On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 8:44 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Slrubenstein was a rock. Never could be trolled or
drawn into a hostile
exchange. He did have very strong disagreements with people. The one
I remember him best by was over the proper expression of dates, and
over whether or not Wikipedia should show religious preference between
the the various candidates (my memory is hazy on what the various
alternatives were, but that might be because it wasn't one of my battles,
though I did read the arguments with interest and occasional amusement
and may just have made very minor comments on issues of fact). He had
a particular dry wit about him. Not of the emblematically British sort, but
more of the "What are you going to do to me? I am not going to fall into
the trap of hating you!" variety.
One of Steve's academic colleagues wrote of him:
"The depth of his thinking and feeling made his comments, even on the
vital yet bureaucratic matters of university life, not only profound
but also profoundly political. Thinking about him now, I think it was
his capacity to interweave these two elements – thought and emotion –
which was for me the hallmark of his unique intellectual style."
http://www.slas.org.uk/SteveRubenstein_Obituary.html
That perfectly describes the way he approached things on Wikipedia,
whether articles or policy discussions, or relatively minor
bureaucratic issues. He always tried to highlight the principles
behind the arguments, and how ignoring those principles would change
Wikipedia in ways we might not notice until it was too late to
backtrack.
Sarah
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