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.com<http://centiare.com/>m/>.
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
--
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354