A thought came over me last night -- it seems that all Gregory Kohs does is complain about Wikipedia, namely the actions of certain admins, and their treatment of his organizations MyWikiBiz and International Communications Research within the Wikipedia space. Has anyone thought about what would satisfy this persistant level of complaint? Well, who better to ask that question than the complainant himself?
I would love to move forward as a renewed supporter of Wikipedia and hone my skills as a NPOV contributor to the encyclopedia (on topics like dogs, board games, waterfalls, etc.) if the following terms could be met by the Wikipedia community. I'll leave it to this list to discuss (hopefully fairly) as to whether these requests are reasonable or not.
(1) Gregory Kohs and MyWikiBiz have both expressed that they are no longer interested in creating or editing articles within Wikipedia in exchange for payment or favor of any kind. They are working for payment in the development of another wiki directory site called Centiare.comhttp://centiare.com/. Properly used, Centiare (in a vein similar to Wikia.com http://wikia.com/) might even be an attractive alternative to Wikipedia to lure away self-promoting POV-pushers whose content is not welcome on Wikipedia. Nonetheless, Kohs promises that he will not attempt to use or exploit Wikipedia as an advertising platform for Centiare or any other of his business affiliations. If other independent editors choose to discuss these business affiliations, that's their decision.
(2) With that being said, it would seem only fair for Wikipedia's administrators to commit to the following remedies: (a) Encourage either the OTRS, ArbCom, or Jimmy Wales that the current statement posted by Wales on the User:MyWikiBiz page is now irrelevant, and it is somewhat damaging to the reputation of MyWikiBiz as a business. It would be like saying "Never buy an armored tank from the Ford Motor Company!" Ford built tanks during WWII, but no longer does so; therefore, why would anyone need to warn customers of Ford not to buy their tanks, unless its sole purpose was to malign the current Ford company? (b) Allow Kohs to regain "membership" in the Wikipedia editing community by lifting the ban on either User:Thekohser or User:MyWikiBiz, and salting/vanishing the other account. Granted, his edits will be VERY closely monitored for months and months to come; but if he wishes to demonstrate that he can be a productive member of the Wikipedia community, that too should become apparent, perhaps even to some of his former detractors. (c) There are a number of editors (User:WAS 4.250, User:JzG, User:Calton, etc.) who have characterized MyWikiBiz as a "spammer" and a company that "broke the rules" of Wikipedia. Kohs has repeatedly tried to correct these characterizations, because he feels that when he founded MyWikiBiz, "spam" was certainly not the company's purpose, and no rules existed on Wikipedia that would prohibit his activity. Indeed, Jimmy Wales himself drew up an agreement whereby MyWikiBiz could fairly practice under the GFDL license on its own site, and independent editors could scrape the site for useful Wikipedia-worthy content. That's exactly what happened regarding the [[Arch Coal]] article, but Wales tried to delete that article. He said it was because the article was corporate "fluff". Kohs maintains that Wales deleted the article out of spite over Kohs' handling of the [[WP:COI]] discussion that was evolving at the time. At least five other independent editors in good standing felt that the original Arch Coal article presented content that was beneficial to Wikipedia, not harmful. And, thus, the article was DRV'd and re-written with some minor changes to the original content. Considering all of that, let's just say that User:WAS 4.250, User:JzG, User:Calton, and the like are probably never going to change their minds about how they characterize MyWikiBiz. And likewise, Kohs is unlikely to change his mind. However, could we agree that any claims made by these parties within Wikipedia about the actual history of the User:MyWikiBiz account should be backed up with factual diffs that would support the characterizations made by either side? I maintain that I was trying to provide such diffs in various places on Wikipedia Talk pages (admittedly coupled with a snitty tone), but these diffs were consistently reverted by the users listed above (bringing us to the whole "abusive admins" debate about how admins can advantageously alter their arguments with blocked users). Going forward, Kohs would be willing to let bygones be bygones, but when someone mischaracterizes the history of the User:MyWikiBiz account, Kohs should have at least the right to notate an appropriate diff under the perceived mischaracterization, so that other users can draw their own conclusions. Continued removal of these diffs only contributes to the claims of censorship and a cabal at work.
(3) With these principles in place, Kohs would like to return to Wikipedia, to help the project with its primary mission, and only that mission: to become the world's best and largest free encyclopedia that contains properly-cited, neutral point-of-view information about every encyclopedic topic under the sun. Kohs would even consider resumption of his earlier financial donations to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Would the admin community consent to any or all of these terms?
I realize that some may/will respond -- "Gregory Kohs gave us nothing but grief, why should we help him now?" To which I would answer, look at all the time and effort we have each expended on this particular battle alone. Imagine the productive improvements that could have been made to Wikipedia in that time. Do you want Gregory Kohs as an ally, or would you prefer that he remain a perpetual critic of the project?
In fact, as a gesture of my willingness to cooperate, I would even consent to being allowed to edit for a period of 1 month, AFTER which the admin community could make the determination of whether to address any or all of the other remedial concerns outlined above. I'm a reasonable enough adult to see that I may have the onus of proving my worth to the community before the community takes strides to patch things up with me.
Kindly,
Greg