Yes, Theresa Knott was right that it was much much too long, but I had already sent it...
I got a very interesting reply:
"It's true that the explanation I gave was grossly oversimplified, both for space and, frankly, to put it in terms that editors could understand."
(!!!!!!)
"What I was referring to loosely as the "editorial group" are the administrators, of whom you are one."
If he actually knows that I am an administrator, rather than guessing, that suggests a reasonable degree of knowledgeability. Perhaps he is a Wikipedian himself?
He concluded "The wonder of Wikipedia is that it works remarkably well. I have a background in sociology and somewhere in this process there's a dissertation for someone."
dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
"What I was referring to loosely as the "editorial group" are the administrators, of whom you are one."
If he actually knows that I am an administrator, rather than guessing, that suggests a reasonable degree of knowledgeability. Perhaps he is a Wikipedian himself?
He probably wandered around a bit, saw that some people throw their weight around a lot :-), noticed that it sort of matches up to the sysop list, and came to the logical conclusion. It would be easy to look you up once he'd gotten your email. Another possibility is that he was just equating administrators with logged-in users.
This is all very reminiscent of when the press started becoming aware of Linux and GNU ca. 1994 or so; seemed like every possible hypothesis and prognostification ended up in print somewhere before people started understanding it.
Stan