On Dec 4, 2007 6:13 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I wouldn't expect that the article's going to win a Pulitzer. The article dramatically overstates things, but only to an extent. The Durova Secret List outrage is quite real-- poor Mercury got sixty straight oppose votes in less than six hours for reasons that had more to do with the secret list meta-issue than with him personally. The Register article makes it look like Wikipedia is burning, when really, we're doing fine.
That said, if I was the foundation PR peeps, I'd get a statement ready-- word on the street is that there's another story or two coming from higher up in the media food chain, and anything that would help the world understand that while this may well be a very big deal, it's not the biggest big deal in the world.
This secret list thing feeds into a bunch of different memes the media
The "secret list" meme is fed and nurtured by drama-mongers who incessantly scream "OMG!!! SECRET LIST!!! EVERYONE KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO BLOCK!!!! 5 PEOPLE SUPPORTED THE BLOCK!! DUROVA IS TAKING THE FALL FOR THEM!!!"
Wikia currently supports over 3500 mailing lists; the question is, are those promoting the "secret list" meme deliberately malicious or irreparably clueless?