On 7/13/07, Steven Walling
<steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I'm not defending the validity of the lawsuit.
What I was criticizing is an
attack on those who criticise a site built for the express purpose of
criticism. Saying that WA has the right to snipe at every little action
taken by admins, and then calling those who give equally harsh criticism of
WA "cowards" is obvious hypocrisy. Aren't the cowards those who build an
entire separate, anonymous apparatus for taking potshots (even useful ones)
at admins the cowards? Why not have some balls and try and affect a real,
lasting change from within Wikipedia, rather than running away and creating
a space for disgruntled users to tell their sob story without any
opportunity for rebuttal?
Well, sorta out of order...
It really wasn't any more or less anonymous than Wikipedia is.
It's always useful for groups to have useful external criticism, and
avenues for that to happen. It's not cowardly for some people to go
do that; it's necessary for there to be gadflys and external critics
for the group to succeed in the long term. The "either play in our
sandbox or go home" attitude is pretty naive... it won't happen that
way, and should not.
Exactly. What the whiners seem to forget is that to be one of the top
10 websites means that we are BIG. That means learning to live with
criticism, even unjust criticism. Anyone who feels personally offended
still has the right to take legal action, but that is seldom cost
effective on a global scale. Whining and trying to put up more rules to
deal with the problem people is at best ineffective. What's worse about
that is that it imposes a lot more restrictions on editors who would
never dream of committing these offences, and those rules retain a
persistance long after the offenders are gone.
Ec