I am responding to nobody in particular, because there's such a wide variety of hysteria to respond to that I can barely choose.

The objection that Seigenthaler is having to Wikipedia is not even to the process or to the speed at which we fix vandalism. It is not to our current quality, it is not to anything fixable.

The fundamental objection that Seigenthaler has is that we allow people to post freely. His objection is to the belief that we ought not carefully monitor our users and that we ought avoid turning them in to the legal authorities in a dispute. His assumption that the article was posted by a vandal is dodgy at best - I would be shocked if he were not the subject of some conspiracy theory or another, and if whoever posted the article were anything more than a particularly stupid POV pusher. If Wikipedia were to in any way assist with turning a mere stupid POV pusher in to legal authorities, I know my support for the site would drop off swiftly.

The entire goal of this project is freedom and openness. That opens us to stupidity, and we have an obligation to deal with the stupidity. And if Seigenthaler wanted to criticize us for our failings in reverting this stupidity and to the process that let it sit there for 153 days, he'd be right. But to criticize us for being open and free in the first place is not a problem we can or should fix. And to my mind, it is a problem that puts Seigenthaler so far outside of any of the core beliefs of this project that the point is only narrowly worth debating.

A final comment - we have been adamant and active about finding ways for our Chinese contributors to participate even as their government tries to shut them down. On what possible grounds can we even consider acquiescing to an argument that amounts to "It should be easier to sue if I don't like my Wikipedia article." Think of what would have happened in the Bogdanov Affair, or with John Byrne, or with dozens of other cases if what Seigenthaler were calling for were to come true.

-Phil

Agree 100% with both points:

1. We should not help people punish stupid or POV-pushing contributors.

2. We should facilitate contributions from (and access by) people suffering under dictorial regimes which censor "anti-government" POV.

Ed Poor