On 2/4/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
It's not a taste issue -- it's a culture issue. I strongly believe that inclinations to building an outsider-insider dichotomy, a culture that worries about destruction and damage, that is paranoid about attack and ruination, is one that is pernicious to the Wikipedia project.
So in the end, that's the objection. The name bugs you. Nothing to do with how they actually work, what they have or have not done, but the name. And an assumption about the culture of the people who participate in it, and generally in insider-outsider metaphors.
Don't get me wrong -- I know metaphors are important. I've read my "Metaphor and War", my _Metaphors We Live By_, my _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_, and I think they're all great, smart works. But unless you can present some real EVIDENCE of a pernicious problem stemming from the name of this group of editors, I find it very hard to be persuaded that this is a serious issue.
FF