on 9/6/07 8:52 PM, Daniel R. Tobias at dan@tobias.name wrote:
Given that Jimbo is apparently an advocate of Ayn Rand's Objectivism, I wonder what he thinks of all the subjectivism that seems to be driving policy around here. I'm referring in particular to the frequent assertions that the subjective feelings of editors are of such great importance that they often trump other concerns. In this diff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_ noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=155921054
an editor asserts that "You are welcome to your own opinions regarding threats that are leveled against you. Attempting to evaluate my concerns using your own metrics is inappropriate." (This is in the context of supporting a permaban against a user for alleged legal threats, where others dispute that there were any actual threats aimed at the complaining user.) Basically, in the ideology of some editors, objective reality and logical discourse are irrelevant compared to the feelings of an editor who claims to have been emotionally hurt. Of course, taking action based on this (such as blocking or banning another user, banning links to particular sites, and so on) will likely cause emotional hurt to the targets of this action, but that is apparently resolved in terms of status in the Wikipedia hierarchy; emotional hurt to a higher-ranked editor is more important than hurt to a lower-ranked one. If you're way up in the hierarchy, and you act like a drama queen, then you can force everyone and everything on Wikipedia to bend to your will; if you claim to be emotionally hurt by people saying the word "rutabaga", you can probably get it banned.
Here, status apparently does have its emotional privileges too. I believe the Project is being confronted with problems the creators never dreamed of; but which every company and organization inevitably has to confront: the emotional health of its people. There are many companies who refused; and, as a result, aren't anymore. There's a lot of work to be done; and I believe there are healthy people in the Wikipedia Community who can do it. But it must start at the top.
Marc Riddell