MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 4/21/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
James Farrar wrote:
On 21/04/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:>
Any open source project, content or code or whatever, is subject to or at risk of attacks. This is a fact of life.
Ah, so tough on the people who are being adversely affected, libeled
and
attacked? We tell them that it is a risk we (sorry, they?) have to run. A fact of life 9for them)?
Well, we could give up, shut down the project, and all go and do
something else. And how does that argument help? We need to admit the real problem and then try to find some real solutions - but unfortunately some people would rather shoot the messenger or assume that any major change would mean the death of wikipedia.
With people who prefer deleting articles over actually handling the issues they produce I often get the feeling they rather kill the project than look for solutions.
Mgm _______________________________________________
Oh ffs, this is ridiculous. The notion that the number of biographies we have has no correlation with the failure to properly monitor and maintain them is ridiculous.
Most of the real BLP issues group round biographies of little known people. Bios that be nature can only ever have information about the bit part they played in some small-town scandal, and thus can never be a balanced 'biography' of the person's life. Bios that highlight news that otherwise would be forgotten. Bios that are damaging because they may are the only public biography of the person in existence. Bios that by nature are under-watched. Bios where few will know enough to spot spin and hatchet jobs.
The notion that wikipedia can't survive if we have less of these tabloidesque articles is frankly nonsense.
What we've got on this list are reactionaries who don't want any change and would rather pretend that everything's jolly and no change can ever improve everything. Sure, any change will have some downsides - but that's not the end of the story.
Actually, I'm more optimistic here. I believe that there are solutions that can be found if there is a willingness to find them. But we need to be allowed to explore the radical, and not have people always pretending that any change would be death of wiki-civilization. In fact, a rigid attachment to the status quo is more likely to result in that.
Doc