On 16/10/2007, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Smartass humor is a different thing from straw man fallacies. :-)
As in a humorous jibe at people on Wikipedia going crazy every time anyone anywhere criticises them in the least, and indeed who denounce all such sources of criticism and exorcise them from Wikipedia?
Really, I do think to some extent people have lost the plot with regards to this, so I don't know that it's entirely a bad thing if people post replies; both those who did and didn't see the OP as a joke. I.e. I would barely be surprised if some Wikipedians actually took a critical line towards the Simpsons just on this.
Look at the response to The Register's criticism for example. Seriously, IMO they are perfectly justified in continuing to even troll in their criticism as long as Wikipedian reactions are so OTT - El Reg's reporting is fairly innocuous medicine for Wikipedians who need to learn about the real world and Wikipedia's not having an exemption from it or higher moral ground - i.e. Wikipedia is just as flawed in different ways as any other project, and entirely possibly even more flawed than some others!
Zoney