From: Viajero <viajero(a)quilombo.nl>
Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Can we ban 172 now? And VV too!
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 13:35:08 +0300
Too much of the current discussion is centered on 172's alleged
shortcomings and not enough on his abilities and contributions.
There is, IMO, not a single other contributor to Wikipedia who has a
similar grasp of the Big Picture; no one else has his resources and ability
to tackle these big, overarching topics like New Imperialism; no one else
has his virtually encyclopedic knowledge of Third World politics and social
movements. Abe is not interested the personification of history, trite Big
Man bedtime stories, he is interested in analyzing complex, long-term
trends in economic and social development, something far more difficult but
far more rewarding. Without these kinds of articles, we are basically just
a bunch of stamp collectors.
I have to take issue with this. The subject under discussion at Requests
for Comment and Requests for Arbitration is 172 and VV's alleged incivility
and edit-warring. The fact that 172 can write good articles is irrelevant
to this. If he writes good articles but is unable to work productively with
other wiki editors, then he should be writing for something other than a
wiki project.
I also think that much of the recent traffic on this list about POV issues
in his articles is irrelevant to arbitration or banning, although it
arguably merits discussion separately.
-Nat Krause (the eponymous user)
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