-----Original Message----- From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales@wikia.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 12:40 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR
Steve Bennett wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Michael_Langan&dif...
What the hell is going on here? Some of the sentences Jimbo removed: "In 2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a high IQ society, filed suit against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the society's trademarks and trade names.[29][30][31]"
This is original research?
Yes. To my knowledge, this has never been written up in any newspaper, magazine, or book. It was discovered by reading websites that I think we would all agree are not themselves reliable sources and by referencing official court documents. The case, what happened in it, the outcome, are all matters of interpretation involving original research, and indeed the question of whether or not this is important enough to include (raising questions of undue weight) is in this case original research.
Why remove this stuff? I find this drive-by management style of Jimbo's so frustrating - how can this level of chaos, disruption and confusion be worth whatever is being gained? He arrives on an article, removes text in this "I am so right and you are so wrong" manner, then disappears again.
Disappears? I am right here, all day every day.
I made no policy declarations. I responded to an ACTIVE WP:BLP complaint by taking an action perfectly within policy and which required no special authority or dictatorship powers by anyone. Anyone could have made the same removal, for the same reason, and caution and a desire for upholding our traditional policies should lead everyone to be very cautious in this area.
--Jimbo
Yep, he did what any editor should do. This is well established, if not always observed, policy and the conclusion the arbitration committee came to when we considered the case and banned the subject and his wife from editing it. If they can't edit it, others should not be allowed to turn it into a hatchet job. No way is this a radical definition of original research, although it may be a bit subtle...you shouldn't use Wikipedia to beat on people.
There is all this authority behind Jimbo. There are a couple of problems: there is a drive-by aspect to it, it's Jimbo and you feel you should defer; the other problem is much more serious, by doing this Jimbo doesn't have the experience of being an ordinary editor that people feel they can ignore, of vainly citing policy and being told, forcefully, with the threat of a block, that he's just "trolling".
Fred