers" going nuts of late, trying
to forcefully close down discussion on various matters, is a *direct*
reaction to the fact that Wikipedia has now grown beyond their perceived
personal control, and the fact that any one individual or small clique each
day, each week, and each passing month will grow ever more irrelevant and
obscure. Where a lone senior editor or admin or three previously had
tremendous power, that is no longer the case, and many people are willing to
challenge them--and successfully. I saw that even a beaurocrat on the
Armedblowfish RFA was reverted, and told to knock it off by a group of
editors for overstepping the bounds of his role.

This is, overall, a good thing in the long term--the more the community
collectively drives matters, the more irrational and extremist voices on any
and all sides will be drowned out, swept away, and largely ignored as they
gnash their teeth and wail at the walls. Within 1-3 years, the current
'leaders' of the community--no offense, guys, you brought us here, after
all--will need to adjust to the fact that they're just "another user". I
think the hyper-aggressive tone is evidence of this--the, "Discussion is
over" sorts of proclamations and whatnot.

Regards,
Joe
http://www.joeszilagyi.com