On 2/22/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
For this to happen, I don't think there need to be malice on either side, just ordinary human nature.
A great post in general, but this part in particular needs to be pulled out and held up by itself.
Most of the time, most people are not malicious. Fact is, two people can get into stupid misunderstandings and vicious disagreement without any malice at all and only the best of intentions. See [[Hanlon's razor]], most commonly phrased as "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Misunderstanding is incredibly easy in an environment such as Wikipedia, especially when at least one party is not familiar with the terrain and is thus at a significant communications disadvantage (in both directions).
-Matt