On Thu, 16 Apr 2009, James Farrar wrote:
- Is debate about Sanger's and Wales's respective cofounder/founder claims
regarding Wikipedia a worthwhile endeavor?
Not here. It doesn't help us develop and improve the English Wikipedia.
I've found the "to improve Wikipedia" clause in various rules to be an odd loophole. Usually it gets abused in BLP and privacy discussions: "that helps the individual named in the BLP but doesn't improve the encyclopedia". The idea that we must improve the encyclopedia is *not* a blanket excuse to avoid our responsibilities to get things correct or not to cause harm.
In fact, this is almost the same as the BLP and privacy abuses. Sanger is a particular named individual that Wikipedia is making claims about. He says the claims are wrong. It's up to us to get them right, whether it "improves the encyclopedia" or not--and if getting them right doesn't improve the encyclopedia, what are we doing making *any* claims about *anyone's* founder status?
(Moreover, Sanger has pointed to particular things he claims aren't true, above and beyond the founder/cofounder issue.)