2008/5/8 George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com>om>:
In a sense this was all a great pity, as CAMERA and
Electronic
Intifada could both learned some deep lessons from openly coming to
the Wikipedia articles and having to deal with NPOV and consensus
building with each other. Instead we got this blowup. It would have
been very interesting if they'd taken the opposite track and engaged
openly.
Indeed. And have blackened their own names.
One thing that surprised me about WikiScanner's media moment was not
that the public were finally getting to know stuff the regular editors
had been aware of for years - it was the vehemence of the media and
general public reaction to perceived conflicts of interest, and that
that vehemence was directed, not at Wikipedia, but at the
organisations in question. So we're flawed, but people basically like
us ;-)
And that the public perception of how close counted as "conflict of
interest" was actually way stricter that what Wikipedia's rules allow,
let alone what PR companies and lobbyists try to rules-lawyer with us.
So: organised POV pushing groups don't have to just fool Wikipedia,
they have to fool everyone on the net, consistently and reliably.
- d.