On 16 November 2012 14:38, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 2:28 PM, David Goodman
<dggenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a fundamental difference between our inefficient and
> sometimes unsuccessful attempts to do things right, and their
> deliberate attempts to do things wrong.
Yes, but we must not forget that PR people are not the
only people who use
Wikipedia to do things wrong. By operating the completely open system we
do, we enable *anyone* to do wrong, be they PR or staff working for a
company, or a company's detractors.
The community is responsible for managing Wikipedia. And whether Wikipedia
is easy or difficult to abuse is the community's responsibility.
I suppose this line of argument might be of some interest to someone
looking for a dissertation topic in moral philosophy (as has been
noted, it is off-topic). What happens to the notion of "agency"
online?
Still, I can't accept that it makes sense of some putative connection
inherent in wiki technology, collective responsibility, and mere
participation as an editor. Talking about the "community" as a way of
avoiding talking about the intentions of the actors here is a neat
trick. I think the meaning of "wrong" is being slurred here. I
certainly don't think one should talk about enabling when editing is
always a conditional permission rather than any kind of right, and the
permission is given for a definite reason. And so on. The usual
approach would surely be to look first at who is hosting the site when
you seek to assign responsibility.
Charles